I have no problem with that at all, as long as it's understood there is a sound of tubes and someone prefers it. All of it is a simulation anyway.
Quite interestingly, preference is a strong factor, much stronger than data when it comes to consumer products, much is because it is how we live with these products. Measures performance published only plays an assistive roll in the selection process.
I have a friend whom uses a sample of one of my earlier designs, later gave it to his son for use in a bar/small restaurant, whom was asking for another pair. Said he is willing to wait. We also sate down to compare the older generation with the new, which the old sounded pretty bad to my ears such that I wondered how I considered it good in the past; the overall tone balance was the same, just the clarity and the emotion of the performer was more obvious in the newer design.
Preference.also drives commercial designs as well.
I really don’t know yet because I have not explored that part, but the expensive designs did not work well. Rather the thicker power cords commonly available had more balanced sound. Since most will not go wrong using these, I did not feel it urgent enough to investigate. But through some safety testing, I did learn how the switching power interact with the mains, just don’t have the means in house to measure while the lab does not measure into the audio range.
Engineering wise it checks out. I mean if the cable inside the wall is half an inch wide then why should the one going to the dac be any thinner.
We're moving a 50Hz (60Hz tone for you guys) signal from one place to another here, its not rocket science to think that some kind of compression and resistance is going on if we are using a thinner gauge of wire.
But then again I would love to see what would happen to the DAC if a transformer went loose or a 10,000v power line came into contact with a 240v one. It would top the 4th of july. Not that anything less would happen if the cable was thinner.
We're moving a 50Hz (60Hz tone for you guys) signal from one place to another here, its not rocket science to think that some kind of compression and resistance is going on if we are using a thinner gauge of wire.
But then again I would love to see what would happen to the DAC if a transformer went loose or a 10,000v power line came into contact with a 240v one. It would top the 4th of july. Not that anything less would happen if the cable was thinner.
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The situation is, current is being drawn interactively with the music, if this interaction is not fully isolated from the mains, then the difference occurs. In reality, it is not possible to obtain total isolation, sometimes in testing through EMI this is obvious, but to various degrees of magnitude. Nobody tests the audio range, and the lab I use tests down to 150KHz in these measurements as the lowest in their equipment.
Actually when you think about it most of it is a simulation.
You would need to put your playback speakers in the same place as the
microphones were in a live performance and in basically the same room.
We really don't even here the same thing the engineer who mixed it did
unless of course we are the one who mixed it and listening to it through
the same speakers in the same room.
A lot of people are chasing an illusion.
Interesting though as a kid we were playing around with making recordings
for headphones,where we placed the mics 6" apart and recorded what was
played through the speakers, My sister called us for supper and upon
playback I had answered her call only to realize it was her on the recording.
That was the closest to ever truly having a real playback
as close to original as I have ever really heard.
That might be why a 50+ year old console stereo/mono record player sounds so good. Its just about the same height as a band would place their microphone which is usually at about the same height as a floor standing amplifier as used in a band.
I suppose the only thing missing is mid-bass speakers, technically speaking they should ideally be placed on the floor but we have historically moved mid-bass up to where the main speakers are, at about ear-height. If we filter out mid-bass however and move it down to the floor again we might be able to get a much more intact stereo image.
I'm thinking maybe a 8" or 12" driver in a large enclosure with a low wattage high sensitivity driver. Maybe open baffle so the rear wall adds to the effect.
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I suppose you mean decreasing the speaker damping by the SS amp.
I do not believe that there is much to that in reality.
Given the abysmal efficiency of a speaker to convert electrical to mechanical/
acoustical energy, the coupling forth & back cannot be a first order effect.
cheers,
Gerhard
who just recovers from a heavy metal concert. Tnx gods I had
excellent attenuators for my ears. (The driving force behind that
was my lil daughter )
Sufficiently good isolation will be provided by any competent PSU. As I often say, cable sensitivity is a sign of poor electronic design.soongsc said:
Of course, with a Class B or Class D amplifier the mains current draw will vary with the music envelope but no amount of fancy cables will change that.
It can make a significant change to the sub-100Hz FR of the speakers. I would not recommend it for passive speakers, but for actives it seems a valid tuning method. Rod Elliot uses it. But I don't want to open the currentdrive can of worms on here
It can make a significant change to the sub-100Hz FR of the speakers. I would not recommend it for passive speakers, but for actives it seems a valid tuning method. Rod Elliot uses it. But I don't want to open the currentdrive can of worms on here
Agreed although I would not ever use it.
I've never heard low bass sounding correct to me until I came across active speakers driven with low output impedance amps.
SS driven passive bass horns came close but they are far too large and too loud for home use (not a friend of bass speakers driven by mW, never seem to sound right).
So active, SS-driven with thick&short cables is for me. Others seem to hear things differently though.
If you just consider the transformer, the rectifier, and the filtering caps, I wonder what other design options you have? Perhaps you have a specific reference design which you consider not so sensitive? Switching power supplies would have different considerations. One design that someone tried to swap the power cable on was the NCD class D amplifier also in this forum. An O core transformer was used at
that time.
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