fas42 Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 54 minutes ago, gmgraves said: that’s speakers. All speakers sound very different. Audio playback cannot mimic real music playing in a real space. But speaker makers can focus on aspects of real music (those who are trying, anyway) that are important to them, and try to get those right. Unfortunately, when they all. Focus of different aspects of a live performance, to the extent to which they are successful at getting those areas right, and the price point that they are aiming at, determines the actual sound of those speakers. At the very best, above a certain price point, the differences will be a matter of the manufacturer’s “corporate taste”. No one ever said that Audio is perfect. You want really accurate speakers? Down to about 50 Hz, you can’t beat Martin-Logan’s CLX electrostatic. They are so real sounding with such low coloration that every time I’ve heard them play my recordings, they almost bring tears. To my eyes. If they weren’t so physically large, I’d have a pair. Right, you have just said it. There's a speaker setup out there that you've heard that reveals what's on the recording more closely than anything else you've come across. That is, you don't hear the system - you hear the musical event event captured ... so, the latter exists as an absolute, which would be revealed every time you took any recording to that rig, and played it. So, that's the goal... Everything else, normally, is below that standard - that is, faulty. I use that terminology because that's how I look at it. But I don't see it as being the fault of the speakers - why "speakers sound very different" is because each chain driving a certain set of speakers has enough issues to completely colour the sound; if each chain was adequately sorted then what you would hear each time is "Martin-Logan’s CLX electrostatic" ... because then you are not hearing the speaker; you are hearing the recording which happens to pass through a CLX, on its way to your ears. Quote The differences in amplifiers is much more subtle once you get above a certain price point. Most of that is the result of the interface between speakers and the amplifier. Different output stage design strategies interact differently with different speakers. I hate reviewing good amps because it’s so hard to describe he sound of a well designed and built amp. It’s much harder than reviewing, say, DACs, where the differences are much less subtle. The thing about DACs is the higher the price, the definitely more refined the conversion becomes. You keep wanting to isolate the components, one from each other - as soon as you do that you lose the essence of what needs to be done ... to consider the system as a whole. No ambitious vehicle is ever designed or built like that, as a hodge podge of sub-assemblies from different makers - which why they get it right, and audio rigs don't, 😉. Quote No, it hadn’t been worked on “like you do”. The owner had not hard wired the components together like you do. The amp and speakers needed repair. Being more than 50 years old, they were tired. The speaker cones had become brittle and the suspensions had lost their compliance. Except for the tweeter, the components were replaced with new ones designed specifically to replace and upgrade the performance of the AR3a. The amps were from the early ‘60’s. They needed new caps anyway, but the Hafler Accrosound output transformer were, and remain excellent. The circuit boards needed replacing, and the modifier made his own from the Audio Research mod article that appeared in “The Audio Amateur” back in the early ‘Seventies. All the old carbon resistors in the audio path were replaced with metal film types, and all the caps were replaced with polypropylene caps and the power supply caps were modern electrolytics bypassed with polypropylenes. Indeed it has ... parts which weren't good enough have been replaced with much higher standard versions; the owner considered each area, and everywhere the construction and quality were below par, he did what was necessary to bring it up to standard ... you see, this is how it works - which means that what one does with every specific rig will be different; you only 'fix' what needs to be fixed. Quote However, other than replacing the RCAs with gold plated WBT types, all interconnects were normal ones and the speaker cables were good quality 12 Gauge OFC copper, connected via gold plated banana plugs. Not what you do. Yes, he ditched the junk quality connectors, and replaced them with about the best quality variants ... tick. I do what has to be done to bring the perceived quality to the right level. Something which I have repeated over and over again ... but you ignore that, because it would spoil your great story of how I don't have a clue, 😁. Quote See, that’s where you and I run into problems. There is simply no way for that lash up of yours to do that! I’d be willing to wager that if any of us here actually heard your “system”, we’d all have to suppress laughter. If you told us exactly what you did in the minutest detail so that some of us could copy it precisely, again we’d laugh. Like I have to suppress the grimace of distaste when I listen to the mess a particular ambitious rig makes of a recording that I know well, perhaps, 😉. Of course you would laugh if you knew the minutest detail of what I concern myself with - members of audio forums have been doing exactly that for years now - and they then turn around and confirm how really terrible the recordings are that