Personally, I believe there are no cross-purposes - or there shouldn't be any ... . 'Correct' sound is correct sound, those two worlds use similar equipment in some areas, but different techniques in their attempts to achieve that 'correctness'. The pro world starts with SPLs, dynamics and attempts to refine the sound; the horn enthusiasts start with refinement of sound and then may decide to increase the useful dynamic range to enhance the experience - the two should meet in the middle ...
If the pro's do it right then they should be able drop the volume down, changing nothing else, and the sound should match, be identical to that of the SET enthusiast with horns, at equivalent SPLs. And, the enthusiasts' system sound should be able to be scaled up to PA levels of volume, without turning into or sounding like a PA!
There should be one continuum of sound, unvarying in "tonality" - merely the SPLs that are produced and listened to vary ...
Last edited:
DHT/Bass
Lynn,
I'm using 2 -12NDA520's horizontal in a 13ply BB 4cuft cab with 8 ports. On top is a Yuichi A-290 with a JBL 2446 Be/Truextent set up per JMLC's , Crossovers a step further paper, suggested horn alignment and third order crossover based on a 750 transfer function. I have tried 845set, 6v6pp, kt120's and the winner by far ---- best bass and overall sound --- my Jeff Korneff 45 mono blocks with mundorf silver/oil caps and EML 45's. I would have thought the larger PP would have had better control ,more headroom that would translate to better bass but NO way. If I only had 20 watts of 45 power.
Following the thread since May 2007
Thanks for the education
Greg
Lynn,
I'm using 2 -12NDA520's horizontal in a 13ply BB 4cuft cab with 8 ports. On top is a Yuichi A-290 with a JBL 2446 Be/Truextent set up per JMLC's , Crossovers a step further paper, suggested horn alignment and third order crossover based on a 750 transfer function. I have tried 845set, 6v6pp, kt120's and the winner by far ---- best bass and overall sound --- my Jeff Korneff 45 mono blocks with mundorf silver/oil caps and EML 45's. I would have thought the larger PP would have had better control ,more headroom that would translate to better bass but NO way. If I only had 20 watts of 45 power.
Following the thread since May 2007
Thanks for the education
Greg
It seems that sound quality and usage are to different things that can be both accomplished. Am I missing some point? Or is it that you just reject new technology regardless?
Lynn you mentioned before the JWN pentode Colorado Special amp so I am curious how this stacks up with your comments on Triodes? I have friends with 300B amps and frankly so far in my life I haven't been in position to afford anything close to it. But it seemed to me that you had pretty good results with the JWN and possibly others? Did I misread that?
I just built simple pp 807 UL monobloc amps with c3g drive (Lundahl OT, Hasimoto A107 interstage splitter transformers) and I would say next to my SE 300B it really has a lot of life. Lynns write up in Positive Feedback on the JWN amp is a good description of thesound (6BG6 tubes are octal 807s I believe). I have the option to make it pp300B but I don't think much reason to.
jwn
martin
jwn
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
martin
Simple is perhaps wrong word - it has the Tentlabs bias board which addresses the primary problem of pp: balance of output tube current in the output transformer. My objective was to achieve the very low phase rotation in the bass recommended by Langford Smith in RDH4 (Table 2 p213) - that cant really be done with typical SE transformer inductance. Too early to say how it shows up subjectively - initial impression is good. Also hoping the extra power on hand will enable some EQ of the bass horns low end. The open question is does a pp UL amp with a SE driver have some of the best qualities of both types of amp. Separate ps would be good but with a shunt reg for the c3g I think I will get that.
martin
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
martin
Cowardice - I fused the cathode returns in case of a bias fault.
Of course the problem with SEp IT drive is it shifts the inductance problem. But is a nice place to start until I get a nice bifilar ppp IT wound. One for Bud? An input transformer is best place to do sep as per Lynn's Amity, which was where I started.
martin
Of course the problem with SE
p IT drive is it shifts the inductance problem. But is a nice place to start until I get a nice bifilar ppp IT wound. One for Bud? An input transformer is best place to do sep as per Lynn's Amity, which was where I started. martin
Thank you (sincerely) for an interesting overview of valve (tube) amplifiers and associated design choices.
