John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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dvv

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Joined 2004
john curl said:
Some people just don't believe in anything beyond their personal education and experience. This is type of person is sometimes called a
'rational robot'. They will go out of their way to 'prove' that someone else is a liar, or that something is impossible. It is their problem, not the topic they are challenging. I try to keep an open mind about such things.
Click to expand...

Oh, we have a few brilliant examples here, John.
 
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dvv

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john curl said:
The pursuit of audio quality has changed in recent years. Originally, it was getting performance out of existing tube circuits, with little regard for really high quality connectors or cable. It seemed to work well enough 50 years ago.
Then solid state came in, and the parts actually got 'worse' in some respects, and audio got worse, rather than better for several years.
Finally, we made an all-out effort to use the 'best', nearly mil-spec parts, coupled with new and 'exotic' (for the time) topologies that gave the tube equipment a close competitor.
Over the years, we have found dozens of 'improvements' that make a difference, including: better resistors, capacitors, circuit board material and layout, connectors, wire, enclosure, diodes, transformers, etc., etc. It is interesting to see mid fi manufacturers trying to use our 'improvements' of 20 years ago, in today's designs.
The latest direction in audio improvement appears to be better software, i.e. hi res digital, quality vinyl, etc.
However, another approach is being pursued in 'tweaks and mods', including some quantum mechanical based parts that appear to improve the sound in many cases. Why some of these QM upgrades work is still not well understood, but we use them anyway in order to get the best sound quality.
Click to expand...

Not surprisingly, quite a few DIY tweaks boil down to using better parts, especially in case of op amps, resistors and capacitors.

AS I'm sure you know, the traditional adio industry was normally "saving" on power supplies, especially the big system electrolytics. A tweak which almost never fails is to use better quality and/or larger capacitors, even with very competently designed circuitry.
 
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DF96

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myweb.tiscali.co.uk/g8hqp/
john curl said:
Some people just don't believe in anything beyond their personal education and experience. This is type of person is sometimes called a
'rational robot'. They will go out of their way to 'prove' that someone else is a liar, or that something is impossible. It is their problem, not the topic they are challenging. I try to keep an open mind about such things.
Click to expand...
Some people just believe in anything beyond their personal education and experience. This type of person is sometimes called a 'gullible robot'. They will go out of their way to accept that someone else is telling the truth, or that something is possible. It is their problem, not just the nonsense they are swallowing. I try to keep an open but sceptical mind about such things.
 
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dvv

Member
Joined 2004
DF96 said:
Some people just believe in anything beyond their personal education and experience. This type of person is sometimes called a 'gullible robot'. They will go out of their way to accept that someone else is telling the truth, or that something is possible. It is their problem, not just the nonsense they are swallowing. I try to keep an open but sceptical mind about such things.
Click to expand...

That's also true, I've met a few samples of this.

My feeling is that a man should keep an open mind, neither accept nor deny anything just like that, but try to weigh the pros and cons and make up one's own mind.
 
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31697B

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Update to -->

Speaking of keeping up with technologies as we were doing ---- HiRes Audio

PONO - for one- also stores and plays 32b WAV files as well as DSD64 and DSD128b for more analog-like performance at the levels normally recorded and played.

I know its a hard thing to do... making the jump all the way from LP to CD was too much and now dragging yourselves kicking and screaming into todays' HiRes digital sources/systems......

But, some of you did it once and you can do it again. :)

:cool: stuff.

THx-RNMarsh
 
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scott wurcer

scott wurcer

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RNMarsh said:
Speaking of keeping up with technologies as we were doing ---- HiRes Audio

PONO - for one- also stores and plays 32b WAV files as well as DSD64 and DSD128b for more analog-like performance at the levels normally recorded and played.
Click to expand...

Come on Dick the DSD numbers relate to the oversampling ratio and 32bit floats have 24bits of mantissa resolution. Mine goes to 11.
 
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31697B

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scott wurcer said:
Come on Dick the DSD numbers relate to the oversampling ratio and 32bit floats have 24bits of mantissa resolution. Mine goes to 11.
Click to expand...

32b WAV? :)

DSD... only to 11? Why is that?

Its all good. Or, gooder than 16b . I was happier with being able to get 24b but they leap-fogged me and are already giving us the entire range as recorded for options. :)

It all just keeps getting better. :)


-RM
 
scott wurcer

scott wurcer

R.I.P
Joined 2004
RNMarsh said:
32b WAV? :)

DSD... only to 11? Why is that?

Its all good. Or, gooder than 16b . I was happier with being able to get 24b but they leap-fogged me and are already giving us the entire range as recorded for options. :)

It all just keeps getting better. :)


-RM
Click to expand...

32bit floating point WAV's have 24bits of actual resolution, I posted plots this is a simple provable fact. 32bit integer files have 8 bit of zero padding or just plain noise.

Heaven forbid there is a standard.

The IEEE 754 standard specifies a binary32 as having:

Sign bit: 1 bit
Exponent width: 8 bits
Significand precision: 24 bits (23 explicitly stored)
 
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31697B

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scott wurcer said:
No, their brand of water Desani IIRC.
Click to expand...

Actually, many people drink Coke etc just because they trust it is safe to drink.

My good buddy Lisa's daughter (PHd MD. Georgetown, Wash DC) said she has seen under the microscope what you can get from touching things like door handles, stair rails, etc in India and she will Never go to India because of what she saw.

But, then too.... many have built up antibodies to some of them which we have not. Same with water in various regions... the locals are not affected much, if at all, with the bad water. Then again, the man they called Lord Buddha died from dysentery. ?? Why take the risk?

Are you still going to help build a house in Nepal? When? I am going to look for land to build on..... next trip.


-RM
 
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31697B

Disabled Account
Joined 2012
scott wurcer said:
32bit floating point WAV's have 24bits of actual resolution, I posted plots this is a simple provable fact. 32bit integer files have 8 bit of zero padding or just plain noise.

Heaven forbid there is a standard.

The IEEE 754 standard specifies a binary32 as having:

Sign bit: 1 bit
Exponent width: 8 bits
Significand precision: 24 bits (23 explicitly stored)
Click to expand...

:cool: I hope the 8 bits not being used now (?) will be useful some how down the road. What is the reason they have 8b of padding at this time?
 
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