I mention, on their "100% transparent, essentially perfect rigs", 🤣. Quote I’ve been looking for an analogy, and I think I’ve come up with a fairly accurate one: what would you say if you read on some car forum that some guy had taken one of those tiny, two-stroke Subaru 360s that the company started with, and claimed that he had made that tiny thing go from 0-100 Kph in under 5 seconds and gotten a top speed of 300 Kph out of the original drive train? And, he had done so only by replacing the fuel hose and all the vacuum hoses with bigger ones, and replaced the spark plugs with hotter ones and the HT leads with solid wire, and added electronic ignition. Would you believe him? Of course not. Why? Because there is nothing about that tiny little car, with it’s 360 cc two-stroke engine that would give it even the potential to do any of that, irrespective of what the owner upgraded, tweaked, or modified. Do you now understand why your claims have ZERO credibility? My goodness ... my Perreaux power amp with 90V power rails, capable of 700 watts into 8 ohms when saturating, according to the manual, is really a just like "two-stroke Subaru 360" in disguise ... who would thunk it, 🙂. Guess I should have gone instead for the Krell I compared it to, back then - the fact that the Krell sounded particularly shitty, on the day, must have been imaginary ... Quote 2) You just shot yourself in the foot with your car analogy. If you have a Porsche with a dud engine, you get the engine either rebuilt or replaced. You don’t try to improve the car by fitting a new fuel line, bigger carburetors, higher quality HT leads, etc. to a broken engine! I listened to Porsches with dud engines for years and years - the owners or demonstrators didn't have the slightest idea that there was anything wrong; to them, it was performing perfectly - "It has be right, because it has the right badge on the front!" Teresa 1 Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 27, 2020 5 hours ago, fas42 said: Right, you have just said it. There's a speaker setup out there that you've heard that reveals what's on the recording more closely than anything else you've come across. That is, you don't hear the system - you hear the musical event event captured ... so, the latter exists as an absolute, which would be revealed every time you took any recording to that rig, and played it. So, that's the goal... And you just described my system. Quote Everything else, normally, is below that standard - that is, faulty. I use that terminology because that's how I look at it. But I don't see it as being the fault of the speakers - why "speakers sound very different" is because each chain driving a certain set of speakers has enough issues to completely colour the sound; if each chain was adequately sorted then what you would hear each time is "Martin-Logan’s CLX electrostatic" ... because then you are not hearing the speaker; you are hearing the recording which happens to pass through a CLX, on its way to your ears. Too bad that so many recordings sound lousy, image poorly or not at all. But, with my own recordings I have a reference that most people don’t get to have, because having been there, I know what the original performance sounded like. IOW I have the Absolute Sound, or at least as close as one can get to it with modern recording technology. Quote You keep wanting to isolate the components, one from each other - as soon as you do that you lose the essence of what needs to be done ... to consider the system as a whole. No ambitious vehicle is ever designed or built like that, as a hodge podge of sub-assemblies from different makers - which why they get it right, and audio rigs don't, 😉. I don’t know where you got that unfounded opinion, but it is, at best, a mischaracterization of what I’ve been saying, and at worst, dead wrong! Quote Indeed it has ... parts which weren't good enough have been replaced with much higher standard versions; the owner considered each area, and everywhere the construction and quality were below par, he did what was necessary to bring it up to standard ... you see, this is how it works - which means that what one does with every specific rig will be different; you only 'fix' what needs to be fixed. That is a total mischaracterization. What you say that you do are “tweaks” what this fellow did was restore very old, non-working components to like new, and where possible, dragged them into the 21st century using modern parts. For instance, he would replace an old mid-century paper-foil 0.47mfd capacitor that was badly out of spec with a new polypropylene one. After all, paper-foil capacitors dipped in beeswax aren’t made any more. What was he supposed to replace those with? Any modern cap would be a performance and SQ improvement, even if the restorer wasn’t looking for a performance improvement! He replaced old, noisy carbon composite resistors with modern metal film types. Not because he was tweaking anything, but just because the technology in these areas has improved considerably since these amps were made and metal film resistors are the norm now. The speakers are a similar story. The exact replacement drivers for these AR speakers are no longer available and so the ones that have recently been designed to work in that acoustic suspension style of enclosure, are much improved from the original drivers from the 1950s. In short all of these substitutions take already viable components and use the advances in the state-of-the-art of electronic parts to make them better. Have you gone through