Thanks, morinix, your story got me rolling on the floor.
Several years back I remotely helped someone to tune-up his HP-100 with better capacitors. Once that tantalum at the output was replaced by some film cap, the person reported that the "Hovland sound" was gone and it sounded just like any other plain vanilla preamp. Needless to say, the amp was quickly sold.
I guess they used tantalum in that location as some sort of a "harmonic synthesizer" - just look at the distortion spectrum in tantalum measurement taken by C.Bateman (below).
In the process I also reverse engineered most of the amp by looking at pictures the owner have sent me. Here's the sketch of a line stage, for those who are interested
P.S. When I saw the PCBs and all the various sorts of resistors used, my first thought was - "they must be shopping cheaply at some surplus store".
Was the tantalum cap a wet slug tantalum, or a tantalum bead?
NAIM Audio still stuff their circuits full of tantalum beads, that seems to be the source of the "rhythm and pace" that English audiophiles enjoy. If you replace the little distortion-generators, they complain that it loses its "tunefulness".
No. There's a lot more to audio marketing than what we can measure on the test bench.
jan
Second harmonic distortion is the same note as the fundamental, but one octave higher, so it's always an enhancement. It sounds really good. One of the ways to produce this is with an asymetric distortion mechanism, such as a minimalist tube circuit or a non-biased polarized electrolytic in the signal path. The tradeoff is Intermodulation Distortion, which is rarely desirable. In a guitar amp where you want distortion it can be argued that this is desirable. In a hi-fi amp where there will be many sounds mixing (heterodyning), there is a very fine line between enough and way too much. I've done the research. 1dB of symetry offset should be the max limit in hi-fi land. I would never choose to generate 2nd with an electrolytic... Pfffff!!! (Behringer has a non-biased polarized electrolytic in the input signal path of some of their DSP units, which is why I redesigned and rebuilt all their analog circuitry in my DEQ2496 - see my website).
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I actually have the exact tant. capacitor that Hovland used, I just have to dig it out of my stuff.
Don't get the Voodoo mixed up with hovland marketing. As far as I know the guys at Hovland never let the public know about the dowsing. They kept it under wraps like a drug habbit while I was there.
No divining rods were ever used. If the rods were used in front of me do you think I would have left that out of my story? - No way! THAT would have made a great paragraph!
I have more to post and will do that later.
Don't get the Voodoo mixed up with hovland marketing. As far as I know the guys at Hovland never let the public know about the dowsing. They kept it under wraps like a drug habbit while I was there.
No divining rods were ever used. If the rods were used in front of me do you think I would have left that out of my story? - No way! THAT would have made a great paragraph!
I have more to post and will do that later.
I remember Hovland reduing a friends Marantz 8b before he became a company. That was around 1985? Could be off a few years.. It sounded excellent and everything was gutted and redone just as well if not better than the original.
I think he was working out of his garage down in Santa Monica at the time?
Havens & Hardesty ( retail hiend store ) used to recommend him for mods on all things tube.
Sad that excellent products need such attention waved over them like that though.
I think he was working out of his garage down in Santa Monica at the time?
Havens & Hardesty ( retail hiend store ) used to recommend him for mods on all things tube.
Sad that excellent products need such attention waved over them like that though.
You would have fit right in with another amplifier company, where I understand the big guy does all of the design --- by taping up PCB artwork! Then the stuff is thrown over the wall to people who extract the schematic and figure out how to test the product. One of those people contacted me to find out if I could consult there, the principal "decoder" having been on a long leave of absence due to health concerns, but having sent a resume I never heard from the owner. Evidently the person I know is still there.
I find that a lot of aficionados of second listen to rather sparse textures as their music of choice. One famous speaker designer has a system of which he's very proud, and I finally said enough of the right things, and had an occasion that provided an excuse, to be allowed to audition his stuff.
And it sounded fine, with unlimited SPL (horns and tube amps, big old Levinson amps driving multiple woofers). A whole wall of CDs. So I looked for something familiar, having not thought to bring any source material myself. Surely I'd find something.
Almost nothing was familiar, all was female vocals. I finally dug up a pops orchestral sampler so I heard some symphonic material, and then as well Bela Fleck's Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, which I wanted to hear for how the system handled the lowest frequency material on the title track.
The system sounded fine, if just the tiniest bit abrasive in the lower treble to my ears (was it second?). But I'd conjecture that the individual probably is somewhat dismissive about 2nd, as are some other audiophile friends.
They are also subject to ESD damage, and over voltage spikes. Either can set them up for failures later on.
And to add to the excitement, some parts are labelled with a stripe on the positive terminal, in contrast to standard Al electrolytics with the stripe on the negative!
Hey, Aphex made a very nice business selling second harmonic distortion enhancers for vocal sweetening.
Whether post-processing was the Right Thing to do instead of correcting studio practices deadening the sound to the point where it needed it, well, that's another discussion.
