Nothing personal, but
putting "an improver", which can increase the amp's bass output regardless of double regulated power supply IS ENIGMATIC for sure.
Claim is given by dealer, who is most likely really good not in engineering but sales.
P.S. I've done multi kilowatt SMPS amplifier with sub-millivolt input(power) and output noise & ripples. Quite a while ago, when mosfets were still in cradle.
Filters had proper dumping and shielding. It's designed to work with the load of a particular impedance. Medical equipment.
I support TL claims: it's doable if specifically designed for a task altogether with or for a particular amp, EM environment, mains quality etc.
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I have some serious Tripath stories. But I don't know who may be viewing them.
One not too dangerous: I was, one January, in the CES Harman Multimedia hotel room, over in a corner, doing some actual and urgent design work. The folks from Tripath came in, a flotilla of six-figure salaries all, in preparation for a visit from a major computer company.
As they came in I hailed them: "Ahh! The Tripathians Cometh!"
I didn't join in for the actual meeting. But afterwards the then-head of HMM called me into a room (having noted my flippant attitude) and said, "Brad. If a customer of ours says they like X, we have to agree that X is the most wonderful thing in the world."
I said, But Jim. What if X fails?
Jim: "What?
Do you think they will fail??"I said Yes. I believe it is just a matter of time.
To their credit (or debit?) they took a whole lot longer to collapse than I had anticipated.
Brad
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I met Dr. Tripathi (sp?) once, perhaps 15 years ago. He was not impressed with me, and he obviously did not know my background in audio design. He was the one who nixed my consultancy. Oh well, the only thing that I regretted is that I fixed their primary problem at the time, by telling them to use Al Oxide T0-220 isolators, rather than mica. Next time I saw a Tripath amp, there they were (the Al Oxide isolators). I knew it would fix their problem. Jack Bybee, who had gotten me the introduction, chastised me for giving them a 'freebee' but it was so easy and obvious that I could not resist. Thought it might impress them as well. Well, they took it and ran with it. '-)
I got to show the measurements I made of their amp a few years later. At least they were honest enough to admit that they were correct.
I got to show the measurements I made of their amp a few years later. At least they were honest enough to admit that they were correct.
Ham! Not even a Bully beef sandwich John ! ...
cheap bastards ...Hirata? .....
...
Hirata? .....
http://www.linearaudio.nl/linearaudio.nl/Miscellaneous/Hirata test engineering report 1981.pdf
a pulse test waveform without any bandwidth limiting - even Otala and Curl came to the necessity of low pass filtering their sine + square at least at 100 kHz, with 30 kHz filter an option for those recognizing actual recording studio microphone frequency limits, wanting to test amplifier performance with Audio signals
DVV,
What impedance were the Krell's being operate at, on High sensitivity 8 ohm load speakers it will not matter much, drive big ESl's or magnostats and you will hear a difference by going to the wall. Again i have not heard your setup , so I'm not doubting you, maybe one day i will give one a twrill again ....
Sometimes things are different in revision ....
I don't rightly know, it was a Meadowlark floorstanding speaker, I believe it was either their top model, or near their top of the line. It's the only time in my life I saw a Meadowlark loudspeaker.
Not that it matters. I'm sorry Wayne, but at the rates Krell charges, I don't want to even think about loudspeaker interface. I stop wondering about that with much cheaper Harman/Kardons.
Besides, I have had their FPB 300 model fill up my own AR94s like they weren't even there. Drive capability is the one thing they definitely do not lack, not with 112 transistors in the voltage gain stages, 2+2 TO-3 MJ3281 and MJ1903 devices as drivers and 5+5 TO-3 MJ3281/MJ1903 devices for output stage and just as many for voltage gain stage output section - in all cases, per channel.
BTW, MJ3281 and its PNP complement are custom TO-3 packagings of Motorola/ON Semi's MJL3281/MJL1903.
Thus far, I have heard three aplications of Tripath, and I don't want to own any of them.
It is somehow ASSUMED that tube amps are the pinnacle; personally, I have never heard a tube amp, even counting the astronomically priced units, which did anything for me. To me, they are too soft, too rounded-up and almost always lack any true drive capability.
