Is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because you change an op-amp out in a CD player (assuming none of the basics of op-amp usage are being violated) and it sounds DIFFERENT, it must sound worse. Yes, a preamp using an op-amp will sound different to a tube amp or a discrete amp, but that does not mean it sounds worse.
To the earlier points in the thread, a typical recording chain has 10 to 20 op-amps in the signal path and quite a few caps as well. A lot of this stuff is driven off LM337/317 type regulators.
The biggest variable in CD sound quality is not the op-apms but the quality of the recording, mic'ing up, use of compression (loudness wars?) etc. I've got about 500 CD's and the differences in quality are huge.
To the earlier points in the thread, a typical recording chain has 10 to 20 op-amps in the signal path and quite a few caps as well. A lot of this stuff is driven off LM337/317 type regulators.
The biggest variable in CD sound quality is not the op-apms but the quality of the recording, mic'ing up, use of compression (loudness wars?) etc. I've got about 500 CD's and the differences in quality are huge.
Jezz/Richie00boy
I'll perhaps go along with that too in many ways.
My experience of the 5534 has been in a Micromega Stage 2 CD player (final output buffer and another for I/V conversion, gain of 1
)
I originally replaced those with TL071 and there was an improvement for the better.
I then used an OPA604 for I/V and an AD845 for the final filter/buffer... and it's outstanding. I checked and trimmed the compensation too.
So maybe blaming the NE5534 in that application is unfair.
The other experience was an experiment... a circuit in Wireless World... to do with work by Blumlein ? and improving the stereo image and getting a better bass response from smaller speakers. All opamps, and I used TL072/1 and it was excellent. Built a final version using NE5532 and crucially an NE5534 for a peculiar configuration (got the circuit somewhere) and it was not good audibly. That "I can't quite put my finger on it" kind of thing. Replacing the devices back to TL0's and it was perfection.
So you may have something there.
I'll perhaps go along with that too in many ways.
My experience of the 5534 has been in a Micromega Stage 2 CD player (final output buffer and another for I/V conversion, gain of 1
)I originally replaced those with TL071 and there was an improvement for the better.
I then used an OPA604 for I/V and an AD845 for the final filter/buffer... and it's outstanding. I checked and trimmed the compensation too.
So maybe blaming the NE5534 in that application is unfair.
The other experience was an experiment... a circuit in Wireless World... to do with work by Blumlein ? and improving the stereo image and getting a better bass response from smaller speakers. All opamps, and I used TL072/1 and it was excellent. Built a final version using NE5532 and crucially an NE5534 for a peculiar configuration (got the circuit somewhere) and it was not good audibly. That "I can't quite put my finger on it" kind of thing. Replacing the devices back to TL0's and it was perfection.
So you may have something there.
An always interesting topic.
Q:Why can we hear so big a difference when changing ONE opamp in our playback system?
A: Because they ARE different sounding. Everyone who tried knows that this 'mod' is far more effective than different interconnect-cables.
Q:So what difference does one opamp in the playback system make, when you consider the line of 10-100 opamps in the recording studio?
A: What I think you are forgetting, is that one cannot conclude that these 10-100 opamps did not have an effect om the sound - they certainly did have a 'sound', but the end-result is mastered to sound good.
Say if all these many preamps, compressors, equalizers and what-have-you happened made the sound 'dull', then the sound engineer will just 'spiff it up' in the mastering process. That's why they do all this equalizing and compressing - to make the end-result sound good, not as-it-is .... but good!
So the question is more like: Exactly what should it sound like? ( the engineers can trim the sound in any direction you know - but wich do they choose?)
And the answer is - obviously - the 'sound' that appeals to the target group and their typical average equipment. And today that is car-radios and iPods for most music-genres.
NB: The signal in the studio probably also runs through 1-10 line-level transformers of different quality, 10-50 poor carbon-pots etc, etc.
Q:Why can we hear so big a difference when changing ONE opamp in our playback system?
A: Because they ARE different sounding. Everyone who tried knows that this 'mod' is far more effective than different interconnect-cables.
