Here it's about those who hear differences vs. those who don't – it isn't about beliefs.
I am not a golden ears. I can hear the difference between a Walmart cheapo speaker and any speaker with any pretense to high fidelity. I can't hear the difference between a $500 speaker and a $10,000 speaker. I once had a pair of Altec Lansing Model 5 speakers. I was very satisfied with them until the foam rotted.
Individual ears and the receiving neurons vary a lot. The Fletcher Munson curves are only an approximation, and the ear function and connection to the brain cells are our DNA plus nurture and environment is important.
Now regarding your previously described system hardware, I think the reason you, as a very dicerning experienced listener, have a problem that may be that all of your system, needs a review and rework ,to current audiophile standards. the deck, the amps, the Bosenforfer speakers.
The cheapest way for you to get listening in your flat again, is get a local DIY audiophile, to run through all your electronics. I wager you will be astounded. It is the cheapest way to get near the system you want
Okay Lynn,
You had to bring up the Outer Limits. If you remember the one where someone is working in an FM broadcasting station and connects with an alien being and that being gets sucked in on the FM bandwidth when someone else turns up the station power, I live directly under that radio station. Every time I look up and see it I am reminded of that episode. I always liked the Outer Limits more that the Twilight Zone though that was also great at times.
You had to bring up the Outer Limits. If you remember the one where someone is working in an FM broadcasting station and connects with an alien being and that being gets sucked in on the FM bandwidth when someone else turns up the station power, I live directly under that radio station. Every time I look up and see it I am reminded of that episode. I always liked the Outer Limits more that the Twilight Zone though that was also great at times.
For some reason, published Science Fiction of the Fifties was really out-there, even compared to modern cyberpunk (which is already looking pretty stale). My intuition tells me that Jungian deep therapy and early experimentation with LSD-25 and psilocybin had a lot to do with it ... those alternate realities were really different and profoundly alien.
Cordwainer Smith, Alfred Bester, and even Ray Bradbury wrote things that could knock you out of your chair ... at a time dominated by the McCarthy HUAC hearings, the somnolence of the Eisenhower years, and those creepy National Defense exercises. The Fifties weren't as idyllic as movies would have us believe.
I'm a little shocked to watch Outer Limits today ... the episodes, including the famous first episode set at the radio station (a nice shout-out to every engineer!) ... had a profoundly unsettling quality that left you thinking long after watching it. I was twelve years old when I first saw them on KTLA, and I'm not surprised it set me on a course of SF for decades afterward.
It was almost like Fifties SF was a precursor shock wave of the gigantic cultural earthquake that hit in the Sixties, and that we're still working out, nearly fifty years later.
Here's a little bonus for all you triode fans ... the latest thoughts on the Karna Kay amplifier. Note resistor isolation between current-sources and 6SN7 plates and recommendation for amorphous or nanocrystalline IT transformer (Tribute, Monolith, etc.) which minimizes odd-order distortion in the zero-crossing region. The 6SN7, unlike the 5687/7119 family, has very low to unmeasurable odd-order distortion, so the IT also needs to have correspondingly low distortion.
Triode-connected 6V6's, or tubes in a similar family, bias up pretty similarly to 45's without the hassles with a filament supply. If the 6V6 version is chosen, the hum-balance circuit obviously moves to the 300B section. Operating points for the 6SN7 and 300B are borrowed from Thom's fabulous-sounding split-supply Reicherts.
It's not necessary to use damper-diodes for the 300V B+ section, a plain old 5U4 or 5AR4 would do just as well. The B+ for the paired 300B's needs all the current it can get, which is where the damper diodes come in, with 1 amp peak capability and very low switch-noise.
Cordwainer Smith, Alfred Bester, and even Ray Bradbury wrote things that could knock you out of your chair ... at a time dominated by the McCarthy HUAC hearings, the somnolence of the Eisenhower years, and those creepy National Defense exercises. The Fifties weren't as idyllic as movies would have us believe.