I'm not much of a MOSFET fan, either. They work, that's the best I can say for them, although there was one I would love to own, an old New Zealand Perraux model from the early 80-ies, rated at 100 wpc and using the old Hitachi devices - that one is a peach, and if you own one, you'd be wise not to even show it to me.
All in all, I find that classic bipolar output devices still have the best overall balance of sonic properties; I note this only to demonstrate why I wasn't let down by Tripath because it didn't sound like a tube amp. I was quite simply generally let down by it - great bass, solid midrange and treble leaving much to be desired.
Just my 2 cents' worth.
Hi,
Makes two of us. But them, I also continue to be baffled by people who proclaim the sonic advantages of Delta Sigma DAC's over Multibit...
I guess as we say in Germany: "Wes brot ich ess des lied ich sing!" (whose bread I eat that's whose song I sing...).
Ciao T
Makes two of us. But them, I also continue to be baffled by people who proclaim the sonic advantages of Delta Sigma DAC's over Multibit...
I guess as we say in Germany: "Wes brot ich ess des lied ich sing!" (whose bread I eat that's whose song I sing...).
Ciao T
From the article:
This simply means the author does not like equipment that is designed to be a wire with gain. And that is a matter of taste it´s useless to argue about those things.
But does that mean that the perceived sound quality of designs that go the other road (adding nice sounding distortions) can not be measured with the equipment used today? I think not. The resolution of measuring equipment is several factors higher than humans. (And that´s a good thing, we would go insane if we could hear every sound out there)
What you have to do it determine what kind of distortions you like and what kind of distortions you don´t like. This is an eazy measurement and then design accordingly.
So yes, no matter in what camp you are, you can use measurements to design equipment that you like.
Alex, no filter ever made by anybody, at any price, can IMPROVE the sound of any device. The ultimate sound you hear always has to be made by that device only.
The filter's mission is MUCH more modest - it's job is to free that device from external problems imposed on it by a filthy power grid and let it do what it was supposed to do as best it can.
I agree it is not everything to everyone - I DID mention SEVERAL times, quite clearly, that some equipemnt will come alive with it, while other equipment will suffer losses. I even mentioned some names.
If designers incorporated mains filtering in their designs, which is a little more serious that that filtered three prong IEC power connector, there would be no need for my external filters. They don't and they won't because of one, and one item only - the price. When you start fooling around with 115/230 VAC power, and at a considerable Ampere value, that has to cost money.
If you doubt what I say, pray take a look at what is being offered by devices in the commercial arena - some of those power supplies are downright ludicurous. Most are just inadequate. You have to move up to the Mid Fi/High End borderline region to start seeing some really serious attempts.
As for shielding, feel free to put any one of my filters on top of your say FM tuner, with its top removed and the filter sitting directly above the tuner front end. If there is any interferenece AT ALL, I'll refund your filter price twice over. With the DX switch (if installed) "on", so as to maximize the tuner's sensitivity. Great care is taken to make its casing as good a Faraday cage as possible. Inductors are ABS plastic encased, PCBs are dual side, the upper side carrying mostly the ground as per accepted RF practices, etc, etc, etc.
Don't you think I would have learnt a thing or two, involved some heavy duty professionals from the RF and medical electronics sectors as consultants, and so forth, since 1974, when the Grandaddy of the filter was first made?
Don't you think CERN would have tested its *** out and out before they went on to buy them?
Don't you think a power line filter doing its job, from anybody, would make a typical amplifier's filter capacitors' of 4,700 uF and upwards, life somewhat easier when they don't have to cope with high frequency noise because it never even got to them (in any noticeable quantity)?
So, for the last time:
1. It is NOT a cure-all for everything, just for most things;
2. Its effects are NOT completely predictable, just in general;
3. It will NOT improve the sound of each and every component, just most;
4. Despite what you may think, it DOES work well enough for people in labs to have to recalibrate their measuring gear (measuring micromols), people at home to retune their TV sets because their AFC does not differentiate between wanted signal and unwanted noise, for operating room surgeons to use it for their equipment (even if it is NOT certified for such use), for civil aviation authorties to use with their comms equipment, for pros to use in their radio stations and A/V editing studios (in Holland and Germany), etc.
Heck, I MUST be doing something right to survive 11 years on making and selling them. And since my top model costs €950, you can't say I'm dirt cheap so that's the reason.