I humbly disagree on one point, though: namely, that if one uses higher power transistor amps, then there is little reason to prefer high efficiency horn 'speakers, and that "your best loudspeaker is elsewhere".
For instance, I am currently using a Denon UHC-Mos integrated (PMA-A100) to drive my 3-way 'speakers with horn-loaded mid and tweeter - not too dissimilar from the 'Beyond the Ariel' design concept. And I can assure you that I have many reasons to prefer them to the ubiquitous low-efficiency dome-tweeter-equipped 'high-end' boxes, and also to most electrostats and omnis like MBLs.
Respectfully,
Marco
Lynns appraisal is one that many of us have come to, after years with this stuff. Whether you are working like Lynn with many other like minds or dissenters. We are so lucky that the latest quality of parts can allow the DHT to really show its special character. Lynn and others have long term experience of this. The eye opening reality from years of development.
If I Isay that the ubiquitous QuadII is long since surpassed for this special quality, it is in terms of the same type of sound but far clearer, more dynamic, beautifully subtle and not like SS electronic, plastic or somehow systhesised sounding esp electronic music. Yes, it even does improve this with the right digital material.
The best solid state camp is also, another league ahead of especially all the big commercial blockbuster amps. The most refined SS systems ( this means the whole reproduction chain) are in there in the fight with DHT
You have to compare the two niches of DHT with horn, electrostatic ( still the benchmark for me) other ribbon, Heil AMT and the artistically created natural sound solids state amp still using discretes.
Exceptional vartiations in these two niches, I believe still shows DHT is the winner when no holds are barred. But the comparison continues. The best SS will beat a less evolved and cheaper valve system. It takes the same approach as the DHT guys. Very expensive and very time consuming to get there.
You know in the eighties, I compared a best of the decade upgraded solid state tuner with a Marantz 10B. The solid state won on clarity, SNR , but the natural imagery and life from the 10B somehow was something special that it left the SS tuner with a bloody nose. For some the 10b would still be the favored choice over the Sequerra, and other flagwavers.
"Correct" vs "Incorrect"...
Some personal reflections on "Correct" vs "Incorrect" music reproduction systems for use in a domestic environment.
As a profession for a longer time than I´m willing to admit I develop and design test equipment for the telecom industry and deal with "correct" every day, analog and digital, from DC to 10+Ghz.
As a hobby, music led me into the world of speaker building some 35 years ago and that then led into electronics as a choice of education/profession.
This is an all-out subjective hobby/business and as such, gives room for allot of less than scientific approaches from people trying to get a hold of your hard earned cash.
About 25 years ago i met a person that would broaden not only my taste in music but also give me a slightly different view on what music recording and reproduction is all about, he also became a very good friend. This person was (he sadly passed away about 2 years ago) Bo Hansson, founder of the small Swedish record label Opus3 and also the man behind Rauna concrete loudspeakers, Continuo/Cantus record player/tone arm, among other things, you can see him sticking up from his bass horn in post #10617.
Together with Bo i have attended and assisted at a number of recording sessions, always acoustic, always two-track, mostly analog but not only so. His philosophy was (and mine is) that if a reproduction chain, from performance to sofa, can retain a fair portion of the emotional impact felt at the performance/recording session, it is a good chain, period. This can of course be had to a lesser or greater extent and at different price points.
I came from a world of large horns, powerful transistor amps and complex active filters combined with Frank Zappa, Gong, Yes and the likes, and i was quite happy with that and here comes a guy with his own record company, huge horn speakers and.........tubes?! hmmmm. Before hearing his system some 25 years ago, i had no idea that one could have such a musical experience outside of a concert hall. I´m very greatful for Bo´s friendship and his humble way of sort of gently pushing me in a direction where i can enjoy more music even more.
I still listen to a very broad spectrum of music, ranging from SOAD to Satie and i could never live with system that wont let me enjoy both ends of the musical spectrum.
