John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

[Johnloudb]

Or what else do you think that explains this diversity of 'great products?

Most of us, including myself, can't evaluate every product or technology in my own home to compare. Many factors are involved in choosing a product including price. Sound quality isn't always at the top of the list.

Does the fact Lady Gaga, Brittany Spears, Jonas Bro's, Rihanna, etc ... sell more records mean that they make better music? Or even good music? Who's to judge?

Trash culture, I say!

IMO, those of us that can hear and appreciate the difference want more better.

I agree that you can get really good sound from many different types of technology. The best amp I've heard driving our old Thiel loudspeakers was our '70s Dunlap - Clarke, Dreadnaught 500. It had a damping factor of 1000, don't know the circuit topology. We had tried out Mark Levison and Audio Research amps with these speakers too ... no dice.

Maybe we are going in circles Jan.

 

[Soundminded]

Um, you really need to read the whole patent in order to understand where this "external" energy is supposedly coming from:

An investigation of particle physics is required to see what furnishes the energy to the external circuit. Since neither a battery nor a generator furnishes energy to the external circuit, but only furnishes energy to form the source dipole, a better understanding of the electric power principle is required to fully understand how this new motor functions. A typical battery uses its stored chemical energy to form the source dipole. A generator utilizes its input shaft energy to rotate, forming an internal magnetic field in which the positive charges are forced to move in one direction and the negative charges in the reverse direction, thereby forming the source dipole. In other words, the energy input into the generator does nothing except form the source dipole. None of the input energy goes to the external circuit. If increased current is drawn into the external load, there also is increased spent electron flow being rammed back through the source dipole, destroying it faster. Therefore, dipole-restoring-energy has to be inputed faster. The chemical energy of the battery also is expended only to separate its internal charges and form its source dipole. Again, if increased current and power is drawn into the external load, there is increased spent electron flow being rammed back through the source dipole, destroying it faster. This results in a depletion of the battery's stored energy faster, by forcing it to have to keep restoring the dipole faster.

Once the generator or battery source dipole is formed (the dipole is attached also to the external circuit), it is well known in particle physics that the dipole (as is any charge) is a broken symmetry in the vacuum energy flux. By definition, this means that the source dipole extracts and orders part of that energy received from its vacuum interaction, and pours that energy out as the energy flowing through all space surrounding the external conductors in the attached circuit. Most of this enormous energy flow surging through space surrounding the external circuit does not strike the circuit at all, and does not get intercepted or utilized. Neither is it diverged into the circuit to power the electrons, but passes on out into space and is just "wasted". Only a small "sheath" of the energy flow along the surface of the conductors strikes the surface charges in those conductors and is thereby diverged into the circuit to power the electrons. Standard texts show the huge available but wasted energy flow component, but only calculate the small portion of the energy flow that strikes the circuit, is caught by it, and is utilized to power it.

In a typical circuit, the huge available but "wasted" component of the energy flow is about 10.sup.13 times as large as is the small component intercepted by the surface charges and diverged into the circuit to power it. Hence, around every circuit and circuit element such as a coil, there exists a huge non-intercepted, non-diverged energy flow that is far greater than the small energy flow being diverted and used by the circuit or element.

Thus there exists an enormous untapped energy flow immediately surrounding every EMF power circuit, from which available excess energy can be intercepted and collected by the circuit, if respective non-linear actions are initiated that sharply affect and increase the reaction cross section of the circuit (i.e., its ability to intercept this available but usually wasted energy flow).

The method in which the motor of the present invention alters the reaction cross section of the coils in the circuit, is by a novel use, which momentarily changes the reaction cross section of the coil in which it is invoked. Thus, by this new motor using only a small amount of current in the form of a triggering pulse, it is able to evoke and control the immediate change of the coil's reaction cross section to this normally wasted energy flow component. As a result, the motor captures and directs some of this usually wasted environmental energy, collecting the available excess energy in the coil and then releasing it for use in the motor. By timing and switching, the innovative gate design in this new motor directs the available excess energy so that it overcomes and reverses the return EMF of the rotor-stator pole combination during what would normally be the back EMF and demonstrates the creation of the second back EMF of the system. Now instead of an "equal retardation" force being produced in the back EMF region, a forward EMF is produced that is additive to the rotor/flywheel energy and not subtractive. In short, it further accelerates the rotor/flywheel.

