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You're leaving out harmonic distortion. Tube amps produce primarily more pleasant sounding even-order harmonics. The odd harmonics of solid-state amps sound har

You're leaving out harmonic distortion. Tube amps produce primarily more pleasant sounding even-order harmonics. The odd harmonics of solid-state amps sound harsh.

DiabloD3 4y ago
That is an often quoted, but incorrect analysis; an amp that distorts audibly is not a good amp. I can buy both solid state and tube amps that do not distort relevantly. The perfect amp is a wire with gain, no matter the technology it uses.
- smcameron 4y ago
  > amp that distorts audibly is not a good amp Not true if you're a guitar player. (Of course, tube amp distortion can be modeled quite well digitally these days.)
- willis936 4y ago
  For reproduction. The topic at hand is art generation. The perfect amp doesn't exist because it changes from listener to listener and moment to moment. That said, a distorted guitar amp sounds kickass.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    The perfect amp is the amp that reproduces the sounds faithfully. The rest should be handled in software. Sure if you want to distort your sound that's fine. Load this tube amp distortion profile.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      A guitar amp isn’t reproducing sound - it’s making sound. The amp itself is an instrument being played by the guitarist.
      - rowanG077 4y ago
        The original posters general point wasn't only about guitar amps. I'm not disagreeing with their third sentence only with their first and second.
- janoc 4y ago
  What you are saying is correct from an engineering standpoint but it completely ignores the human psychology. Tube amps produce a lot of (not only harmonic) distortion, especially the cheap stuff. And then there are also various nonlinearities due to the inevitable transformers, tubes aging, mains hum, etc. The problem is that musicians (and not only) were "raised" on this type of "sound". So they consider this to be the nominal, "correct" way how an amplifier is supposed to sound like - especially that one obscure box they got 40 years ago at a garage sale somewhere is the gold standard. They don't know squat about harmonics, distortion etc, many barely understand that the blinking red light on the amp indicating clipping is not what one is supposed to see and not the signal level one is supposed to adjust the gain pot to. But they then see that a clean solid state amplifier (or even a tube one with a lot of negative feedback and compensation) sounds different, thus it has to be the one that is "wrong" and "sounds bad". That's where the myth about tubes sounding "better" comes from. It has little to do with actual measurable distortion value.
  - feet 4y ago
    The engineering standpoint is the only correct one when it comes to overall audio and signal quality. The human psychology part is how people get so easily scammed with nonsense in the audiophile space
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      Yeah, the "human psychology" bit is how you end up buying 200$ 3.5mm cables
    - derbOac 4y ago
      There's an argument to be made though that at some level it's all psychology, no? Isn't all music psychology? I agree audiophile stuff is full of nonsense but I guess when there are differences, even if one isn't objectively better or worse, it might be good to understand the differences and history behind them because sometimes that's the nature of the thing.
      - 4y ago
ajross 4y ago
There is no level of distortion that would be audible from any modern amplifier, of any design, not being deliberately overdriven. More the the point: there is no distortion behavior of any amplifier anywhere that can't be modelled beyond the ability of ears to detect by a vanilla consumer DSP. Computers are too fast and too good to make this a meaningful argument. This is the flip side of guitar nut arguments: people swear that they have to use their analog pedals using, as you did, qualitative adjectives like "harsh". But all they really mean is that they have a specific sound out of their rig that they can't find an audio software engineer to acceptably model for them. And to be fair: that's a valid point! Software engineering is expensive. But it's got nothing to do with the capabilities or behavior of the hardware.

You're leaving out harmonic distortion. Tube amps produce primarily more pleasant sounding even-order harmonics. The odd harmonics of solid-state amps sound harsh.

DiabloD3 4y ago

That is an often quoted, but incorrect analysis; an amp that distorts audibly is not a good amp. I can buy both solid state and tube amps that do not distort relevantly. The perfect amp is a wire with gain, no matter the technology it uses.

smcameron 4y ago
> amp that distorts audibly is not a good amp Not true if you're a guitar player. (Of course, tube amp distortion can be modeled quite well digitally these days.)
willis936 4y ago
For reproduction. The topic at hand is art generation. The perfect amp doesn't exist because it changes from listener to listener and moment to moment. That said, a distorted guitar amp sounds kickass.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  The perfect amp is the amp that reproduces the sounds faithfully. The rest should be handled in software. Sure if you want to distort your sound that's fine. Load this tube amp distortion profile.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    A guitar amp isn’t reproducing sound - it’s making sound. The amp itself is an instrument being played by the guitarist.
    - rowanG077 4y ago
      The original posters general point wasn't only about guitar amps. I'm not disagreeing with their third sentence only with their first and second.
janoc 4y ago
What you are saying is correct from an engineering standpoint but it completely ignores the human psychology. Tube amps produce a lot of (not only harmonic) distortion, especially the cheap stuff. And then there are also various nonlinearities due to the inevitable transformers, tubes aging, mains hum, etc. The problem is that musicians (and not only) were "raised" on this type of "sound". So they consider this to be the nominal, "correct" way how an amplifier is supposed to sound like - especially that one obscure box they got 40 years ago at a garage sale somewhere is the gold standard. They don't know squat about harmonics, distortion etc, many barely understand that the blinking red light on the amp indicating clipping is not what one is supposed to see and not the signal level one is supposed to adjust the gain pot to. But they then see that a clean solid state amplifier (or even a tube one with a lot of negative feedback and compensation) sounds different, thus it has to be the one that is "wrong" and "sounds bad". That's where the myth about tubes sounding "better" comes from. It has little to do with actual measurable distortion value.
- feet 4y ago
  The engineering standpoint is the only correct one when it comes to overall audio and signal quality. The human psychology part is how people get so easily scammed with nonsense in the audiophile space
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    Yeah, the "human psychology" bit is how you end up buying 200$ 3.5mm cables
  - derbOac 4y ago
    There's an argument to be made though that at some level it's all psychology, no? Isn't all music psychology? I agree audiophile stuff is full of nonsense but I guess when there are differences, even if one isn't objectively better or worse, it might be good to understand the differences and history behind them because sometimes that's the nature of the thing.
    - 4y ago

ajross 4y ago

There is no level of distortion that would be audible from any modern amplifier, of any design, not being deliberately overdriven. More the the point: there is no distortion behavior of any amplifier anywhere that can't be modelled beyond the ability of ears to detect by a vanilla consumer DSP. Computers are too fast and too good to make this a meaningful argument. This is the flip side of guitar nut arguments: people swear that they have to use their analog pedals using, as you did, qualitative adjectives like "harsh". But all they really mean is that they have a specific sound out of their rig that they can't find an audio software engineer to acceptably model for them. And to be fair: that's a valid point! Software engineering is expensive. But it's got nothing to do with the capabilities or behavior of the hardware.