Just a quick point about the quality of sound I chase - a big advantage it has is that it renders the directivity and room colouration issues irrelevant. This seems to be because the quality of the illusion is so strong that it overrides the sound modification by the room environment - the recording's ambience dominates the listening space, not the over way round. From my experiments to date there seems to be almost no limit to how effective this can be - at optimum levels of performance the room you're in completely ceases to exist acoustically, you are totally "captured" within the world of the recording ...
Edit: An alternative way of saying this, is that the experience is like the room itself is nothing more than a giant pair of excellent headphones, invisible but completely excluding other acoustic spaces - so, getting the best of all possible worlds, the good parts of the headphone experience without any of the downsides.
Edit: An alternative way of saying this, is that the experience is like the room itself is nothing more than a giant pair of excellent headphones, invisible but completely excluding other acoustic spaces - so, getting the best of all possible worlds, the good parts of the headphone experience without any of the downsides.
Last edited:
I have experienced sound reinforcement done correctly - but only on a couple of occasions; they serve to highlight how badly it's normally done. The worst is usually when the chorus in a stage show does the big song, and there's a crescendo - I grip the edges of my seat tightly, and wait for the pain of handling the gross distortion to slowly ebb away ...
Interesting findings Richard, and I respect your experience in these matters. However, I notice you only mention horizontal dispersion. What about vertical? The typical listening room has vertical boundaries as well as horizontal ones, and they are usually closer than the side walls. (I'm trying to imagine a room with no vertical boundaries, but it's making me dizzy.) I think Siegfried Linkwitz has shown some of the effects of vertical dispersion in conventional multi-way loudspeakers.
Then I think about taking away my audio gear and loudspeakers, and putting some musicians in my living room. Do I need to ask them to restrict the horizontal angular output of their instruments to 60-90 degrees? Will that make them sound better in my room? I know what my room sounds like, as I talk and listen in there all the time. When we talk or sing or play the piano, we don't restrict the dispersion of the sounds, and it sounds "right", because it is right, it is live, natural sound. So why do I need to restrict the output of my speakers to an un-natural angle of dispersion? That's like cupping your hands around your mouth when talking to a friend in the same room.
If someone plucks a guitar string in my livingroom, the sound emanates in all directions and reflects off all surfaces. There are, I am sure, comb filter effects, resonances and cancellations, reverberations, absorptions, etc. But it still sounds like a guitar string. I suspect that if I set up a calibrated microphone in my living room and someone played a scale on any instrument, and someone measured the frequency response and time response of the sound, and then we repeated the experiment with the same instrument either outside or in an anechoic chamber or another room, the measurement would be different. Would it sound different, or would it sound like the same instrument?
Now let's replay the experiment but with the sound coming from a loudspeaker with limited horizontal dispersion. What would change?
Then I think about taking away my audio gear and loudspeakers, and putting some musicians in my living room. Do I need to ask them to restrict the horizontal angular output of their instruments to 60-90 degrees? Will that make them sound better in my room? I know what my room sounds like, as I talk and listen in there all the time. When we talk or sing or play the piano, we don't restrict the dispersion of the sounds, and it sounds "right", because it is right, it is live, natural sound. So why do I need to restrict the output of my speakers to an un-natural angle of dispersion? That's like cupping your hands around your mouth when talking to a friend in the same room.
If someone plucks a guitar string in my livingroom, the sound emanates in all directions and reflects off all surfaces. There are, I am sure, comb filter effects, resonances and cancellations, reverberations, absorptions, etc. But it still sounds like a guitar string. I suspect that if I set up a calibrated microphone in my living room and someone played a scale on any instrument, and someone measured the frequency response and time response of the sound, and then we repeated the experiment with the same instrument either outside or in an anechoic chamber or another room, the measurement would be different. Would it sound different, or would it sound like the same instrument?
Now let's replay the experiment but with the sound coming from a loudspeaker with limited horizontal dispersion. What would change?