This results in a non-conservative magnetic field along the rotor's path. The line integral of the field around that path (i.e., the net work on the rotor/flywheel to increase its energy and angular momentum) is not zero but a significant amount. Hence, the creation of an asymmetrical back EMF impulse magnetic motor: 1) takes its available excess energy from a known external source, the huge usually non-intercepted portion of the energy flow around the coil; 2) further increases the source dipolarity by this back EMF energy; and 3) produces available excess energy flow directly from the source dipole's increased broken symmetry in its fierce energy exchange with the local vacuum.

No laws of physics or thermodynamics are violated in the method and device of the present invention, and conservation of energy rigorously applies at all times. Nonetheless, by operating as an open dissipative system not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the active vacuum, the system can permissibly receive available excess energy from a known environmental source and output more energy to a load than must be input by the operator alone.

se

I don't necessarily agree with Bedini's numbers. However, the underlying principle seems sound. A mechanical analog is a chiller plant with free cooling (plate and frame heat exchanger) and heat recovery. Under optimal conditions, the system can provide more cooling and recover sufficient heat to be more efficient than a conventional heating and cooling plant of identical capacity no matter what its efficiency including that of a Carnot cycle. This is because in an open thermodynamic system, energy can be drawn from the environment where it is available and put to useful work. This energy would ultimately be dissipated as heat were it not captured and utilized in the engineered system. Other examples are wind farms and solar cells which harvest environmental energy and can actually make a KWH meter turn backwards because after meeting its load demands it delivers energy to the grid rather than net consuming it. The energy comes from somewhere but not necessarily from the expected usual source. This makes the system appear to be more than 100% efficient by conventional reckoning, more power out than in (because it does not take into account the external source not part of the closed system) but it is in fact entirely consistent with the second law of thermodynamics and does not constitute a perpetual motion machine, the original claim you made. I'm not wasting my time examining Bedini's other theories nor his other patents. Not only don't they interest me, the validity of one has nothing to do with the other and I will not play the game of dismissing one idea because another by the same individual is flawed. Most people who are famous for remarkable insight had other theories that turned out to be preposterous. That includes Einstein.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Steve, Steve, Steve,

Actually doing an experiment violates the most important rule of this thread, basing a statement on an easily repeatable and provable demonstration.

Oh, ****! What was I thinking? I guess I just got so carried away I forgot to consider what thread I was posting in.

I'll not let it happen again.

However I don't think any serious action will have to be taken as I can offer a counter example of spinning a disc does actually cause a re-arrangement of the data!

Many years back I did a museum exhibit where the video display was sourced by a laser video disc. The exhibit would be started each morning and run about 16 hours every day seven days a week. After about five months the discs would shatter! Most likely due to built up stresses from the unequal energy distribution from the inside to the outside during spinning!

So it is possible to spin a disc and get data redistribution!

HA!

I remember the dreaded "laser rot" back in the day. But don't recall ever hearing about discs shattering.

Bizarre.

Speaking of shattering, did you ever catch the Myth Busters episode where they were investigating the shattering of discs in high speed CD-ROM drives?

se

 

[Soundminded]

The only question I have in mind is what audiophiles will say about the sound quality of your system. Since you wrote here some time ago that you purchase electronics for your sound system based only on how it measure, I really wonder. When you care only about how your amplifiers measure, not about how they sound, it may indicate about your entire system.

So, you may see flaws in some existing concept, but I have no clue what you hear, what your listening is tuned to.

