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The volume pot - The hidden villain of preamp

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I too have no desire to fight. It's just I hear this term 'Hi-End' used a lot as if it has some specific meaning.. I just want to understand what it means but if you don't know that's fine.

Cheers

Ian

OK, words are not my thing, but will do my best.

Hi-End etymologically derived from High-End, is the modern equivalent of Hi-Fi, we could say that Hi-End Audio refers to the high end of the Hi-Fi range.

Apparently the term was coined in the '60s by Stereophile magazine.

It is of course susceptible of various interpretations, the most commonly accepted terms of outstanding sound quality, build quality, and components used.

For others, it refers to the most expensive on the list. :D

As examples of Hi-End Audio Equipment

1) Vacuum State of Allen Wright

2) Wavebourn's Amplifiers, I could only criticize some colors used.

3) His Master's Noise by SY, although he doesn't get along well with the soldering iron. :D
 
OK, words are not my thing, but will do my best.

Hi-End etymologically derived from High-End, is the modern equivalent of Hi-Fi, we could say that Hi-End Audio refers to the high end of the Hi-Fi range.

Apparently the term was coined in the '60s by Stereophile magazine.

It is of course susceptible of various interpretations, the most commonly accepted terms of outstanding sound quality, build quality, and components used.

For others, it refers to the most expensive on the list. :D

As examples of Hi-End Audio Equipment

1) Vacuum State of Allen Wright

2) Wavebourn's Amplifiers, I could only criticize some colors used.

3) His Master's Noise by SY, although he doesn't get along well with the soldering iron. :D

So it is a purely subjective term. There is no standard way to determine if a piece of audio equipment is high end?

Cheers

Ian
 
To my knowledge, the only for Hi-Fi, is the standard DIN 45500, not for Hi-End.

But the music itself is subjective, or is there any standard for composers ?

Interesting you should mention music. Of course what we are concerned with here is accurate reproduction of a recorded sound. It does not matter if the sound is music, speech, sound effects or electronically produced. It does not matter if I like the music or not. It does not matter if I like the performance or not. It does not matter if I like the way it was recorded or not. All of these factors are irrelevant to the reproduction chain as they are all a priori events so the reproduce chain has no influence on them. The only thing the reproduce chain can do it attempt to accurately reproduce the original recording.

I guess the definition of high end systems is that they aim to do it the most accurately.

I was lucky enough when I was at Neve in the 70s to visit many recording studios throughout the world and listen to many first generation recordings of both classical and popular music. I have to say the quality was absolutely stunning, so good I could not listen to any so called hi-fi system for many years without realising what a poor shadow of the original they reproduced. This was of course in the days before CD when vinyl ruled.

Today, with digital source material, the copy we have is much closer to the original first generation than ever so the possibility of accurate reproduction is better than ever.

I am not convinced however that any contribution to this accuracy is made by horrendously expensive capacitors, gold plated mains cables or $10,000 turn tables.

Cheers

Ian
 
Interesting you should mention music. Of course what we are concerned with here is accurate reproduction of a recorded sound. It does not matter if the sound is music, speech, sound effects or electronically produced. It does not matter if I like the music or not. It does not matter if I like the performance or not. It does not matter if I like the way it was recorded or not. All of these factors are irrelevant to the reproduction chain as they are all a priori events so the reproduce chain has no influence on them. The only thing the reproduce chain can do it attempt to accurately reproduce the original recording.

Totally agree with you.
The music is only an analogy to highlight the difficulty of establishing standards.

I guess the definition of high end systems is that they aim to do it the most accurately.

That's the idea, you did the best definition of Hi-End ! :up:

I was lucky enough when I was at Neve in the 70s to visit many recording studios throughout the world and listen to many first generation recordings of both classical and popular music. I have to say the quality was absolutely stunning, so good I could not listen to any so called hi-fi system for many years without realising what a poor shadow of the original they reproduced. This was of course in the days before CD when vinyl ruled.

You're a lucky man, you were in the right place at the right time, good for you.

Today, with digital source material, the copy we have is much closer to the original first generation than ever so the possibility of accurate reproduction is better than ever.

What you say is true, however, is a controversial field.
Mathematically it can be estimated, based on the radius of the molecule of PVC, that a vinyl contains four to five times more information than a CD.
The problem is that the creators of digital audio were very stingy to take Niquist-Shannon sampling theorem at face value and limited the bandwidth to 20kHz, while a vinyl should cut at about 50KHz. Just to mention a difference...
They noticed the problem many years later, too late.
As in the formal sciences, what is sought is the best approximation to reality, here they failed in the recording process.IMHO.

I am not convinced however that any contribution to this accuracy is made by horrendously expensive capacitors, gold plated mains cables or $10,000 turn tables.