Q:So what difference does one opamp in the playback system make, when you consider the line of 10-100 opamps in the recording studio?
A: What I think you are forgetting, is that one cannot conclude that these 10-100 opamps did not have an effect om the sound - they certainly did have a 'sound', but the end-result is mastered to sound good.
Say if all these many preamps, compressors, equalizers and what-have-you happened made the sound 'dull', then the sound engineer will just 'spiff it up' in the mastering process. That's why they do all this equalizing and compressing - to make the end-result sound good, not as-it-is .... but good!
So the question is more like: Exactly what should it sound like? ( the engineers can trim the sound in any direction you know - but wich do they choose?)
And the answer is - obviously - the 'sound' that appeals to the target group and their typical average equipment. And today that is car-radios and iPods for most music-genres.
NB: The signal in the studio probably also runs through 1-10 line-level transformers of different quality, 10-50 poor carbon-pots etc, etc.
Hi Bonsai and Nrik,
There's no easy answer is there ?
I have come to learn that it's no good having an audio system that "plays it as it is" and if the original is no good then then that is why you don't enjoy listening to it.
Far better to have a system that's really enjoyable to listen too with most recordings... yet it's still a mystery why that can be achieved when we criticise so much the very devices that our material has passed through.
I agree Bonsai about "different" being worse... or better. It takes time to evaluate any changes you make. And I cringe when I hear someone say that opamps will sound better after "burning in".
There's no easy answer is there ?
I have come to learn that it's no good having an audio system that "plays it as it is" and if the original is no good then then that is why you don't enjoy listening to it.
Far better to have a system that's really enjoyable to listen too with most recordings... yet it's still a mystery why that can be achieved when we criticise so much the very devices that our material has passed through.
I agree Bonsai about "different" being worse... or better. It takes time to evaluate any changes you make. And I cringe when I hear someone say that opamps will sound better after "burning in".
I totally agree.
I fully respect your philosophy, but I want the precise and analytic sound.
If a recording sounds 'bad', then it is because it is made like this. For example I love U2s older stuff, even though you cannot really call it hifi-test-music
For the recordings that sounds poor for technical reasons, I equalise.
The last ½year I have used two equalizers in my system - one 10band EQ used as 'room correction' unit, and a functional duplicate of the eq part of Cello Audio Palette as a music equalizer.
I know that many hifi-fans will laugh at me for this, but some recordings are really improved with some EQ: Donald Fagan - Nightfly, Pink Floyd - Animals, and some danish and swedish stuff that you wouldn't know.
Possible moving off topic alert here!.... but I kind of agree with Nrik on this one.
IMHO a hi fi system is not there to sound "nice". The very phrase High Fidelity says it all. The aim surely is to recreate the original. If it's an awful recording then it should sound awful! Personal opinion here but I have little time for people who choose, for example, a single ended triode amp with no feedback which gives 4% distortion and is 3dB down at both 100Hz and 10KHz, has a damping factor of 2 or so, hence causing frequency response aberrations in conjunction with the non constant impedance of the speakers... and then call it HI-FI.... and claim it is the best thing since sliced bread!
Why not buy a very cheap budget amp, anything would do, add a graphic equaliser and put an 8R wirewound resistor in line with the speaker? same result for a fraction of the cost!
I'm off to hide in a flak proof shelter now
IMHO a hi fi system is not there to sound "nice". The very phrase High Fidelity says it all. The aim surely is to recreate the original. If it's an awful recording then it should sound awful! Personal opinion here but I have little time for people who choose, for example, a single ended triode amp with no feedback which gives 4% distortion and is 3dB down at both 100Hz and 10KHz, has a damping factor of 2 or so, hence causing frequency response aberrations in conjunction with the non constant impedance of the speakers... and then call it HI-FI.... and claim it is the best thing since sliced bread!
Why not buy a very cheap budget amp, anything would do, add a graphic equaliser and put an 8R wirewound resistor in line with the speaker? same result for a fraction of the cost!
I'm off to hide in a flak proof shelter now
Possible moving off topic alert here!.... but I kind of agree with Nrik on this one.