When it comes to subjective performance of a music reproduction system we must never forget that what it really does is triggering personal hearing memories and what triggers mine is not necessarily the same as what triggers yours! What needs to be there to trigger mine is good impulse behavior, large dynamic headroom and maybe above all, dynamic consistency over most of the covered spectrum. Other parts are not unimportant but still always secondary.
In practice this means that i have stuck with horns, in my case cones and only on rare occasions compression drivers. This thread have sort of re-awakened my interest for CD though. I have also developed some preferences when it comes to electronics. I am quite sensitive to two types of harmonic distortion, namely 2nd order and high order distortion. My way of dealing with this have over the years resulted in a preference for PP triode amps with low or no fb, that if well executed, sounds better than all other topologys i have tried, and believe me, i have tried (and still do ) to make pentode and transistor amps sound the way i want with varying success.
I do want my system to be "correct", but only if it can be so without removing any of my emotional, musical experience. To get there i have worked with DSP EQ and filtering and other various attempts to make the system "correct" but so far, no cigar...it does not let me communicate with the musicians in the recording, no matter how "correct" it is and this to some extent bothers the engineer in me, less so then it used to though. My way to "correct" is so far by means of physical modifications of , horns, cones, placement, room etc, takes time but is time well spent imho.
I have heard very few commercial horn systems that gets my juices flowing, if any really...they are easily outnumbered by the bad ones!
One that i am still to hear is Mr. Geddes implementation. I really like the solid engineering behind it and can buy most, if not all, of the design choices made and i guess that it may be the best commercially available "horn" speakers out there, kudos!
I do have an asset that many do not have and that is master copies on tape from recordings i myself where part of making and that i know inside out. They are very useful when doing changes to the system, something that i tend to do lesser of over time, until now. I have re-located and need to re-build the whole music system from IB/horn to a system of "boxes" so this will be a very interesting year to come, hence my interest in this thread!
I guess what i wanna say is that music reproduction is all about emotional communication and there is no "best" way of getting to the "perfect" system. It is in the end based on subjective impressions and i wish that more designers would be like Lynn and clearly tried to describe the subjective goals of their designs since to me, objectivity does not exist when it comes to the end result of a project like this.
BR,
Anders
Some personal reflections on "Correct" vs "Incorrect" music reproduction systems for use in a domestic environment.
As a profession for a longer time than I´m willing to admit
I develop and design test equipment for the telecom industry and deal with "correct" every day, analog and digital, from DC to 10+Ghz.As a hobby, music led me into the world of speaker building some 35 years ago and that then led into electronics as a choice of education/profession.
This is an all-out subjective hobby/business and as such, gives room for allot of less than scientific approaches from people trying to get a hold of your hard earned cash.
About 25 years ago i met a person that would broaden not only my taste in music but also give me a slightly different view on what music recording and reproduction is all about, he also became a very good friend. This person was (he sadly passed away about 2 years ago) Bo Hansson, founder of the small Swedish record label Opus3 and also the man behind Rauna concrete loudspeakers, Continuo/Cantus record player/tone arm, among other things, you can see him sticking up from his bass horn in post #10617.
Together with Bo i have attended and assisted at a number of recording sessions, always acoustic, always two-track, mostly analog but not only so. His philosophy was (and mine is) that if a reproduction chain, from performance to sofa, can retain a fair portion of the emotional impact felt at the performance/recording session, it is a good chain, period. This can of course be had to a lesser or greater extent and at different price points.
I came from a world of large horns, powerful transistor amps and complex active filters combined with Frank Zappa, Gong, Yes and the likes, and i was quite happy with that
and here comes a guy with his own record company, huge horn speakers and.........tubes?! hmmmm. Before hearing his system some 25 years ago, i had no idea that one could have such a musical experience outside of a concert hall. I´m very greatful for Bo´s friendship and his humble way of sort of gently pushing me in a direction where i can enjoy more music even more.I still listen to a very broad spectrum of music, ranging from SOAD to Satie and i could never live with system that wont let me enjoy both ends of the musical spectrum.
When it comes to subjective performance of a music reproduction system we must never forget that what it really does is triggering personal hearing memories and what triggers mine is not necessarily the same as what triggers yours! What needs to be there to trigger mine is good impulse behavior, large dynamic headroom and maybe above all, dynamic consistency over most of the covered spectrum. Other parts are not unimportant but still always secondary.
