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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

Different kinds of problems...

All transistors have junction capacitances which vary with the total applied voltage (signal plus bias). This means the internal capacitances, especially those magnified by the Miller effect, will modulate the open-loop bandwidth with the signal. If the design makes this effect small then transistor amps can sound very clean.

All tubes are subject to microphonic modulation of the signal. The internal parts are made of thin, brittle materials and are very lightly supported. Some physical forms are more robust than others, but all tube equipment requires attention to externally-applied mechanical damping measures to avoid loss of detail.

I've heard good sound from tube and solid-state gear where these issues have been addressed in design or by tweaking. I don't know if there is any way to get past the emotions on this topic, but it seems the majority of designs in the marketplace are compromised and some sort of "A is better than B" mindset is likely the reason why.


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