Cheers

Ian

The term "Hi-End" is also used to exploit the ignorance and people's money. :rolleyes:
Just a bit of math to discover the truth.
I use good low capacitance signal cables and polypropylene capacitors was used in TVs and differences are inaudible.
Even worse, many "Audio Grade" capacitors, by its geometry are strongly inductive.
Surprisingly I found that between a turntable used by DJs and a £ 30,000 turntable, there is only 3dB rumble !
 
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What you say is true, however, is a controversial field.
Mathematically it can be estimated, based on the radius of the molecule of PVC, that a vinyl contains four to five times more information than a CD.

This is not a true statement. It may be true that based on that calculation that vinyl has the potential to contain four to five times more information than a CD. Whether it achieves anything like this is a moot point given all the mechanical limitations inherent in the process of creation, replication and reproduction of vinyl.

My point about CD was that in a domestic environment it was easily capable of bettering the commonly available record player or cassette tape

The term "Hi-End" is also used to exploit the ignorance and people's money. :rolleyes:
Just a bit of math to discover the truth.
I use good low capacitance signal cables and polypropylene capacitors was used in TVs and differences are inaudible.
Even worse, many "Audio Grade" capacitors, by its geometry are strongly inductive.
Surprisingly I found that between a turntable used by DJs and a £ 30,000 turntable, there is only 3dB rumble !


Excellent. I am pleased to see you exercising good engineering judgement !!

Cheers

Ian
 
... What you say is true, however, is a controversial field.
Mathematically it can be estimated, based on the radius of the molecule of PVC, that a vinyl contains four to five times more information than a CD.
The problem is that the creators of digital audio were very stingy to take Niquist-Shannon sampling theorem at face value and limited the bandwidth to 20kHz, while a vinyl should cut at about 50KHz. Just to mention a difference...
...

As other have pointed out, you are basing your assertions on an incomplete understanding of the physics. First, the radius of a stylus tip in contact with the groove spans many molecules, providing an averaging effect. You can't get "1 molecule width" resolution. Second, it is difficult and expensive to record frequencies higher than about 20 KHz, and almost all cartridges simply won't reproduce them with any accuracy anyway.

Expanding on the second point, at the cutting stage the lathe simply runs out of headroom as the frequency rises. The signal being fed to the cutting amplifiers and head is heavily boosted by the "reverse RIAA" equalisation curve. Also, the head requires more and more drive to obtain a given cutting velocity as the frequency rises. You can't keep boosting the power because the head will burn out. CD4 (quad) records, with frequencies up to 45 KHz, were cut at half speed. Standard stereo discs can also be cut at half speed, but this brings a new set of problems at the low frequency end.
Trying to record frequencies above about 20 KHz is mostly a waste of time, anyway. At the reproduction end, the stylus cantilever / suspension of most cartridges resonates somewhere between 19 KHz and 23 KHz. Output drops off rapidly above this point. This is a deliberate design choice, the increased output around resonance compensates for other losses that are becoming significant at these frequencies.

For further reading, I suggest this page:
Digital Vinyl ? !
 
Although PVC is a polymer chain and can become very large, for simplicity we assume that the molecules are spheres of about 1 nm in diameter.
Record grooves can be cut to a maximum modulation of 0.1 mm.
This gives us about 10^5 molecules, so system resolution is one part in 10^5, or about 16.6 bits.

Assume now, for simplicity, that the stylus touches the groove on a single molecule.
Average groove speed is 2.5 cm/s, so the number of molecules passing the stylus is about 25x10^6/s.

Then, a vinyl record can be thought as a sampling system with a rate of 25x10^6 samples per second and a resolution of 16.6 bits.

Of course, due to mechanical limitations of the system, this number should be substantially reduced.

For a CD, 44.1 KHz * 16 bit = 705600 bit/s
 
As other have pointed out, you are basing your assertions on an incomplete understanding of the physics.

That's true, I'm just a TV repairman. :D

If I had a complete understanding of the physics, I would have won the Nobel Prize, would be rich and famous, and I would not be here wasting my time in answering to you. :rofl:

First, the radius of a stylus tip in contact with the groove spans many molecules, providing an averaging effect. You can't get "1 molecule width" resolution. Second, it is difficult and expensive to record frequencies higher than about 20 KHz, and almost all cartridges simply won't reproduce them with any accuracy anyway.