A group of half a dozen audiophiles descended upon me four years ago. Their impressions were what I expected. Audiophiles seem particularly easy to impress favorably which is why accolades from them are often of no value to me. They hear what they want to hear. Their opinions are not definitive for me because my goals transcend what is "liked." Yes they liked it very much and heard its uniqueness immediately. The current prototype is capable of a very wide range of adjustments including those which would make it unbearable to listen to. Control of the system is not only critical it is very difficult. They understood that this was an experimental device which they could not buy or build and operate at this time. It isn't clear if this technology will ever be advanced to the point where that is possible. The prototype was carefully adjusted for the recordings they heard so that they experienced it under its most favorable conditions. Since that time, it has evolved though multiple changes. It isn't clear how much further this version can go but it has gone far enough to demonstrate what it is about.

My listening is tuned to live unamplified music. I've made it clear that I've had the relatively rare privilege to have heard many of the world's greatest musicians performing in many concerts as well as countless lesser individual artists, groups, of all types at many venues and many kinds of venues. These also include in private homes. There will be a group of string players in my house today. They are students whose playing ranges from poor to sometimes surprisingly good. However, I will have yet one more occasion to hear live unamplified music, one more reference point to reinforce my memory of what live music sounds like. I can hear it every day of my life if I desire, there is a constant parade of students in this house. I know what musical instruments sound like, I've heard it all of my life constantly. I've also heard recordings all of my life. The best the current technology can offer is second best, an inferior facsimile that has little of the beauty of sound that often characterizes real music. The mathematical models of sound fields I've devised and the theories about hearing explains why. The technology I've engineered to reconstruct those fields is my attempt to bridge that gap.

 

[jan.didden]

Is this limited to sound quality or quality in general? So if there is a lesson here are you going to apply it to your publishing venture?[snip]ES

I dunno. Do BMW sell more cars as a result of the (less than complete nude) models at their auto shows? I guess so.

[snip]Is the final audio reproduction science or art? Again I raise the question Picasso or Rembrandt? Can they both be artists?
[snip]Jewelers still abound, but Faberge Imperial eggs are still unmatched.
[snip]ES

I think that's a different case. There is no 'correct' or 'incorrect' art or jewellery; it's a matter of taste. In audio, we genearlly strive to be 'correct' in the sense that we want to be as realistically (referred to live sound) as possible.

[snip]Personally even if it is a grail quest, there is a lot of fun to be had traveling the path.
ES

Yes that's my motivator too. I like to design or build amplifiers and to listen to them, but I do not have the illussion that I will provide the breakthrough to get to realistic sound reproduction all of a sudden. No amplifier will, because as Soundminded convincingly argued, the problem is not in the amp. The best amps we have are as transparent as we can discern by listening. The fact that lots of people still buy and enjoy amps that definitely are NOT as transparent as we can discern by listening clinches the case.

jan didden

 

[Jakob2]

SY,

this is the reference for the article:

Loescher, Hirsch, Long-Term Durability of Pickup Diamonds and Records, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol 22, issue 10, pp 800

Beside several pictures of the stylii after wet and dry playing, there are two microscope pictures of the two discs used for replay.

I have to check it again, but it thought it was possible to remove the higher noise level with additional cleaning efforts.

 

[SY]

I have to check it again, but it thought it was possible to remove the higher noise level with additional cleaning efforts.

Sadly, this has not been the case.

Thanks for the cite!

edit: I got a copy of the paper- it's by Lenco. I am... skeptical, to say the least.

 

[jan.didden]

To me it means that there are various types of customers. There are those we could say belong to the mass, and there are audiophiles. Even among audiophiles, there is a wide range of different tastes and preferences.

There may be no breakthrough in amplifiers technology, yet there is an enormous range of sound quality between different amplifiers, even between amplifiers sharing the same basic topology.

So, may be it's sound quality we should seek, not any technological novelty.

But that's my whole point, Joshua! One man's great, emotionally involving amp is another man's heavily coloration amp. One man's thrillingly transparent amp is another man's hard and shrill amp. So, in a sense, WHATEVER you build, there's a market for it! The ONLY problem is how to get to that market.

jan didden

 

[Joshua_G]

A group of half a dozen audiophiles descended upon me four years ago. Their impressions were what I expected. Audiophiles seem particularly easy to impress favorably which is why accolades from them are often of no value to me. They hear what they want to hear. Their opinions are not definitive for me because my goals transcend what is "liked."

