Thanks for the tip, Richard. I won't worry about doing anything so drastic with what I've got, the defect is relatively subtle in its impact with normal music, and in terms of what I'm working on correcting ...
But, years ago, in pre, decent Internet times I could have used some advice. Had B&W DM10 bookshelf's, and one of the mid/bass units started to make a slight scraping noise. Again, a bit of decent driving made the noise go away; but it got steadily worse. One day, tried too hard and the magic smoke was released. What had happened, of course, was that the glue on the magnet end piece had slowly let go, and it was creeping sideways, bit by bit.
Frank
Gawd, in this day and age for that still to be an "issue" for some people is absolutely staggering, the mind boggles ...
,Frank
Only deaf people would not hear the difference. Are you bored in the beach and trying to get a sort of fun?
This gave me into an abyss of confusion. Very talented people are generally very poor.
Cool... An expert confident enough not to worry his credibility to say what is obvious
Anyway, I'm trying to find out what it is that makes listening is so difficult for some people. Kgrlee may relate this with his experience in setting up a representative system...
If your system is not transparent, then the chance you will hear differences is very small. In a simple words: if you allow 4558 in your DAC, you may have difficulty to recognize a loss of transparency when you switch from Blowtorch to 4558 in your preamp.
Once I found out in internet there was someone rich enough to have quite a "cost no object" system. His speaker was a Genesis. His amp was an MBL. There was something interesting, he used Classe preamp, a cheap, simple, easy to build darlington preamp (I used Classe products for reference when choosing darlington circuits). Hard for me to believe that he used such preamp in a cost no object system setup. My prediction was because he used the MBL amplifier?
Unless a device deteriorate all signals in an awful way, i don't know how can somebody can answer this question.
On a given source, a preamp can act in an opposite side that some source defects, so sound 'better'. Did-we want that ?
For me, a perfect device has to be transparent. No need to write hundred pages of "gorgeous, fluid, involving" etc. like do the poetic reviewers. Just "transparent".
Two perfect preamplifiers are supposed to present no differences.
If any listening test has to be driven with the Blowtorch, i would like one of them, the most expensive preamplifier of the world, to be compared with the cheapest one, known to be perfect: A 2cm piece of wire.
My own preamp (two current feedback OPAs) passed this test successfully, in my mixing studio, with 6 people involved in the blind test: 3 sound engineers, 2 sound editors, and one audiophile movie director . It was to decide 100's OPAs changes in our mixing desk.
We evaluated NE5532, TL072, and the fastest voltage feedback OPA we could find at this time. No one passed the test. NE5532 was muddy, TL072 killed details, the last one 'aggressive'. I was part of the blind, and that just correlated my previous thoughts.
Sorry for the billionaires audiophiles living in a world of magic and wonderful dreams, haunted by billions of demons.
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Damn George! Wish you hadn't posted that.
Makes me itch to abandon my beach bum lifestyle.
Might explain why certain speakers with quite high measured THD are described as 'low distortion' in Blind Listening Tests by some of the best ears in the business.
Maybe you are doing the beach bum lifestyle all wrong...
A bizarre visit to John McAfee's pleasure palace in Belize - CNN.com
Wrinkle
Exactly! You find out who are NOT deaf. Then you ask them whether they prefer Blowtorch or the evil 4558. Of course they will only know them as A, B or C. No point asking those who are deaf
The Listening Test is designed to answer both questions reliably as quickly as possible.
Pavel, are you volunteering to be JC's true golden pinnae? If so, please persuade JC to help us with this test.
Can you also give us some clues as to what differences you expect to hear? This will make it easier for the other true golden pinnae in the Listening Panel.
I don't understand why do you insist on this poor 4558.
It will behave decent, but boring, is the source does not have any fast content. And very bad if the source is difficult, ie digital or MC cartridges.
With a slew rate of 1.7V/µs, how do you expect it can compete ?
With so few available output current, when he cannot afford a 10K charge, how can-you expect he can drive loads with the >100 impedance margins, included cable's capacitances, we know as a minimum requirement ?
With a slew rate of 1.7V/µs, how do you expect it can compete ?
With so few available output current, when he cannot afford a 10K charge, how can-you expect he can drive loads with the >100 impedance margins, included cable's capacitances, we know as a minimum requirement ?
I think music with fast content are rare. I mean, most tube users don't even know what a fast content is. So we should not force an 4558 to collapse.
I think this is the real difficult test, where after someone know that the 2 sources are different, then he has to pick which one he thinks is the best. And 1.7V/us in a preamp is more than enough to impress people. Here people will learn the effect of "nice" distortion and its spectrum.
