Well, I thought I was going to leave this thread alone, but ran into this:
Hmm, I guess you could call speakers from Wilson a lot of things but perfect comes pretty far down the list(actually it is not even on the list).
What all of these debate eventually boils down to, is if you want all colorations limited to your room and speakers+ the recording itself or should you try to compensate somewhere in the "electronics chain". The choice is, of course, yours(a subjective choice by the way).
You could run complicated tests to isolate the sound from one component if thats what turn you on. Like this maybe:
But.
Sooner or later you come to the conclusion that you need to audition in your room with your favorite records.
Hmm, I guess you could call speakers from Wilson a lot of things but perfect comes pretty far down the list(actually it is not even on the list).
What all of these debate eventually boils down to, is if you want all colorations limited to your room and speakers+ the recording itself or should you try to compensate somewhere in the "electronics chain". The choice is, of course, yours(a subjective choice by the way).
You could run complicated tests to isolate the sound from one component if thats what turn you on. Like this maybe:
But.
Sooner or later you come to the conclusion that you need to audition in your room with your favorite records.
WOW! Both of those gases sound pretty dangerous to me. I was always impressed by the Dayton Wrights back when they were popular. It took some serious boatanchor amps to get em going at a decent level too. I don't remember what everyone was using back then on them...... That was sort of before Nelson was building stuff.
Mark
Mark
KBK said:
Hi KBK,
I didn't leave them on for such a long time...
Seems a very strange thing for an amp, but if that is true, it might explain why some serious musiclovers can still enjoy these amps.
As a subwoofer amps they seemed alright indeed. I remember that their bass was fine.
Speaking of bass performance in a subwoofer, I think digital amps will be the best solution, provided you can prevent them from spoiling the rest of your setup with their HF rubbish.
Regards,
Lucas.
P.S. I heard the Wilsons only once. Found them aimed at brute force like the B&W Nautilus, although somewhat less neutral. Not a particularly musical and refined design, however. But again that is a matter of taste, isn't it?
Lucas_G said:
"I heard the Wilsons only once" - and this is probably a problem. Speaker like this needs amp able to drive its impedance drops (down to 2.2 Ohm), the whole chain has to be perfect and must be carefully chosen. It is a long time run and one random experience doesn't tell much about "musical and refined design". The result with colouring and distorting amps, that are mostly admired here, is disastering. This is not a matter of taste. When I listen to the philharmonic orchestra and so called "musical" amp makes one unresolutionable mixture of sounds from it, then it is not any musicality. This is simply wrong. The amp has to amplify, not to create its own sound.
Interesting post. Tube amps often add color. Many prefer them to SS amps, and the most common words they use are 'musical', and 'rich'.
Your forceful view is that 'musical' amps lack precision, and presumably they also measure badly.
Why do so many people, many of them with high dollar commitment to such amplifiers, like/prefer the sound? Are they wrong? As a market share, should they be re-educated, or ignored?
Your commitment to accuracy and detail not wrong, per se, but your categoric dismissal of those who prefer this flavor of sound is questionable, and ignores a large portion of the market.
My own taste leans towards accuracy, but I still like a 'musical' source/amp/speaker system, which adds a little of its own sound.
Cheers,
Hugh
Your forceful view is that 'musical' amps lack precision, and presumably they also measure badly.
Why do so many people, many of them with high dollar commitment to such amplifiers, like/prefer the sound? Are they wrong? As a market share, should they be re-educated, or ignored?
Your commitment to accuracy and detail not wrong, per se, but your categoric dismissal of those who prefer this flavor of sound is questionable, and ignores a large portion of the market.
My own taste leans towards accuracy, but I still like a 'musical' source/amp/speaker system, which adds a little of its own sound.
Cheers,
Hugh
PMA said:
Hi Pma,
You may be right that the setup wasn't ideal at that time.
Many folks are prepared to pay a lot for such speakers, so they must have some pleasure listening to them.
Maybe they convey some excitement with popmusic when played at very loud levels.
QUOTE]Originally posted by PMA
The result with colouring and distorting amps, that are mostly admired here, is disastering. This is not a matter of taste. When I listen to the philharmonic orchestra and so called "musical" amp makes one unresolutionable mixture of sounds from it, then it is not any musicality. This is simply wrong. The amp has to amplify, not to create its own sound. [/QUOTE]
i think in the early days of solid state amplfier design there was some naive belief of an amplifier that simply amplifies. Measuring distortion and frequency response were the means to achieve this goal. (With some - especially Japanese- amps one could think some believe this even still).