Jean Hiraga thought they were rather good in his review in France's Nouvel Revue de Son, some magazine people from Denmark thought it equalled far more costlier products from far more famous brands, etc.
But, just in case it doesn't do what you expected it to, you always have the money back guarantee to fall back on. In 11 years, I had only one unit returned, from France, from a gentleman who owned a Jadis system, and upon checking it myself, I understood why and started compiling a list of what it DOESN'T get on well with.
In 11 years, only one unit stopped working (in Singapore), and upon inspection, the whole problem was a blown fuse, caused by a burnt out amp output stage, designed by somebody who believed fuses were protection enough. The fuse in the amp was OK, though. And anyway, exchanging it is easy since I supply spare fuses with the unit, just in the off case.
BTW, better, tighter and more controlled bass is a very typical effect of it, I get a lot of comments about that. Could it perhaps be that the internal power supply system of an amp is offloaded by the filter, so it can perform more fully? But it will NEVER perform any better than it was initially designed to do.
It seems to me that many of you here are too locked up in the way YOU make things and no longer even notice that in real life, you are the few, most don't do it anywhere near that well. Yeah, I would use parallelled 10,000//10,000//4,700 uF caps on each power line in every channel of an amp, followed by still more goodies, but that costs money, the customer doesn't see it and because you spent there, you have less of a budget for shiny LEDs and switches the customer DOES see. He is taught to look for "features", and that's what he wants, and if the device should in addition play music too, well, so much the better. And if sounds half decent, like wow, awesome, dude!
Hi,
Well, well. If you look into AMR gear you do not find any filters connected in series with the mains. You also find neither X nor Y capacitors (for the reasons Alexey remarked upon).
Does that mean AMR uses no filtering?
Far from it, but as much of it is designed into the mains transformer itself it is not obviously visible... More filtering is designed into the PCB layout.
Correctly designing mains transformers for lowest possible leakage and a quite narrow bandpass can be at least as effective as LC filters, plus it can address issues LC filters cannot.
And price is actually not really an issue here, as the extra cost for special windings is a few percent on the price of a transformer.
Ciao T
Well, well. If you look into AMR gear you do not find any filters connected in series with the mains. You also find neither X nor Y capacitors (for the reasons Alexey remarked upon).
Does that mean AMR uses no filtering?
Far from it, but as much of it is designed into the mains transformer itself it is not obviously visible... More filtering is designed into the PCB layout.
Correctly designing mains transformers for lowest possible leakage and a quite narrow bandpass can be at least as effective as LC filters, plus it can address issues LC filters cannot.
And price is actually not really an issue here, as the extra cost for special windings is a few percent on the price of a transformer.
Ciao T
Thorsten, HOW they do it is completely irrelevant. I'm sure that if you looked long and hard enough, you'd find many schemes in circulation. I really don't care to start comparisons to the tune of "mine is longer than yours" here, I've heard them all too often far too many times over the last several decades.
The point is twofold:
1. If an external filter can improve the quality of sound of a device, no matter whose filter and which device, then that filter is a realistic proposition even if it's made of horse manure, and
2. If an external filter improves the sound of a device, then that is a clear see for all statement that the designer of that device has not done a complete job.
As a sidenote, as long as gear has been manufactured, and as long as it will be manufactured, there will be discussions of how it was done. There will always be arguments pro et con for any scheme you, or I, or anybody deploys. Some will say it's way too simple to work well, others will say it's far too complicated to work well, yet others will claim both are wrong and that it should have been done in a third way.
To all of them, I say the same thing - you think you can do better? Fine, take a bow and get down to it. Just surviving in the ever shrinking market for high quality audio, and by extension rather expensive gear, is a chore unto itself. I, and I don't doubt we all here, have seen some designs which do the job just as well and even better than mine, but which never ever make it to the market, or if they do, they turn out to be too complicated, too choosy, too assumptive and always too expensive to survive any meaningful time.
Who of us has the ultimate luxury in life to do only what he feels is the best he can? None, I'd say, we all have to consider the economic fate of what we make. Except for the DIY fans, they are the only segment of the audio population which enjoys the luxury of choosing what and how to do it simply because they usually make one-off something and they are doing it for themselves and for the love of it, not the commercial future of it.
