George, exactly so, it's a problem in the basic concept- there may be implementation issues of varying degrees, but the fundamental concept is flawed. Why stereo? It's better than mono and is a practical compromise from a commercial point of view. Quadrophonics was a terrible concept, but it did something useful- it showed that multichannel had to change drastically in implementation to be commercially and domestically viable and irrespective of the superiority of formats like Ambiphonics, they just weren't going to fly.
I'm a mono kind of guy, I stayed with mono for the first 10 years of my sojourn with hi fi, and when I went to stereo, it was for more for the ping-pong effect. I have heard other people's systems that IMAGE better, much better than ANYTHING I have ever put together. MY thing is audio quality, or thru-path. The fleeting moment when you 'seem to be there' with the music.
Now that IMAGING has come to be talked about, I will share my knowledge of how to get BETTER IMAGING from electronics.
In the beginning, when the Levinson JC-2 was made, we made some 'fatal' mistakes with regard to IMAGING. Both were done accidently by Mark himself, but I should have been 'on the ball' enough to catch it. It took years, before I caught the problems.
First, I added a SINGLE +/- capacitive multiplier to lower the power supply noise for the phono stage. It must be remembered that we did NOT have any factory matched fets in the JC-2, and hand matching is sort of primitive, compared to monolithic fet matching, for example. Therefore, even with a balanced, differential push pull circuit, we had only so-so power supply rejection. That is WHY I designed the cap multiplier into the JC-2, to insure a noise level of perhaps 2nV/rt Hz or so with a fet input. The power supply noise was effectively eliminated from being a source of noise in the phono.
However, Mark wanted to protect the cap multiplier from accidental short circuiting, so he added a 2 ohm output resistor and a protection transistor (I'm pretty sure) to create a current limiter. Now, the natural cap multiplier might have an normal impedance of 0.1 ohm or better, BUT with the 2 ohm resistor, it was 20 times worse!
AND we used 1 cap multiplier to power 2 phono channels. See the problem?
These discrete modules do not have the power supply rejection of a typical IC, so they can be sensitive to X-talk from each other. A little far fetched, but real. Mark found it out independently and replaced the open loop cap multiplier with a feedback controlled follower, and noted an improvement. I, independently, found the problem when I recommended making a 'master' cap multiplier to buffer a number of channels for a studio board. Immediately, the problem was found, and I had to make a cap multiplier for each channel. I wish I had thought it through, more completely in 1973. Oh well.
The second big mistake was the circuit board layout of the JC-2. It had asymmetric Xtalk due to the layout of the circuit board. This was Mark's layout, and it was almost impossible to convince him of this, but I had heard better 'imaging' from another competing preamp with the same speakers as I used at the time, so I knew it for sure.
That is why we go to such extremes, today, to isolate both the power supplies and the circuit paths from each other. And IF we have some xtalk, please let it be symmetrical!
In the beginning, when the Levinson JC-2 was made, we made some 'fatal' mistakes with regard to IMAGING. Both were done accidently by Mark himself, but I should have been 'on the ball' enough to catch it. It took years, before I caught the problems.
First, I added a SINGLE +/- capacitive multiplier to lower the power supply noise for the phono stage. It must be remembered that we did NOT have any factory matched fets in the JC-2, and hand matching is sort of primitive, compared to monolithic fet matching, for example. Therefore, even with a balanced, differential push pull circuit, we had only so-so power supply rejection. That is WHY I designed the cap multiplier into the JC-2, to insure a noise level of perhaps 2nV/rt Hz or so with a fet input. The power supply noise was effectively eliminated from being a source of noise in the phono.
However, Mark wanted to protect the cap multiplier from accidental short circuiting, so he added a 2 ohm output resistor and a protection transistor (I'm pretty sure) to create a current limiter. Now, the natural cap multiplier might have an normal impedance of 0.1 ohm or better, BUT with the 2 ohm resistor, it was 20 times worse!
AND we used 1 cap multiplier to power 2 phono channels. See the problem?
These discrete modules do not have the power supply rejection of a typical IC, so they can be sensitive to X-talk from each other. A little far fetched, but real. Mark found it out independently and replaced the open loop cap multiplier with a feedback controlled follower, and noted an improvement. I, independently, found the problem when I recommended making a 'master' cap multiplier to buffer a number of channels for a studio board. Immediately, the problem was found, and I had to make a cap multiplier for each channel. I wish I had thought it through, more completely in 1973. Oh well.
The second big mistake was the circuit board layout of the JC-2. It had asymmetric Xtalk due to the layout of the circuit board. This was Mark's layout, and it was almost impossible to convince him of this, but I had heard better 'imaging' from another competing preamp with the same speakers as I used at the time, so I knew it for sure.
That is why we go to such extremes, today, to isolate both the power supplies and the circuit paths from each other. And IF we have some xtalk, please let it be symmetrical!
Indeed, all the above 3 sentences.
I use the term 'audiophiles' to denote audio amateurs, or audio enthusiasts, who care about the sound quality of audio setups, or stereo systems.
Often, audiophiles spend their money and energy for the sole purpose of enjoying listening to reproduced music in their homes.
