First of all, back in the 1970s German workers didn't earn the kind of huge salaries they do today. Second, they had a captive market, an elite upper class who were so rich money meant nothing to them. Tariff policies allowed them to protect their domestic markets. However, I saw a lot of so called high end European equipment of many kinds including both consumer and industrial equipment both here and when I lived in Europe. I was not impressed by most of it then, I am not impressed now. It strikes me that even the best of it was over priced and underbuilt while average consumer equipment was junk. Example, my Thompson TV set that suffered among other things an internal explosion when a capacitor blew up during an electrical storm. Another, my friend's electric blanket that caught fire and nearly burned him to death. Even plumbing fixtures that looked like they were chrome plated brass were actually made out of the cheapest plastic. Electrical standards seemed non existant. Very dangerous.
I learned the skills of wiring and soldering electronic components from a quality control manager of a high tech military electronics firm. The MOSFET amp I built as a kit was assembled to high standards and has given no problems from the moment I turned it on 18 years ago to this day. I'm only sorry I didn't buy more of them when I had the chance. It was cheap and performs to my satisfaction. It seems to work very well even with the difficult 4 ohm load of AR9s. On another site, one guy reported that he had a Krell amplifier that kept blowing up. Eventually after replacing the output stage several times Krell traced the problem to a defective capacitor in the power supply. Must have been a quality control failure to have let it get by. Must have been a failure of troubleshooting skills to fix the consequences while failing to get to the root cause of the problem. That's typical of many so called high end audio equipment failures I've heard about. Overpriced, underbuilt, and easy to reverse engineer and build at a fraction of the retail cost if anyone really cared to. And the justification for megabuck speakers....furniture grade cabinets most of which will eventually suffer dings, water stains, and cat pee.
I know. Besides holding our knives and forks in opposite hands, here first we chew, then we swallow. Over in Europe they do that the other way around too.
What Does A Preamp Really Do....?
Hi John, this thread is now 9000+ replies long which is much too long to peruse, and besides there are far too many diversions to assimilate into anything coherent without an extraordinarily degree of reading.
So, what is the real purpose of a line level preamp stage box compared to a dumb volume control potentiometer ?.
Ok, we all understand that a typical preamp box provides input switching and output level control in addition defined input impedance and defined output independence.
It can be argued that any active stage between input and output will add noise and/or distortion containing 'whatever' spectral content and therefore actually degrade the typically measured performance of the source signal.
Your well lauded designs go to extraordinary complexity and commensurate cost to achieve what on the surface view is that of a simple volume control.
What in your view are your preamp designs doing to add that 'something extra' ?.
Eric.
Hi John, this thread is now 9000+ replies long which is much too long to peruse, and besides there are far too many diversions to assimilate into anything coherent without an extraordinarily degree of reading.
So, what is the real purpose of a line level preamp stage box compared to a dumb volume control potentiometer ?.
Ok, we all understand that a typical preamp box provides input switching and output level control in addition defined input impedance and defined output independence.
It can be argued that any active stage between input and output will add noise and/or distortion containing 'whatever' spectral content and therefore actually degrade the typically measured performance of the source signal.
Your well lauded designs go to extraordinary complexity and commensurate cost to achieve what on the surface view is that of a simple volume control.
What in your view are your preamp designs doing to add that 'something extra' ?.
Eric.
I just knew that there is something about you!
What are you laughing about, you come from a land where the national dish is haggis. Now where else in the world would anyone have thought to try deep frying Mars Bars?
I think it was last year that we reached a landmark where the English now claim historical evidence that haggis was originally invented in England, not Scotland as has been widely believed. Who would want the distinction of taking credit for such a thing, I ask you?
JC says he only lives a few blocks from "Le Restaurant." I wonder if he lives upwind or downwind. I can see him telling the realtor now, " Forget kitchen size, forget how many bedrooms or how large the living room is, I'd like something in an area where when the wind blows, the aromas wafting my way will come from Chez Panisse."
Also driving cables and amp input capacitances. And input capacitances of amps (which are sometimes surprisingly high).
Mrfeedback, I would be glad to answer that question.
First, the Blowtorch preamp is MORE than a volume control, it is a an input selection center and an output buffer WITH VOLTAGE GAIN, as well.
The main difference between it and a much cheaper simple preamp is COMPONENT QUALITY. It is a testbed for what we could do to make the most 'invisible' sounding preamp, possible. We used the very best parts that we could buy, because we found, from experience, that these were the best sounding. It is the final culmination of Bob's, Carl's and MY experience (CTC) into a preamp, as sparse as a race car, with intentions to WIN listening contests at CES. We WON a few, too!
Bob wanted to do it, just for fun, and he wanted to help me have something to do, in my old age. At the time, I worked almost exclusively for Parasound, and we did not know whether they would last over future years. They have, thank goodness.
I don't miss making Blowtorch's, they are too much work, with difficult customers, and disappointing vendors, who continually increased the cost of their wares, and besides, I have my OWN Blowtorch that I use every day.
At first, I did NOT think that the Blowtorch would sound as good as my simple 10 turn wire-wound dual volume control and a standard Vendetta phono stage. This, I used for several years, putting aside the Levinson JC-2, and the JC-80 into the closet. This worked, but it was darn inconvenient.
Overall, the Blowtorch won, and sounded better, perhaps because of better power supplies for the internal Vendetta, slightly better caps, etc. You know, all the 'impossible to hear' stuff. The switches were 'invisible' too, to sonic degradation, so long as one used them, once in a while.
No, this preamp does what it does, well. It just sits there, and doesn't add much to the sound at all.
First, the Blowtorch preamp is MORE than a volume control, it is a an input selection center and an output buffer WITH VOLTAGE GAIN, as well.
The main difference between it and a much cheaper simple preamp is COMPONENT QUALITY. It is a testbed for what we could do to make the most 'invisible' sounding preamp, possible. We used the very best parts that we could buy, because we found, from experience, that these were the best sounding. It is the final culmination of Bob's, Carl's and MY experience (CTC) into a preamp, as sparse as a race car, with intentions to WIN listening contests at CES. We WON a few, too!
Bob wanted to do it, just for fun, and he wanted to help me have something to do, in my old age. At the time, I worked almost exclusively for Parasound, and we did not know whether they would last over future years. They have, thank goodness.
I don't miss making Blowtorch's, they are too much work, with difficult customers, and disappointing vendors, who continually increased the cost of their wares, and besides, I have my OWN Blowtorch that I use every day.
At first, I did NOT think that the Blowtorch would sound as good as my simple 10 turn wire-wound dual volume control and a standard Vendetta phono stage. This, I used for several years, putting aside the Levinson JC-2, and the JC-80 into the closet. This worked, but it was darn inconvenient.
Overall, the Blowtorch won, and sounded better, perhaps because of better power supplies for the internal Vendetta, slightly better caps, etc. You know, all the 'impossible to hear' stuff. The switches were 'invisible' too, to sonic degradation, so long as one used them, once in a while.
No, this preamp does what it does, well. It just sits there, and doesn't add much to the sound at all.
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