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In the Forum: Audio News
In the Thread: Paul McGowan. tubes in preamp
Post Subject: Conflicts resolution. :-)Posted by Romy the Cat on: 8/27/2018
Well, the conflict you pointed might sound reasonable but not completely.
The First quote is taken from a thread “Disregard Digital with Vacuum Tube
output”. In there I advocated do not look into D/A converters with tube output stages.
In was in 2005 and at that time there were tones of DACs with tube output stage
that did the DAC’s “humanization”. I very much did not like it then and do not
like it now. Again, not because it is topologically impossible but because any single
DAC that I had/heard at that time was not good in my estimation and the best
DACs I have heard used SS outputs. So, in context of the thread the comment was
appropriate in my view.
The second comment is from 2009, the “The 15 Commandments of
Ultimate Preamp” thread. It said exactly what read: “No one yet built an
absolutely transparent tubes buffer”. I do stand with the observation that up
to the time I very actively was monitoring what the best was done out there I
did not see any tube preamp that I find to be transparent. I built a few my one
transparent tube buffers and I commissioned some people who I have high respect
to build buffers for me, not one was able to do it transparent enough. That
lead to my choses but I do not deny that it is possible to have a very transparent
buffer, there is nothing in tubes that theoretically limits it.
In my case I did not possible it as I was needed an ultra-low
output impedance whish in case tube preamps means an extra state … not good in
my books…
Again, regarding McGowan. I kind of discard those
talks because he was taking about “resolution” and I have no idea what it is.
Well, unfortunately I know what he and his audiences mean and I do not care
about this characteristic at all as they do not talk about “proper” resolution but
rather about transients contrasts – a bogues distinguishing of Audio confusion.
PS: With all it said, I agree that I have to be less “resolute”
in my judgment. I think nowadays I am possessing slightly softer judgment then
10 years back. I know that nowadays I would not spend another $100K and 4 year
of my life to chaise an ultimate tube buffer. I do applaud the people who would
and I would like to use it if it was discovered. I feel that a proper SS buffer
can do what make person do not want to look for tube buffer as the ultimate
tube of SS buffers would produce unethical results. The tube implementation
would be MUCH more expressive and exotic.
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