Inside High End Equipment

[Racerxnet]

25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The presence of the 'wrong' metal, typically iron based, too close to sensitive circuitry can affect the sound - spacing is your friend. Sometimes, it will be a juggling act - you want the hardware to be sensible, but not at the expense of degrading the SQ.

Like the spacing in your laptop ????  LOL

[Ralf11]

I hear that 5G moves the iron filings in your brain around...

[STC]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Half decent ... an upright Korean effort, my wife's - I don't play.

Listen to that and listen to a recording of the same using your ultra high end laptop. If that sounds the same, you have achieved nirvana.  

[STC]

58 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yep, you don't geddit - I don't do "mad scientist"stuff, you see; I assume the core circuitry is "good enough", but that silly and money saving shortcuts kneecap the potential - so, that's what I 'sort' 😊.

 

I learnt that lesson, in the first round - the Big Daddy Yamaha CDP was exactly original, when it produced the magic sound, the first time - I merely cleaned up all the obvious connector weaknesses, and stabilised the cabinet.

 

Sorry, I came second ... 🙂

You came second?  You were nowhere in the race. Did you read the question properly or got distracted by the beautiful sound your keyboard makes?  

[fas42]

9 minutes ago, STC said:

Listen to that and listen to a recording of the same using your ultra high end laptop. If that sounds the same, you have achieved nirvana.  

 

Ummm, the quality of the sound that real piano makes doesn't come close to what exists in many of the recordings I have ... on a previous rig there was a precise volume setting which nicely aligned the volume of that piano, with what the recording level that was used gave me on most solo recordings. Which put things into perspective.

 

IOW, I'm not interested in getting exactly the same as the sound of the instrument we have - in the same vein, I've heard a few grand pianos in the flesh which were not the best shape - irritatingly so. Nirvana comes from hearing what was captured when the recording people went to all the effort at getting exactly what they wanted ...

[elcorso]

44 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Like the spacing in your laptop ????  LOL

 

Many of them very noisy, compared to some desktop computers (when used as music servers).  Because of the spacing and not exactly for the type of metal...

 

Roch

[fas42]

18 minutes ago, STC said:

You came second?  You were nowhere in the race. Did you read the question properly or got distracted by the beautiful sound your keyboard makes?  

 

Obviously, I "came second", in being "the first to reply".

[STC]

29 minutes ago, fas42 said:

.. on a previous rig there was a precise volume setting which nicely aligned the volume of that piano, with what the recording level that was used gave me on most solo recordings. Which put things into perspective.

Your previous rig was Sharp speakers and it can nowhere come close to a real piano. You are dreaming. 
 

What track was you listening 35 years ago when the so called magic happened?  

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, STC said:

Richard Dunn. 

 

 That's the name that I couldn't remember earlier.

I  had quite a few discussions with him.

 

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The presence of the 'wrong' metal, typically iron based, too close to sensitive circuitry can affect the sound - spacing is your friend. Sometimes, it will be a juggling act - you want the hardware to be sensible, but not at the expense of degrading the SQ.

 

 Let's get serious here. Using a handful of metal screws in a wooden case to hold it together ,instead of the glue that I now remember that he used, is not going to result in any audible difference.

[fas42]

40 minutes ago, STC said:

 

What track was you listening 35 years ago when the so called magic happened?  

 

Tracks from nearly all the CDs I had at the time ...

 

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Let's get serious here. Using a handful of metal screws in a wooden case to hold it together ,instead of the glue that I now remember that he used, is not going to result in any audible difference.

 

Sounds right ... but I've been amazed at some of the tiniest "things" that mattered - all it needs is one, minuscule link in the whole chain to undo the gains everywhere else; I take nothing for granted ...

[kumakuma]

27 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Let's get serious here. Using a handful of metal screws in a wooden case to hold it together ,instead of the glue that I now remember that he used, is not going to result in any audible difference.

 

You haven't been following Frank's posts very carefully, have you?