I'm a little shocked to watch Outer Limits today ... the episodes, including the famous first episode set at the radio station (a nice shout-out to every engineer!) ... had a profoundly unsettling quality that left you thinking long after watching it. I was twelve years old when I first saw them on KTLA, and I'm not surprised it set me on a course of SF for decades afterward.
It was almost like Fifties SF was a precursor shock wave of the gigantic cultural earthquake that hit in the Sixties, and that we're still working out, nearly fifty years later.
Here's a little bonus for all you triode fans ... the latest thoughts on the Karna Kay amplifier. Note resistor isolation between current-sources and 6SN7 plates and recommendation for amorphous or nanocrystalline IT transformer (Tribute, Monolith, etc.) which minimizes odd-order distortion in the zero-crossing region. The 6SN7, unlike the 5687/7119 family, has very low to unmeasurable odd-order distortion, so the IT also needs to have correspondingly low distortion.
Triode-connected 6V6's, or tubes in a similar family, bias up pretty similarly to 45's without the hassles with a filament supply. If the 6V6 version is chosen, the hum-balance circuit obviously moves to the 300B section. Operating points for the 6SN7 and 300B are borrowed from Thom's fabulous-sounding split-supply Reicherts.
It's not necessary to use damper-diodes for the 300V B+ section, a plain old 5U4 or 5AR4 would do just as well. The B+ for the paired 300B's needs all the current it can get, which is where the damper diodes come in, with 1 amp peak capability and very low switch-noise.
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By this I'll get my setup to sound like live symphonic orchestra in a hall with superb acoustics?
It looks like you have no clue about my predicament and the possibility for any solution to it.
We would be very pleased if you did suddenly discover listening at home can be really amazing.
Do you perhaps realise that maybe many of us do go to a concert with excellent acoustics. Some of the best in the world.
If you upgraded part on your system, you could enhance the sound character you did like, but realise much more of the 'being there'.
Also, I know many who have decided their system was old, out of date and dull. When they cleaned up the mains plug and tightened up all they could reach, they rediscovered the lost charm. On the other hand an upgrade wth the Nelson Pass and Bosendorfers with a decent DAC may astound you. It is a case of nothing ventured nothing gained
What you have not experienced you dont know? I do not really see how we can help you any more.
Different people have different demands and expectations from sound reproduction. I know many concert goers who are very happy with their stereo setups – which sound very pale compared to mine. So the fact that some people are happy with their setups has no implication on me – not necessarily.
Once again, I'm not going to spend any money on anything I cannot listen to prior to purchasing it.
You and me keep going round and round in circles.
BTW, have you heard the Bosendorfers?
Nothing – except the money which I don't have.
Once again, I didn't seek help here, I only shared my experience.
I think you will be pleased with the new input stage, Lynn. I just couldn't get lower distortion than with that topology.
Almost there.....
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I've had Joshua on my ignore list for a long time and only see what others use as quotations. He will not seem to understand that his speakers themselves are extremely flawed, having the enclosure as a part of the active production of sound is a very silly concept that is related by poor thought of the equating of the reproduction of sound to the original instrument. We don't want uncontrolled resonance from the enclosure, that will just smear the sound production from the drivers in time and many other things. I'm sure he will reply to this post but I won't see it and don't care what he says about that, he and the designer are way off in what those speaker enclosures are doing. If that is the type of sound field he is after he should pay a bunch of money and buy a pair of MBL speakers, and yes I know he can't afford those in the least. If you are going to try and produce an omnidirectional sound field at least do it with the correct concepts and methods.
Besides that we all seem to admit that we can never reproduce a live orchestral event in our small spaces with current speaker technology.
Besides that we all seem to admit that we can never reproduce a live orchestral event in our small spaces with current speaker technology.
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I don't see Joshua's "problem" as insoluble at all. Whatever it is about the Bosendorfers that he likes, that quality can be replicated or even improved on ... it's just a matter of technical analysis. Maybe polar pattern, maybe cabinet materials, maybe driver choice, maybe crossover components. These are the things that determine the sonic character of a loudspeaker.
