John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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It is definitely not only the recording and mastering.
Indeed, the majority of the recordings from the last few decades are crappy, however, good recording and mastering sound crappy on most digital gear. The digital gear that sound really good (with good recording and mastering) is rare.


I must suffer from dumb luck, since good recordings sound excellent on several pieces of gear that I own (none of which approach fashion audio prices).
 
I'm not sure how you connected what I was saying about the weight of a cone mass ...
Actually I was asking about the cone mass for which you quoted only a few mg variation.

I spent much of my previous life trying to design moving coil units with consistent performance and at one time would have claimed our factory produced the most consistent drive units in the world.

I worked with Clio in the early days. Their ClioQC incorporates the ideas I wanted for Factory test to help Manufacturing do this.

My guess was that the unit you mentioned must be a compression diaphragm for which a few mg variation would be achievable by mere mortals.

If it was a cone driver, I'm not only on my knees in homage but with forehead to ground. :eek:

Cone mass is of course one of the major sensitivity factors. What sort of cone masses did you achieve this few mg variation?

Did you use Clio to measure Cone Mass via the evil T/S parameters?
 
Sorry, wrong -- fortunately for everyone, the hidden treasures that are on CD are there, waiting quietly, to be released when enough effort goes into improving the quality of playback.

No CDP, like no reproduction setup, is going to deceive an experienced musician that one hears a live concert when listening blindfolded to reproduced music. Not in the foreseen future.

There are few really good CD Players out there, however none of them is perfect. I cannot envision a perfect CDP in the foreseen future.
 
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George, I agree about Doppler distortion, BUT what does this have to do about 1uS or nS pulses? That is what we were discussing when you broke in.

If Doppler distortion is the only distortion worth noting there, we have a problem !

1us or 1ns pulses were characterized by You as non relevant to REAL WORLD audio.
So I thought. What the heck! Lets throw in some cases with more juice (e.g. more than 10% HD and IMD ) so Mr. Curl will be pleased.

George
 
but there is much disagreement on the subject and just like here in the electronics area many opposing views and many just plain subjective opinions.
Of course, we all speak in a subjective manner. At the end, no one can assure he listen or even ear the same way than his next neighbor ;-)

But we are several, in this forum to agree on the same points:

First the order of importance. Engine before painting.
Second, when something related to sound can be noticed in an indisputable way, we first have to find what it is, and where it come from. And try to find accurate measurement to figure out.
By example, one amp does not sound well on an given enclosure. And an other does. Is-it an amp problem, or some bad behavior of it in this special case, because some reactance with this particular enclosure ?
Third, there is enough to do with physical and verified laws of physic to not loose time considering magic stuff, specially when it comes AGAINST any logic.
Example, i can talk about sound of the cables, regarding various impedances effects , mechanical aspects and even qualities of isolation material. But cryogenic or magical "direction" behavior seems to me as a pure lost of time if not a pure joke. Jneutron incomes about are always brilliant and useful.

I believe in this kind of approach, we are several to recognize each others at first sight and as brothers, despite very different level of knowledge. (Mine is so poor in front of some)
There are many threads where very constructive cooperation is achieved and where each can find much valuable new incomes to think of and discover. New tracks. It lies mainly to the responsibility of the thread starter.
The JM Leclearch's or the SSA ones are brilliant examples. Both have a very scientific approach coupled with an accurate listening passion. Both lead to real and valuable realizations.

I would love to find a thread dedicated to enclosure innovative conception.
 
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Soundstage performance is only one aspect of music realism.
Since I listen mostly to classical symphonic music, there is no way that in my tiny living room a soundstage the size of a concert hall will be reproduced.
I've seen this sort of comment many times, but that's not how it works. When a system is working well the orchestra is not in your living room, but beyond it, on the far side of your speakers. The analogy I use is that the end wall is removed and your room is transported to the recording venue and attached to an opening in the front wall of that venue. If this actually happened in real life there would a certain "sound" to the spill of acoustic energy coming into your listening area; and that's exactly how a system working well sounds.

So, for an orchestral recording you're listening into a far bigger space than your living room; and for heavily manipulated pop recordings you can "see" all the various spaces that the different multi-tracked elements were recorded in. I've got a couple of David Bowie CDs from his experimental years at the moment, and they're hard going if the system is not fully warmed up, insufficient acoustic clues are being rendered accurately enough for the ear/brain to make sense of it, it's a "muddy" sound. But, once you pass a certain quality level then the various elements start to sharpen in focus, the sound steadily gets "bigger and bigger" until every part of the soundscape makes sense; you have no trouble "zooming" in mentally on some aspect and being able to "see" precisely what was done. In one sense these sorts of recordings are very satisfying because you can appreciate the effort and attention to detail that went into assembling the end sound. As a recording engineer you may disapprove of the decisions made, but as someone completely uninvolved in that field I find it pleasurable to see the workmanship. And, it all should sound "musical", if it doesn't then there are still issues with the playback ...