The reason why conventional systems seem to suffer the "difficulties", I think, is because the brain has to work so hard at separating the recording details from the distortion artifacts, therefore the idea has evolved that one should optimise the speaker room interface, in an attempt, usually quite successful, to lessen the burden on the brain's processing. If OTOH the quality of recording playback is good enough then these extra steps are not needed, and the brain has no trouble understanding the "message" of the recording, anywhere - in the same way as for live sound.
You make a couple of interesting and plausible claims there Dan. (Intrinsic circuit noise spectrum and dynamic modulation of that noise.) Neither is especially extraordinary. Both effects might be audible, and if they are they would be audible in a controlled test. Further, both should be measurable (though I confess the dynamic noise modulation would be a trickier measurement). I don't think SY would object much to those claims if you presented a bit of evidence that 1. those phenomena are present and at what level and 2. that they are audible in a controlled test. That seems simple enough.
But you know very well that the audibility of noise modulation is not, and never has been, the source of disagreement between so-called "objectivists" and magical thinkers. There seems to be this line of thought that some audio circuits, and the components used to construct them, have some non-measurable qualities, which result in non-quantifiable differences in the produced sound. (I say "produced sound" because some so-called "subjectivists" refute any connection between electrical signal and auditory effects; that is, audio components can change the perceived sound without changing the electrical signal.)
Claiming that circuits have intrinsic noise, and that noise has a particular spectrum, and that the level and spectrum of that noise can be modulated, is a very long way from saying that the apparent frequency response of an amplifier can be altered by changing the material used in a short length of conductor (say copper to silver), or that substituting one brand of resistor or capacitor will result in a "not subtle" change in sound without providing a mechanism or a measurement or a controlled test.
I have been busy at work the last few days, and it is hard to go back and find things that I remember others saying here -- is that my memory or my search skills?
I remember JC and dvv and others talking about the wonders of analog tape. So if analog tape is superior to other formats, why was there direct-to-disk? I remember getting the Rough Trade DTD album, it sounded great and the claimed benefit was the absence of tape.
Then there's this whole "bad SS amplifiers of the 1970's" meme. Funnily enough even folks like dvv hold fast to it while praising some amplifiers from the 1970's as superior to recent models (H/K Citation).
I have to laugh when I see "specs" on modern amps, and then folks like dvv and even SY talk about "power and distortion at 1KHz" on older amps like that was a thing. When I was kid in the 1970's standard FTC rules required that an amplifier's power rating (which was all that anyone read anyway) be specified as "XX Watts RMS continuous per channel, both channels driven, at less that yy% distortion, from 20Hz to 20KHz." So that meant the amp (and power supply) could deliver full rated power continuously into both channels over the full audio band at low distortion, period. Now you may question what yy% distortion meant at 15KHz when the measurement bandwidth was limited to 20KHz. You may question other parts of the specs. But I guarantee you that a 50W/ch amp from the '70's would deliver more clean power to a speaker than a modern "500W" A/V receiver.
I listened to a lot of great audio gear back in the 1970's, and I don't buy this notion that there was a vast amount of defective gear back then. Especially when the only "evidence" is the say-so of some guys trying to sell you new stuff.
I remember JC and dvv and others talking about the wonders of analog tape. So if analog tape is superior to other formats, why was there direct-to-disk? I remember getting the Rough Trade DTD album, it sounded great and the claimed benefit was the absence of tape.
Then there's this whole "bad SS amplifiers of the 1970's" meme. Funnily enough even folks like dvv hold fast to it while praising some amplifiers from the 1970's as superior to recent models (H/K Citation).
I have to laugh when I see "specs" on modern amps, and then folks like dvv and even SY talk about "power and distortion at 1KHz" on older amps like that was a thing. When I was kid in the 1970's standard FTC rules required that an amplifier's power rating (which was all that anyone read anyway) be specified as "XX Watts RMS continuous per channel, both channels driven, at less that yy% distortion, from 20Hz to 20KHz." So that meant the amp (and power supply) could deliver full rated power continuously into both channels over the full audio band at low distortion, period. Now you may question what yy% distortion meant at 15KHz when the measurement bandwidth was limited to 20KHz. You may question other parts of the specs. But I guarantee you that a 50W/ch amp from the '70's would deliver more clean power to a speaker than a modern "500W" A/V receiver.
