I've encouraged you many times to try doing ears-only tests. I still do, though I'm pretty convinced that you won't trust your ears and do it. That's certainly your right, but it does make it appear as if you're not exactly convinced that you really can hear the difference between an expensive, well-engineered preamp and a cheap well-engineered preamp.
Perhaps, and I could be wrong in this, John's hearing at his age is just not what would be required to do double blind testing and be useful for a listening test? Unless someone actually still has acute hearing and has upper registry that can even get up to if not over 16Khz how can you count on their listening and evaluating at this level of differentiation. I have known many guys that even in their 40's had such hearing loss due to environmental factors as to make what they thought sounded good, useless.
What I said was, 'subjective reaction of "it sounds like the real thing"'. Meaning, you can be fooled into regarding what you're hearing as being equivalent to the live experience. 99% of hifi's always sound like a hifi, especially when you get reasonably close to an individual speaker; I'm talking about getting past that point. At the hifi show I just went to there was just one system that was capable of reproducing drum kit instruments correctly, none of the others stood a chance of doing that. And that's what I want ...
I sure you're closer than many, but in my experience it's very difficult to close the gap between 98% and 100% SQ. When it happens, you certainly know it; one of the reactions can be that the real thing no longer sounds as good as the reproduction!! Why, because the mic's when recording are placed absolutely optimally, usually, to pick up all the detail in the sound, which is often not where you are when listening live ...
Frank
Zillion slew rate current feedback everywhere you can, including Power amps, spherical horns with good drivers (i Know only one), two ways (time aligned) in your enclosures (with added sub if you like), high efficiency, comfortable margins of power, digital active filters with flatten response curve and group delay alignment of your speakers is the way i suggest, with the necessary acoustic treatment of the listening room
Did-we agree on that ?
Nb: Not so easy for somebody witch does not build his own system and is stuck with commercial products.
The difference between us is i don't believe, or dream, of 100%. The question remains about what is the 98% of one and the 100% of an other.
For me, as long we will be stuck with actual speakers technology, hifi will remain junk, in some ways.
Sometimes an agreeable or impressive junk, yes.
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Serious people making serious listening:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/129126-simplistic-njfet-riaa-873.html#post3266105
Note they have preferred a Solid state current feed-back amp to their tube's one.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/129126-simplistic-njfet-riaa-873.html#post3266105
Note they have preferred a Solid state current feed-back amp to their tube's one.
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John claims he can hear the differences. Now, at his age. His eyes are irrelevant for hearing.
Not so sure: We had tried this joke near a well known reviewer, during the listening session with some real other preamps.
The wire was not the winner, according to his notes
We were not in so good relationship with him, after having revealed the trickery
Trickery???
Good ears consist of 2 capability: (1) Differentiate 2 sound sources (2) Decide which one is "preferable".
If a straight wire is what we want, why use preamp at all? We need preamp because we need to boost details/dynamics that is not available with straight wire. But we want the performance of noise and distortion as good as a straight wire.
If you do blind test with common people (especially with a system which is naturally far from perfect), a straight wire should NEVER win. Most of us will have difficulty in deciding between too little, enough or too much of everything.
Thank you, kindhornman for your perceptive input.
I have been evaluating audio equipment over the last 50 years. However, at my age now, I would not consider myself the best listener. I suspect that many of my contemporaries, like John Atkinson are in the same boat.
The best I can do today, is to 'live' with something and note a departure from what I heard before. I use others to do my 'reviewing' for me.
However, that does NOT mean that I was always this way. 35 years ago, I evaluated the 5534 and found it 'wanting' in a tight A-B test.
The same year, I also found that I could NOT hear the difference between a Levinson JC-2 line stage and a Dyna PAS3X (a preamp I used for 10 years before the JC-2, in a typical ABX test, with a typical ABX box. Some of my contemporaries gave up audio electronic design at this point. I went on, instead, and made dozens of products, each 'better' than the last.
The last time I did some SERIOUS evaluation was about 20 years ago, when I had to put my hi fi back together, after what I had was destroyed in a firestorm.
I tried cheap cables, at first. Not anymore.