There is no relevance to the scientific question of what exactly it is that makes a sound setup enjoyable, or what makes one sound setup more enjoyable than another one, to a certain individual. This question has high relevance to audio designers, but not so much to consumers, or audiophiles.
For audiophiles, as long as there is that joy from listening to reproduced music – mission accomplished.
And
There is no sound system in the world, at any price, that sounds as realistic as live music.
Being unable to attain the desired ideal, I'm satisfied with the amount of pleasure I derive from listening to reproduced music at my home.
Furthermore, since complete realism is unattainable, different audiophiles prefer different aspects of the sound that are closer to a sense of realism. Some prefer better spatial sense, others prefer better macro-dynamics, others prefer better micro-dynamics, others prefer better tonal balance and so on.
some suround commentary: Wendy Carlos Gosurround
anyone hear the RCA Living Stereo 3-channel - does it "work" better than stereo - many now have center channel speakers
Music in the Round #8 | Stereophile.com
anyone hear the RCA Living Stereo 3-channel - does it "work" better than stereo - many now have center channel speakers
Music in the Round #8 | Stereophile.com
I haven't heard that yet, but it sounds as if it is terrific. I know most of those recordings quite well, indeed grew up hearing them (and wearing them out, alas). I'd especially love to hear the Mussorgsky Pictures.
Floyd's book has a brief discussion, recounted already somewhere in here, of the origins of the compromise down to three channels from many, for accurate capture of a concert hall etc.
As far as multichannel recordings, John Eargle is sorely missed
Brad Wood
And the problem of counterfeiting now rampant is to be factored in.
When I started drinking wine I was able to purchase remarkable and rare things, at that time costing me between 12 and 30 dollars a bottle. Although adjusted for inflation that's still a lot, it was at the dawn of everyone and their cousin discovering wine, and prices started to rise rapidly. In recent times the same wine at 30 became, in some instances, thousands of dollars, and the incentive for crooks irresistible. I have the confidence that what I drank was genuine, simply because it was not worth the effort to counterfeit.
Brad
I have no idea. They were big like doors. I was not into high end audio then, but the effect of disappearance of reverberation of that small room was well audible.
Yow. I should probably try to sell some of my 2SK389V. One guy I knew from the offshoot smaller diy thread was getting them from me and selling them on eBay, but he got greedy and priced things too high.
Most are still in the sealed Toshiba bags of 200.
Dear lord! The 2SJ109BL is even dearer: two offerings on eBay, one "used" for 18.80, another new for nearly $59.
I have 200 of those
I just looked at the labels on the packaging. The duals were bought in June of 2003.
Of course the idea at the time was that I was going to make stuff, a prospect that seems to be receding.
Second that, the young'uns notwithstanding that claim all old burgundy was fake. Deal with it, it's gone, and you have whatever you have now a pale shadow of what was.
Alas, Floyd Toole, I believe, has never had a really great and properly stored and aged burgundy. He is understandably skeptical about my claims, and he is also of the belief that wines in general, and burgundy/pinot noir in particular, just don't age well (we had a 2005 Dieberg Pinot Noir in magnum a while ago, and he was actually concerned that it might not be any good! And he had it stored well; it was excellent). He'd given me a mag as well, which is sleeping peacefully at The Wine Box, and I made the mental note that it would probably continue to improve for another 5-10 years at least, if I can keep my hands off it.
OTOH I had a 2002 Vosne-Romanee Malconsorts recently that Meadows awarded around 90 points, and it was a disappointment. Nothing wrong, but after the buildup I went "What was HE tasting?" It was as you say a pale shadow of great bottles of the past.
The more realistic capture of the sounds and invironment of the recording venue was done with the Ambiphonics mic -- it never caught on because the price was so rediculously high.
Today with DSP et al and cheaper mic capsules and the like, great mic preamps like Scott designed, a reasonable price sound field mic could be made that would get us a lot closer (?) to realistic sound. If the price was right, it would be used a lot more easily. maybe someone here would start a DIY project to make them available.
Thx -- RNMarsh
Today with DSP et al and cheaper mic capsules and the like, great mic preamps like Scott designed, a reasonable price sound field mic could be made that would get us a lot closer (?) to realistic sound. If the price was right, it would be used a lot more easily. maybe someone here would start a DIY project to make them available.
Thx -- RNMarsh
Of course they know what they're doing, which is crafting very high performance individual components, parts of a whole, which then have to come together at some point as an ensemble. And this last step in my experience is where the "problems" start to arise. I have heard immensely ambitious systems sound appallingly bad, and extremely modest, low budget setups that had been fussed over sufficiently which were vastly superior in presenting the music messages.
All my experience has taught me it's all in that last step of combining and fine tuning of the group of components to work as a unified whole, that's the part that's critical. Which includes the interaction of the mains supply and any other sort of electrical activity in the listening environment, wired or wireless. Unless every aspect of electrical behaviour in the area, that can impact, is considered then the chances are that the end quality will be well down on what's possible. And this very importantly also means other types of second order effects: triboelectric, piezoelectric, etc.
Frank
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