Re: Re: Re: quacks
We just past the 32 year mark last week and I know I'm doing good with my silly creations when she sits down and tells me, after listening, not to change a thing (more to the point, don't touch anything, leave it alone for once). Which of course I don't.
This, of course, doesn't mean I'm not a geek... A good woman can be discribed as one who can hear and has no hesitation with telling you your past two months of work sounds like crap. The upside is when she says it sounds good.
Steve Eddy said:
We just past the 32 year mark last week and I know I'm doing good with my silly creations when she sits down and tells me, after listening, not to change a thing (more to the point, don't touch anything, leave it alone for once). Which of course I don't. This, of course, doesn't mean I'm not a geek... A good woman can be discribed as one who can hear and has no hesitation with telling you your past two months of work sounds like crap. The upside is when she says it sounds good.
VivaVee said:
This is a straw man.
The proof being asked for has nothing to do with simple subjective preference.
If all anyone ever did was simply say "This amp/whatever sounds good/better/whatever..." and left it at that, then everything would be groovy. That's because no on is making any objective claims. They're just relating their subjective experience which needn't be proved to anyone.
However when one goes beyond this, and starts making claims of actual audible differences, then we're no longer in the realm of subjectivity but of objectivity.
And when one makes an objective claim, not only is that claim open to question or challenge, but the one making the claim has the burden of proof to substantiate it.
It's really very simple. If one doesn't want their objective claims to be questioned or challenged, and/or they can not or will not substantiate it with something more than ego an vanity, then DON'T MAKE THE CLAIM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
That's not so difficult now, is it?
se
To treat an audio chain as a system cannot be totally wrong. I always found the NAIM solution, to incorporate the inevitable cable as a part of the amp, very clever. If you can get rid of a possible sound deteriorating output coil with a few meters of cable which you will have to use anyway, why not?
As an audio pro I know that cables are important but less so when the equipment is well designed for the purpose and impedancens are matched accordingly. In todays studio practice it is completely common that microphones "incorporate" the phantom power line split resistors (normed to 6k8 with high precision) as a vital part in their circuits.
NAIM use for a very long time a simple 3-core power cable as the connection between the preamp-powersupply and the power-amp as a signal cable. Three strands!! One for each unbalanced channel and one for ground. Period. They also used (professional) DIN plugs and sockets for that reason. And everybody found that old-fashioned. But it was and is a simply better approach - than the completely unnecessary doubling of the ground line with unbalanced lines, making the system much more open to hum loops and other influences.
As an audio pro I know that cables are important but less so when the equipment is well designed for the purpose and impedancens are matched accordingly. In todays studio practice it is completely common that microphones "incorporate" the phantom power line split resistors (normed to 6k8 with high precision) as a vital part in their circuits.
NAIM use for a very long time a simple 3-core power cable as the connection between the preamp-powersupply and the power-amp as a signal cable. Three strands!! One for each unbalanced channel and one for ground. Period. They also used (professional) DIN plugs and sockets for that reason. And everybody found that old-fashioned. But it was and is a simply better approach - than the completely unnecessary doubling of the ground line with unbalanced lines, making the system much more open to hum loops and other influences.
lohk said:
red herring and Argumentum ad Hominem fallacies
If you had read this thread properly then you would have realized that these amps were potentially unreliable and were only reliable when use with their own speaker cables.
Clever marketing Yes but engineering No !!
It was a common or garden variety circuit used by nearly everyone at the time. However clever marketing allowed them to charge a premium for it. Phase corrected drive that still couldn't correct for a poor phase margin !!! In other words meaningless drivel !!!
And you say that other people are biased !! I knew there was an angle to this post !!! First you said that it was a reliable product but now you are stating the external conditions for it to be reliable. It's funny how those "flawed cables" worked quite well with other amplifiers
If the original designs were so good why did they bother to change it ??
Nothing original that couldn't have been knocked up from a Mullard applications book.
Please explain these modifications in detail and why they do what you claim them to do ?? Please do not resort to fallacies in your response !!