Colouring is of course always there. If you listen to a live concert and you turn your head a little the frequency response of your ears will change. If you move your head a little you will hear an other response in the ambience of the room you are in.... etc. etc.
As far as continuous sinuswaves and labatory conditons are concerned you can make objective measurements. With everchanging musical signals and different listeningrooms and listeningpositions you can't. It is as simple as this!
It has taken quite some time to acknowledge the fact that time-behaviour is just as important when listening to music. Whether you talk about the cone-behaviour of a speaker (in a waterfall spectrum analyser) or feedback in an amp, our ear is very aware of this third dimension. A simple 2 dimensional measurement of a static wave will not tell you anything of this.
Since there are that many variables in the audiochain (mics, cabling, micpreamp, recorder, medium, amp, cabling, speakers, listening room, positioning of speakers and listener) you can never ever objective standards. Measuring can therefore only do a small part of the job.
Nelson Pass states in one of the manuals of the Aleph that it is aimed at giving you a subjective feeling of neutrality.
That is a very wise description, I think.
We all do have some (subjective) notion of what the music should sound like. Partly due to experience in concerts, partly due to emotional response to the very sound of the particular moment.
If you think that your setup brings you close to that notion, you can be happy and start enjoying the music. If you are constantly striving to bring a socalled objectively designed setup in accordance to that notion, you will never start enjoying music, just spending more and more on bulkier and better measuring equipment.
Regards,
Lucas
Lucas,
the only aim is to get close to the music, and my experience and belief shows that the way gets through minimalizing distortion and improving parameters, but not in the mentioned old japanese way. But this can be shown only by a direct comparison of different circuit solutions and different instruments, so unfortunatelly this kind of "paper" discussion is useless
Pavel
the only aim is to get close to the music, and my experience and belief shows that the way gets through minimalizing distortion and improving parameters, but not in the mentioned old japanese way. But this can be shown only by a direct comparison of different circuit solutions and different instruments, so unfortunatelly this kind of "paper" discussion is useless
Pavel
PMA: Well, you could also claim that a speaker should "decode" the electrical signal without bringing its own sound to the table(and that doesn´t happen when you place woofers in too small cabinets, have a crappy frequency responsecurve in all important angles or get the weird verticalresponse from an MTM-config(not a true D'Appolito).
If you bring such a "freak of nature" into the reproducing chain you have much more serious problems than the distorsion from an amplifier.
When you have stepped off the arena for "perfect reproduction of the original musical event", which we all do whether we like it or not, you are left with just choices of which colorations you prefer.
So the claim that amp A is always better than amp B under all conditions is.....not so great
. Especially since the opinion of what actually "better" means tend to differ from person to person.Cheers
Mats
Nelson Pass said:
I find that eventually most of these guys will get the itch again.
I remember when years ago Joe Sammut (now president of
Pass Labs) threw out his stacked Dayton Wright speakers,
all the electronics, and his Ampex ATR 100 tape deck, and got
a table radio. After a few years, though, he was back in the
fold, with a vengeance.
It has been a long time since I have been to this forum, busy with my bourgeois existence
While the Zen4 and Intermezzo 2.6 remain unpacked from the last move, I have been listening to Tivoli Model One and a $15 no-name portable CD player for almost 6 months now. It is liberating to be free from the tyranny of sound and enjoy the music
It will be interesting to see how long I can hold out though
Actually, there is HT as well, but that does not count, does it?
Attachments
Jag,
I agree with you that there is a lot to be said for practicality. I don’t know if I believe that it takes the brystons 3 days to sound there best. I do believe that both the brystons and pass amps take an hour or two for the temperature to stabilize. Extreme wattage / heat dissipation is a big impracticality, it needs more heat sinks and amp is physically bigger and in a small room it may raze the temperature to uncomfortable levels. It’s certainly not the type of thing I would want to full asleep with running. This is why I’m leaning towards the X over the XA.
I agree with you that there is a lot to be said for practicality. I don’t know if I believe that it takes the brystons 3 days to sound there best. I do believe that both the brystons and pass amps take an hour or two for the temperature to stabilize. Extreme wattage / heat dissipation is a big impracticality, it needs more heat sinks and amp is physically bigger and in a small room it may raze the temperature to uncomfortable levels. It’s certainly not the type of thing I would want to full asleep with running. This is why I’m leaning towards the X over the XA.
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