Wie kommst du denn auf den Trichter?
Meiner Meinung nach (und den Fakten nach) liegt das Netzteil natürlich nicht im Signalweg.
Sorry, ich hatte da ein "nicht" vergessen
Den Fakten nach liegt es aber eben schon im Signalweg, die Frage ist nur, in welchem Frequenzbereich. Glaub mir das einfach und hör auf in Signalwegen zu denken, in denen das Netzteil nicht existiert, denn Eingangs- und Ausgangskreise jeder Stufe sind bei einem Gitarrenamp zwingend Stromkreise und in letzterem ist eben auch das Netzteil enthalten. Aber wie gesagt: Die meisten vergessen das oder verstehen es nicht. Einfach mal ein bisschen nachdenken...
Daher ist ein Gitarrenamp nicht umsonst (und möglicherweise so mancher Röhrenamp um so mehr) eher als klangveränderndes Effekterät denn als Amp zu sehen.
Soll-Gegenteil: Röhren-Hifi-Amps mit ihren ultraharten und supersauberen Netzteilen.
Jep, aber man kann eben auch mit harten oder definiert weichen Netzteilen gute Gitarrenamps bauen...
Populäre Beispiele: Marshall JCM900 und Silver Jubilee, da kommt der Hauptteil der Zerre aus Halbleitern und alle sind trotzdem glücklich (warscheinlich nur, weil sie es nicht wissen
).
Ich hasse den JCM900. Und zwar nicht, weil ich seine Schaltung kenne, sondern weil ich den Sound grauenhaft finde. Aber das ist Geschmackssache...
Why I never find (maybe is somewhere) " Vollröhren " HI-END audio amp but only " Röhren " HI-END audio amp?
Or " Vollröhren " is only for guitar amps?
I would like to throw myself into this conversation once again...I do not want to correct Michael's statements but add some different point of view or explain some things from another viewing angle.
To begin with one has to think about correct translations of the german words "Röhrenamp" and "
Vollröhrenamp". The first word can be translated as "tube amplifier" whereas the second one means "
all tube amplifier".
Despite the fact that the Germans seem to be too stupid (or lazy...as in my case) to use the correct German word "Verstärker" instead of "amplifier" or its short form "amp" there is another thing you should think about: To emphasize the funny part I marked the "all" in bold letters.
The vendors like this kind of superlative expression very much because it is used to show the customer that there are no "bad sounding" semiconductors involved in the sound production process which are often the parts that are blamed by musicians for bad sound or making good tube amp sound impossible at all if they are used in tube amps. When you think about the fact that there is no real definition for the expression "all tube amplifier" as well as "Vollröhrenamp" in German is undefined this turns into complete nonsense because most amplifiers that have silicon rectifiers and/or voltage stabilizing circuits involved in their designs are also described as "Vollröhrenamp" on various shop platforms as well as on the manufacturer's homepages.
To shorten this part I would like to conclude the whole topic with a short statement:
"Vollröhre" or "all tube" is some kind of quality label for musicians who have a direct link between those expressions and "good sound" burned into their minds. Tubes are considered to be the holy grail of sound and if the manufacturers could build guitars or speakers or plectrons with tube power they would do so in order to make musicians buy the stuff...
You asked about HIFI amplifiers: HIFI or High-End Amplifiers are a completely different world. Of course there are also people who build amps with tube rectifiers, tube voltage regulators (!), tube power-on pre-heat delay (!!) and so on. Why? Look above - I already tried to describe the tube myth...
The question arises why there are not so many tube amps in the high-end sector which use tube rectifiers and so on but instead only depend on power tubes and preamp stages built with tubes and this is a good question. Michael already told us about the different goals the developers wants to reach. In HIFI or High-End equipment the goal is (should be...there are too many bad designs...) to build an amplifier as linear as possible - linear in frequency and linear in power (no compression, no "sound"). No power compression means hard supply voltages and that is much easier and much better accomplished with semiconductor-based regulators and rectifiers. When you design an amplifier with such a power supply which stabilizes ALL voltages within very small tolerances the amplifier sounds good and does not produce "ghost notes" or muddy bass and so on.
Of course the whole amplifier must be built well and not only the power supply but this is the part we discussed about...and the influence of the PSU is much bigger than most people think.
And I go one step further: One can build a good amplifier with semiconductors in many parts of the circuit and NOT only the PSU! It is possible to build good semiconductor reverb circuits as well as good semiconductor boosters (the TubeScreamer is one of the worst in my opinion...but that is only my personal impression) and good semiconductor preamps as well.
That semiconductors can sound good is a fact and has been proven many times. The problem is that most developers do not use them correctly or do not use them at all...
Edit: A very good text on this topic can be found here:
http://giaime.altervista.org/hiendguru.html (I LOVE IT!
)
Regards
Stephan
PS: Stört einen die englische Diskussion? Alles doppelt schreiben wäre irgendwie bescheuert