In practice this means that i have stuck with horns, in my case cones and only on rare occasions compression drivers. This thread have sort of re-awakened my interest for CD though
. I have also developed some preferences when it comes to electronics. I am quite sensitive to two types of harmonic distortion, namely 2nd order and high order distortion. My way of dealing with this have over the years resulted in a preference for PP triode amps with low or no fb, that if well executed, sounds better than all other topologys i have tried, and believe me, i have tried (and still do ) to make pentode and transistor amps sound the way i want with varying success.I do want my system to be "correct", but only if it can be so without removing any of my emotional, musical experience. To get there i have worked with DSP EQ and filtering and other various attempts to make the system "correct" but so far, no cigar...it does not let me communicate with the musicians in the recording, no matter how "correct" it is and this to some extent bothers the engineer in me, less so then it used to though. My way to "correct" is so far by means of physical modifications of , horns, cones, placement, room etc, takes time but is time well spent imho.
I have heard very few commercial horn systems that gets my juices flowing, if any really...they are easily outnumbered by the bad ones!
One that i am still to hear is Mr. Geddes implementation. I really like the solid engineering behind it and can buy most, if not all, of the design choices made and i guess that it may be the best commercially available "horn" speakers out there, kudos!
I do have an asset that many do not have and that is master copies on tape from recordings i myself where part of making and that i know inside out. They are very useful when doing changes to the system, something that i tend to do lesser of over time, until now. I have re-located and need to re-build the whole music system from IB/horn to a system of "boxes" so this will be a very interesting year to come
, hence my interest in this thread!I guess what i wanna say is that music reproduction is all about emotional communication and there is no "best" way of getting to the "perfect" system. It is in the end based on subjective impressions and i wish that more designers would be like Lynn and clearly tried to describe the subjective goals of their designs since to me, objectivity does not exist when it comes to the end result of a project like this.
BR,
Anders
I think the key is knowing exactly why one thing has flaws in the playback chain in terms of technical and design issues. While work is slowly progressing on an amplifier, I certainly will consider comparison with the tube amps mentioned here.
The process generally is finding flaws and trying to fix it. Once you fix it, then it is important to know what change in sound occurs. Generally auditions should be able to identify whether a fixed problem is effective and whether some other problem becomes more dominant because of the fix.
The process generally is finding flaws and trying to fix it. Once you fix it, then it is important to know what change in sound occurs. Generally auditions should be able to identify whether a fixed problem is effective and whether some other problem becomes more dominant because of the fix.
I could not agree more!
I usually do not write off a design, mine or others, before trying to get the most of it. Also, if something does not sound right, it is many times perfectly possible to find why in order to try to correct it. It is the art of eating the cake in small pieces
.//Anders
Some personal reflections on "Correct" vs "Incorrect" music reproduction systems for use in a domestic environment.
As a profession for a longer time than I´m willing to admit
As a hobby, music led me into the world of speaker building some 35 years ago and that then led into electronics as a choice of education/profession.
This is an all-out subjective hobby/business and as such, gives room for allot of less than scientific approaches from people trying to get a hold of your hard earned cash.
About 25 years ago i met a person that would broaden not only my taste in music but also give me a slightly different view on what music recording and reproduction is all about, he also became a very good friend. This person was (he sadly passed away about 2 years ago) Bo Hansson, founder of the small Swedish record label Opus3 and also the man behind Rauna concrete loudspeakers, Continuo/Cantus record player/tone arm, among other things, you can see him sticking up from his bass horn in post #10617.
Together with Bo i have attended and assisted at a number of recording sessions, always acoustic, always two-track, mostly analog but not only so. His philosophy was (and mine is) that if a reproduction chain, from performance to sofa, can retain a fair portion of the emotional impact felt at the performance/recording session, it is a good chain, period. This can of course be had to a lesser or greater extent and at different price points.
I came from a world of large horns, powerful transistor amps and complex active filters combined with Frank Zappa, Gong, Yes and the likes, and i was quite happy with that
I still listen to a very broad spectrum of music, ranging from SOAD to Satie and i could never live with system that wont let me enjoy both ends of the musical spectrum.
