Tube power stage vs Class-D (effective power)

[Paddy Morris]

Sorry if this subject has been done to death in the past. 

I have been using Class-D amps for quite a while now, and like them a lot.  But they don't really seem to appreciate being driven close to their limits.  So I've started looking at a few tube power stage amps, and a lot of the marketing blurb seems to say that they are 'more powerful' per given RMS wattage. 

 

I had a training in electronics (quite a looooong time ago) so I get that in a physical/electrical sense this has to be untrue, except for amplifiers where the manufacturers tell all sorts of fibs about the power output, and use terms like 'peak power', or 'music power', and avoid quoting an actual RMS or AES power rating.   But I was wondering if players had found that in the real world it does actually turn out to be the case that a tube output stage gives you more apparent loudness per specified RMS watt?  In particular, I was looking at this text from the Mesa-Boogie site.

"NOTE: Tube Amps sound as loud as Solid State Amps rated at several time their power (wattage) rating. Choose from 8 tubes producing 465 Tube-Watts (sounds like in excess of 900)"

It's a bold claim to make if it's just plain untrue.  So are they talking about the 'warmth' or harmonics, or saturation, or the soft clipping of the tubes at high power?  Or the fact that you can run the tubes much closer to their supply rails?

 

[mattpbass]

It’s certainly true that a valve amp of a quoted wattage will sound significantly louder than the equivalent solid state amp of the same quoted wattage. 

[skidder652003]

crank up a 300W ampeg SVT against a 300W class D and I assure you there will be a difference.

[Paddy Morris]

50 minutes ago, mattpbass said:

It’s certainly true that a valve amp of a quoted wattage will sound significantly louder than the equivalent solid state amp of the same quoted wattage. 

 

Thanks Matt.   Good to know.  But I wonder what the reason is, if it isn't actually the electrical power in watts. 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

The reason is compression. The natural compression of valves reduces the level of transient peaks that cause high level distortion when the amp is at or near full power. It can be approximated with SS using a compressor. It can be very closely approximated with SS using a compressor plus DSP emulation.

[Paddy Morris]

Ah. Ok. That does make sense. Thanks Bill.  But so in that case if you drive the valve front-end of a hybrid amp quite hard, and get all that soft clipping and compression, is the class-D power stage ok?  Why would you need a valve power stage too?

Edited Saturday at 15:08 by Paddy Morris

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

With a valve power stage the compression takes place within it, which gives a different result than when it takes before it. There's also a contribution made by the output section power supply, which doesn't happen with SS. For that matter the most sought after valve amps have valve rectification in the power supply, which gives a softer transition into clipping than SS rectification. The addition of SS diodes in place of a 5Y3 or 5U4 valve in Fender amps was one of the reasons why it was said that CBS ruined them, although in truth Fender started using them in some models before the CBS takeover.

[Paddy Morris]

Thanks. Sorry if this feels like valve amp principles 101, but I disappeared down a rabbit hole when I saw Mesa stating that valve power stages are 'more powerful' rather than just subjectively louder.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I'd be surprised to see Mesa saying that. Subjectively sounding louder yes, but not more powerful. A watt is still a watt.

[Bolo]

One aspect may be that RMS ratings must be given over undistorted signal, and most tube amps that are built for bass and especially guitar amplification are run way beyond clean.

[Phil Starr]

I don't know if this helps. As Bill has said it's all about the natural compression valve amps give you. The peaks aren't any bigger but you can bring the average level up and the overloaded peaks sound OK. Clipping of the waveform in most solid state amps is pretty unpleasant. Other factors are that a lot of the power claims are basically untrue. There is also the importance of a decent power supply to consider, a lot of switch mode amps also have switch mode power supplies which are specced for fairly low duty cycles. I'd expect Mesa valve amps to have a pretty decent power supply.

 

 

[Minininjarob]

double post

Edited Monday at 12:22 by Minininjarob

[Minininjarob]

On 12/04/2025 at 13:31, Paddy Morris said:

Sorry if this subject has been done to death in the past. 

I have been using Class-D amps for quite a while now, and like them a lot.  But they don't really seem to appreciate being driven close to their limits.  So I've started looking at a few tube power stage amps, and a lot of the marketing blurb seems to say that they are 'more powerful' per given RMS wattage. 

