Quote:
Originally Posted by Igor2012  In what context?
I'm not a fan of tubes in recording or stereo equipment and so haven't had much experience with them there, but I can tell the difference between a Fender tube amp and just about any solid-state guitar amp I've played through.
Tube distortion is a real phenomenon that is measurable in a lab, not some audiophile fantasy.
I'm sure that by now there must be some digital emulations of tube distortion that aren't bad, but philosophically-speaking, why would anyone eat beef-flavoured tofu when he could have a steak instead? |
edit: damn.... just noticed that you awoke an ancient thread and I fell into the void also.
LoL
oh well - I'll leave my post here just because I took some time writing it :-)
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yea exactly. One can make non-overdriven tube and solid state gear sound virtually identical given enough good quality components in each and an ear for that kind of thing (and/or measuring equipment). but using standard solid state circuits will lead to different harmonic content when clipped compared to standard tube circuits. there are solid state circuits that can emulate tube overdrive pretty darn well, but it seems unlikely that this is what that engineer was talking about.
anyway - back on point here. It's well known how audio transformers work and what impact they will have on an audio circuit. The tone of many famous audio transformers used in microphones is also well known and you can sculpt a mic's sound by changing the transformer. some have just bad performance in some ways (phase linearity issues and so on), like the chinese ones in theory exhibit, but for the most part the differences are fairly subtle in these passive ribbon mics. audible, yes, but marginal no matter what. Some won't work with the stock mics.
I use stock chinese ribbons all the time. they pretty much soudn how they sound, and imho cheap chinese ribbons are miles better in their first generation of release (apex 205 etc) compared to the first or second generations of typical chinese condensor mics or even most of the original chinese non-ribbon dynamic mics. (note: imho we're well beyond that now in chinese mic designs and many of their condensors and dynamics are quite excellent).
great times we live in. so much great sound for so cheap.