When it comes to subjective performance of a music reproduction system we must never forget that what it really does is triggering personal hearing memories and what triggers mine is not necessarily the same as what triggers yours! What needs to be there to trigger mine is good impulse behavior, large dynamic headroom and maybe above all, dynamic consistency over most of the covered spectrum. Other parts are not unimportant but still always secondary.
In practice this means that i have stuck with horns, in my case cones and only on rare occasions compression drivers. This thread have sort of re-awakened my interest for CD though
I do want my system to be "correct", but only if it can be so without removing any of my emotional, musical experience. To get there i have worked with DSP EQ and filtering and other various attempts to make the system "correct" but so far, no cigar...it does not let me communicate with the musicians in the recording, no matter how "correct" it is and this to some extent bothers the engineer in me, less so then it used to though. My way to "correct" is so far by means of physical modifications of , horns, cones, placement, room etc, takes time but is time well spent imho.
I have heard very few commercial horn systems that gets my juices flowing, if any really...they are easily outnumbered by the bad ones!
One that i am still to hear is Mr. Geddes implementation. I really like the solid engineering behind it and can buy most, if not all, of the design choices made and i guess that it may be the best commercially available "horn" speakers out there, kudos!
I do have an asset that many do not have and that is master copies on tape from recordings i myself where part of making and that i know inside out. They are very useful when doing changes to the system, something that i tend to do lesser of over time, until now. I have re-located and need to re-build the whole music system from IB/horn to a system of "boxes" so this will be a very interesting year to come
I guess what i wanna say is that music reproduction is all about emotional communication and there is no "best" way of getting to the "perfect" system. It is in the end based on subjective impressions and i wish that more designers would be like Lynn and clearly tried to describe the subjective goals of their designs since to me, objectivity does not exist when it comes to the end result of a project like this.
BR,
Anders
This does not really help this project other than to condone the DHT. But your main preference seems to be electronic music which is better with solid state blockbusters. And you have much digital experience. The BBC would blow us all out of the water, with their engineering excellence and audio output.
We can always quote years of experience and if this is with the range of DHT to pentode valve analogue audio then it rates very high, hence the reasonable agreement with some of what has been said.
What can you propose for the Ariel replacement that may take it on further.
Sorry if i was mumbling, main preference IS not electronic music but WAS 25 years ago. I still dont really agree that solid state blockbusters are the best for the electronic music I listen to. For party situations I sometimes use pp pentodes or a 30W power jfet circlotron, high power ss just dont do it for me anymore....but then again, I haven't tried everything.
As to contributing to the Ariel replacement I would really consider a short front horn on the Altec 416/515 since I think it would help the dynamic consistency I mentioned before. If you look at post #10590 you can see the starting point of my project where I make use of both the floor and side wall images for the bass system. The horn contour is JMLC but with no back roll. The choice is based on the fact that I do have 4 GPA 416-16B, a room that a little bit narrower than I would like it to be and the dynamic consistency together with the mid/top horn. I will cross over probably an octave lower than Lynn but I still think it is a viable option even for a freestanding speaker with a compression driver top, sort of an A7 done for home use
What I am going to try also is to go for active XOs again, done it before but always slipped back to passive in the end. It is so convenient when sorting out the system and it would be nice be able to keep it that way. Anything you are considering at all Lynn?
/Anders
That's what I'd like to know. Certainly there are some good technical reasons to use transformer attenuation at line levels, but at speaker levels and with autoformers - I don't see it.
Perhaps it is some out-of-band rejection. I've not been able to test it.
The main problem I've seen and measured is the driver impedance magnification. That funky driver impedance curve will be magnified that the primary of the step-down transformer. Maybe that won't make a difference to the amp, but what about the passive crossover? How does it deal with a moving target impedance?
To keep the impedance steady, one would need a swamping resistor across the transformer. You've now gone from a series + parallel resistor to a transformer and parallel resistor. Does that mean that only series resistance is bad? Does the low output impedance of the transformer attenuator help a tweeter or compression driver?