People will learn what is important for the majority. And worse, people will learn that some people really have no idea of what they really want
Christophe, as I said earlier, I chose 4558 instead of 5532, LM4562, AD797 & even more supa dupa OPAs for vee...ery careful reasons.
Based on its performance in the Quan test, I expect it to be sufficiently close to Blowtorch to give the true golden pinnae a challenge but still result in a conclusive result.
I may be wrong. We might get a NULL result even with the best ears in the business.
But I don't think so.For other JC designs, I would put money on a NULL result but Blowtorch is special.
What the third contender in the ABC test has to remain secret. In fact, there is a chance we might just put Blowtorch on all three
but that's pretty unlikely.BTW, the surest way to make a fool of yourself in a Blind Test is to attempt to guess what you're listening to. You have to trust your ears and nothing else. True golden pinnae will confirm this.
Jay, don't forget this is an ABC, not an ABX test. There may be 3 different sources. Or all 3 might be the same.
Also you'll be surprised at how perceptive 'common' people are when they can choose their own music and are not stressed. In nearly 2 decades of conducting Blind Listening Tests, one of the most fascinating things to me, is that 'common' people (who are not deaf), 'like' the same things that the best recording engineers 'like', though they will use different language to describe why.
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It is not about 'to impress', but about IM distortion.
1.7V is enough in a stage where *no feedback loop*.
An OPA is closed loop system.
On my experience, even 25V/µs in a huge gain huge feedback loop is not enough for perfect fluidity of little details on attacks. You can listen the difference on good horns speakers.
And more you have feedback, more you need fast slew rate.
You where on the SSA thread ? Lot of people reports positive listening: free and fluid, with lot of details ? It is correlated with its slew rate.
I think it is a good idea to choose 4558 than the other better opamps, so some engineers who do not believe in cable differences will be able to hear the differences also, then the trap is to make them choose the 4558
If the opamp have been AD8xx they will tell you that indeed AD8xx is better than Blowtorch. But when it is 4558, that is NEWS.
That is what i did .(i'm pretty old, now, with a limited bandwitch, so, i can't speak for younger any more).
I usually make my opinion on well know sources, listened in various places. Some of my own recordings, in witch i know each track included in the mix (listened in solo). previously listened in the original studio, in the mastering room, in the record company auditorium, at home, across various headphones, in my car etc...
As i said, i'm not to much involved by "blind tests', as i'm not impressed by nothing any more. Neither the price, neither the notoriety of the designer, neither my own work. I'm not impressed, as well, by impressive systems witch enhance or prettify things (i hate them).
When i'm about a decision to be made on choosing some new device, i use to add in my listening tests tracks from direct film dialogs with ambiances, where is no musical involvements.
And, usually, i'm not so satisfied by what i ear. More often disappointed by 6 stars outpriced audiophile amplifiers than *good* average ones.
I think what makes those recording engineers "best" is because they like or know what the majority like (I don't like blue, but if I have to design a certain product for the mature crowd I think I will choose blue because I think the majority likes blue).
"YOU"
You can make your own amp and say it is the best.
The THD is 0.000000001%.
But nobody wants your amp.
Coz you think everyone else love distortion.
You live in your own world.
It's okay if you listen to your amp 7 hours a day.
It's your (high class) TASTE.
But the fact is you listen to it 1 hour or less a week.
You think you are smarter than you really are.
How did you measure a person's degree of 'poorness' in arriving at that statement? Lang Lang is a very talented pianist, I don't see any signs of 'poorness' there just to give one counterexample but there are plenty of others I can think of in sports personalities and actors who're not short of a bob or two.
It is boring, Jay.
Cables CAN make a difference, and i can *measure* what you hear. Again, it is not due to any magic or material, it is due to their interaction with the devices they connect, and due to their lumped elements.
Do-you believe sound engineers are deaf ? I'm old, but i can compensate with experience. (As John said too). I know *what* to listen to, after all a life on it.
Like any old Formula 1 or rally champion will beat any young good average driver with hundred better reflexes than him on a road race.
I mean, it will be interesting to see which one they will choose as the "best". Here you can see "tastes" and "preferences". Some will be "impressed" by soundstage, some will be impressed by sonic, some will be impressed by pseudo bass, some will be impressed by sweet vocals, etc...
The blind test can not only set up to "trap" audiophools but also to trap "scientists".
Yes, I guess so. Do high slew rate amps always have flat phase response? Because some amps which I think is not CFB, not high slew rate, but with flat phase response sound good too.
My guess is that they like "bigness" of sound, just like the real thing, where the intensity and complexity easily washes over you, it's effortless to soak it up.
A lot of hifi sound is "smaller" than the listener, which is ridiculous, it should be so much larger than the audience listening ...
Frank
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