your NAD amp and replaced all the caps with either polypropylene for the larger caps and polystyrene caps in place of the disc ceramics? Have you replaced all the carbon resistors with close tolerance metal film resistors? If not, then what you do and what this guy did to his Dynaco amps and preamp are nowhere near the same thing. Quote Yes, he ditched the junk quality connectors, and replaced them with about the best quality variants ... tick. Sure and why not? Those old tin plated RCAs were poor quality, but I’d be willing to bet that they don’t sound any different, they’re just more robust and not as susceptible to corrosion. But any gold plated RCAs can boast the latter attribute. Quote I do what has to be done to bring the perceived quality to the right level. Something which I have repeated over and over again ... but you ignore that, because it would spoil your great story of how I don't have a clue, 😁 So you keep telling us. But again the difference here is that the Dynaco/AR system started with equipment that was state-of-the-art in it’s day, while the system you brag about started with midfi equipment and junk speakers. While I don’t dispute that you have probably wrung the last ounce of performance from what you have (and kudos to you for that accomplishment), that simply can’t be very much! Quote Like I have to suppress the grimace of distaste when I listen to the mess a particular ambitious rig makes of a recording that I know well, perhaps, 😉. that sounds like your personal problem to me, not the problem of the “ambitious rig”. Quote Of course you would laugh if you knew the minutest detail of what I concern myself with - members of audio forums have been doing exactly that for years now - and they then turn around and confirm how really terrible the recordings are that I mention, on their "100% transparent, essentially perfect rigs", 🤣. And that doesn’t speak volumes to you? Quote My goodness ... my Perreaux power amp with 90V power rails, capable of 700 watts into 8 ohms when saturating, according to the manual, is really a just like "two-stroke Subaru 360" in disguise ... who would thunk it, 🙂. Guess I should have gone instead for the Krell I compared it to, back then - the fact that the Krell sounded particularly shitty, on the day, must have been imaginary ... I’m sorry, I don’t remember mentioning a Perreaux power amp. I thought we were discussing a midfi NAD integrated amp and a pair of ghetto blaster speakers. Trying to bring in a “ringer” to confuse the issue so that you can declare some kind of victory, here, is beneath you Frank. Hell, I didn’t even know you HAD a Perreaux amp! Why are you wasting time with the cheap crap you’ve been touting all these years if you have equipment like that at your disposal? Quote I listened to Porsches with dud engines for years and years - the owners or demonstrators didn't have the slightest idea that there was anything wrong; to them, it was performing perfectly - "It has be right, because it has the right badge on the front!" Nobody thinks that a famous badge excuses or makes up for poor maintenance - except maybe you. 4est and Teresa 2 George Link to comment
fas42 Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 Okay, time to close this down, George - you're not interested in my methods, nor in achieving the best that's possible from recordings. Teresa and kumakuma 2 Link to comment
Popular Post 4est Posted March 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 27, 2020 28 minutes ago, fas42 said: Okay, time to close this down, George - you're not interested in my methods, nor in achieving the best that's possible from recordings. You just cannot seem to contain yourself... Teresa and kumakuma 2 Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
kumakuma Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 28 minutes ago, fas42 said: Okay, time to close this down, George - you're not interested in my methods, nor in achieving the best that's possible from recordings. Wow, that's your take away from George's posts??? Teresa 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 27, 2020 1 hour ago, fas42 said: Okay, time to close this down, George - you're not interested in my methods, nor in achieving the best that's possible from recordings. I am very interested in achieving the very best that’s possible from recordings, but that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with you, my friend! I also cannot afford to buy my “dream system” because it would cost about a quarter of a million dollars (US) and I’m retired. But what I have is very good, with excellent components that don’t include cheap NAD amplifiers and boom-box speakers; nor do I listen to music through a pair of laptop speakers (like you do, apparently). I enjoyed sparring with you, however. But do yourself a favor and stop bragging about your “method”. It’s malarkey and everybody knows it. I do believe that you have stuff to contribute here, just not that. Be well, Frank. Jeff_N, John Dyson, kumakuma and 2 others 3 1 1 George Link to comment
