What are the tubey tube compressors?

[honkyjonk]

Seriously.

I've owned about three tube compressors, but (maybe with the exception of the altec) I feel like I have yet to hear that tubey creamy transient softening booby compression.

LA2A I guess? Gates? Never used these.

My hunch is that there are a lot of tube compressors but only a few of them sound tubey booby.

I don't know. Comments?

[I'm Painting Again]

well maybe your expectations and ideas of the sound of tubes in general is fabricated by your mind..I know my mind fabricates a pretty complex web of deception..Isn't it the circut/science and the perception of the listener not the fact it has tubes the determining factor of how it sounds?

[GREGL]

There is a huge misperception about the "sound" of vacuum tube gear. In truth there is no one "tubey" sound. And a lot of the perception of that sound comes from gear where the tubes are worn down and capacitors are on their last leg, giving it a far more "warm and fuzzy" sound than it had to begin with. It is true that much of the older gear (and some new) when operating properly can add a coloration which subtly blunts transients or some such other effect but well designed tube gear with the latest components can be extremely transparent. There is even some older stuff (the Harmon Kardon Citation II power amp comes to mind) that doesn't really sound "tubey".Often the colorations are not the result of using vacuum tubes as the active device but other factors such as transformers, power suplies, capacitors, etc.
Often times the sense that vacuum tube gear sounds "warmer" is not due to increased disortion or lack of transparency but the fact that by the nature of their transfer characteristics well designed vaccum tube circuits often have far less higher order harmonic distortion tha solid state circuits, and more low order distortions. The brain generally perceives these distortions as far less offensive and hence the warmer sound (this is grossly oversimplified by the way).

[honkyjonk]

Yeah, I mean, I'm very aware of the fact that I make shit up in my head as far as preconceptions as to how I think gear will sound.

I guess I'm referring to something along the lines of the Ampex 351 preamp I have for what I have in my head about toobyness.

I kind of wish I had a compressor that sounded like the 351.

[Red Rockets Glare]

Yeah, I mean, I'm very aware of the fact that I make shit up in my head as far as preconceptions as to how I think gear will sound.

I guess I'm referring to something along the lines of the Ampex 351 preamp I have for what I have in my head about toobyness.

I kind of wish I had a compressor that sounded like the 351.

I have a couple of 351's and I know what you mean.

I am a little suprised you didn't get what you're looking for in that Federal compressor you're eBay-ing, but I have to say, my Summit TLA comes the closest I've heard to making the 351 sound when I push it good and hard.

[GREGL]

I think if you were to name a piece of equipment which best defines "tube sound" in the way a lot of people think of it, the 351 would be it. Colored transformers and coupling caps, circuit design which overloads fairly easily and gracefully, generating a lot of low even order harmonics. Very euphonic ,
if it sounded better you could eat it!
But for better or worse, a lot of tube gear sounds very different. Still great, but different.
Just too confuse the issue, a lot of killer 50's recordings currently held up by the audiophile community as paradigms of transparent recording were made using 351's or something awfully close. So I guess its all relative in the hands of a talented engineer....
Sorry to ramble.

[dumbangel]

Some company should release an Ampex 351 pre clone.

I've become a fanatic of tube pres since i bought a V78. But I imagine the 351 being warmer.

[Red Rockets Glare]

and the funny thing is that 351's aren't even mic pres!

[joel hamilton]

a bunch of Comps that can get "tubey" (no particular order)

Electro Harmonix NY2A
Gates 6144
gates sta level
GE BA5
RCA BA6A
Altec 436/438
Collins 26W
Collins 26-1U
Fairchild 660/670
Federal AM864/U
....There are about 90 more I can think of.....