I listened to a lot of great audio gear back in the 1970's, and I don't buy this notion that there was a vast amount of defective gear back then. Especially when the only "evidence" is the say-so of some guys trying to sell you new stuff.
More narrow dispersion is needed in the vertical IF you have surfaces nearby.... the floor is always nearby but the ceiling height varies more. Floor 'bounce' is controlled thru speaker placement and directivity control and absorption... most often the vert dispersion ought to be even more limited than horizontal.
It's all generalities because places vary in height.... my own listening room is very large volume and the ceiling is sloped from 12 feet to 18 feet across the width of the room (about 4 meters by 6 meters). My seating situation doesnt have an issue with the vertical/height interference reflections before i hear the direct sound from the speaker.
If you recorded your musicians in your home living room and played it back in the same room.... the room effects will be multiplied and not sound very good... especially if you have broad dispersion speakers. The more narrow dispersion speakers (60-90) will preserve more of the sound of the room it was recorded in at your ears.
It is the direct to reverberant or near field to far field that get optimized to hear the musicians and their environment/room as it sounded in the space recorded and minimally changed by the listening room used for playback.... even if they are the same room.
THx-RNMarsh
Last edited:
Yes
OK, but not exactly what I asked. Why do I need to restrict the dispersion/directivity of my loudspeaker, but not of my piano? Surely they are both sources of sound?
I would suggest that the problem with most "monkey coffin" loudspeakers is not that they have too wide a dispersion pattern, but too narrow and too frequency-dependent.
Yes it is, so I don't want to artificially restrict that. If I restrict the dispersion of the speakers, how do I recover that direct-to-reverberant ratio? But do I want to hear only what the performance sounded like in the original space ("It's like I am transported to the original performance!"), or do I want to hear what that performance would have sounded like in my room ("It's like the musicians are in my room!")? Or none of the above? (Hint: my vote is for option 3, the last thing I want is a g*****n symphony orchestra in my livingroom!)
Direct disc was actually better than most analog recording. It was the most practical way to get the BEST sound into a normal living room. Very high speed, wide track analog magnetic tape recordings could compete, but were not practical for general distribution. Very high quality analog tape to record is not too bad, but not as good as direct disc. Digital has not replaced either of these formats completely.
The musicians will use their ears to adjust how they play. And at small room it will never be the same.
Try talking, singing, playing a piano in an empty room (only reflective walls).
What you want in general is direct wave (from speaker) to come to your ears BEFORE the other waves reflected by the walls. Thus, speaker PLACEMENT (relative to the wall) is important as well.
"Wonders of analog tape recprding" is a very complex matter. There's the likensss (or not) to the priginal sound, there's the fun of doing it yourself, possibly even some creativity if you made tape mixes from several sources, the sheer routine of doing it, and so forth. John is right in pointing out other, not often mentioned facts, that there was the hassle of marrying the tape type to the machine you used, cleaning it and maintaining it, demagnetizing heads, checking their azimuth once a year (for home machines), adjusting the record and replay amps for correct balance, and so forth, all of which was routine for a serious tape buff. We enjoyed all that about as much as an LP fan did when cleaning the LP, cecking for vertical tracking offsets, etc. It was a process, and in all honesty, we loved that process as much as the music (most of us). And, of course, showing off to friends what can be had with proper care.
And indeed, some of those machines did offer a lot. My last machine, had selectable EQ as per NAB or IEC standards in its 15 ips speed, externally variable bias, etc, but the best part of it was its linearity, response of 20-22.000 HZ +/- 2 dB at 7.5 ips, or 25-26.000 HZ +/- 2 dB at 15 ips.
What fascinated me personally was an effect I could never explain. A taped song from a quality LP was in all respects like the original, but somehow, the bass lines tended to be more forceful, better defined, almost palpable, so much so that no cartridge I ever tried could match. It was so with my older Uher tape deck, it was so with the Philips, and it was so with a reVox A and B series decks.