fas42 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 1 hour ago, kumakuma said: Wow, that's your take away from George's posts??? George needs to believe that it costs a lot of money to achieve satisfying replay from recordings - he lives in a part of the world where Money Is King, and therefore he expects any solution to involve such. Everything in my experience says that it doesn't work that way - that is, you can spend a lot money and still not achieve convincing SQ; conversely, smart use of low cost items, suitably optimised, can produce competent playback - and everyone who fights the concept that there are excellent value for money solutions for those who want to get most from their recordings is doing the audio world a severe disfavour. People in general can't be bothered with better sound - so long as it makes roughly the right noises they're happy with it - and if they consider something might be better, then they will be told by people like George that this is only possible by using lots of money - and so they think, "Forget it!"... it's a lose, lose situation, for everyone. Teresa and kumakuma 2 Link to comment
kumakuma Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 8 minutes ago, fas42 said: George needs to believe that it costs a lot of money to achieve satisfying replay from recordings - he lives in a part of the world where Money Is King, and therefore he expects any solution to involve such. You continue to astound us all with ever more ridiculous posts. Teresa 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
fas42 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 59 minutes ago, kumakuma said: You continue to astound us all with ever more ridiculous posts. And I'm astounded that people can't follow the logic: From George, Quote Hell, I didn’t even know you HAD a Perreaux amp! Why are you wasting time with the cheap crap you’ve been touting all these years if you have equipment like that at your disposal? That is, I have a reputable amplifier, and therefore shouldn't need to waste my time with "cheap crap" ... but I am hearing the same music from the NAD, as I did from the Perreaux - why, because both are delivering what's on the recording, and not getting in the way by adding too much of their own signature. What I'm hearing here is that such is impossible - any piece of gear has to be smeared with great dollops of money, to have any validity ... some people are incapable of comprehending that such is unnecessary. And why is that the case with audio? Because, the underlying parts are very close in capability, between the cheap, and the expensive - it's very much a case of being a variation of the 90/10 rule; you get 90% of what's there using only 10% of the money; and that's only if that initial 10% is well spent! Teresa 1 Link to comment
Popular Post kumakuma Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 12 minutes ago, fas42 said: And I'm astounded that people can't follow the logic: From George, That is, I have a reputable amplifier, and therefore shouldn't need to waste my time with "cheap crap" ... but I am hearing the same music from the NAD, as I did from the Perreaux - why, because both are delivering what's on the recording, and not getting in the way by adding too much of their own signature. What I'm hearing here is that such is impossible - any piece of gear has to be smeared with great dollops of money, to have any validity ... some people are incapable of comprehending that such is unnecessary. And why is that the case with audio? Because, the underlying parts are very close in capability, between the cheap, and the expensive - it's very much a case of being a variation of the 90/10 rule; you get 90% of what's there using only 10% of the money; and that's only if that initial 10% is well spent! That wasn't the part of your post that I found ridiculous and illogical. Teresa and 4est 1 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
fas42 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 24 minutes ago, kumakuma said: That wasn't the part of your post that I found ridiculous and illogical. Care to elaborate? Link to comment
kumakuma Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 19 minutes ago, fas42 said: Care to elaborate? Go back and read again the sentence I quoted. Do you honestly believe that is the reason why George believes what he does? Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
fas42 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 George's experience has been, that more expensive the system, the greater the chance that it can sound "special" - I counter that by saying, a system can also sound "special" if a great deal of care and attention is paid to much lower cost items, in terms of ridding them of the shortcuts that allowed the manufacturers to put them out at a more everyday price - and that this can be done at a very reasonable cost. But George won't have a bar of this - to him, a magic spell has been cast over certain components, by them having the "right designer", the "right manufacturer", the "right bling", and most importantly, the "right price" ... everything else is junk. I can't read that any other way, than "Money Maketh the SQ". George wants the audio world to be Black and White; the fact that someone says that every Black, and every White is really a shade of Grey doesn't appeal to him ... 