I'm an audiophile and you definitely got it all wrong concerning audiophiles. Your system apparently isn't aimed at audiophiles, therefore of no interest to me. What I look for in sound system is sound quality, not implementation of any theory.

 

[Joshua_G]

But that's my whole point, Joshua! One man's great, emotionally involving amp is another man's heavily coloration amp. One man's thrillingly transparent amp is another man's hard and shrill amp.

Definitely.

So, in a sense, WHATEVER you build, there's a market for it! The ONLY problem is how to get to that market.

Well, I'm fully retired and even before retirement I was neither manufacturing nor marketing anything, not for myself, I was on a payroll.

However you are absolutely correct if you mean that a product being sold is no evidence for any quality it may have, or may lack.

 

[simon7000]

I think that's a different case. There is no 'correct' or 'incorrect' art or jewellery; it's a matter of taste. In audio, we genearlly strive to be 'correct' in the sense that we want to be as realistically (referred to live sound) as possible.
jan didden

Actually I don't think we all do. Most folks prefer the sound when there is a bump in the bass around 125-150hz, add a little mid boost around 3k and crank it at 12k. Most of the folks I run into have heard way more electric guitar than violins. Electric pianos are know keyboards, no pretense about accuracy, more sounds available. Does the composer using those instruments hear in their head the details we focus on?

We certainly lose much information in the recording process, so we can follow Picasso's lead and convey the emotion of the music by applying distortion or coloration. That is a personal choice, as is the music one prefers, so no wonder there as so many variations.

Today we actually have the technology to look at a piece of recorded music, get a mathematical estimate of the reverberation in the recording space. From this the complex conjugate of the recording path can be created. This then allows the production of a music file that would be very close to an anechoic recording. At the same time an estimate of the acoustics of the performance space can be produced. Using this data a phased array or distribution of loudspeakers can be used to recreate the venue and play the semi-anechoic file with not just frequency and linearity fidelity but also a good reproduction of the actual performance space. This is actually being worked on by the car audio folks. That is because most people listen to music in their cars!

If you want to see an example of much of this technology in use, watch any recent NASA launch. You will see at the site a few clouds and a nice shot of the craft. The you can watch it take off, go down range and even watch the first and sometimes second stage separation. You are seeing an image hundreds of miles away through some clouds! That is because the image is processed through a gizmo that creates the complex conjugated of the optical path!

I don't know if you have noticed but many of the televisions that include loudspeakers no longer aim them forward. Many aim them off the back or sides to allow for greater picture size. This reduces the direct sound field and increases reverberation.

Oh by the way I was close to completely shocked that using the unit of sabins was unknown to most here. How much credibility would you give to a circuit designer who did not know what an ohm was?

 

[jan.didden]

I'm an audiophile and you definitely got it all wrong concerning audiophiles. Your system apparently isn't aimed at audiophiles, therefore of no interest to me. What I look for in sound system is sound quality, not implementation of any theory.

Ha! How about 'stereo'? A theory, that is implemented to provide the greatest hoax ever! Hint: there is no singer between the speakers!

jan didden

 

[SY]

Oh by the way I was close to completely shocked that using the unit of sabins was unknown to most here. How much credibility would you give to a circuit designer who did not know what an ohm was?

Eyring rules.

 

[jan.didden]

[bandwidt saving snip]gizmo

Agree to most of that.

[snip]Oh by the way I was close to completely shocked that using the unit of sabins was unknown to most here. How much credibility would you give to a circuit designer who did not know what an ohm was?

jan didden

 

[Soundminded]

I'm an audiophile and you definitely got it all wrong concerning audiophiles. Your system apparently isn't aimed at audiophiles, therefore of no interest to me. What I look for in sound system is sound quality, not implementation of any theory.

Since you have never heard it, you have no way to know. It is not a tweak. It is not some small incremental change that only appeals to golden eared audiophiles. It is designed to bridge an enormous gap that exists between the sound of actual music and the sound of recordings. It is aimed at anyone who can hear in both ears with normal hearing and enjoys music. That is why the informed "audiophile opinion" was less important to me than the uninformed opinion. If it was only a tweak, I wouldn't have wasted my time and effort, I'd have left it to those who are inveterate tweakers.