 

I had a training in electronics (quite a looooong time ago) so I get that in a physical/electrical sense this has to be untrue, except for amplifiers where the manufacturers tell all sorts of fibs about the power output, and use terms like 'peak power', or 'music power', and avoid quoting an actual RMS or AES power rating.   But I was wondering if players had found that in the real world it does actually turn out to be the case that a tube output stage gives you more apparent loudness per specified RMS watt?  In particular, I was looking at this text from the Mesa-Boogie site.

"NOTE: Tube Amps sound as loud as Solid State Amps rated at several time their power (wattage) rating. Choose from 8 tubes producing 465 Tube-Watts (sounds like in excess of 900)"

It's a bold claim to make if it's just plain untrue.  So are they talking about the 'warmth' or harmonics, or saturation, or the soft clipping of the tubes at high power?  Or the fact that you can run the tubes much closer to their supply rails?

 

I am no electronics expert but take a look at Gallien Krueger amps from the 80/90's. Class A/B (I think?) with power transformers and loudness well beyond their specs. Bob Gallien specifically engineered his RB solid state amps to run at the limit without the issues you get when driving hard - he terms it "riding the (power) rails" - there is a youtube video of him explaining it.

My solid state 400rb has no business with its rated 280w being as loud as it is, I run a 4x10 and 1x15 stack in our practice rooms and it simply cannot be turned up much as it completely drowns out the drums. It almost shouts at me "turn me up I love it!".....

I can't get enough o the sound of it tbh.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Watts and loudness are only indirectly related. There are a half dozen factors that have far more effect on loudness than watts, a fact that neither amp nor speaker manufacturers mention in their advertising, because watts drive sales.

[agedhorse]

On 12/04/2025 at 11:47, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

I'd be surprised to see Mesa saying that. Subjectively sounding louder yes, but not more powerful. A watt is still a watt.

 

Part of the reason for Randy's statement is because the burst power was significantly higher than the continuous power. The power supply is not typical, there is an awful lot of energy storage which holds the supply voltage higher than is typical. While it's a little harder on the tubes, the clean (or undistorted) dynamic power increase is few dB over the continuous power rating which, along with the voicing choices, contributes to a loud, dynamic sounding amp.

 

While the continuous power is around 350-400 watts RMS, the dynamic (also called burst but rather than 20mSec, it's closer to 100mSec) power is closer to 600-800 watts RMS. This is on  the 400+ with capable tubes.

[agedhorse]

On 12/04/2025 at 23:56, Bolo said:

One aspect may be that RMS ratings must be given over undistorted signal, and most tube amps that are built for bass and especially guitar amplification are run way beyond clean.

This is an important aspect of both perception and actual power. When a typical tube amp is driven hard by players looking for that kind of tone/texture, they are often driving the amp well beyond 10% THD which represents both an increase in power as well as an increase in volume due to the harmonics falling into a region where the ear is more sensitive. In fact, this is one reason for the popularity of some Darkglass models (using solid state power amps plus drive algorithms).

 

The native voicing of an amp will also come into play, as well as the increase in average power (a form of compression) when these amps are driven hard. The same thing can be done (with varying degrees of success) with solid state power amps and suitable engineering, but it comes fairly naturally with many (not all) tube power amps.

[agedhorse]

On 13/04/2025 at 00:00, Phil Starr said:

I don't know if this helps. As Bill has said it's all about the natural compression valve amps give you. The peaks aren't any bigger but you can bring the average level up and the overloaded peaks sound OK. Clipping of the waveform in most solid state amps is pretty unpleasant. Other factors are that a lot of the power claims are basically untrue. There is also the importance of a decent power supply to consider, a lot of switch mode amps also have switch mode power supplies which are specced for fairly low duty cycles. I'd expect Mesa valve amps to have a pretty decent power supply.

 

Both this PLUS the dynamic (burst) power factor and voicing into the perception of loudness.

 

There are switchmode power supplies that are far more stout than line frequency supplies, and have very high duty cycles as well. 

 

Like everything in life, there are good and bad examples of both line frequency and switchmode power supplies.

[agedhorse]

On 12/04/2025 at 09:16, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

With a valve power stage the compression takes place within it, which gives a different result than when it takes before it. There's also a contribution made by the output section power supply, which doesn't happen with SS. For that matter the most sought after valve amps have valve rectification in the power supply, which gives a softer transition into clipping than SS rectification. The addition of SS diodes in place of a 5Y3 or 5U4 valve in Fender amps was one of the reasons why it was said that CBS ruined them, although in truth Fender started using them in some models before the CBS takeover.

This really only applies to guitar amp designs. 

