Just a noob question

[tamakid1292]

how big of a differnce will a tube preamp make. i have a firestudio project so if i went into the tube pre then that will it make a big differnce sound quaility wise?
Im looking at the art pre amps
.

[zooloo]

There is sound quality and sound difference.

Having said that sometimes the "difference" is more pleasing to the ear.

This is going to turn into one of those horrible... "Try it and see which you prefer" answers.

[ryanojohn]

if it's an ART it likely won't be the infamous tube sound most people think of when they think 'tube sound.' Especially not the Tube MP.
Tubes distort and excite even order harmonics which sound 'warm' and pleasing to our ears... it's one of those, 'gotta listen' type things...

[Chaellus]

I Doubt the ARt Tubepre is going to make things sound better than waht you have already and that is not the tube sound people talk about...usually stuff in that price range are chinese tubes not good quality compared to say Mullards or so which single tubes might cost from $200-600 in the norm...but that doesnt automaticlly make it sucky... it will just sound generic and wont have the true genuine tube sound thought it might add some harmonics... if i recalll usually tube pres in those price ranges arent necesserily tube pres but transistor types that have a single tube to add harmonics which you can bypass or not...which is cool...but its not going to be magic... The Real Deal Tube stuff adds alot of warmth silkyness kinds of sound... and anything with bunch of transformers sound pretty thick and mean.. just because you dont have any of the high end gear doesnt mean you cant do high end stuff..... ive heard and seen alot of really great sounding music on prosumer equipment.. lets just say in this bracet to get a really good sound means you got to be really experianced and know what your doing...high end gear will make things easier and faster to do... once you learn the science of recording the next step is the art of it... like a cheif who chooses his palettes of tonality.

[jdjustice]

glad Fletcher doesn't visit low-end.
he would invariably rant about 't00b' gear and how no one should buy anything with t00bs unless it costs at least $3k...

but he would have a good point --- a tube in a very low-end piece of gear will likely make no difference. (but it _may_ glow blue!!!!)

best answer? already posted by ryanojohn. read that one.
then ask more questions -- you gotta ask questions to learn-- so don't hesitate.

good luck
jd

[donsolo]

cheap tube pres have a starved plate design which doesn't put enough voltage through the tube to really affect the tonal quality. Admittedly, in the low end price range, I'd rather have solid state because it's going to be more reliable in my experience

[EricF]

A very popular mis-conception by noobs is that tubes automatically mean "warm" or add some sort of esoteric magic to your signal. Marketing hype certianly tends to paint the same picture. However, many of the best sounding pres are solid state, and many of them can also be considered "warm" or "colored", or whatever vague description you want to use.

Most low cost tube pres use starved-plate design which essentially just throws a handful of gritty tube dirt on a clean signal. For a mic preamp, it usually doesn't sound very good. This is truly when a tube becomes a "toob".

The only full-voltage tube pre I've come across that is budget-friendly is the ART MPA Gold. With a tube-swap to get rid of the crappy Chinese tubes, it sounds pretty decent for a lot of things. I like it a lot for bass with a Radial JDI in front of it.