My point is that once you manage to install a preconception in the public eye, it will take ages and tons of luck and money to change that.
Look no further than THD specs - the public at large still believes the smaller the number, the better the sound. Why? Well, quite simply, they have been drilled into believing that by the entire industry, which has worked hard for the last 50 years or so to make it happen.
This is the same. Some copywriter in some ad agency was erroniously told that these are digital devices, and even reputable magazines, such as for example Hi Fi News & Record Review, also went on to tell us that for example TaCT Millenium was a 100% digital amplifier.
The manufacturers sure were happy to promote that image. The public at large doesn't know analog technology, so digital is to them a mysterious domain where much unholy was going on. Nobody dares to ask. They just cough up the dough.
Ultimately, it's all about the money.
Look no further than THD specs - the public at large still believes the smaller the number, the better the sound. Why? Well, quite simply, they have been drilled into believing that by the entire industry, which has worked hard for the last 50 years or so to make it happen.
This is the same. Some copywriter in some ad agency was erroniously told that these are digital devices, and even reputable magazines, such as for example Hi Fi News & Record Review, also went on to tell us that for example TaCT Millenium was a 100% digital amplifier.
The manufacturers sure were happy to promote that image. The public at large doesn't know analog technology, so digital is to them a mysterious domain where much unholy was going on. Nobody dares to ask. They just cough up the dough.
Ultimately, it's all about the money.
I believe it was an EU decision. Early tests by the BBC were all at 256kb/s, where MP2 works quite well. At the 128kb/s bit rates now used for most stations MP3 would work better. DAB+ with AAC coding would be an improvement, but it would render obsolete most current DAB receivers so few politicians have the guts to propose it. Eventually they will have to choose between three unpalatable options:dvv said:
1. ditch DAB and stay with analogue
2. ditch DAB and upgrade to DAB+
3. ditch analogue and force people to use DAB
Their favoured option of a rapid voluntary migration from analogue to DAB is just not happening, because of reliability and sound quality issues. The longer they leave the decision the harder it gets.
I think I remember about it being some kind of all-digital contraption, so I googled...
looks like it was. based on the soundstage.com blurb, it seems that it's a PCM to PWM converter, which is digital. problem is that it's impossible to make it decent (at least from an objective stand-point) without post-filter NFB. because of load influence, switchers dead-times and rise-times etc. damn, we tried to keep it all pure (read digital) and 2 damned transistors, one coil and a cap ruined all that pureness.
so how do you solve that? you add an ADC which is, well, an analog-to-digital converter. so it's not digital after all. obviously a case of marketing combined with dogma. maybe the designers themselves truly believed that it will be viewed as the long awaited perfect amp, because it maintains the "digital pureness" up to the output stage.
but most currently available implementations have analog inputs, the modulators are analog, there is no DSP, ADC or DAC involved. so it's all analog.
The BBC were always early adopters. DAB+ is what developed when others waited and studied what happened.
Digital TV picture CAN be better than analogue, but only with adequate bit rate. Too low to squeeze in more channels and you end up with horrible artifacts on movement.
Analogue radio and TV had the huge advantage that there was little motive for the bean counters to cut quality as they had fixed channel bandwidth
Digital TV picture CAN be better than analogue, but only with adequate bit rate. Too low to squeeze in more channels and you end up with horrible artifacts on movement.
Analogue radio and TV had the huge advantage that there was little motive for the bean counters to cut quality as they had fixed channel bandwidth
No artefacts here, thank you. Well, on a bad day, some marginal channels do have some artefacts, but not the big gun channels, like Fox, Universal, BBC, etc.
And, thankfully, not my favorite channels, like National Geographic, History channel, Viasta History and Animal Planet. NatGeo especially has a very high quality picture, thank god Electron.
Somebody said to me once that digital is the same as analogue with twice the problems . It is very simplistic and has a grain of truth in it . We should at 44.1 kHz dismiss the bandwidth issue . If a one bit system it is a bit more relevant . The guy said and I never check for myself this . If you put a low grade analogue buffer on the analogue or digital side the degrading effects are simlar . The buffer would have the bandwidth it should be stressed . A low grade video amp might work well as a test . He was quick to say many never question the need for anything special in the digital domain . My instinct is to say the digital is not as important . However with a little thought maybe it is ? Similar sonic traits which may not come from exactly the same origin .