Frank
 
I've seen this sort of comment many times, but that's not how it works. When a system is working well the orchestra is not in your living room, but beyond it, on the far side of your speakers. The analogy I use is that the end wall is removed and your room is transported to the recording venue and attached to an opening in the front wall of that venue. If this actually happened in real life there would a certain "sound" to the spill of acoustic energy coming into your listening area; and that's exactly how a system working well sounds.

So, for an orchestral recording you're listening into a far bigger space than your living room; and for heavily manipulated pop recordings you can "see" all the various spaces that the different multi-tracked elements were recorded in. I've got a couple of David Bowie CDs from his experimental years at the moment, and they're hard going if the system is not fully warmed up, insufficient acoustic clues are being rendered accurately enough for the ear/brain to make sense of it, it's a "muddy" sound. But, once you pass a certain quality level then the various elements start to sharpen in focus, the sound steadily gets "bigger and bigger" until every part of the soundscape makes sense; you have no trouble "zooming" in mentally on some aspect and being able to "see" precisely what was done. In one sense these sorts of recordings are very satisfying because you can appreciate the effort and attention to detail that went into assembling the end sound. As a recording engineer you may disapprove of the decisions made, but as someone completely uninvolved in that field I find it pleasurable to see the workmanship. And, it all should sound "musical", if it doesn't then there are still issues with the playback ...

Frank

Hi Frank,
I get what you are saying.
Yet, again, the soundstage isn't the only factor affecting the sense of music realism.
Again, complete realism, as to fool blindfolded musician, is unattainable, at least not in the foreseen future. Since complete realism is unattainable, various people prefer better performance on some aspects and are willing to compromise more on other aspects. Hence personal taste and preferences.

As for the recording/mixing/mastering process, definitely not all recordings are "musical" to same degree. It has nothing to do with the limitations of the reproducing gear.
 
I have never seen any reasonable explanation which supports run in of the wires. None.
Again, this is material behaviours; part of the "conditioning" taking place is that the materials relax in a certain orientation, taking a warp like a piece of timber under stress does. This then changes the triboelectric behaviour of the materials, as at least one aspect.

Frank
 
Again, this is material behaviours
Can we have some reasonable clarification about this theory? If possible with supporting figures?
Cat6 has bigger conductors & different insulation than Cat5
I don't know the details
24 AWG to 22 AWG for CAT6, (mostly 23), while 24AWG for cat 5.
 
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Anyone got/seen JC's mythical 'proof'?

This has been mentioned before the example is exaggerated to get a tangible result (sound familiar?) and the analysis is fairly trivial algebra and applies to ALL op-amps of this architecture, it's just that soon we are down in the femto-seconds and who cares?

I see where this is going op-amps are bad (low OLG pole and lots of feedback) so it's fair to differentiate them by this test but things like the BT (probably) and Pass amps (certainly) we know ahead won't measure well so get a bye.
 
Again, complete realism, as to fool blindfolded musician, is unattainable, at least not in the foreseen future.
Is there any particular reason that you believe this? I certainly aim for that level of quality and feel fairly confident that I achieve it regularly. I'm with Christophe in wanting correct SPL levels, and know, for example, the volume setting so that a conventional classical solo piano recording matches what a real instrument achieves

As for the recording/mixing/mastering process, definitely not all recordings are "musical" to same degree. It has nothing to do with the limitations of the reproducing gear.
What I mean by "musical" is that the sounds embedded in a very dense mix all make acoustic sense; the processed sounds are clearly so, and the natural, or directly recorded instrumental or vocal elements sound "real". So, for example, in the David Bowie recordings when his voice is not deliberately manipulated it sounds completely realistic and believable, even when buried under or mixed in with multiple layers of, say, heavily distorted guitar.

Frank
 
Can we have some reasonable clarification about this theory? If possible with supporting figures?
Check out Belden's cable catalogue: no trouble buying, at extra cost, specified "low noise" cable which has had a carbon lubricant applied to the insulators during manufacture to reduce the level of static induced spikes, of the order of millivolts occurring with use. Of course, this has to do with cable used with medical equipment, where accuracy and lack of spurious input is important; unlike audio where it is quite irrelevant, :p, ;) ...

Frank
 
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