😉. Audiophile Neuroscience, Teresa and kumakuma 3 Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 3 hours ago, fas42 said: And I'm astounded that people can't follow the logic: From George, That is, I have a reputable amplifier, and therefore shouldn't need to waste my time with "cheap crap" ... but I am hearing the same music from the NAD, as I did from the Perreaux - why, because both are delivering what's on the recording, and not getting in the way by adding too much of their own signature. What I'm hearing here is that such is impossible - any piece of gear has to be smeared with great dollops of money, to have any validity ... some people are incapable of comprehending that such is unnecessary. And why is that the case with audio? Because, the underlying parts are very close in capability, between the cheap, and the expensive - it's very much a case of being a variation of the 90/10 rule; you get 90% of what's there using only 10% of the money; and that's only if that initial 10% is well spent! If that was true, Frank, how come everybody doesn’t buy cheap midfi? If expensive, well designed and made equipment offers no advantages over cheap mass market stuff, then (1) why does the “high-end” flourish? (2) If cheap equipment is so good, why do you have to spend so much time and effort tweaking it, and why do feel the need to spew your methodology all over the Internet? If the stuff is, as you assert, equal to the Pass, Krell, Perreaux, etc. equipment, I would think that it wouldn’t need your methodology of “tweaking”. Teresa, John Dyson and Jeff_N 3 George Link to comment
kumakuma Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 1 hour ago, fas42 said: a system can also sound "special" if a great deal of care and attention is paid to much lower cost items, in terms of ridding them of the shortcuts that allowed the manufacturers to put them out at a more everyday price - and that this can be done at a very reasonable cost Only a "reasonable cost" if you place little value on the endless hours you spend "polishing your turds" gmgraves 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 1 hour ago, fas42 said: George's experience has been, that more expensive the system, the greater the chance that it can sound "special" - I counter that by saying, a system can also sound "special" if a great deal of care and attention is paid to much lower cost items, in terms of ridding them of the shortcuts that allowed the manufacturers to put them out at a more everyday price - and that this can be done at a very reasonable cost. That makes no sense. “ I can buy cheap stuff and second guess the cheap design, and spend time and money to overcome the cheapness.” 1 hour ago, fas42 said: But George won't have a bar of this - to him, a magic spell has been cast over certain components, by them having the "right designer", the "right manufacturer", the "right bling", and most importantly, the "right price" ... everything else is junk. I can't read that any other way, than "Money Maketh the SQ". that’s because it’s true. Quality is expensive. Do you think that a Ford Fiesta is the same quality as a Rolls Royce, or a Porsche, or a Ferrari? These cars are expensive because they are not designed or built down to a price, and are not mass produced items. Are you now saying that by tweaking you can turn a Fiat 500 into a Ferrari? Of course not. That’s the only relationship between price and quality. I’m not saying one has to spend an arm and a leg to get good audio, but you can’t get it from junk either. My amp, for instance, was only $2500, but it has been rated very highly in SQ by everyone who has reviewed and measured it. Like I said, before, good equipment doesn’t have to cost a lot, but you have to buy wisely. My friend who rebuilt those Dynaco tube amps chose wisely, because, though old, the core technology is still quality. 1 hour ago, fas42 said: George wants the audio world to be Black and White; the fact that someone says that every Black, and every White is really a shade of Grey doesn't appeal to him ... 😉. You are wrong. I’m merely saying that that your “method” cannot do to the equipment that YOU have, what you claiming will do. Audiophile Neuroscience and Teresa 2 George Link to comment
Popular Post wdw Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 Ladies, please...Forty pages in and you’re still indulging this guy...apparently owns no equipment of any sonic worth/merit/value and appears to fuss about endlessly with gear one can only likely find at the used section of Salvation Army.....is this not simply a waste of time? Teresa, 4est and Jeff_N 1 2 Link to comment
Audiophile Neuroscience Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 3 hours ago, fas42 said: And I'm astounded that people can't follow the logic: Just a thought but you may be on to something: people are following logic 🙄 Teresa 1 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 39 minutes ago, wdw said: Ladies, please...Forty pages in and you’re still indulging this guy...apparently owns no equipment of any sonic worth/merit/value and appears to fuss about endlessly with gear one can only likely find at the used section of Salvation Army.....is this not simply a waste of time? It is, but Covid-19 makes us all stay home and not go out. It gives one time to burn, time to waste. Frank is willing to endlessly argue his “points” and it’s so easy to make him look foolish with his outrageous assertions, and his inability to keep his stories straight. It’s just a bit of fun. wdw and Teresa 1 1 George Link to comment
