I was just trying to come up with a way to realize a low parasitic assembly option for the DIY'er and throw in field correct grounding to boot. After all this is DIYaudio.com not YOUCAN'TBUILDITaudio.com. The point to point thing was not intrinsically about making something more complex.
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As previously posted for some reason the email started to inform me of posts in this thread when I had contributed nothing to it.
The reason being that I could probably sit down right now and design half a dozen different pre-amps, and non of you could hear a difference between any of them in a double blind test.
rcw
The reason being that I could probably sit down right now and design half a dozen different pre-amps, and non of you could hear a difference between any of them in a double blind test.
rcw
I agree -
Thats why my circuits have so few parts and still excellent result. But, I would only call it High-End 'circuit'. Not High-End 'product'.
Thats why my circuits have so few parts and still excellent result. But, I would only call it High-End 'circuit'. Not High-End 'product'.
I refuse to participate in a double blind listening test that will prove NOTHING to me, and will be used as propaganda to discredit me. I tested myself 1/3 century ago, and proved to myself that I could not do an ABX double blind test successfully. Some engineers, faced with the same dilemma, got out of hi end audio design. However, AS SOON as I was allowed to listen more naturally, the differences came back. How can this be? Why would I fool myself to think that there are differences if they have been 'proven' to not be there? This is a deep and serious question that I answered in print in 1979 in TAS as a rebuttal to Lipshitz, et al. Now, of course, Lipshitz did not take me seriously, and I don't take him too seriously, because it flies in the face of my direct experience with listening to audio differences. NOW, if I could not easily pass an ABX test when I was in my 30's, how would I expect to get anything but NULL results when I am 70 years old?
I HEAR differences in various audio circuits. Sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty, depending on the sophistication and philosophy of the designer. With my own designs, I have been able to hear virtually every one, except the CTC Blowtorch, and I suspect if I had a worthy contender here, I might hear something (slightly off) in the CTC Blowtorch. I have done A-B comparisons between Blowtorches, and IF I change the wiring from silver to copper (very high quality), I have heard a difference, but it would have been difficult to chose which I liked better. Source material limits this decision, and it is our source material, for the most part, that has real problems.
I HEAR differences in various audio circuits. Sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty, depending on the sophistication and philosophy of the designer. With my own designs, I have been able to hear virtually every one, except the CTC Blowtorch, and I suspect if I had a worthy contender here, I might hear something (slightly off) in the CTC Blowtorch. I have done A-B comparisons between Blowtorches, and IF I change the wiring from silver to copper (very high quality), I have heard a difference, but it would have been difficult to chose which I liked better. Source material limits this decision, and it is our source material, for the most part, that has real problems.
Because you couldn't actually hear the differences.
Others may have decided that the particular thing they couldn't hear wasn't important and moved on to examine issues that are.
It's interesting to me that the lay buying Public when told we can sell you a product whoich has no audible distortions say great then I'll buy that one. But hay! It doesnt sound like real music! $1,000,000 recording console was used? Same response from public; It doesnt sound like they are listening to perfect electronics - even if they are becsase it doesnt sound real. Just a better HiFi facsimile.
If you say it is perfect - in ABX - then they expect it will sound almost real. It doesnt sound real to them. They know what a voice in their room sounds like and a hifi recording isnt it. They hear live music and they dont get what they pay for in realism so they say f**k-it and buy cheap stuff. We might have 'perfect' electronics that no one can hear any difference in ABX tests but people still know its hifi and not real and they think you have scamed them by saying the electronics is perfect. --- In the consumer view.... perfect in tests means it must be perfect in sound realism. How could it be perfect if it doesnt sound real is thier thought. And, we dont deliver to that expectation. We deliver something else: HiFi.
Because of this view and expectation people (esp. audiophiles) are driven to find something which will explain or make the listening experience more 'real'. Thus, it must be that high gnfb or that cable C and L or tubes vs transistor or analog vs digital... their just HAS to be an explaination for why it doesnt sound real. ABX falls on deaf ears if you cant make the sound more real... not just higher resolving and lower noise and lower thd. -RNM
If you say it is perfect - in ABX - then they expect it will sound almost real. It doesnt sound real to them. They know what a voice in their room sounds like and a hifi recording isnt it. They hear live music and they dont get what they pay for in realism so they say f**k-it and buy cheap stuff. We might have 'perfect' electronics that no one can hear any difference in ABX tests but people still know its hifi and not real and they think you have scamed them by saying the electronics is perfect. --- In the consumer view.... perfect in tests means it must be perfect in sound realism. How could it be perfect if it doesnt sound real is thier thought. And, we dont deliver to that expectation. We deliver something else: HiFi.
Because of this view and expectation people (esp. audiophiles) are driven to find something which will explain or make the listening experience more 'real'. Thus, it must be that high gnfb or that cable C and L or tubes vs transistor or analog vs digital... their just HAS to be an explaination for why it doesnt sound real. ABX falls on deaf ears if you cant make the sound more real... not just higher resolving and lower noise and lower thd. -RNM
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ABX? Draw your own conclusions 
http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf
P.S. I've worked with longer wordlenghts from the first day the workstations were able to handle them. Does the results of this double-blind test mean I was imagining things and should go back to 16/44.1? No way, only over my dead body!
http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf
P.S. I've worked with longer wordlenghts from the first day the workstations were able to handle them. Does the results of this double-blind test mean I was imagining things and should go back to 16/44.1? No way, only over my dead body!