So in a nutshell extending the though a little ( I hate calling it a digital amp , if so it would do direct digital decoding without too many steps ) . All that is wrong with class D is it adds a layer of complexity ( some layers ) . However poor the amplifiers I make they are my own designs . Some so weird I would never show them ( daft designs which I had to try , some are very good , most are even by $2 radio standards minimalist ) . One thing I do find theses days is mostly what I design works first time . I can mostly do that without any special precautions . That says to me they are inherently stable . I dream of the day I master class D the same . As I said the other day we can all become consumers . If a Ferrari I see virtue in that . A postage stamp amplifier with quirky working ? No , you buy it .
A question which I know the answer to but would like others to say . A friend has written to me about obsolete Japanese transistors . RS still list 2SA1085 which is well beyond superb ( PNP , 90 MHz , 0.55nV / root Hz , 120V , hfe 300 , Cob I guess 2 pF ) . I notice if my eyes don't deceive me that BC640 would be pin compatible ( 2N5401 not ) . Looking at it's spec it looks almost OK . Did anyone ever use them as inputs ( Velleman /Elector did ) ? I notice MPSA 92( 42 ) gets used sometimes . Is it too much of a leap to say BC640 is generic ? Being a mini power transistor ( like BD140 I have always guessed ) it might have low noise . 2SA970 if fine ( 2SA872A ) .
So in a nutshell extending the though a little ( I hate calling it a digital amp , if so it would do direct digital decoding without too many steps ) . All that is wrong with class D is it adds a layer of complexity ( some layers ) . However poor the amplifiers I make they are my own designs . Some so weird I would never show them ( daft designs which I had to try , some are very good , most are even by $2 radio standards minimalist ) . One thing I do find theses days is mostly what I design works first time . I can mostly do that without any special precautions . That says to me they are inherently stable . I dream of the day I master class D the same . As I said the other day we can all become consumers . If a Ferrari I see virtue in that . A postage stamp amplifier with quirky working ? No , you buy it .
A question which I know the answer to but would like others to say . A friend has written to me about obsolete Japanese transistors . RS still list 2SA1085 which is well beyond superb ( PNP , 90 MHz , 0.55nV / root Hz , 120V , hfe 300 , Cob I guess 2 pF ) . I notice if my eyes don't deceive me that BC640 would be pin compatible ( 2N5401 not ) . Looking at it's spec it looks almost OK . Did anyone ever use them as inputs ( Velleman /Elector did ) ? I notice MPSA 92( 42 ) gets used sometimes . Is it too much of a leap to say BC640 is generic ? Being a mini power transistor ( like BD140 I have always guessed ) it might have low noise . 2SA970 if fine ( 2SA872A ) .
I have been thinking for sometime now to ask the BBC if they could let us have what would call their up links to their FM transmitters . It might still be 13 Bit Nicam ? I will probably find it has been MP2 or whatever for years and my prejudices have preferred FM . If so it is ringing in the MPX filters I love or whatever ? I don't think so ? I am told the pumping effects come in at - 78 dB , without hiss we might hear that ? I think I could live with that . The listening panel at the BBC in 1972 said they could in both respects . They were after a reality to the sound within what was possible then . Harness I was told often was the result of technical solutions that looked good on paper . Measured problems of seemingly greater importance were often more acceptable to the listening team ( these would include technically gifted engineers with a musical background ) . The way the Near Instantaneous worked ( NIcam ) was important .
The idea would be to stream it over the internet . I have no great knowledge if that would be easy .
I believe BBC program distribution still uses NICAM, but I don't know which version. It might be the 13-bit non-linear system - that seems to work very well. Nasty sound on FM mainly comes from incompetent studio engineers, poorly trained journalists (who now have to make their own recordings!), and the audio compression applied at the transmitter to make the signal loud (some for the BBC, lots for commercial stations).
the first FM station to appear after the 1989 riots used such an amount of compression it was unbearable. and I'm not talking from an audiophile stand point but a common sense one. I was a kid then but I used to think how can anyone stand that? I find it a mystery how nothing ever changed.
BTW BBC offers an AAC Stream (320 Kbps) for Radio 3:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls
It is available on iTunes too.
should be better than any version of DAB. DAB has no future I think,
mobile internet capable devices and streaming are future proof and
the infrastructure is already here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls
It is available on iTunes too.
should be better than any version of DAB. DAB has no future I think,
mobile internet capable devices and streaming are future proof and
the infrastructure is already here.