Popular Post Confused Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 I offer this as a little respite from the current "tit for tat" here, and a less serious take on the "its a problem with the system, never the recording" philosophy. I was visiting a hifi show with a mate a couple of years back. There was a big Astell and Kern stand, with a row of a dozen or so digital players, connected to a range of headphones to try. Some pretty decent headphones too, I was interested in trying the new Audeze range. I tried one pair, pretty decent sound quality I thought. I then moved to a more expensive pair, and the incident happened. I put the headphones on, and horrified by what I heard I turned to my mate and said "oh my god this sounds bloody awful". Now I think I was probably being quite loud, the volume on the headphones was reasonably high and I think I suffered from that thing with headphones that you can lose the concept of just how loud your own voice is. Anyway, my outburst was loud enough to get the attention of the AK rep, who immediately came over and said, "There is a problem with the sound sir? Is it a problem with the headphones or the player?". Slightly embarrassed that I had caught his attention in this way; "Neither", I replied, "it's Phil Collins". Teresa, wdw and 4est 3 Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
John Dyson Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 4 hours ago, gmgraves said: That makes no sense. “ I can buy cheap stuff and second guess the cheap design, and spend time and money to overcome the cheapness.” that’s because it’s true. Quality is expensive. Do you think that a Ford Fiesta is the same quality as a Rolls Royce, or a Porsche, or a Ferrari? These cars are expensive because they are not designed or built down to a price, and are not mass produced items. Are you now saying that by tweaking you can turn a Fiat 500 into a Ferrari? Of course not. That’s the only relationship between price and quality. I’m not saying one has to spend an arm and a leg to get good audio, but you can’t get it from junk either. My amp, for instance, was only $2500, but it has been rated very highly in SQ by everyone who has reviewed and measured it. Like I said, before, good equipment doesn’t have to cost a lot, but you have to buy wisely. My friend who rebuilt those Dynaco tube amps chose wisely, because, though old, the core technology is still quality. You are wrong. I’m merely saying that that your “method” cannot do to the equipment that YOU have, what you claiming will do. Your comment about 'I can buy cheap stuff', follows exactly the thinkning about my ED Beta experment some 100's of posts ago :-). The difference is, I knew that I was doing an experiment -- just curious because something didn't add-up about the design. Again, the situation is this -- even in audio, a superior design often requires a 'rethink' from more primitive concepts. Sure, anyone 4 yr degree EE can design a working audio amplifier or audio preamp - but I guarantee that 4yr diploma will not guarantee a great design. More functional designs often require a rethink, a re configuration of components, different feedback architecture, a slightly different componentry, etc. I can make a tolerable (not really great) power amplifier out of 2n3773 power transistors, but they don't have the bandwidth of more common power transistors used nowadays. Sure, feedback can hide a multitude of problems -- but there IS a difference and CAN be improvements when starting from scratch. A lot of designs, it is best to just strip everything out, start from scratch, re-using the power supply -- then throwing out the power supply and re-doing that!!! Oh, btw, some packaging designs aren't all that great WRT interference/gnd, even though a good circuit board design can mitigate some of the problems, there are still cases where wiring is needed. If someone is so bright to 'redesign' low end electronics, then it is simply more efficient to start from scratch, and buy a well chosen power supply (I would do that because the issues of power supply noise/power-line effects, etc our outside of my expertise.) I can do a well filtered power-supply, but it is also important to look from the standpoint of the power supply source also. I just don't have the expertise for EMI and switchers are so common now. (I did design a super robust switcher back in the 70s for an industrial product, but the power requirements of an audio amp are far outside of my experience also.) Anyway -- rather that start with a 'crippled' design, just do it super well from scratch, right? Geesh, I don't need those 5 parallel transistors on the MC phono preamp, I am so good that I can do it with one of them 🙂 (There is a real joke in there somewhere.) Geesh -- I don't do EE anymore, but still love it. John John Link to comment
sandyk Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 1 hour ago, John Dyson said: Geesh, I don't need those 5 parallel transistors on the MC phono preamp, I am so good that I can do it with one of them 🙂 (There is a real joke in there somewhere.) Geesh -- I don't do EE anymore, but still love it. IIRC, devices such as the LM394 are fabricated using parallel transistors, and I have a couple somewhere with an HFE of around 1,500. How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file. PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020 Link to comment
John Dyson Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 31 minutes ago, sandyk said: IIRC, devices such as the LM394 are fabricated using parallel transistors, and I have a couple somewhere with an HFE of around 1,500. Using parallel good transistors is a well known technique to improve the input voltage noise behavior, because effectively the relatively constant part of the rbb value is averaged down. It isn't a totally straightforward tradeoff, but parallel transistors (BJT or JFET) can sometimes improve input noise behavior. The complications include matching the paralleled transistors, and cannot just keep paralelling more and more nonlinear capacitance. However, the LM364 was a sweet little device within its limitations (limited maximum VCE afair.) The LM394 had a pretty big parasitic capacitance, and being a transistor parasitic is nonlinear -- one reason why the hugest geometry jFETS arean't always the best choice. But yea, when I mentioned 'I can do the design with just one transistor', I was speaking of the idea that the circuit can be made to work with one transistor, but might give a bit more hiss... It isn't always a good idea for a hobby person to 2nd guess a designer who does that certain kind of design all day as a profession. Sometimes a design can certainly be optimized, but there be dragons. John 4est 1 Link to comment