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Richard, The beauty in a highly transperent piece of equipment is that it lacks the added flavor that is imposed on the sound field and looks you in the face on every recording you play. this is what always happends with inferior equipment. When you are able to clearly and easily hear the differences in soundfield and accustics of the different recorded events you know it instantly. But still, a highly transperent equipment do not mean that there will not be differences in presentation prespective or tonal balance between different pieces of audio gear that will satisfy different tastes of prospective buyers, and still maintain it`s transperncy and lack of artifects, and i`m not mainly talking about the different types distortion.
Taking care of this side of the preformance aspect is more of an art then pure engineering.
Taking care of this side of the preformance aspect is more of an art then pure engineering.
you really blame electroncis for "lack of realism"?
you're not going to say anything about speakers, room, micing choices, recording formats, mastering studio, production "artistic choices" re panning, reverb to "place" separately miced instruments or the dynamic range compression that defines the expected sound of the instruments in many amplified music genre since the 1950's?
Blind testing can decern different loudspeakers – Harmon even went to great lengths to put them in the same location in the same room for the tests
hard to Blind listening in different rooms but measurements at the listening location can be +/- 10 dB changed by room size, relative speaker positioning – for the exact same speakers in different rooms
do you really want to imply anyone should expect that consumer sound systems different loudspeakers in different rooms only/biggest problem with realism playing back close miced, pan potted, over produced commercial stereo music recordings is in the electronics?
you're not going to say anything about speakers, room, micing choices, recording formats, mastering studio, production "artistic choices" re panning, reverb to "place" separately miced instruments or the dynamic range compression that defines the expected sound of the instruments in many amplified music genre since the 1950's?
Blind testing can decern different loudspeakers – Harmon even went to great lengths to put them in the same location in the same room for the tests
hard to Blind listening in different rooms but measurements at the listening location can be +/- 10 dB changed by room size, relative speaker positioning – for the exact same speakers in different rooms
do you really want to imply anyone should expect that consumer sound systems different loudspeakers in different rooms only/biggest problem with realism playing back close miced, pan potted, over produced commercial stereo music recordings is in the electronics?
In audio, everything matters. I tend to concentrate on home hi end electronics at the moment, but I have designed everything from microphone electronics to loudspeakers, including studio boards, analog mastering recorders, electronic crossovers, etc. etc. The only area that I depend on others for is digital, or FM tuners.
I KNOW that some recordings are made to a very high standard, as I have helped to make them, by either designing the record electronics or actually being at the recording session. NO uA741's in MY console. '-)
I KNOW that some recordings are made to a very high standard, as I have helped to make them, by either designing the record electronics or actually being at the recording session. NO uA741's in MY console. '-)
no I'm not
No.
Those others also say pretty much the same thing about their product. best speaker. best power amp. best DAC. Best mic preamp. best recorder. With prices to match. The consumer reads this and expects it to be like the real thing if he buys them all. No DBX test or data will make it better the way we are going at it.
Take a clue from video and their approach which includes the perceptual data and makes products more real by its inclusion. Audio is still the equivalent of the CRT/VHS era. -RNM
No.
Those others also say pretty much the same thing about their product. best speaker. best power amp. best DAC. Best mic preamp. best recorder. With prices to match. The consumer reads this and expects it to be like the real thing if he buys them all. No DBX test or data will make it better the way we are going at it.
Take a clue from video and their approach which includes the perceptual data and makes products more real by its inclusion. Audio is still the equivalent of the CRT/VHS era. -RNM
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The rest of the world, outside of the hi-fi lunatic fringe, has all but abandoned the pursuit of improvement in audio electronics because they found out long ago they reached "good enough". It's now about getting that done cheaper and smaller.
You could design a million-dollar chain of audio electronics and I bet it will fail to impress lay people in a demo if you swap it in and out with some "high end" commercial stuff. Diminishing returns has set in, in my opinion. I still enjoy reading this thread, still enjoy learning even if I don't necessarily agree with many of the viewpoints here.
You could design a million-dollar chain of audio electronics and I bet it will fail to impress lay people in a demo if you swap it in and out with some "high end" commercial stuff. Diminishing returns has set in, in my opinion. I still enjoy reading this thread, still enjoy learning even if I don't necessarily agree with many of the viewpoints here.
I for one would, because all those other things you mention can be compensated for by the ear/brain of the listener, provided the electronics handle their side of things cleanly enough -- in my experience. I have managed to achieve quite startling results, in a positive sense, too many times to believe otherwise.
And the way electrical misbehaviour dirties the sound is subtle enough frequently not to be obvious, but once you learn the tell tail signs it's glaringly (pun intended!) obvious. In the same way that people can train themselves to easily pick up data compression artifacts during playback. Just before, volume controls were mentioned and this is a relatively easy one: high frequency harmonics are distorted, the shimmer of a cymbal strike loses its sparkle, and a dullness intrudes into the sound. Just enough that one knows immediately that the sound isn't real ...
Frank
I'm happy to agree here and place myself firmly in the 'lunatic fringe' camp. Your statement brings to mind some words which I think originated with George Barnard Shaw 'The reasonable man adapts himself to the worldf, the unreasonable adapts the world to himself. Progress therefore depends on the unreasonable.'
I suspect that I could impress lay people on less than 1% of this budget, based on having already impressed a couple of lay people (i.e. non-audiophiles) with some of my designs which cost less than 0.1% of this. Which is more an indictment of commercial stuff than it is a testament to my design skills
Thank God it doesn't work that way; but, I agree, that there is a relatively large, twitchy, inbetween midfi and top notch gear, zone where much of the equipment makes "good" recordings sound spectacular, and "bad" recordings come across as being very dodgy. Luckily, one can get beyond that, to where the "badness" of the recordings comes irrelevant, you're enjoying the music too much to worry about such inconsequential matters ...
Frank
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