They're expensive enough that hacking is not a good option, though. Measurements, sure, but some things are trickier to measure than others, especially if you can't get at the wires going to each driver so the drivers and crossover can be individually measured (the usual first step).
FWIW, I usually find crossover adjustments, followed by amplifier selection (topology) to be the most responsive ways to tune a system. Cables are way down the list, particularly since I have my friends build mine (industrial Litz wire in cotton sleeves).
They're expensive enough that hacking is not a good option, though. Measurements, sure, but some things are trickier to measure than others, especially if you can't get at the wires going to each driver so the drivers and crossover can be individually measured (the usual first step).
FWIW, I usually find crossover adjustments, followed by amplifier selection (topology) to be the most responsive ways to tune a system. Cables are way down the list, particularly since I have my friends build mine (industrial Litz wire in cotton sleeves).
Lynn,
One of the main premises of the Bosendorfer's is that the cabinets themselves are vibrating members of the sound production. I think that is a very different approach to reproduction than most speaker designers would take. To now go and try and correct or change that in the crossover doesn't make much sense, you wouldn't be changing the inherent nature of the beast. Think of taking your beloved GPA bass speakers and putting them in a resonating enclosure, that would completely change the nature of how they sound, it would be so hard to imagine tuning such a beast. I really think if you are attempting to make a resonating body to produce a sound field like that you are much better off with an omnidirectional or even and OB type of enclosure where you have control over the sound field in an understandable and measurable way where there are known properties. I wouldn't think to take a violin or other strung instrument and change the way that the surfaces emanate sound by changing the internal bracing or changing the f-holes or something as basic as that, you would end up with something that sounded completely different than what we would expect to hear.
One of the main premises of the Bosendorfer's is that the cabinets themselves are vibrating members of the sound production. I think that is a very different approach to reproduction than most speaker designers would take. To now go and try and correct or change that in the crossover doesn't make much sense, you wouldn't be changing the inherent nature of the beast. Think of taking your beloved GPA bass speakers and putting them in a resonating enclosure, that would completely change the nature of how they sound, it would be so hard to imagine tuning such a beast. I really think if you are attempting to make a resonating body to produce a sound field like that you are much better off with an omnidirectional or even and OB type of enclosure where you have control over the sound field in an understandable and measurable way where there are known properties. I wouldn't think to take a violin or other strung instrument and change the way that the surfaces emanate sound by changing the internal bracing or changing the f-holes or something as basic as that, you would end up with something that sounded completely different than what we would expect to hear.
Thanks.
I wish I'd be so sure – I'm yet to hear any system that will give me 33% of the auditory experience of listening to live classical orchestra.
Admittedly, I haven't heard yet a system based on horns and low power tube amp. I'm going to listen to one (about 2.5 hours drive in each direction) before even contemplating any tweaks to my system.
Should it not be significantly closer to the 'real thing' than my present system, I'll suffice with live concerts (about 2 a month in the concerts season).
Should I see some 'light at the end of the tunnel', I'll see if such a system may fit my tiny living room (the couch I sit on touches the back wall, while the front wall, straight ahead, is 2.64 meter from my ears, which is about 8.66 feet or 104 inch).
If it may fit my living room, I'll see how I may manage money-wise with trading my present system's main components.
Unless someone can say right now that a horn based system wouldn't fit such a living room – it will save me the trip.
Oops, one more.
I tried EL56 (triode strapped) based SET and a Cary Rocket 88 R / CAD-808 triode strapped, class A. Both didn't have enough power for my speakers. The Cary in Ultra-linear Class A/B had enough power, but I didn't like its' sound at all.
I tried numerous major changes and numerous tweaks, it looks like those aren't going to bring me salvation.
I tried EL56 (triode strapped) based SET and a Cary Rocket 88 R / CAD-808 triode strapped, class A. Both didn't have enough power for my speakers. The Cary in Ultra-linear Class A/B had enough power, but I didn't like its' sound at all.
I tried numerous major changes and numerous tweaks, it looks like those aren't going to bring me salvation.