 

We never made a production amp with tube rectifiers, not did our competitors in their higher powered amps... Ampeg SVT and V4, Fender PS-300/400, Bassman 300, Bassman 135, Trace V series, for example. It turns out that what sounds good on guitar (and maybe on lower powered bass) doesn't sound all that great on higher powered designs.

[aniki]

I wish I could understand why tube watts sound so much louder than class D watts as it would have saved me a lot of time and money over the years. But I don't. Maybe it is all in compression and transients and whatever...

I toyed with some class D when they first became available in pro audio circles but just couldn't get what I wanted. Quickly went back to tubes or conventional transformer amps for the next decade or so.

I've posted this on here before but as it's relevant I'll repeat; I usually use one of two tube amps. a 150 watt or a 200 watt. Either amp will easily over-power loud drums and guitars and cause my rehearsal room to reverberate to the point where it feels like it'll disintegrate. They sound loud yes, but they have 'grunt' / 'slam' etc. and it's 'effortless'.

Some time last year I bought a 750 watt class D amp on a whim. It obviously had high wattage; it could easily push the speaker cone to maximum excursion.

BUT, and it's a big but, it sounded like pure shite however it was EQ'd and had absolutely zero 'grunt'. (Through the same speaker I might add).

Once the rest of the band started playing, the only way I could be heard was boosting mids and treble but there was no actual 'bass'. This has been my experience every time I play a gig and am offered the use of another bands rig. If it's something I've not tried before I always give it a quick bash but more often than not revert to a trusty OB1 or Hartke! I must admit that some sound better than others so they can't all be using the same tech...

Maybe in another 20 years someone will have figured it all out but until then its tube power all the way for me.

 

[Tech21NYC]

Tube amps have more "useable" wattage when compared to most solid state designs. It's the reason a lead guitarist can gig with a 50 or 100 watt tube amp in most situations but a 50-100 watt SS bass amp is more of a practice amp. A tube amp will start clipping once it exceeds its RMS threshold but the resulting sound will not be perceived as distorted. Most SS amps become unusable once they exceed their RMS rating for any length of time. The last thing you want to do with any SS amp is run it close to it's max RMS wattage. Power is cheap. For some reason since Class D amps have become so popular many bass players seem to be going in a counterintuitive direction. Lots of power and minimal speakers. If you look at dUg Pinnick's bass rig, he's using his signature 1000 watt bass head but he's also running four 410 cabs rated at 2000 watts. That gives him a lot of headroom. 

 

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

The contents of this thread thoroughly explain why tubes and SS are different, and why watts don't define loudness or tone. Folks like agedhorse, Phil Starr and myself have been posting this information for as long as there have been forums to post it on. Can't say we haven't tried. 

[Lozz196]

I think the thing is to a lot of us we just don`t have the understanding, most of the technical terms just go straight over my head.  

 

But fortunately we do have the three as mentioned above to give us the appropriate guidance.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

But you're the bass player. You're the smart one in the band. At least it's always been that way for me. 😄

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

But you're the bass player. You're the smart one in the band. At least it's always been that way for me. 😄

Bill, it just shows how dumb the rest are 🤣

[Paddy Morris]

3 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The contents of this thread thoroughly explain why tubes and SS are different, and why watts don't define loudness or tone. Folks like agedhorse, Phil Starr and myself have been posting this information for as long as there have been forums to post it on. Can't say we haven't tried. 

Well, it may be going over old ground, and if it feels a bit tedious then I apologise.   But I have found it really useful and am very grateful to everyone who has contributed.  Really interesting to hear the technical and quasi-technical reasons behind it all.

 

I'm an upright player.  When I put my Fender P through any of my class D amps I'm really happy with the result.  The trouble comes when I'm playing slap upright against a drummer who has had a bad day and is taking it out on his drums.   The transients from the slapping play absolute havoc with the amp headroom.  I have to put a fast attack limiter across the input to stop the amps cracking on the transients in the most horribly digital way you could imagine.  With smaller powered amps the Class D module goes into protection mode for 2 seconds at a time, and the 800w ones just break up. 

 

The limiter fixes the problem but completely castrates the sound of the instrument.  At lower volume, without the limiter, the sound is pretty much what I want (when I'm playing the right notes!)

 

I don't want a valve crunch sound or even any more warmth, as I already spend a lot of time dialing out the excessive warmth of the intrument.  All I need is something that will deal with those transients at a reasonable volume without making a horrific noise.

 

The guitarist is a valve junkie, and he's gradually wearing me down.