Tube amp enthusiasts (like myself) love to go on about why they sound better than solid state amps. Some folks (not like myself) will even trot out graphs showing plate curve linearity, or promulgate the unique compressive characteristics, or what have you. While any of these may be true, I think they all miss the point.
The fact is: tubes sound better because they’re on fire 🔥
That’s right. It’s got nothing to do with the sonic signature of the device. It’s got everything to do with a glowing glass tube somehow magicking your music through the ether.
Fire Sounds Better?
For starters, what does it mean to sound better?
Better is a subjective experience. We each decide for ourselves what sounds “better” than something else. And we do so based not on facts or figures but rather how it makes us feel.
(this assumes a certain threshold of operational competency, ie, the amp doesn’t sound like shit)
These kinds of decisions are, at their root, emotional decisions. We concoct thin veneers of “rationality” in order to justify our decisions in some pseudo-defensible way both to ourselves (gosh, I spent a lot on this amp) and to others (I’m right, and here’s proof). We believe such rational thinking is how we arrived at our conclusion, but in fact it’s the other way around.
We first decide what feels good, then we look for ways to support that decision.
Emotional cues drive our decision making. People made decisions long before the “rational” part of our brain evolved. Damage to a certain area of the brain (the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex) divorces individuals from their emotional cues; the result is endless logical analysis with no decision making.
Or, consider confirmation bias. We see this daily in our political opponents (but never in ourselves). We think “if only they face these indisputable facts they will surely see the error of their ways!” And yet they do not. Clearly, the proof is not the pudding.
It’s Not Just The Sound
Different senses affect each other. A few years ago I was eating a fine dinner in Italy. The fourth course was a small stack of spaghetti with a sprig of rosemary at the top of the plate. My first thought was “what an adorable garnish.”
But then, as I leaned forward to take my bite, the aroma of rosemary filled my nose. It lingered as I chewed the spaghetti, infusing the food with a rosemary essence. Suddenly I realized the mastery of these Italian chefs: they weren’t simply cooking meals to delight my palate, they were crafting experiences for all of my senses.
And you better believe it made the food taste good.
Back to the Tubes
For a tube to work properly, its cathode must be heated to roughly 1200˚F in order to boil its electrons off into a cloud (a story for another day). This is accomplished by building the cathode around a thin filament of wire, then running a ton of current through the filament until it glows with heat - just like an old incandescent light bulb.
Remember, incandescent light bulbs are different from modern LEDs; they work by getting a tungsten wire so damn hot that it glows. Which, of course, is why a real fire glows.
This warm glow in the tubes reminds our ancient brains of fire. It triggers the same sense of warmth, comfort, and security our ancestors felt as they huddled together around a fire. Having your friends over to listen to your amp is essentially the same experience.
We may not consciously appreciate these associations, but they are the native language of our old, subconscious brains.
Hell, we even talk about tubes adding “warmth” to the sound. I believe we internalize their fire and apply it to our listening experience. Just as with my Italian pasta, the tubes play to other senses to trigger a collective unconscious experience.
“But Wait!”
…you might say. “These are all just tricks being played on the mind. They aren’t real. They can’t be measured. Therefore they don’t count!”
The thing is, all experience is just a happening in our mind. Being unable to measure a phenomenon doesn’t make it any less valid. As my teacher says, many things are true that aren’t real. So if something enhances your experience, isn’t that enough? What other analysis is even relevant?
There is no square root of love ❤️
Just Enjoy It
The fire inside vacuum tubes evokes positive primordial memories in our brains. It’s through this golden lens we that hear our music- of course it sounds better! I don’t need a graph to “prove” anything. Music itself is already an emotional experience; tube amps simply heighten your emotions in subtle ways. Celebrate them.