presumably ...
Actually I think that a circuit should be designed with in mind the purpose
For just a line buffer, for instance, it could be too much ...
Maybe a simpler 4 bjts diamond buffer is better
Surely it will work as a buffer ... but the best buffer ever build I doubt
The opamp are flexible but there must be some drawbacks, I suppose
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My current system is DSP-based active 3-way with a different amp per driver.
To me, this non-minimalism sounds like a good thing in itself: if each and every amplifier applies a detrimental colouration to the sound then by splitting the sound three ways I am at least restricting the work each amp has to do, and blending three different colourations to get more of a complex 'average'. The thought of sending the whole signal through a single non-straight transfer function (e.g. a single device without feedback) sounds akin to a passing the whole mix through a fuzz box, as opposed to splitting it three ways and passing it through three milder fuzz boxes.
To me, this non-minimalism sounds like a good thing in itself: if each and every amplifier applies a detrimental colouration to the sound then by splitting the sound three ways I am at least restricting the work each amp has to do, and blending three different colourations to get more of a complex 'average'. The thought of sending the whole signal through a single non-straight transfer function (e.g. a single device without feedback) sounds akin to a passing the whole mix through a fuzz box, as opposed to splitting it three ways and passing it through three milder fuzz boxes.
I guess you have a different tolerance for pain than I do. not having a font that can be typed with all the correct spacing and kerning correctly and instead having to what.... place the vector paths by hand letter by letter? is not what I would call job done
Hehehe, yeah, it is a bit of a pain. But the schematics I'm using it for aren't terribly complicated so not a lot of text.
Thanks. Actually I bought a halfway decent font authoring program. Just need to spend some time with it and figure out how to import the vector shapes such that they produce the proper result in the authoring program.
se
Active crossovers have some large advantages because they buffer the reactive load from the transfer function. (crossover) This makes their linear distortion easier to address. A well executed active crossover, analog or DSP, can have lower non-linear distortion than a passive crossover because it does not have big coils in it. Just don't forget in an active crossover system, you l still have passive parts and parastatics between the amp and the speaker that need to be considered in the overall design. These advantages have nothing to do with muddling things up between frequencies inside an amp. I think you have miss-interpreted adding random noise sources over a long interval will produce lower noise with linear and non-lnear distortions. Noise man partially cancel, they just add.
No, I'm thinking of a 'blanket' colouration, as opposed to separate colourations on a number of signals. If my amps behave differently with the separate frequency bands (and they may be different types of amp, of course), then the result will be a blend of these characteristics that I wouldn't have had with just a single amp. So, simplistically, if one amp has a clipping tendency while another has a 'peaking' tendency, when I acoustically combine the two I will get a blend that is neither all clipping nor all peaking. On a complex music signal, maybe I stand a chance of the characteristics of the two amps disappearing to some extent. Or, if feedback is evil and gives bad results with some types of signal, then by splitting the signal into different frequency bands the evil can be reduced, or applied differently to the different signals.
And that is notwithstanding the advantage of lower intermodulation distortion that naturally falls out of this arrangement - at its best, each amp passes a cleanly-isolated single tone so that when they all combine acoustically, there is no intermodulation due to the amps at all. In reality it will be very rare that this occurs so totally, but it will always be better than a single amp.
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A refreshing departure from the usual take on the subject, CopperTop. You've really enlivened this thread.
I did my homework, after a long search finally found the article.
BTW. Is Bruno Putzeys, hmmm, you spend much time looking at these things on the Internet...
The article is very original, at least compared to traditional approaches, almost borders on brilliant, and most importantly, destroys some myths.
Although no mention of Special Relativity, then if Nelson Pass can misspell the Equation of state for ideal gases, and touted their amps saying that preserve the single-ended nature of air.
I could write correctly the Lorentz transformations*, and say that my amps do not try to break the structure of Spacetime.
* Now that space-time is flat, General Relativity has little Marketing.
more Typography OT
OK I thought this might have been causing you troubles. perhaps the holes arent being punched correctly or at all? if they are joined as in a drawing package, so that the inside hole punches the whole through the outside path, is the opposite of what many other packages like CAD and perhaps your font package, expect. unjoin the paths and it should assume you want it punched. It wont look right in your drawing package, but should display correctly in the font package.
kerning is a real artform though and will take some tweaking. its not such a big deal with all caps, but lower case. in fact, i'm pretty sure Pano will agree that the kerning makes or breaks a good typeface.
i'm sure youve come up with some shortcuts for the copypasta method and with small amounts I guess the sufferance for the art is not too great, but I bet you would prefer the real deal. what package have you got? you could make a typeface for the schematic symbols too.
