ok, I'm not a car audio guy, but I am a musician and a vintage Hi-Fi fan. I can normally tell the difference, but I've heard non-tubed amps (not digital but still analogue) that tricked me.
Tube warmth is not distortion. that is just retarded. Tubes do distort, but depending on the tube this will happen at a higher gain level. Audiophiles use tubes a lot, and they aren't into distortion... that's why they have a 20K turntable (no, your cd's aren't better either).
Tubes amps add color to sound not only by the fact that they are tubed, but the types of cappacitors used in tubed amps also make a difference. The fact that tubed amps of high quality don't use ciurcut boards at all (wich limit flow a lot) and are wired point to point gives them an advantage.
Is this better? no. is this worse? no.
I've got friends who make music on their computers, and I just recorded an album on 2" tape. All of those friends thought it sounded to "muddy", but that's what we like. It's just a prefrence thing.
do I think it will work in a car? yes. it has before, but I dont' have any experience in the tube amps that are made for cars. I think that a tube preamp is an easier option though. a preamp tube creates little heat and uses little current and will still add some warmth to the signal the amp is amplifying.
oh... and a good tubed amp is always repairable and normally without too much work.
one last thing... tubes have more headroom than digital, and they don't really clip the same way. a digital clip is much more damaging to your speakers.
Exactly...only a punk who has no conception of natural sound would decry the tub amps tone and play it off as distortion, that is utter stupidity. These children cant get off this Richard persons dick about harmonic distortion, something both he and other members of this board have demonstrated multiple times they know nothing of.
Tube amps are better period...they are not relegated to simply toning and shaping sound, they produce far lower distortion than ss amps and overall produce an exceptionally clean tone that no regular ss amp can touch. All regular ss amps are trying to do is EMULATE the resonant natural harmonics of a tube amp, and this is proven over and over with a myriad of manufactures on this neverending quest. To state that tube amps are somehow of poorer quality then a ss amp really boggles my mind, apart from simply being an assinine statement full of inaccuracy.
The people who are pushing ss amps over a tube amp for sound repro come from 1 of three classes of car audio "enthusiast"....
1) your weekend car audio warrior to regurigtates whatever he overhead the salesguy say at the local car audio store (best buy, circuit city etc...) over the weekend while his father was looking at the latest tv's.
2)kids under the age of 20 who ve never even heard a tube amp and are simply going by heresy, typically lack the experience or ear to differentiate between good and "bad" sound.
3)people who simply talking out of their ***** because they have nothing better to do.
Anyway, whether you agree or disagree with me, everything I said is right and if you disagree for whatever reason...you're still wrong.
Tube amps own, the only drawback for a car that i can think is breakablility of the tubes themselves as they can be as fragile as a 60 watt light buld filament.