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Just to Say HiFi is an Illusion.
On the original subject I think people still forget the important thing is we want to believe that this musician is siting next to that one and playing where we live.
Even with imaginary speakers from another planet with no distortion would still be expected to played back with an illusion of the room the sound was recorded in.
I think its interesting how different the German and British HiFi ebay pages are. German amplifiers are of much higher power and Hi tech 1980's.
The BBC from the 1950's to the 1980's helped research and develop the British HiFi industry with a strong focus on Science. They set the standard at 16 Ohms, Quad, Leak, Radford, Sugden, all followed in the foot steps of the BBC. Then in the 1970's British industry followed crazy fads like Built in Obsolescence, and people wanting quality stopped buying from such companies moved to Asian Brands like Luxman, Sanyo, Yammah and Kenwood. They used advanced circuits to produce HiFi kit, but often ruined it with tone controls you could not disable because that's what the public wanted. New British HiFi Manufacturers came in to fill the market, like Linn and Niam produced high quality products, but with lower tech solutions based on over engineering, but sold them on Brand, and objectivity of measurements died in the British HiFi market for a long time. The HiFi press backed Linn and Naim with nationalistic and advertising pride. Then some things started to change with the mid 1990's with people discovered objectively buying second hand 1970's was cheaper than any other option and then mp3 sound system took of and HiFi died.
Germany is almost the reverse, Braun is the company, and their effect on the German HiFi buying public of the 1960's to mid 1970's was could you afford a Braun HiFi? Braun HiFi was great looking in the average German House. Most non top end (and maybe the top end) Braun gear from before the transistor takes style and shape over Sound every time. 1970's HiFI in Germany is mostly integrated solutions, receivers or even fully integrated solutions. Braun, Wega, Saba, Grundig and others made boxes that did HiFi in a box that had speaker wires to speakers, but these where High quality solutions. Just a Power Amplifiers where mostly imports. Mostly from USA and Japan very high power. As the speakers where and are usually German produced. Many are low sensitivity 4 Ohms and need a lot of Amplifier power. These speakers usually beat UK HiFi on frequency response dramatically.
That is until the mid 1980's when Braun stuff just looks like its competing on price with a 30 Euro China deal. Hi-End HiFi in Germany is dominated by USA HiFi trends, high power amplifiers, 150 Watts and some impressive German Engineering of high powered amplifiers, to compensate for low sensitivity 4 Ohm speakers with wide flat frequency responses.
Honestly HiFi Sound Quality Vs. Measurements is not a simple thing, and many things can effect our illusions. Even with measuring, often you are not measuring what you think you are measuring. I think it is a function of how we listen to music most, is how we expect it to sound. We often assume we are correct. In such complex areas I suspect is not true, measurements are the answer for the designer, with checking by ear and every tool available.
The question is how to measure how we hear illusions be intruded upon?
On the original subject I think people still forget the important thing is we want to believe that this musician is siting next to that one and playing where we live.
Even with imaginary speakers from another planet with no distortion would still be expected to played back with an illusion of the room the sound was recorded in.
I think its interesting how different the German and British HiFi ebay pages are. German amplifiers are of much higher power and Hi tech 1980's.
The BBC from the 1950's to the 1980's helped research and develop the British HiFi industry with a strong focus on Science. They set the standard at 16 Ohms, Quad, Leak, Radford, Sugden, all followed in the foot steps of the BBC. Then in the 1970's British industry followed crazy fads like Built in Obsolescence, and people wanting quality stopped buying from such companies moved to Asian Brands like Luxman, Sanyo, Yammah and Kenwood. They used advanced circuits to produce HiFi kit, but often ruined it with tone controls you could not disable because that's what the public wanted. New British HiFi Manufacturers came in to fill the market, like Linn and Niam produced high quality products, but with lower tech solutions based on over engineering, but sold them on Brand, and objectivity of measurements died in the British HiFi market for a long time. The HiFi press backed Linn and Naim with nationalistic and advertising pride. Then some things started to change with the mid 1990's with people discovered objectively buying second hand 1970's was cheaper than any other option and then mp3 sound system took of and HiFi died.