OK thats enough font OT from me, perhaps we should start another thread? it might actually be an interesting project for the forum to have a nice and attractive set of symbols for DIYA
OK I thought this might have been causing you troubles. perhaps the holes arent being punched correctly or at all? if they are joined as in a drawing package, so that the inside hole punches the whole through the outside path, is the opposite of what many other packages like CAD and perhaps your font package, expect. unjoin the paths and it should assume you want it punched. It wont look right in your drawing package, but should display correctly in the font package.
kerning is a real artform though and will take some tweaking. its not such a big deal with all caps, but lower case. in fact, i'm pretty sure Pano will agree that the kerning makes or breaks a good typeface.
i'm sure youve come up with some shortcuts for the copypasta method and with small amounts I guess the sufferance for the art is not too great, but I bet you would prefer the real deal. what package have you got? you could make a typeface for the schematic symbols too.
OK thats enough font OT from me, perhaps we should start another thread? it might actually be an interesting project for the forum to have a nice and attractive set of symbols for DIYA
Hi ! i have the feeling that your approach is sound
It is very reasonable to send to a driver just the portion of the audio spectrum that it can reproduce better
usually passive crossovers are not that precise
There is an extended overlap between different drivers
Of course the system gets more complicated in terms of equipment needed
But the results can be very interesting
Kind regards,
gino
Yeah, I was looking through the manual today and basically how it works is that glyphs with "cutouts" in them have to be made a certain way.
The letter A for example. It's two "pieces," the part without the cutout and then the cutout itself. In the software, if the path of the shape runs clockwise, it gets filled in. If it runs counterclockwise, it's made open. So the main part of the letter would have the path run clockwise and the cutout counterclockwise.
When importing the letters as AI files, the paths don't match up with how they should be.
I bought the home edition of FontCreator by High-Logic.
I'll leave THAT to someone else.
I just draw the symbols in Xara and then group them together so the whole symbol can be moved around. I prefer to work with the actual schematic that way. But would be nice to have the lettering done up as an actual font.
Yeah, let's do that. If someone wants to take this on, I can provide high resolution scans of the engraved plates that my engravers made for me. I even have the condensed version of it, which I would also like as I've seen it used on a number of old schematics along with the regular version.
se
here is my take on it.
1. I think that popularity of simplicity in DIY is partly (mostly?) because the thing is easier to build.
2. most arguments in favor of simple circuits I've seen do not hold water. for instance, there is the argument of high order harmonics being introduced by high NFB designs etc. where? I've seen high-NFB designs with -100 dB harmonics of order no higher than 4-5. OTOH I've seen low-NFB designs with -80dB (or worse) harmoncs of orders extending to the analyzer bandwidth. and there's the DIM and all that (Otala etc). those kinds of distortions are visible in a CCIF IMD plot. just to name an example.
I know it seems seductive but it's basically the naturist medicine argument. it's natural so it's healthy. right. how about natural poisons then?
1. I think that popularity of simplicity in DIY is partly (mostly?) because the thing is easier to build.
2. most arguments in favor of simple circuits I've seen do not hold water. for instance, there is the argument of high order harmonics being introduced by high NFB designs etc. where? I've seen high-NFB designs with -100 dB harmonics of order no higher than 4-5. OTOH I've seen low-NFB designs with -80dB (or worse) harmoncs of orders extending to the analyzer bandwidth. and there's the DIM and all that (Otala etc). those kinds of distortions are visible in a CCIF IMD plot. just to name an example.
I know it seems seductive but it's basically the naturist medicine argument. it's natural so it's healthy. right. how about natural poisons then?
it is my opinion that the Pass DIY (note the emphasis) products are surrounded by a lot of hype, just like every other product, be it complex, high-NFB etc. problem is that the Pass DIY/First Watt fanboy army seems to think that their hype is inherently better than other hypes
Mr. Pass has explicitly said that those are simple (relatively cheap and easy to build, not requiring complicated adjustment procedures etc) products designed to drive high-efficiency speakers without setting the goal for faithful reproduction. only if the fanboy army agreed...
now, the commercial Pass products are a different kettle of fish, no matter how much wishful thinking some may utilize for fooling themselves that they're building the perfect amp for a fraction of the price.
this is hear-say and should be taken as such. I've a friend who happened to repair a Pass Labs amp once. he had built some FW amps (Aleph etc) amps before. he told me that the Pass Labs amp doesn't have much in common with the DIY ones. if I were to bet a small amount of money on it, I'd believe my friend and not the fanboy legions
my $.02.
