When Digital Met Analog

Ditch the transistors and go tubing with old-fashioned, oh-so-analog vacuum tube audio gear from Peachtree Audio and Fatman.

yTubes?

For almost half a century now, solid-state, transistorized amplifiers have been the audio standard, their popularity owing to their more compact size and subsequent weight reduction.

Solid-state amps also tend to generate less heat and are generally more reliable than their tube counterparts.

The tubes vs. transistors debate has led to many an angry smackdown in the high end community, with San Pellegrino being spilled and gray ponytails being yanked.

Much of the dispute is fueled by conjecture rather than hard facts; tubes' superior midrange noted by some, but at the cost of some high frequencies?

What to do in a world where the software is increasingly digital?

It took a long time for the gear that delivers modern digital music to catch up to the audiophile, which is to say that decoders, amplifiers and speakers too often look and feel (and sometimes perform) like toys, unattractive plastic boxes, an afterthought.

But not all...