Expanding on the second point, at the cutting stage the lathe simply runs out of headroom as the frequency rises. The signal being fed to the cutting amplifiers and head is heavily boosted by the "reverse RIAA" equalisation curve. Also, the head requires more and more drive to obtain a given cutting velocity as the frequency rises. You can't keep boosting the power because the head will burn out. CD4 (quad) records, with frequencies up to 45 KHz, were cut at half speed. Standard stereo discs can also be cut at half speed, but this brings a new set of problems at the low frequency end.
Trying to record frequencies above about 20 KHz is mostly a waste of time, anyway. At the reproduction end, the stylus cantilever / suspension of most cartridges resonates somewhere between 19 KHz and 23 KHz. Output drops off rapidly above this point. This is a deliberate design choice, the increased output around resonance compensates for other losses that are becoming significant at these frequencies.

No need try too hard to find Phono Cartridges that pass 50 KHz.

These do not resonate somewhere between 19 KHz and 23 KHz. AFAIK. ;)

Denon Phono Cartridge Home Page

For further reading, I suggest this page:
Digital Vinyl ? !

If elementary kinematics, is your idea of a complete understanding of physics. :yikes:
BTW. Someone should explain to the author that the stylus has two degrees of freedom. :D
 
...
No need try too hard to find Phono Cartridges that pass 50 KHz.

These do not resonate somewhere between 19 KHz and 23 KHz. AFAIK. ;)

Denon Phono Cartridge Home Page

Note the complete lack of frequency response charts or specification of the amplitude variation within the claimed bandwidth. +/- 3 dB? 10 dB? 20 dB? Also do the math, as on the web page I referred you to, and realise that there is no stylus profile in existence that will allow tracking a 70 KHz signal. Even if the rest of the cartridge is up to it, the stylus won't fit in the grooves. Maybe if the disc is cut at 78 RPM... I stand by my statement, having likely seen more frequency response graphs of cartridges tracking test records than you've had hot dinners. :)

If elementary kinematics, is your idea of a complete understanding of physics. :yikes:
BTW. Someone should explain to the author that the stylus has two degrees of freedom. :D

You appeared to be lacking even that understanding, so I figured a simplified explanation was in order. By the same reasoning, only one degree of freedom is relevant the lesson he was imparting. If I have underestimated your understanding of the physics involved, then I sincerely apologise. All I had to go on was the level of knowledge you had just demonstrated.
 
Although PVC is a polymer chain and can become very large, for simplicity we assume that the molecules are spheres of about 1 nm in diameter.

That's not how polymers work and that's not how plastic compounds work. If you start with a bad assumption, you'll end up with a nonsense result.

PVC looks like a pile of tangles of spaghetti (the aspect ratio of the molecules is strand-like and they form groups looking like domains) interspersed with jagged boulders of varying sizes and irregular lumps of clay. Now this is just the medium- if you add in what happens when the grooves are cut, the metallization of the master, and the molding process, then understand that you're not using an AFM to trace the contours, the poor information density that one actually sees becomes clearer.
 
You appeared to be lacking even that understanding, so I figured a simplified explanation was in order. By the same reasoning, only one degree of freedom is relevant the lesson he was imparting.

The author's reasoning is more cheating than mine, not only ignores the two degrees of freedom, the equations are also misspelled, makes a mixture of coordinate systems.
When you make a formal mathematical presentation, the first thing to say is what coordinate system using, is the stage where the action takes.

If I have underestimated your understanding of the physics involved, then I sincerely apologise. All I had to go on was the level of knowledge you had just demonstrated.

Please, my friend, no need to apologize. :)

As for my level of knowledge, just let me do some contribution from time to time.;)
 
That's not how polymers work and that's not how plastic compounds work. If you start with a bad assumption, you'll end up with a nonsense result.

PVC looks like a pile of tangles of spaghetti (the aspect ratio of the molecules is strand-like and they form groups looking like domains) interspersed with jagged boulders of varying sizes and irregular lumps of clay. ...

Dude, if you are going to theorize on molecules (or make-up chemistry) be aware that Sy is a specialist!
 
That's not how polymers work and that's not how plastic compounds work. If you start with a bad assumption, you'll end up with a nonsense result.

True, but I have a good alibi. :D
I misplaced the original article and the assumption was crucial to obtain a resolution comparable with the other support.
Let us agree that the resolution is not very far from reality, something between 14-bit analog FM broadcast, and 16-bit CD.

PVC looks like a pile of tangles of spaghetti (the aspect ratio of the molecules is strand-like and they form groups looking like domains) interspersed with jagged boulders of varying sizes and irregular lumps of clay. Now this is just the medium- if you add in what happens when the grooves are cut, the metallization of the master, and the molding process, then understand that you're not using an AFM to trace the contours, the poor information density that one actually sees becomes clearer.

This is very enlightening, but I must confess that the theory of condensed matter is not my favorite.

BTW. Hope you do not offend what I said about your soldering iron. :)
 
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