Germany is almost the reverse, Braun is the company, and their effect on the German HiFi buying public of the 1960's to mid 1970's was could you afford a Braun HiFi? Braun HiFi was great looking in the average German House. Most non top end (and maybe the top end) Braun gear from before the transistor takes style and shape over Sound every time. 1970's HiFI in Germany is mostly integrated solutions, receivers or even fully integrated solutions. Braun, Wega, Saba, Grundig and others made boxes that did HiFi in a box that had speaker wires to speakers, but these where High quality solutions. Just a Power Amplifiers where mostly imports. Mostly from USA and Japan very high power. As the speakers where and are usually German produced. Many are low sensitivity 4 Ohms and need a lot of Amplifier power. These speakers usually beat UK HiFi on frequency response dramatically.
That is until the mid 1980's when Braun stuff just looks like its competing on price with a 30 Euro China deal. Hi-End HiFi in Germany is dominated by USA HiFi trends, high power amplifiers, 150 Watts and some impressive German Engineering of high powered amplifiers, to compensate for low sensitivity 4 Ohm speakers with wide flat frequency responses.
Honestly HiFi Sound Quality Vs. Measurements is not a simple thing, and many things can effect our illusions. Even with measuring, often you are not measuring what you think you are measuring. I think it is a function of how we listen to music most, is how we expect it to sound. We often assume we are correct. In such complex areas I suspect is not true, measurements are the answer for the designer, with checking by ear and every tool available.
The question is how to measure how we hear illusions be intruded upon?
great post.
every time I run into a situation where a solution has been chosen from a range of similar ones, I wonder: could this be simply because of legacy reasons?
why are dome tweeters predominant? why are electrodynamic speakers predominant? why does the power company provide us with 220V and not 173? why are my speakers 4 ohm?
remembers me of a time when a non-audiophile friend who was planning to buy an amp asked me "look, I've found a lot of amps without a volume knob on the web, why would anyone make such a thing?" I had no idea what to answer except "I think some one once thought it was a good idea and many followed".
I really believe many things audio could be explained this way
every time I run into a situation where a solution has been chosen from a range of similar ones, I wonder: could this be simply because of legacy reasons?
why are dome tweeters predominant? why are electrodynamic speakers predominant? why does the power company provide us with 220V and not 173? why are my speakers 4 ohm?
remembers me of a time when a non-audiophile friend who was planning to buy an amp asked me "look, I've found a lot of amps without a volume knob on the web, why would anyone make such a thing?" I had no idea what to answer except "I think some one once thought it was a good idea and many followed".
I really believe many things audio could be explained this way
While I agree with the bulk of your post, there are some points where we do not agree, or have remained unmentioned.
True, Braun was THE mainstream company, in many ways dictating the German mainstream. But, this was no accident, or blind luck - look inside their products and yu will see some very modern and sometimes bold solutions you are not likely to find anywhere else. As a consequence of that, some of their products had very interesting lives. Remember their TG1000 open reel deck? It looked oh-so-different when it appeared in 1969 (?), and it lived on as a local legend until 1975 or so. But it didn't just die or fade away, it was sold off as a project to ASC, who launched their 5000 machine, and then the 6000 machine, both further evolutions of the original, and went on to be made and sold until mid 80ies.
Except its main Swiss/German (owned and designed by Studer of Switzerland, but actually made in Loeffingen, Germany) reVox, I cannot remember ANY tape deck, by anybody, which managed to pull off that stunt.
Earlier on in this thread, I mentioned a product by a German company called Linear Audio Systems (LAS). It appeared in the second half of the 70ies, and in its day, it was in some respects way ahead of its time. Make it today, and I'll wager it will still blow the pants off most of its competitors, but what is impressive about it that unlike most mainstream Japanese, and even US and UK products of its day, it was based on force of intelligent design rather than sheer power (100/150W into 8/4 Ohms).
My shopping list today has only two items on it, both German - a Grunding V 5000 integrated amp and an ASC LV 5000 integrated amp (series II, with RCA Cinch rather than DIN 5 pole sockets). And believe me, I already have a nice collection of vintage gear.
My HiFi life started very modestly in 1966 with an Uher Report mono tape deck. Next was an Uher Royal De Luxe 5 years later, and the tape deck story ended with a Philips 4560 28 kilo machine, which took me to mid 90ies. My first turntable was a Dual 1019, and I still proudly own a Dual CS 604. My headphone collections will always contain something by Sennheiser and Beyer Dynamic. I still own a reVox B760 tuner, made in Loeffingen. Professionally, I have used many Klein & Hummel active speakers in TV editing rooms. Virtually all of the microphones I have ever used were by Sennheiser, with a little South Germany (Austria) AKG thrown in.