Popular Post gmgraves Posted March 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2020 10 hours ago, John Dyson said: Your comment about 'I can buy cheap stuff', follows exactly the thinkning about my ED Beta experment some 100's of posts ago :-). The difference is, I knew that I was doing an experiment -- just curious because something didn't add-up about the design. Again, the situation is this -- even in audio, a superior design often requires a 'rethink' from more primitive concepts. Sure, anyone 4 yr degree EE can design a working audio amplifier or audio preamp - but I guarantee that 4yr diploma will not guarantee a great design. More functional designs often require a rethink, a re configuration of components, different feedback architecture, a slightly different componentry, etc. I can make a tolerable (not really great) power amplifier out of 2n3773 power transistors, but they don't have the bandwidth of more common power transistors used nowadays. Sure, feedback can hide a multitude of problems -- but there IS a difference and CAN be improvements when starting from scratch. A lot of designs, it is best to just strip everything out, start from scratch, re-using the power supply -- then throwing out the power supply and re-doing that!!! Oh, btw, some packaging designs aren't all that great WRT interference/gnd, even though a good circuit board design can mitigate some of the problems, there are still cases where wiring is needed. If someone is so bright to 'redesign' low end electronics, then it is simply more efficient to start from scratch, and buy a well chosen power supply (I would do that because the issues of power supply noise/power-line effects, etc our outside of my expertise.) I can do a well filtered power-supply, but it is also important to look from the standpoint of the power supply source also. I just don't have the expertise for EMI and switchers are so common now. (I did design a super robust switcher back in the 70s for an industrial product, but the power requirements of an audio amp are far outside of my experience also.) Anyway -- rather that start with a 'crippled' design, just do it super well from scratch, right? Geesh, I don't need those 5 parallel transistors on the MC phono preamp, I am so good that I can do it with one of them 🙂 (There is a real joke in there somewhere.) Geesh -- I don't do EE anymore, but still love it. John John I hear you. People like Frank don’t understand the economics of designing and building high-end audio electronics. The way he writes, one would think that he believes that all amplifiers, for instance, are basically alike, and one can make a midfi amp sound like a Nelson Pass design simply by doing some nebulous unspecified “tweaks” and by soldering the leads from the source component directly to the amp inputs and by soldering the amp directly to the speakers! He ignores the fact that designers like Pass and Curl, for instance, agonize over things like feedback, what kind of output transistors, for instance, to fit; bi-polar or FET, and if the latter what kind and what characteristics the design needs. One of the big differences between midfi and high-end amps is that usually the midfi stuff are what EEs used to call “cookbook” designs, using off-the-shelf inexpensive components. I’m not condemning cookbook designs, after all, a Williamson tube amp design is a cookbook design. I and probably you can see the entire circuit in your mind’s eye. But I’ve heard some mighty nice sounding Williamson amps (some of the French Jadis amps come to mind). The reason why these amps can be high end is because of the care taken to select the best parts available. Well designed power supplies, the best bi-filar wound output transformers (like MacIntosh used to use), the best, lowest ESR capacitors, the lowest thermal noise resistors, etc. In solid state designs, the stiffest power supplies, and the lowest overall feedback (often none) will translate to the best sound. These are things that Frank doesn’t seem to take into consideration (or, perhaps, is unaware of) when he thinks that inexpensive equipment can be made to sound as good as costly high-end equipment simply by performing his “method” on whatever happens to be at hand. Of course the thing that gives real pause to Frank’s credibility are the boom-box speakers he thinks sound so good that they “disappear”. He doesn’t even take them out of the ghetto blaster plastic case they came in and house them in a properly designed enclosure! Hopeless. And if you try to tell him that his tweaks simply aren’t enough to get the kind of performance out of the components he’s using that he claims, he accuses his detractors of not being interested in getting the best sound possible from one’s recordings (which, by the way, all sound great through his “rig”). Be well, my friend. John Dyson, Jeff_N, Audiophile Neuroscience and 1 other 4 George Link to comment
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