Tune the sound to the recording, or your mood . . .

[Evaas]

Rick - you seem to be taking a lot of flack, but I like your idea. musical fidelity is nice, but you're right in that sometimes I just want something that sounds good, and that isn't always synonymous with fidelity. furthermore, I curious as to what attributes I would find most appealing, and it would make a very interesting experiment.

it might be easiest to test out something like that on a computer. I wonder how hard it would be to program in some of that filtering and added distortion on a sound card?

[traderbam]

"What I don't care for is an amp designer that imposes his/her personal taste on me or on the artist."

I could not agree more. Well said!

Besides, if you want something to sound more polite/conservative you can always put a FET in the preamp somewhere.

"...musical fidelity is nice..."

This prompts me to say the Musical Fidelty amps sound like they've been castrated: all the testosterone removed. I think this is a real shame since their boxes are seriously sexy. They really need to pursuade Anthony Michelson to take a holiday while they get a decent designer in to sort the sound out. Unless, of course, the blame lies with a marketing manager from Pluto who wants to "differentiate" from the pack by focussing on BLAND.

[Jay]

Originally posted by sam9
A prior post wrote: " Once you get old, you won’t need the hard slams from Sepultura. And your ears may not be able to hear hi frequencies anymore. "

For the record I'm old and prefer amps that respect me and the recording artist. That means the signal at the output should be as close to the signal at the input (only louder, i.e., with gain) as possible. There are plenty of ways to alter a piece of music if I care to and allow me personal control over the result. What I don't care for is an amp designer that imposes his/her personal taste on me or on the artist.

Different music type requires different system for better result (this is not a perfect world, isn’t this?) Some like classics, some like hard rock, some like acappela, I don’t know. The tendency is that preference changes with age/emotion. When we were young (teenagers), we used to play our system loud just to show neighbors that we have a good system and hoping that the neighbors will enjoy the music as much as we do (which usually is not true). But after we grow old, we advice our sons not to do the same thing. Well, again I don’t know, I’m not married yet.

[Jay]

Originally posted by sam9
My scheme for "niceness". Buld two preamps in one enclosure. One is SS one is tube. The tube unit should be the best current practice as should the SS unit. Upstream, put a pot wired as a voltage divider such that the signal can be routed 0%-100% to either unit. Down stream, sum the signals back together. Let the user decide how much niceness he/she wants by adjusting the dial.

This one is a great idea. I’ve never seen such design, and I guest this would be the most difficult amplifier to design.

[Jay]

Originally posted by Tube_Dude
Hi Sam 9!!!!

100% agred with you!!

Is nice to see people that d'ont have lost is way in audio!

Cheers!

Jorge Santos

PS: Is best to invest in some beer than certain magic portions for the best sound on earth!

Hi jorge,

What do you think about having Diana Krall as a wife, and ask her to sing every morning on bed? That would be pretty hi-fi


Cheers! (oh I love this icon)

[rick57]

On some music, Musical Fidelity sounds good (I have used 3 of there products over the last 11 years), on other it loses something . . . hence desire to switch.
To use 5 amps &/ or 4 pairs of speakers would be over the top.
But eg there is an ex muso who has a pair of speakers, with a PHL 3451 mid, who sometimes drives it with a (5? watt) 2A3 amp, and other times with a SS amp.

Sure High Fidelity = very true to the source material.

But how many pop or rock sources sound great on a High Fidelity system?
I’ll be making a purist system, but don’t expect it will all music sound great.

Respect for the artist is a separate issue. You’d be right that I’m not respecting some studio engineers.
As some engineers played a lot with the sound, with mixed results in fidelity, where they dipped out, I will build the tools to partly ameliorate the shortcomings. Where the sound is ‘clean’, I’ll leave the tools out of the chain.

Sam 9 your two preamps idea is interesting. I was thinking of two power amps, but not ‘mixing’ them.

Evaas filtering on a computer is the way with greatest flexibility.
The Johnson ‘J Station’ I mentioned is intended to run off a PC sound card in a home recoding studio. It doesn’t accept digital in, but it’s only $140 and I’m sure something else would eg from Line 6 or Behringer. Behringer is perhaps the price leader.

The field of DSPs is continually expanding, and DACs and ADCs are a lot better for less $ than a few years ago. Not the commercial products, but the evaluation boards.

Audiophile digital crossovers are (I think) pretty new – one was developed last year? for the Linkwitz Phoenix. Digital crossovers could be used in conjunction with DSPs.

[rick57]

A friend knows Hugh Dean from AKSA, and evaluated some AKSA prototypes. Apparently Hugh sees benefit in being able to adjust feedback, to suit the recording/ music/ etc.
So it's possible that my friend will be adding a switch to change between 2-3 levels of feedback.
Technical issues are supposedly very modest.

If it happens, I'll let you know the results . . .