John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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“looking at the points” in a sound editor is a logical fail – the reconstruction/anti-imaging filter output is the waveform to look at

You are certainly right, but please do not forget to mention that none of the real filters is ideal. For this reason and other reasons the exact reconstruction of the (Fs/2 bandwidth limited) signal is possible only in theory.
 
MP3 artifacts

It definitely is the mp3 artifact...it is a very bad practice.

You are preaching to the choir here, Pavel! I have given classes at WXYC where I demonstrate the audible differences between .WAV files ripped (correctly) from CDs and differing bitrate MP3s. I do this because these days our DJs are bringing in music to broadcast on the air on iPODs, laptops and phones, and many if not most are unaware of the sonic sacrifice.

Amazingly enough after a few minutes of training their young ears to hear the difference, when you finally play snipets of the WAV vs MP3 many become upset that they have so many low-bitrate songs in their devices.

It is my opinion that MP3 was an ingenious bridge technology when storage and bandwidth was expensive in the 1990s. But as a technological necessity it's time has passed, and there are better lossless formats available. Unfortunately MP3 is so damn entreched it will not go away. As such it is an inflection point in the history of audio: the time when fidelity dropped (probably semi-permanently) in a new format instead of either being maintained or improving. The same goes to phone audio quality: when using the ubiquitous WE500 set at each end of an old land-line system it was positively hifi compared to today's cell phones.

We have thrown the Benny (Goodman) out with the bathwater in the march towards convenience...

Howie

Howard Hoyt
CE - WXYC-FM
UNC Chapel Hill, NC
www.wxyc.org
1st on the internet
 
I'm still not comfortable with his test design. He doesn't have control over vertical dispersion, but varies it when he moves one driver vs another.

Cheers, jn

That is definitely a point in his setup, although there are good arguments why this vertical uncertaincy might be not a problem (as a variation like that introduced by the smaller displacements was not detected in earlier studies) , or otherwise it would imho be very interesting too, if the reason were given by the vertical dispersion.

But of course it would make a nice confirmation if in a setup with the same proper aligned loudspeakers the delays were realized electronically for the upper speaker. The setup would be unfortunately a bit more complex.
 
I don't see the point on the Blowtorch thread. In truth, it is not really which approach one might make to make a preamp, as much as it is to make the most linear circuits possible (open loop) with the possibility of using feedback if necessary for some reason. It is about minimizing distortion in individual parts and using selected passive parts that have been shown to both measure and listen well.
 
I agree John. I was just thinking of a recent listening test with two amplifiers very different designs and measurements and yet quite close sonically. We seem to have learned much on what sounds good and how to get there but not all of the why.

Where these two amplifiers different designs toally or were they built similarly to compare circuit performance? An apples to apples experiment or more of an informal comparison of two different amps?

Mike
 
I don't see the point on the Blowtorch thread. In truth, it is not really which approach one might make to make a preamp, as much as it is to make the most linear circuits possible (open loop) with the possibility of using feedback if necessary for some reason. It is about minimizing distortion in individual parts and using selected passive parts that have been shown to both measure and listen well.

In my experience how well a circuit functions is directly correlated to the electrical environment it operates in. It could be considered as the x-factor that makes a NAD 3020 stand out as musical and a $150K engineering masterpiece sound cold and analytical. Just a thought.

Mike
 
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