AW: tubes, transistors......

[Haible Juergen]

	>The guy who made the original comment was just repeating something
	>he read. It's not his fault.
	>
	>Often I find myself answering these comments. They are
	>made very often, by electrical engineers and marketing gurus
	>who think they know why these "crazy audiophiles" prefer tubes.
	>They always miss the point!

Tubes and transistors are in competition in (at least) two
very different battle fields. One is HiFi, and the other is
Instrument amplification.

Everything you are writing here about prejudice against
tube amplifiers, and transient vs. static distortion is true,
all too well known, and I won't go into it any further. It's
"HiFi" domain.

When we look at sound generation (instead of sound 
reproduction), everything is different. How many guitarists
have you heard complaining about the distortion of the
tubes in their amp ? There's also a lot arguing if this
sound can be emulated to some degree with solid
state circuits or not, but the point is that the *distorted*
tube sound is the *reference* here, and "tube distortion"
is a compliment, not an insult. 

With building electronic music instruments and FX devices,
I always feel much closer to a guitar amp than to the HiFi
stuff, and I'm sure most people here feel similar.
Any complaint about the distortion of a Moog cascade ?
The distortion of a timbre modulator ?
I think you get the point. So if anybody here mentions "tube
distortion" in a subordinary clause, you can bet he has no
bad intention, and more important, he may be completely
RIGHT in this context.

JH.