I tried a different turntable and cartridge type. Not anymore
I tried similar speakers to what I had before. Got rid of those, too!
Today I am settled with what I have, with few inclinations to upgrade. I just can't hear that much difference, anymore.
However, I am not going out of my way to subject myself or my personal audio equipment to any 'extra' testing, just because people don't believe what I say about audio quality. I hope this settles the problem.
Now, back to a simple 1 dual IC line amp. That should be good enough for the majority of my critics out there. Don't you think?
I have been evaluating audio equipment over the last 50 years. However, at my age now, I would not consider myself the best listener. I suspect that many of my contemporaries, like John Atkinson are in the same boat.
The best I can do today, is to 'live' with something and note a departure from what I heard before. I use others to do my 'reviewing' for me.
However, that does NOT mean that I was always this way. 35 years ago, I evaluated the 5534 and found it 'wanting' in a tight A-B test.
The same year, I also found that I could NOT hear the difference between a Levinson JC-2 line stage and a Dyna PAS3X (a preamp I used for 10 years before the JC-2, in a typical ABX test, with a typical ABX box. Some of my contemporaries gave up audio electronic design at this point. I went on, instead, and made dozens of products, each 'better' than the last.
The last time I did some SERIOUS evaluation was about 20 years ago, when I had to put my hi fi back together, after what I had was destroyed in a firestorm.
I tried cheap cables, at first. Not anymore.
I tried a different turntable and cartridge type. Not anymore
I tried similar speakers to what I had before. Got rid of those, too!
Today I am settled with what I have, with few inclinations to upgrade. I just can't hear that much difference, anymore.
However, I am not going out of my way to subject myself or my personal audio equipment to any 'extra' testing, just because people don't believe what I say about audio quality. I hope this settles the problem.
Now, back to a simple 1 dual IC line amp. That should be good enough for the majority of my critics out there. Don't you think?
Nope, disagree ...Zillion slew rate current feedback everywhere you can, including Power amps, spherical horns with good drivers (i Know only one), two ways (time aligned) in your enclosures (with added sub if you like), high efficiency, comfortable margins of power, digital active filters with flatten response curve and group delay alignment of your speakers is the way i suggest, with the necessary acoustic treatment of the listening room
Did-we agree on that ?.
Getting the many technical things right as you have, may, or may not, tip the balance over to that 100%. Some people are lucky enough to fluke it at times, others not ...
The headache is, that getting good sound is subtractive, not additive. And I've talked of this concept elsewhere, as some may be aware ...
Which means, that good sound is not adding good source to good amps to good speakers to good room. It may work, but no guarantees. Rather, any system is capable of excellent sound but a weakness, a problem, an issue somewhere subtracts from that excellence. And so the process I use is to track down, unearth that problem child, and counter, subtract that. The chances are almost zero that I will have good sound at this point, because there are bound to be more weaknesses, so now I have to locate the next issue and resolve that. And on and on it goes ...
Think of it like this: a space capsule that leaks air, anywhere, is useless, the people inside will die. So the trick is to remove every single leak, no matter how minor. Making the walls thicker, using higher quality rubber for the seals, applying special sealant over everything you can see, is not going to help if some tiny valve somewhere is playing up. No matter what I do elsewhere, until I realise I have this valve problem and fix it the people inside the capsule are doomed ...
This is the approach I use for improving audio, and it has served me well ...
Frank
This sentence is revealing !!!!!
How-do-you do that ? Do you have an expander in your preamp ? With a "detail" discriminator ?
I need a preamp to can tune the levels, switch and distribute sources WITHOUT deteriorating anything. Like "boosting" i don't know what. Enclosures witch dont boost any frequency ranges and don't add resonances (impossible).
Of course, each component adds its own distortion, noise, phase turns, bandwidth limitation, lack of linearities.
So subtract something from the original signal. It is no more complicated than this, but it seems obvious that, for you, It is a sort of "cooking", playing with tastes and flavors...
I hate to say that, because you are sympathetic, but, for me, both of you have a middle-aged and surrealistic kind of position.