 

[Joshua_G]

Ha! How about 'stereo'? A theory, that is implemented to provide the greatest hoax ever! Hint: there is no singer between the speakers!

jan didden

Even in mono setup there is no singer behind the speaker …
Sound systems aim at reproducing sounds, not reproducing orchestras and singers …
Berlin Philharmonics cannot be put in my living room, yet, the sound of their music is reproduced there.

 

[Joshua_G]

Since you have never heard it, you have no way to know. It is not a tweak. It is not some small incremental change that only appeals to golden eared audiophiles. It is designed to bridge an enormous gap that exists between the sound of actual music and the sound of recordings. It is aimed at anyone who can hear in both ears with normal hearing and enjoys music. That is why the informed "audiophile opinion" was less important to me than the uninformed opinion. If it was only a tweak, I wouldn't have wasted my time and effort, I'd have left it to those who are inveterate tweakers.

Your speakers may be ingenious, and they may be not, I don't know because I haven't heard it. However I'm highly suspicious of any sound system that its' amplification was chosen by its' published measurements only, without any regard to its' sound quality, apart from measurements. Also, since your speakers system, as far as I got from you wrote, isn't commercial and it cannot be commercial, that is, it will be impossible for me to purchase one, even if I'd like it, I have no interest in it. I have no interest in hypothetical solutions, I have interest in practical solutions that I can afford that can improve the sound quality of my system.

 

[Soundminded]

Your speakers may be ingenious, and they may be not, I don't know because I haven't heard it. However I'm highly suspicious of any sound system that its' amplification was chosen by its' published measurements only, without any regard to its' sound quality, apart from measurements. Also, since your speakers system, as far as I got from you wrote, isn't commercial and it cannot be commercial, that is, it will be impossible for me to purchase one, even if I'd like it, I have no interest in it. I have no interest in hypothetical solutions, I have interest in practical solutions that I can afford that can improve the sound quality of my system.

This is not about speakers. It is about an entire sound reproducing system. Speakers are only one element to achieve a specific goal which can be defined and measured. This invention does not yet exist in a form where it can be commercially exploited. There is no certainty that it ever will. It will require a substantial R&D effort to bring it to that point if it is even possible. BTW, it will not be user installable and it will not perform its desired function using existing recordings. They'd have to be reissued in a modified format.

 

[Joshua_G]

This is not about speakers. It is about an entire sound reproducing system. Speakers are only one element to achieve a specific goal which can be defined and measured. This invention does not yet exist in a form where it can be commercially exploited. There is no certainty that it ever will. It will require a substantial R&D effort to bring it to that point if it is even possible. BTW, it will not be user installable and it will not perform its desired function using existing recordings. They'd have to be reissued in a modified format.

Which is why I said I'm not interested: it's an hypothetical future benefit.

On top of that, the music industry struggling these days for its' survival as it is, I fail to see it rerecording and/or remastering everything by a completely new way, before there is big enough market for that new way; and I fail to see many people purchasing this new system when there aren't enough recordings it can play.

More than that, as ingenious as this system may (or may not) be, when care isn't exercised when choosing the electronics for it (the way electronics sound, beyond how it measures), I cannot envision it being successful, even if all other obstacles will be overcome. Some good things have been done to electronics used in present sound reproduction systems, with all their inherent limitations. It seems to me that ignoring those things will not serve propagating any new method for sound reproduction. Yes, present sound reproduction systems have inherent limitations. Yes, there may be a theoretical or hypothetical way of doing it better. Only, I don't see how throwing the baby with the bathtub water is going to serve it.

 

[scott wurcer]

BTW, it will not be user installable and it will not perform its desired function using existing recordings. They'd have to be reissued in a modified format.

Since my favorite conductors/interpreters of the classical repertoir are dead, I'm out of luck in any case. Though I am curious about the reissue possibility, if the only archive is a stereo tape why can't DSP make the "desired" format from a CD or LP?