What is your experience when deciding between the two technologies? Or do you own amps of both types and use them for different things? Are they really different?
For me they very sound different, and since the first time I heard a tube headphone amp I was enchanted by its rawness. I had been driving my Abyss AB1266 Phi TC with a solid state amp (off-brand with Chinese components) and it sounded great but I had read these headphones really need a good amp so I went to a store to see what can drive them better, and tried a tube amp from Germany. 10 seconds in I was able to tell this is what I needed. Might be a matter of taste? Yes, but to each his own, I have read people who hate the Abyss and also others like me who love them.
I’d like to know your opinions too.
My only experience with tube amp is with Xduoo TA-26s, OTL tube amp which I managed to get quite cheap. I am running it with HD6XX currently (I have also tried it with other hight impedence dynamic headphones like AKG K240 Monitor or DT990 250Ohm). Frankly either I am completely deaf or there hardly is any difference compared to Topping L70 (at least to my ears). I mean the base rolled off very slightly but overall this is NOT what I was expecting from tube amp, especially OTL one. It is extremely clean, in volume matched blind test I would have hard time picking it out compared to solid state. Maybe just stock tubes are very clean. I tried some cheap replacement tubes but they were just buzzing more but in terms of tonality I could not really tell much of a difference.
At this point I still do not really know what “tube sound” is but my experience is far from what people usually describe. But it glows pretty and catches the eye of guests ;)
I understand, yeah I cannot explain what does it. Maybe you can visit a store and see if something has that wow factor
That is a good suggestion. I am only afraid I will realize that to achieve this “tube nirvana” I will need to put some serious money on it ;). But hey, we are in this hobby for the journey and the fun of it all ;)