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If what you want is to fine tune the level, you can use passive preamp. Isn't that closer to a straight wire?
I have built many aikido, DCB1, JFET based preamp, JLH, etc. In my system I prefer passive preamp (which is no preamp). But I know what is "missing" from passive setup (I need only around one amplifying stage between current output DAC and my amps). But that is my "preference", which may be different from person to person
If you know that people have different taste/preference, what is the point of blind testing to find which preamp is the "winner"?
John, i believe nobody, here, have any doubt about your system ( Loudspeakers apart ?).
The reason why some are crossed against you is not complicated and be resumed in two points:
- The indecent selling price of your Blowtorch.
- The reference to some magical recipes, like burning cables or giving them a direction.
If you were staying stuck to technical aspects: choices of circuit, configurations and parts for their technical characteristics, how to optimize power supplies, etc... You could satisfy both:
- Those who believe in magic (and despite they believes, understand nothing about the subject) because your name is considered by them as a reference and you as a guru,
- and the technicians, who shoud be gracefull to get a little of your long experience in electronic for audio design.
Your problem is that you spend a lot of your time, here, to auto promote your work and yourself (You don't need that). And talk to us like if we were all naive "audiophiles", believing in magic, visiting-you in a hifi show, and listening religiously those crazy conferences and slide shows made by gurus to sell their products.
Neither Nelson Pass, neither Bob Cordell, neither Walf Jung etc... did that kind of things, no one have to suffer the slings and arrows of diyAudio members.
If i can give-you the deep of my thought, your preamp is probably very good, because few parts, good paired components, great care of power supply, and, if measured distortion is correct, because it is not a closed loop, will not suffer from too much negative effects due to bandwidth limitations.
In an other side, i don't believe in any magic, see what i mean ?
Your preamp is the kind of thing many can do, here, at home, for their pleasure and few bucks.
With similar results and without any virgin or machined boxes in plain unobtanium.
The reason why some are crossed against you is not complicated and be resumed in two points:
- The indecent selling price of your Blowtorch.
- The reference to some magical recipes, like burning cables or giving them a direction.
If you were staying stuck to technical aspects: choices of circuit, configurations and parts for their technical characteristics, how to optimize power supplies, etc... You could satisfy both:
- Those who believe in magic (and despite they believes, understand nothing about the subject) because your name is considered by them as a reference and you as a guru,
- and the technicians, who shoud be gracefull to get a little of your long experience in electronic for audio design.
Your problem is that you spend a lot of your time, here, to auto promote your work and yourself (You don't need that). And talk to us like if we were all naive "audiophiles", believing in magic, visiting-you in a hifi show, and listening religiously those crazy conferences and slide shows made by gurus to sell their products.
Neither Nelson Pass, neither Bob Cordell, neither Walf Jung etc... did that kind of things, no one have to suffer the slings and arrows of diyAudio members.
If i can give-you the deep of my thought, your preamp is probably very good, because few parts, good paired components, great care of power supply, and, if measured distortion is correct, because it is not a closed loop, will not suffer from too much negative effects due to bandwidth limitations.
In an other side, i don't believe in any magic, see what i mean ?
Your preamp is the kind of thing many can do, here, at home, for their pleasure and few bucks.
With similar results and without any virgin or machined boxes in plain unobtanium.
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Because YOU or THEY don't know what you or they listen too. (The sources)
You (or they) will prefer a component witch have defects in an opposite side of the sources defects (so correct them) and/or chose a component witch will sound good on a bad recording (not my personnal quest).
You are talking of "taste", i'm looking for transparency.
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Indeed, in most cases, with modern signal sources, we don't, we just need something that raises and lowers the volume and selects between sources. You may be looking for an effects box, something that alters the signal, and that's fine, but it's not hifi.
If a level-matched ears-only listening test were done of John's preamp versus a piece of wire, my money would be on null identification- which would be the case for any well-engineered (and his preamp IS well-engineered) line stage.
From my experience with blind tests. The preference of the majority (including me) is usually (if not always) a sound that is musical (good sonics/dynamics, whatever that means), the one that makes you move your body and tap your feet, and the one that project the sound-stage the best.