Hi !
so you are saying that traditional measurements are enough to discriminate good and less good designs ?
actually the only test proposed by those endorsing minimalist designs is a listening test as usually these designs are inferior in the lab
This is the very point anyway. If measurements tell indeed the truth
If so life is quite easy
Thanks and regards,
gino
yes, I pretty much believe that. it is my opinion that if a badly measuring circuit sounds better than a good measuring one it is because of any or a combination of these:
- listener preference
- overall system synergy
- listener bias
- badly recorded material
I sincerely believe that most if not all shortcomings are visible in the classic measurements and the burden of proof lies with the opposing camp.
this is false.
some proponents of minimalism (the name itself suggests art, which audio design IMO is not) back up claims with measurements, some of which I approximately quoted in my first post. it is my opinion that some of those claims do not hold water.
moreover, "this sounds better to me" doesn't mean a thing. some jitter problems can give the sensation of a wide soundstage, some other problems can give the sensation of better focus. some like better focus, some like a wider soundstage. so, some like jitter problems, some like other types of problems. some like neither.
just my .02$.
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it is my opinion that the Pass DIY (note the emphasis) products are surrounded by a lot of hype, just like every other product, be it complex, high-NFB etc. problem is that the Pass DIY/First Watt fanboy army seems to think that their hype is inherently better than other hypes
Mr. Pass has explicitly said that those are simple (relatively cheap and easy to build, not requiring complicated adjustment procedures etc) products designed to drive high-efficiency speakers without setting the goal for faithful reproduction. only if the fanboy army agreed...
now, the commercial Pass products are a different kettle of fish, no matter how much wishful thinking some may utilize for fooling themselves that they're building the perfect amp for a fraction of the price.
Hi ! if i am not wrong the Aleph series, fundamentally on the track of minimalism, has been quite well received also from the press ...
If the Mark Levinson No.333 and the Quicksilver M-135 truly deserve their Stereophile Class A ratings in "Recommended Components" (and I assume that they do), then the Aleph 3 deserves an even higher rating than Class A
Of course matching speakers drive the amp selection
And I think that late Mr Pass designs answer to the request of amps able to drive properly more complex speakers
This does not imply that the Aleph amps are trulty exceptional if correctly matched with suitable speakers
I would like to hear a Aleph with a pair of Klipschorn ,,, just for curiosity
this is hear-say and should be taken as such. I've a friend who happened to repair a Pass Labs amp once. he had built some FW amps (Aleph etc) amps before. he told me that the Pass Labs amp doesn't have much in common with the DIY ones. if I were to bet a small amount of money on it, I'd believe my friend and not the fanboy legions
my $.02.
I do not now if the Aleph 3 schematic is available. But I think so
Of course a lot depends also on the construction
But if we trust critics we can see that these even "basic" design sound good, very good (in the right conditions of course)
Thanks and regards,
gino
Well this ends all the discussions.
My rational half tells me the same
I have still problem with the other half ... the emotional one
This I don't understand
Usually simple designs measure worse, it is almost a rule
It is difficult for a one tube preamp to measure like an opamp
And I would not call an op-amp a simple design at all
Actually Minimalists refuse the traditional set of measurements and they base their judgement on listening tests only
And this is also understandable.
Just look to a good sounding amp distortion spectrum
not easily defensible on a measurements basis I think
So you have to say that it sounds very good
Regards,
gino
I would like to try an Aleph with horns too. but not with my 83dB W/m speakers. impedance equalized and with magnitude not dropping below 4 ohms as they are. and obviously I wouldn't test it with large-scale orchestral music at serious levels. it's called being realistic.
the press praised high-complexity designs too. with very differing measurements. take the Devialet D-Premier which John Atkinson praised (and bought, AFAIU). look at the insides, it resembles a PC main board.
I believe that the moment people stop taking interest in these religious arguments and focus on psychoacoustics we will start heading the right direction. but I'm not sure it's possible, it's called being human.
the press praised high-complexity designs too. with very differing measurements. take the Devialet D-Premier which John Atkinson praised (and bought, AFAIU). look at the insides, it resembles a PC main board.
I believe that the moment people stop taking interest in these religious arguments and focus on psychoacoustics we will start heading the right direction. but I'm not sure it's possible, it's called being human.
is it?
why do I have to?
I've simulated non-linear distortion in software to get an idea about audibility thresholds. it becomes audible, or maybe objectionable is the better word far below what that harmonic plot shows. that's not an amp, it's an amp+FX box combo. yes it can sound pleasant to some. trouble is that it makes more sense to add a configurable FX box before the amp. but it would never sound the same, you'll say. and the typical cyclical argument will have come full circle. nothing new under the sun as Will once wrote
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I agree
We have an emotional/irrational side
And there the marketing hits I am afraid
Regards,
gino
P.S, why only 83db ? I am going to high eff actually ....
life is already though ,, at least let's go with easy speakers
better ask DynaudioI agree
P.S, why only 83db ? I am going to high eff actually ....
life is already though ,, at least let's go with easy speakers
but if I were to answer I'd guess it's because of passive baffle-step compensation in the XO or some other form of frequency response equalization in the low end region - Status
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