HardwareLook

• Author: Adam
• Published: Jan 19, 2012
• Price: £199
• Rating: 9 /10

Streacom TL-1 Introduction & Specs

Streacom’s TL-1 Tube Amplifier is a small compact amp that offers users nothing other than pure clarity of both sound and bass up to the devices highest possible level. Tube amplifier technology is older technology that has been slightly improved over the years. You may be familiar with many digital amps if you are a music enthusiast, but how familiar are you with “Valve Amplifiers”? These types of old school amps, modernised to fit today’s market, don’t mess around with frequency effects or bass reduction, tube amps only offer sound how it was meant to be heard no matter how loud you turn the volume up(depending on the speakers). The Streacom TL-1 Tube Amplifier is a very good start for any music/DJ enthusiasts looking to advance their sound equipment and place themselves in the more high-end professional market.

“The Streacom ST-1 audio tube power amplifier makes listening a beautiful natural experience. The amplifier is smoothly in high pitch, submissive in the midrange and has a huge dynamic range and wonderful linearity. Modern high quality power supply technology combined with high quality audio tube techniques from the past makes this system a must have for everyone who loves music.”

Specification

Unfamiliar with Valve Amplifiers?

“A valve amplifier or tube amplifier is a type of electronic amplifier that makes use of vacuum tubes to increase the power and/or amplitude of a signal. Low to medium power valve amplifiers for frequencies below the microwaves were largely replaced by solid state amplifiers during the 1960s and 1970s. Valve amplifiers are used for applications such as guitar amplifiers, satellite transponders such as DirecTV and GPS, audiophile stereo amplifiers, military applications (such as radar) and very high power radio and UHF television transmitters.”

Audio Usage

A single-ended class 'A' guitar amplifier chassis, with additional GZ34 valve rectifier installed. In audio applications, valves continue to be highly desired by most professional users, particularly in recording studios' equipment and guitar amplifiers. Among stereo enthusiasts, there is a subgroup of audio buffs who advocate the use of tube amplifiers for home listening; they argue that tube amplifiers produce a "warmer" or more "natural" valve sound. Companies in Asia and Eastern Europe continue to produce valves to cater to this market.

Many professional guitar players use 'tube amps' because of their renown 'Tone' in this usage is referring to timbre, or pitch colour, and can be a very subjective quality to quantify. Most audio technicians and scientists theorize that the 'even harmonic distortion' produced by valve tubes sounds more pleasing to the ear than transistors, regardless of style. Many of the musicians who use solid state amplification technology do so for its portability, low cost and high reliability, not its 'tone'. It is the tonal characteristics of valve tubes that have sustained them as the industry standard for guitars and studio microphone pre-amplification.

Tube amplifiers respond differently from transistor amplifiers when signal levels approach and reach the point of clipping. In a tube amplifier, the transition from linear amplification to limiting is less abrupt than in a solid state unit, resulting in a less grating form of distortion at the onset of clipping. For this reason, some guitarists prefer the sound of an all-tube amplifier; the aesthetic properties of tube versus solid state amps, though, are a topic of debate in the guitarist community. -Wikipedia

Learn more about Valve amplifiers.