Now what happen if you TRICK us by playing a distorted music. I will be confused like always (but when it happened I always revert to my reference recording). But that's not my interest.
Many engineers talk only about ideal sound. They have no idea what the majority want. That's fine, if they realize that there are differences in life. Problem is, when they think that others must think like them, must have their preference.
Sorry, not correct. The intention is never to subtract from the audio signal, reduce its integrity; I'm subtracting distortion elements from the reproduction process, not that within the recording, which are most critical to hindering the hearing mechanism's ability to unravel, comfortably, fine detail which is part of the recorded event. I'll give you an example: an excellent "poor" recording I use to evaluate progress with is a CD collection of famous early 30's swing orchestra tunes, original recordings transcribed from 78's. Lots of musicians crammed into a deep space, busy mixes, heavy on the brass crescendos -- you get the picture. On a normal hifi, at a decent volume, this is almost impossible, it's run from the room screaming stuff; when my setup is almost right it's all quite reasonable to listen to, but it doesn't turn me on; but when it's totally sorted everything snaps into focus: each player can be seen clearly, you can identify the layers of the lineup, and the sizzling brass climaxes are subjectively as clean as a whistle, effortless to listen to.
This is what happens when you get psychoacoustics on your side; you give your hearing system a fighting chance to decode the musical message without fatigue, and it rewards you with pleasurable listening ...
Frank
SY, we are on the same track.
Jay, when i'm looking for a studio device, i look for things with character, witch can satisfy *my* preferences. I'm CREATING sounds, there.
When it is about reproduction, i want NO character. A *poor* strait wire. (unfortunately, impossible, speaker side).
My purpose it to help people to know exactly what they are doing.
You can understand why it is a sensible subject. I'm in concern with the fact people can ear my studio work *as* it has been created.
But i can understand people who want to have an agreeable system, repainting most of the sources according to their color preferences. Just they are not on the HIFI side, and we cannot agree or discuss our subjective "preferences" (tastes and colors).
Jay, when i'm looking for a studio device, i look for things with character, witch can satisfy *my* preferences. I'm CREATING sounds, there.
When it is about reproduction, i want NO character. A *poor* strait wire. (unfortunately, impossible, speaker side).
My purpose it to help people to know exactly what they are doing.
You can understand why it is a sensible subject. I'm in concern with the fact people can ear my studio work *as* it has been created.
But i can understand people who want to have an agreeable system, repainting most of the sources according to their color preferences. Just they are not on the HIFI side, and we cannot agree or discuss our subjective "preferences" (tastes and colors).
You're right on the money, Jay. What is not generally understood is that there is a huge amount of information encoded in every recording, unless it is an "audiophile" recording -- these are some of the worst recordings I have, because they have been so sterilised, to stop anyone being offended by the slightest irregularity, and they're really quite tedious to listen to. On normal recordings, all the subtle acoustic clues are there, which bring the musical event to life, and which makes them worth listening to; that's part of the crucial information that has to be recovered as cleanly as possible. But, there is also the distortion of the recording process, another part of the information load: that's something that mustn't be emphasised, highlighted in any way more than necessary.
So, to get "musical" playback, the answer is simple ... hah!! Recover low level detail cleanly, and don't spotlight, sharpen recording distortion. It's a fine juggling act, but most certainly achievable ...
Frank
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That is not so magical to achieve with a recording witch contain those characteristics. No records are so perfect, and audiophiles will spend their time to try to reach that on records that do not offer this.
And if they achieve their dream, it is no more hifi.
I use an Atrak encoder+decoder to clean some of my vinyls before sampling them on my computer.
They use mask effects. They help to refocus, clarify, separate sources, remove friction noises and make effortless listening. With no real deterioration on dynamic or tonal characteristics of instruments.
It is like removing a curtain between you and the source.
It is a studio effect, Not Hifi. See what i mean?
In a blind listening, you will (i will) prefer the output of them to the original. But it would be a wrong choice.
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If it's his preference, it's not a "wrong" choice, but indeed, it's not hifi. You're not revealing something in the recording, you're creating new sound.
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