 

EVERYTHING MATTERS!!!!

 

I seem to remember a post where he said that he turned off the power to his house and ran his system off an exercise bike for optimal SQ.

[STC]

43 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Tracks from nearly all the CDs I had at the time

Name one of the best track. Don’t be evasive. If you want to lecture about SQ then be specific. Name the track!

[STC]

33 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

You haven't been following Frank's posts very carefully, have you?

 

EVERYTHING MATTERS!!!!

You are now going to be accused of lying. For him room acoustics doesn’t matter. Pin point accuracy wasn’t important. Stereo imaging - yuck. Expensive rigs- incompetent.  

[kumakuma]

Found the posts I was thinking of.

 

On 8/13/2018 at 8:04 PM, fas42 said:

 

Peter's on to it ... once you get to a certain standard of replay, you need to take this sort of thing very, very seriously ...

 

When I aim for peak playback quality, I shut down the whole house, electrically - including everything that relies on RF links. Extreme?? It's a shortcut for determining whether there are issues as regards sensitivity in the audio circuits to any sort of interference effects ... and, there always are ...

 

On 8/13/2018 at 9:19 PM, fas42 said:

 

Yes, I forgot to mention that I use a handy generator, hooked up to the pedal exercise bike ... but if the rope on the pulleys snaps I do allow myself a lowering of standards, by reserving one spur of mains to just power the gear.

 

[fas42]

(Writes note to himself - "Gotta remember that audiophiles have a terrible sense of humour ... ")

[fas42]

6 hours ago, STC said:

Name one of the best track. Don’t be evasive. If you want to lecture about SQ then be specific. Name the track!

 

I don't do "best tracks" ... but one that sticks in my memory is the opening track of "Hot August Night" - brilliant build up to the first "proper song".

 

Any track from Led Zep I, original mastering - 'massive' sound ...

 

Peter Gabriel IV - any track except "Shock the Monkey" - unbounded creativity; huge, intense soundspaces.

[STC]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

I don't do "best tracks" ... but one that sticks in my memory is the opening track of "Hot August Night" - brilliant build up to the first "proper song".

 

Any track from Led Zep I, original mastering - 'massive' sound ...

 

Peter Gabriel IV - any track except "Shock the Monkey" - unbounded creativity; huge, intense soundspaces.

As expected. Reference SQ for mass market players. I suppose you heard the effects more clearly 35 years ago. Long enough for some to have their hearing decline considerably. Even a decent pro JBL or Presonus could produce them fabulously. 

[STC]

Note to self:- Always use “ I was only joking” to get out of embarrassing situation. 

[John Dyson]

9 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

You haven't been following Frank's posts very carefully, have you?

 

EVERYTHING MATTERS!!!!

 

I seem to remember a post where he said that he turned off the power to his house and ran his system off an exercise bike for optimal SQ.

 

I understand jokes implied -- but commenting on the larger scale issues:

 

It IS possible that any external influence can significantly modify the audio, only if the design of the wiring/equipment (hacked-up-toy) is somewhere bad.   One goal of a good electronics design is that the environment minimally modifies the results.   This is one reason, for example, for adding a perhaps 30-40kHz filter on certain truly professional equipment -- to keep EMI from causing problems.  An idealist would probably not like to see the extra filter (I don't), but there are real practical reasons for it.  (That kind of filter is not always needed -- but such a filter is used to help keep the environment from causing problems.)

 

A play-toy design will certainly be affected by issues too numerous to list...   This is one reason why I suggest trying to use robustly designed equipment -- sometimes it would be industrial quality as in cables, or perhaps certain kinds of professional equipment, sometimes commercial and even some consumer equipment can be good.   Manufacturers are not reliable source for product quality estimation.   Sales literature can be informational, but too often there might be a spec that suggests a certain harmonic distortion (for example), but doesn't always happen that way.