My point is, we could go on discussing the subject, but we'd better do it off forum in private mail, as we are far better versed than anyone alse here. My belief is that by and large, the Germans made better audio than the Brits overall, with some exceptions in both camps.
And in my view, the reason why German audio failed on the world market is due to the fact that while Germans could make it better than most, their marketing was below everybody else, about the bottom. This resulted in the German industry turning for OEM manufacturing to the Japanese in the early 80ies, and by well known German companies being bought out by others (e.g. Wega by Sony, Uher by Harman International, Grundig and Loewe by Philips, etc).
Germans helped this by blindly and suicidally sticking to DIN 3 and 5 pole socket standards, which the wide world was not happy with. Germans failed to understand that power sells, and hence their amps were underpowered by new standards set by US and Japanese manufacturers.
The one field where I feel the Germans have been heavily wronged by most others was loudspeakers. Briefly, my feeling is that Germans had evolved dome drivers to the point where they took the lead, generally expressed by very low droop at higher frequencies, at a time when the UK industry struggled for linearity above 15 kHz. This subjectively made German speakers sound brighter than say UK speakers, and the British press, very chauvinistically, proclaimed them too bright, shreaking, etc, most of which was just not true. So, companies well worth noting, like Canton, Heco, Kucke & Sohn, Elac, etc were unjustly passed over. If it's any consolation, the French did about the same - who in the UK or USA even knows about Cabasse speakers? Yet, Monsieur George Cabasse produced as many, if not more, great designs than Mr Paul Klipsch, or Mr James Lansing.
It's an unjust world, my friend, a world where it only matters how it looks to be, not what it really is.
great post.
every time I run into a situation where a solution has been chosen from a range of similar ones, I wonder: could this be simply because of legacy reasons?
why are dome tweeters predominant? why are electrodynamic speakers predominant? why does the power company provide us with 220V and not 173? why are my speakers 4 ohm?
remembers me of a time when a non-audiophile friend who was planning to buy an amp asked me "look, I've found a lot of amps without a volume knob on the web, why would anyone make such a thing?" I had no idea what to answer except "I think some one once thought it was a good idea and many followed".
I really believe many things audio could be explained this way
I second that.
As UI see it, the US and Japanese audio industries are to blame for many foolish things happening in audio.
The US industry because it soon stopped being competitive in the mainstream sector because of high prices, and they invented the "minimalist" design by throwing everything out. I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but here goes. Reducing an audio system to just a volume control and a source selector is all wrong in my book. There are no ideally matched input senitivities or output lines; hence, mismatch will be carried over, and amplified, until the end, which could cause serious imbalance. In my experience, imbalance between channels will kill ambient detail dead. Thus, I believe we still need a balance control in some form (balance or gain L and gain R), and to be able to make full use of it, we need a stereo/L+R switch. Between the two, we can get ideal balance in our rooms, with our speakers.
Tone controls can be extremely useful. Here, the Japanese managed to give them a bad name by racing who will get more boost/cut from their ciruits, and the sane part of the industry was drowned in the spec game. In reality, to achieve a reasonable room correction, we need a boost/cut of usually no more than +/- 3 dB or so, but we need it separate for both channels, since no two loudspeakers in any room are likely to work under ideally same conditions.
And some of, with no golden ears, actually hear as per the Fletcher-Munson curves, so we need some loudness compensation. Ideally, a variable one is preferred, so everyone can adjust as per his own needs.
I realize that desiging quality tone controls, which will do their job without smearing the sound, is no easy task. But it has been done, even by the mainstream industry. So why is not done any more? Simple - it costs money and it's not "in".
I had no idea what to answer except "I think some one once thought it was a good idea and many followed".
I really believe many things audio could be explained this way
I think this is the truth, even if I see an argument for power amplifiers, (and for tone controls including loudness compensation if you can switch them off).
When Speakers in general sound so much like speakers playing music fed to them, rather than people in your room. I think its amazing that HiFI can produce illusions of rooms larger than they playing in, with a sound stage of musicians so effectively.
This is clearly a case of us wanting to believe in an illusion, and the question remaining is what breaks this illusion?
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