Not at all It's a personal choice of what you want out of a system. The differences we talk about seem "huge" to us but in reallity may be rather small to others. Having owned some amps with technical specs that are out of this world, and having built many more I find the "analytical" sound fatigueing and "flat". But that's my choice. I have a system now that really has the "musical wow factor" (to me) and it's taken me years to realise that certain circuit topologies lend themselves to that particular sound.
Equalizers are another thing altogether... and I don't know enough about their use to make comment really.
Strange to say I had been revisiting Doug Selfs precision pre amp (that uses5532's) that had tone controls with variable turnover frequencies, which in the article he seemed to prefer to an equaliser, and to quote
"Variable boost/cut and frequency enables any error at top and bottom end to be corrected to at least a first approximation. It makes a major difference as anyone who has used a mixing console with comprehensive EQ will tell you"
and on midle tone controls,
to paraphrase " Useless on a preamp as even a third octave graphic equaliser isn't that much use"
So I have nothing against tone controls or equalisers as such and may well incorporate something along those lines in my next design... for me if it enhances the listening experience then that is what it is all about.
Not at all
It's a personal choice of what you want out of a system. The differences we talk about seem "huge" to us but in reallity may be rather small to others. Having owned some amps with technical specs that are out of this world, and having built many more I find the "analytical" sound fatigueing and "flat". But that's my choice. I have a system now that really has the "musical wow factor" (to me) and it's taken me years to realise that certain circuit topologies lend themselves to that particular sound. Equalizers are another thing altogether... and I don't know enough about their use to make comment really.
Strange to say I had been revisiting Doug Selfs precision pre amp (that uses5532's) that had tone controls with variable turnover frequencies, which in the article he seemed to prefer to an equaliser, and to quote
"Variable boost/cut and frequency enables any error at top and bottom end to be corrected to at least a first approximation. It makes a major difference as anyone who has used a mixing console with comprehensive EQ will tell you"
and on midle tone controls,
to paraphrase " Useless on a preamp as even a third octave graphic equaliser isn't that much use"
So I have nothing against tone controls or equalisers as such and may well incorporate something along those lines in my next design... for me if it enhances the listening experience then that is what it is all about.
a hypothesis that could be applicable is that in I/V and CD output buffer there could be lots of MHz digital noise that the NE5534 bipolar front end and slow output pull down doesn't handle well
fet input op amps may deal more linearly with RF hash on the input and more recent devices should have more nearly complementary output Q and lower, symmetric output impedance
despite the trick being well known I don’t recall seeing a DAC I/V schematic with 5534 and a pull down to bias the (faster npn) output into Class A
fet input op amps may deal more linearly with RF hash on the input and more recent devices should have more nearly complementary output Q and lower, symmetric output impedance
despite the trick being well known I don’t recall seeing a DAC I/V schematic with 5534 and a pull down to bias the (faster npn) output into Class A
some good points there jcx.
Why stop at 5534's and/or any other op amp.... if the signal has passed through so many op amps, compressors, processors, transformers, A/D and D/A converters etc, then is it not equally surprising that we can hear so much difference between various well specified pre amps and power amps with ruler flat responses and a few ppm thd ? whether they use op amps or not?
Don't get me started on people also hearing "night and day" differences between interconnects and different brands of resistor etc!
Why stop at 5534's and/or any other op amp.... if the signal has passed through so many op amps, compressors, processors, transformers, A/D and D/A converters etc, then is it not equally surprising that we can hear so much difference between various well specified pre amps and power amps with ruler flat responses and a few ppm thd ? whether they use op amps or not?
Don't get me started on people also hearing "night and day" differences between interconnects and different brands of resistor etc!
But that's not the same reasoning at all. Those effects are substantial and very easily measured.
Exactly... although many of my Philips/Decca/DG etc reordings have "probably" passed through many such devices it would be great to have a couple of definite examples.
Although I haven't the time or the inclination it would be interesting too, to construct a series chain of say 5 or 10 5532's etc and see what audible effect it has. Maybe x1 gain or perhaps x10 followed by attenuate by 10 etc.
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