That's absurd !! Either they are good or they are not. You can't be half pregnant !!
It is. My advice to DIYer's is to stop wasting time with mediocre amplifier circuit topologies, and either spend more time learning about the fundamentals of circuit theory and/or learn from other respected designs which have been designed by knowledgeable people in their fields.
You're entitled to your subjective opinions. But that is all they are. Please back up your claims with evidence rather than your opinions based on your emotional state of mind.
Again just your opinion rather than a statement of fact.
That's because you have no engineering knowledge so you try to make up for it by dismissing it as having little relevance.
Sounds like you buy on price alone irrespective of the technology employed. Please explain why these Naim amps were superior to their cheaper Japanese ilk ??
That is true
Just have a look inside a Naim amplifier and you can see mediocrity with a high price tag.Nothing more than an opportunist who saw a great opportunity to extract money from the technically ignorant
VivaVee said:The tradeoffs MUST, in the end, be decided by the human earThat is the crux of the issue here. The Naim amplifiers were designed and built to sound a particular way. Production testing involved a listening test on each and every amplifier after a minimum 24 hour burn-in period.
If you believe that all amplifiers sound the same (to misquote Peter Walker) then such a design goal is heresy. And you can get all hot and bothered about people who do listen to amplifiers (as opposed to music! '
And which 'way' is that ?? Is it your way, the next door neighbours way ?? Which 'way' is it ??
Well I'm not interested in your preferences either so don't waste anymore time on this forum and instead talk to your wife about it or maybe your dog might be interested as well
An amplifier is supposed to scale up the signal that is fed to it so that it can drive a suitable loudspeaker load in order to accurately reproduce the musical signal fed to it. It should do nothing more and nothing less !!! To say that an amplifier should purposely introduce extraneous artifacts into the original signal based on your own subjective preferences, should in no way be used to measure the worthiness of a particular piece of amplification equipment as everyones subjective preferences will be somewhat different !!!
OK pal, build an amp with sub-ppm distortion, field it into the markeplace amongst discerning audiophiles, and see how it sells.
Your high 'straight wire with gain' ideals might take quite a beating......
I'm beginning to believe that you know it all. You are clearly terribly clever. Do you really think you are smarter and better educated than most here? You say things behind the keyboard you would never say to people's faces.
I don't believe your approach is necessarily admired amongst moderate, conservative engineers at all. If it were, everyone would be buying Halcros, which measure damn well. Examine NP's posts; he is not so hung up on low distortion figures. Care to disagree with him?
Hugh
AKSA said:
Not everyone uses your amplifiers either so what's going on here particularly when you claim they sound soooooo ggoooood ??. Surely if they sound soooooo ggoooood then everyone should agree with you and everyone should be using them ?? What's going on here. How can this be so ?? Hmmmm maybe the subjective evaluation process is not that a reliable indicator of the worthiness of a piece of audio equipment
And don't look at me when you talk about people who know everything. I never said I did. I just don't like people who make ridiculous claims and are not willing to back it up with evidence. Instead they resort to fallacious arguments and reasoning that only paranormal science can explain.
There is another one here that regularly posts that won't let you forget that he claims to know everything and you'd better watch out if you disagree with him as he doesn't take prisoners.
Snoopy, I am one of the few people who has contributed any factual material to this thread. I both knew Julian Vereker, heard his amps in his own system, and am experienced enough to see fine points in a schematic, such as appreciating higher F(t) power transistors, in fact were 5 times higher than the ones that I was using at the time. You just don't see the 'trees' for the forest, as I said before.
john curl said:
And I told you that Luxman and many other Japanese manufacturers were using high fT power devices years before Naim did and all of the "audio gurus" like to slag off Japanese equipment for no valid reason at all except that they had a much lower price tag and hence were a lot better value for money.
And for the 100th time can you please explain these finer points in the following format :-
1. Point Number 1.....
2. Point Number 2.....
....
N. Point Number N......
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