Jesus, I loved those years.
Last edited:
Don't you think that better transistor is required for better amplifier?
In the old day, good parts are rarely found in average-price gears (and as far as I remember, only the elite have access to audio gear!). 2N3055, then the absence of complimentary pairs...
Then the absence of free/cheap simulators, made most producers use the classic Lin topology.
The absence of internet made the "wisdoms" were not shared but kept by a few select designers.
Or, you can compare directly by mentioning the old and modern amplifier. Unless you are talking about modern receivers who tries to cut cost everywhere but the cosmetics.
In all truth, the AVERAGE amp from the 1975-1980 period were about as good or bad as the average today. That hurts straight off the bat, I would have expected modern amps to do a better average, else where have we wasted our time in between?
What WAS better done then today is in build quality, sizing and ultimately the development effort built in - or not.
Just as an example, I'll take my own Marantz 170 DC power amps. It is modestly rated at 85W/8 Ohms, and in the best tradition of those days, they lied like dogs, it actually always did better under the same circumstances, often with ovearall better results than advertised. In those days, everybody worth their salt was like that, it was a matter of company pride. They had some real respect for the customers, today customers are mostly statistical data.
A modern say 100W/8 Ohms amp weighs in at typically 9-12 kg (20-22 lbs). My Marantz weighs in at just under 16 kg (app. 35 lbs). This weight was brought about by their using separate heat sinks for each channel, and I daresay serious heat sinks, and a whopping big transforemr in the middle. Standard fare (for the day) case. Not one bit shy about using what were then good quality materials. They dropped the ball only when planning making use of a dual concentric 2*12,000 uF cap, which was simply not enough to serve the amp fully, I remedied that by installing 2 22.000 uF BC Components caps.
Now, you might say, yes,but that was a part of their up market separates, sure they went out of their way. Actually, Marantz did something else: the cnstructed their PCB so that they acted as independent modules, so my 3265 preamp is EXACTLY the same as the preamp section of my 1152 DC integrated amp. Very inteligently, THAT'S how they kept the prices in check, by producing more of the same and making per piece price still reasonable. But you got your sound.
On Harman/Kardon. Their Citation XII power amp enjoyed a reputation like few others of those days. It was designed along the lines of an app note from RCA, but obviously very intelligently so it all came together really well. So much so, that Nelson Pass later on did a project on upgrading it with output MOSFETs.
It's no secret that Harman/Kardon's design logic has influence me tremendously. As opposed to the folklore, they did not go bandwidth fanatic AFTER they emplyed Matti Otala, the late Bernad Kardon has been a fan of that since 1959 or so, when they introduced the world's first stereo receiver.
Citation has always been their top offering, pricewise above the mid Fi market, but not quaite in the all stop plugs pulled of the High End market. As with everybody else, some models were outstanding, other were soon forgotten. I like their consistency, you could always see which model was a further elaboration and evolution from which other model. For example, my PA 2400 power amp is the son of the preceeding Citation 22 power amp, which was all BJT, whereas the 2400 has basically the same topology, but uses FETs for its cascoded fully complementary input stage rather than BJTs and the output section has been much rewised. Other than that, they are almost identical inside and with the same power rating as well. In other words, they learn and appkly new knowledge. This always inspires trust in any company. Resrach the hsitory of the period and you will find surprisingly few companies like that (Accuphase is also like that, a clearly cut evolution line from 1974 until today, you see the circuits evolve and be refined).
But make no mistake, I do not use the logic loop of "if Harman, then good", they had their share of boo-boos over the years like everybody else. Nor do I claim that the models I own are their very best, although I do believe the PA 2400 is in fact the best they did before the current series, which have completely different topologies.