My point is, much of the current discussion is simply frivolous talk, we enjoy TALKING about it, with possibly resulting one-off samples actually made here and there.
Let me be even more blunt - why don't some of you get down to making your own line filter which can be applied to more than just your own, again all too often, one-off whatever, and then we can talk to check out how much of the wonderful theory noted here has ACTUALLY been implemented. I think some would be surprised to find out how little is actually possible and/or reasonable to build into a series made product (where by series I mean at least 20 pcs per annum, hand made is just fine).
I'm not letting myself off easy here - make no mistake, I invented practically nothing, the type of filter I use has been known for at least 70 years, and its creator's name has been lost in the mists of time. I simply improved on the original design a bit and walked the full nine yards when I found the mix that in my view works best (which actually means the least level of compromise) in that I talked to a factory and had them make a series of inductors just for me. Than that factory (in France) stopped making the sintered products altogether, and I had to find another factory which still does, which I did (now a factory in the Czech Republic). The point being, if I deserve a tap on the back, it's not for technical achievement, but for perseverance. Since 1974 until today, that's a respectable (I think) 38 years.
I've survived the communists (1974-1990), a bout of local wars (1991-1996), then some communist leftovers (1996-2000) and finally the current turncoat ex-communist "democrats" (2000- ....), and in the meanwhile, my ex partner's stealing company funds and his gruesome passing away 8 months after that, proving at least in his case that ill gotten gains never last.
It's that simple. Although not very pleasant at times. Thorsten and Alexey will know what I mean.
Hi,
Well, I could design something with less THD (realistically it's still reasonably low with 0.1% 2nd HD at digital full scale), but not using an open loop tube circuit. Equally, I could make something with less noise easily (this was JA's other gripe I think).
But it would not sound quite like what the actual unit does...
Ciao T
Well, I could design something with less THD (realistically it's still reasonably low with 0.1% 2nd HD at digital full scale), but not using an open loop tube circuit. Equally, I could make something with less noise easily (this was JA's other gripe I think).
But it would not sound quite like what the actual unit does...
Ciao T
...
I had a few of those Perraux amplifiers over the years the last one their 300 /ch version it did not work well for me , a wimpy amp IMO , I hate wimpy amplifiers ..
No doubt, Wayne, after all, 300 wpc is not enough to even warm you up ...
Just kidding, Wayne. I don't know WHEN you had them, I heard them in London in 1980 or 1981, driving a pair of big KEFs (those time alligned, three tier mammoth speakers, their best at the time), and that was a hell of a good sound in those days.
Today, if I heard them again, who knows, I might change my mind about them. But today, I am 30 years older, have that much more experience and have by now a developed personal taste, if you like.
This has happened to me before, I hear a refreshed and readjusted amp I remember as very good then and I think to myself: "Well, it isn't THAT good, really."
Going the opposite way is easier and much shorter. The two designs which were my instant love at first hearing, and have remained wonderful for me to listen to, are my recered old Marantz 170 DC power amp and its matching 3250b preamp, as well as model 1152 DC integrated which is a single case same deal as those two, and my Karan Acoustics KA-i180 integrated amp from 2002 (0r 2003?). Others come and go, these two stay put like they were cemented to my room.
The interesting one is the Marantz 170 DC power amp. It's declared for 2x85 wpc, blah, blah, blah, but it manages to pull off that one trick which I happen to value by far the most - under my conditions of use, it aways manages to make me believe that it is a bottomless pit of power which simply cannot be exhausted. An illusion, to be sure, but a sweet one.
Personally, I attribute this to its designs, that was the last - and the best - series or regular production they ever did, and the last which was actually designed in USA and only made in Japan.
The two things I think you Americans do best, at the cost of generalization, is amplification and speakers. US amps somehow, at least to me, sound better and more believable than most others, they always have a sense of unbridled power few others have achieved, although there are a few realistic competitors around. Thus, I've always been drawn to US amplification. Witness my Marantz collection (4 pcs), witness my Harman/Kardon collection (2 pcs).
All my life, from my first serious speakers, AR5, to this day, my home cannot be imagined without US speakers. AR94 (refreshed, bass drivers have new suspensions) in my son's room, JBL Ti 600 in my wife's room (up for refreshing this year, the speakers, not the wife).
So it was, so it will be.
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