 

However, if there is a measureable difference in results caused by a should-be unassociated environment, piece of equipment, then that shows a serious problem...   That problem could be a grounding problem in the measurment setup, or could be a design flaw elsewhere.  Some very diminishing errors could actually be caused by correctly operating equipment -- but please, much of the time the differences should not happen on good equipment.

 

Audio equipment can easily be very robust to all kinds of environment changes/interference, and really should be.   Incompetent or overly-cost-reduced designs can certainly allow power voltage or noise issues to encroach into the audio.  I can make a perfect as-specified, but non-robust design just like any other engineer, but one important difference about  is in robustness.   Being a designer whose '70s (relatively high-tech) industrial computer equipment had lasted for decades -- I fretted over the reliability issues back then.  We also had massive amounts of low level I/O that had to pass across buildings (in Illinois -- lots of thunderstorms).  We robustly handled relatively high frequency clocks, low level signals and cross-building thunderstorms -- equip worked at least 20yrs in machine rooms with very few repairs.   We should be able to do that today, why not?  cheapness.

 

Tweakiness should be long gone, unless toy/junk equipment is involved.   Gang -- audio isn't rocket science anymore.  Audio stuff quit being a tricky thing to design for back in the 1980s or even before.  Digital added a bump in the 'trickiness' curve, but competent design and production techniques solves the problems.   It might be a *little* more difficult or costly to produce a well designed product, but too often there is poorly designed/tested stuff being sold.  Equipment designed correctly, implemented correctly in production, and used correctly with other good equipment -- won't have tweaky behavior.

 

I wouldn't brag about external situations causing difference in audio, unless there is an intention that twekiness is desired in day to day use.   Tweakiness should not be a badge of courage.

 

John

[marce]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The presence of the 'wrong' metal, typically iron based, too close to sensitive circuitry can affect the sound - spacing is your friend. Sometimes, it will be a juggling act - you want the hardware to be sensible, but not at the expense of degrading the SQ.

Wot like say a pressed metal case...

[kumakuma]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

(Writes note to himself - "Gotta remember that audiophiles have a terrible sense of humour ... ")

 

Perhaps joking isn't appropriate when your "serious" posts stretch the limits of believability...

[Ralf11]

 Audio [electronics] stuff quit being a tricky thing to design for back in the 1980s or even before.

 

modified to exclude speakers/room from the stmt.

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 Audio [electronics] stuff quit being a tricky thing to design for back in the 1980s or even before.

 

modified to exclude speakers/room from the stmt.

 

As is so often the case from you in this area, that is an incorrect statement.
Douglas Self, as one example was discovering new causes of distortion and recommending ways to correct them,
 in the first edition of his Audio Power Amplifier Design handbook in 1996, and later editions such as the 5th edition in 2009.
 He identified 8 different causes of distortion.
 Other technical writers such as  Bob Cordell published later Handbooks with even more recent design information as late as 2011.  (Designing Audio Power Amplifiers)

 

There have also been marked improvements in the Power Supply area recently, with the introduction of very low noise voltage regulators such as the LT3042,LT3045 (0.8μVRMS (10Hz to 100kHz) and the complementary -VE rail LT3094 (0.8μVRMS (10Hz to 100kHz) and the Introduction of Ultracaps.

[fas42]

11 hours ago, STC said:

As expected. Reference SQ for mass market players. I suppose you heard the effects more clearly 35 years ago. Long enough for some to have their hearing decline considerably. Even a decent pro JBL or Presonus could produce them fabulously. 

 

Miles from understanding the situation, I'm afraid - and that was the attitude back then, as well; as soon as you produced a CD which made their rig sound awful, "Well, what do you expect, if you use a lousy recording!!" ... 🙂

 

No, "a decent pro JBL or Presonus" makes 'em sound like shit - even more so then the unsorted audiophile setup - you see, what happens with competent playback is that the sound is 'huge', but still retains 100% integrity; all the sound elements within are pristine clear and undistorted, as scrumptious as your very best "audiophile" recordings, 😜.