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FAQ answers

Q12. How to choose from a big selection and variety of pre-amps and power-amps ?

Ans :   

First, you need to ask yourself, what is the type of music your like to play with your gears. 

For example, if you like to play classical , jazz, vocal, blue...etc which is kind of real musical instrument with live performance feeling, then better choose some design with better air, more warmth and sweetness, more naturalness and better depth and openness of the sound stage. 

On the other hands, if you like to play heavy rock and heavy metal, dance pop music .. etc, which is kind of heavy bass music, need higher contrast to bring out the sweat of the music, then better choose some design with less air, more bright and hard sounding and relatively plainer sound stage gears.

There are some very basic guidelines to help select a tube gear :

1. The bigger the tube size, the better the air, the warmer and sweeter the sound, the deeper and wider and more open the sound stage will be. The linkage between different notes in a single phase of music will be more noticeable , so you can more easy to have the wooden box harmonic resonance of a violin or cello at play, as well as the hammer of the piano hitting the strings and resonance freely in the piano body.

2. The smaller the tube size, the brighter and harder the sound  will be, the openness and depth of the sound stage will not as good compare with bigger size tubes, but the focus will be somewhat sharper than bigger size tubes which just like you turn the contract of your TV to higher settings, and the bass control and punch will be little bit better than big tubes, so small tubes are more suitable for hard rock and heavy metal, dance music and pop, electronic sound effect .. etc.

3. The more the tube count (parallel tubes in power amp output stage doesn't count)  , usually the better the air and the more warmness and sweetness the sound can be, and you will get higher flexibility to blend together or use different tubes to obtain almost 100% perfection of the sound you are looking for.

4. Use tube rectifier in the power supply will give better air, more natural and smooth sounding as well as bigger and deeper soundstage. The bigger the tube rectifier to use, the better the air and better open and depth of the sound stage, and the longer the note can sustain in the air. The tube rectifier is one of the way to get ride of the trace/taste of solid-state in the power supply section. At the same time, tube rectifier will slow the pace of the muisc a little bit, which might not be suitable for fast and quick music like hard rock and heavy metal.

5. Gears with pure tube regulator can enhance the focus and bass punch without lost of tonal quality and sound stage. Some manufacturers will use solid-state regulator trying to achieve the same bass control effect , but at the same time they will lost the naturalness and openness of the tonal quality.

6. The more solid-state device (transistors, diodes, ICs) in a tube gear, the more compression and squeeze the sound stage and tonal quality will be, so if you like real live music regeneration for real musical instruments, try to choose design with none or as less solid-state devices as possible.

7. Wooden chassis (MDF or solid-oak) will give out the best sound for tube gears, it is because every tube acts like a microphone pickup, and it will pickup the surrounding vibration pattern and blend into the music. If a tube sit on a metal chassis, it will blend the hard and cold sound of the metal into the music and you will hear the music with this character. But if you are looking for harder and brighter sound character, then choose metal chassis might be more suitable. 

8. Negative feedback most of the cases kills a lot of air and depth as well as the openness of sound stage, so if you are looking for reproduction of live like performance from your audio system, try to avoid designs which use heavy negative feedback. Negative feedback is just like MSG, which can mask out the handicap of certain designs, a little bit might do some help , but too much will definitely hurt. Most manfacturers will try to put a lot of feedback to cover up the poor craftmanship and handicap design, just to make the specification looks good in order to boost the selling. Since most of the cases people can't tell what is too much or too little, so just stay away from negative feedback is what we recommended.

information posted by www.space-tech-lab.com

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