When you have only one signal (vocal for ex.), that's the one situation where it could be argued that generation of even order distortion (especially 2nd harmonic), with it's inevitable accompanying I.M. distortion may be desirable. A tiny amount (1dB) of asymmetry will give you the even harmonics, but I.M. will go up fast if you add too much. With multiple signals, the I.M. will get ugly very fast. Choral music and piano are perhaps the best test for when I.M. is too high. You'll hear the difference beat frequency that gets generated (usually a few HZ, almost like a tremolo effect).
Aphex highpasssed the signal before the distortion unit, then highpassed the result before mixing it back into the full bandwidth original. The effect was mostly used on voices, as I recall, so IM audibility was kept fairly low by this technique.
A bit more.
I was the first tech Hovland hired to ease the load on Bob. Not one failed unit ever came in while I was there so every tech function was dedicated to new unit QC. Bob was finishing the design on a solid state amplifier called Radia and he was doing the QC on the Sapphire power amp. Also they had a plan to let Bob retire. I think he did about a year after I was there.
Hovland's assembly operation was all hand done. If you Google map the company address and scroll over to the side of the building now you will see two painted over windows at sidewalk level. When Hovland was there you could see through those windows. If you happened by you would see the assemblers all toiling away with magnifying visors on. Most would think that jewelery or watch repair was going on, but no. This was about half a dozen Hispanic gents building amplifiers the Hovland way. Of course this all done under the watchful eye of the Lead Assembler Lady and Mike.
There was no formal inventory control going on here; Just the Lead Assembler Lady checking plastic bins of parts. "Oops! this bin is getting low. Hey Mike order more of these!" Mike would respond "Ok, I will add those in the next order". They watched the parts and what the assemblers were doing with them like hawks.
One part they had constant trouble with was the stacked switch deck that made the volume control. The Lead Assembler Lady was very proud of herself as she whipped out dental tools to pull and prod the little contact points and springs on the deck.
The polished front panel was another source of pride for them. Their cost on that was $200.
Bob Hovland has a heart of gold. The nicest guy you will ever meet. Very unassuming and has a gentlemanly charm reminiscent of Edwardian times. He is a true product of the golden age of stereo. He is all analog and a very old school designer.
Mike Garges is a very opinionated, fastidious and egocentric fellow. Once I said "S#!t happens" he retorts "No, no! Excrement occurs" in a sarcastic, pragmatic tone. I think he attached himself to Bob during the time the MusiCap was being developed. Seems like he took more than his fair share of pride in his ability to to do tidy wire bunching and the like. Once he deduced his dowsing skills he self anointed a deity status that the others around him acquiesced to. He was really into indie music and once called the Loyola Marymount radio station KXLU and lambasted them for watering down their format. I can't help but wonder what became of him after the shuttering of Hovland.
I was the first tech Hovland hired to ease the load on Bob. Not one failed unit ever came in while I was there so every tech function was dedicated to new unit QC. Bob was finishing the design on a solid state amplifier called Radia and he was doing the QC on the Sapphire power amp. Also they had a plan to let Bob retire. I think he did about a year after I was there.
Hovland's assembly operation was all hand done. If you Google map the company address and scroll over to the side of the building now you will see two painted over windows at sidewalk level. When Hovland was there you could see through those windows. If you happened by you would see the assemblers all toiling away with magnifying visors on. Most would think that jewelery or watch repair was going on, but no. This was about half a dozen Hispanic gents building amplifiers the Hovland way. Of course this all done under the watchful eye of the Lead Assembler Lady and Mike.
There was no formal inventory control going on here; Just the Lead Assembler Lady checking plastic bins of parts. "Oops! this bin is getting low. Hey Mike order more of these!" Mike would respond "Ok, I will add those in the next order". They watched the parts and what the assemblers were doing with them like hawks.
One part they had constant trouble with was the stacked switch deck that made the volume control. The Lead Assembler Lady was very proud of herself as she whipped out dental tools to pull and prod the little contact points and springs on the deck.
The polished front panel was another source of pride for them. Their cost on that was $200.
Bob Hovland has a heart of gold. The nicest guy you will ever meet. Very unassuming and has a gentlemanly charm reminiscent of Edwardian times. He is a true product of the golden age of stereo. He is all analog and a very old school designer.
Mike Garges is a very opinionated, fastidious and egocentric fellow. Once I said "S#!t happens" he retorts "No, no! Excrement occurs" in a sarcastic, pragmatic tone. I think he attached himself to Bob during the time the MusiCap was being developed. Seems like he took more than his fair share of pride in his ability to to do tidy wire bunching and the like. Once he deduced his dowsing skills he self anointed a deity status that the others around him acquiesced to. He was really into indie music and once called the Loyola Marymount radio station KXLU and lambasted them for watering down their format. I can't help but wonder what became of him after the shuttering of Hovland.
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