The trick with vintage gear is knowing what to look for, and that's not easy because some little gems are unfortunately forgotten. Thir makers are long gone, but every now and then, a unit turns up on e-bay. Today, nobody remembers (of us elders) or even knows (of the new kids) a Californian company called Craig, yet they had a receiver in the early 70ies, designed in USA and manufactured in Japan a la Marantz, which sounded really good and stood tall in its class, yet cost aboutthe average of the day. Or, in France, Jack Setton poduced his incredible receiver, unfortunately like 20 years before its time, and in those days it was wildly expenive - but it did sound great. Since Setton handled Pioneer in France, it was probably manufactured by Pioneer.
You just have to know your auio history, that's all. Then you'd know that NAD's 3020 integrated amp, based on 2N3055 devices, a small revolution in its day, was not alone, nor was the first. A German compny, called Wega, had receivers made like that years before the NAD, but was later taken over by Sony, lock, stock and barrel, and was reduced to mimicking Japanese models painted black. Yet, their Lab Zero series were as good as anything alse made until their day by anyobody, at any price, and it's still damn expensive today if any should appear on the German e-bay, never remianing there for more than about half an hour, no matter what the asking price.
Everything you wanted to know about tape - Magnetic Reference Laboratory
Home Page
IIRC, JC a few years ago had much to say about his detailed studies of this effect/problem.
Dan.
Last edited:
In my view, you do NOT need a better transistor for a better sound. To be sure, with a better transistor you have a better opportunity to do better overall, but it is NOT a key point.
Look at the vintage Marantz prices and explain why are they so high, when they are full of transistors no longer even made, and why do they often sound better than new gear?
There's MUCH more to an audio power amp than what's used in its output stage. Th power supplies used in those days were much heftier than they today, for example. These days, audio is being killed by bean counting, these days price is everything, and to an accountant, saving on the transformer is the logcal answer bcause it cannot be seen since it's inside, and after all, an amp will work with a say 300 VA transformer, so why use a 600 VA one when it's more exoensive? The fact that the amp will sound different with a bigger and better PSU means diddley to them, they cannot relate to that in terms of accounting values.
And you are wrong in your mentioning of the eternal 2N3055 as being the key component. Yes, it was used and misused, yes some were more prone to it than others (The German audio industry was a diehard supporter of it), but you should know that Japanese manufacturers, notably Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba and Sanken very soon developed their own coplementary pairs which were not burdened by the 80V limit, and were very good devices by any standard. And being adopted by both the Japanese and US audio industries, they very soon became the standard.
Their only general failing is in their relatively low power dissipation, ranging from say 60 up to a maximum od 150 Watts, for more you had to go to Motrola, who with their 250W devices ruled the high and crazy power part of the market (MJ15xxxx, MJ211xxx series). They even had lower powered devices (e.g. BD 318, 318 at 200W, BD529530 for medium power, BC651 ultra low noise transistors, etc). Germany's Telefunken for example was very fond of BD 317/318 power devices, and used them in their top models of TRS receivers.
And still many of these models did and yet do sound better than many moder models, despite their technologically more advanced semiconductors. Remember, technology in itself is meaningless, it's only as good as the man using it.
Last edited:
In my view, that IS the point. You can do better today than in the seventies.
JFET. It's the only part where modern gears lack. Even 2Sk389/K170 are missing now. Because of profit oriented economy.
So you are comparing old amp with heftier transformer with modern amp with transformer from China, made of aluminum wire?? (Yes, copper is getting expensive each month)
I own almost all the transistors from the past. I also own some HK amps you mentioned/owned. Except for the JFET (which is used frequently by Marantz), you can redesign those old amps with modern parts with better result. Oh, modern transformer such as R-core (or whatever the name) is not anywhere worse. Today, with better knowledge, you can build better gear. Price-wise, if you do an engineering economics analysis, considering the time value of money, with money of the same value, you can have better amp today.
I think we already agree that modern gears are driven by economy and competition, not pride, technical skill etc.
Jay, all I am saying is that old gear was more generously designed. For myself, I am not worried, I can still have my custom toroids made for up to 4 or even 5 kVA, to my specification, locally and from several sources. I am saying that 1 will get you 10 if inside moderm amps you were to use heftier quality transformers and decent capacitors. Just that would improve them a lot, but would also make them more expensive.
Where the transformer comes from is of no importance, what is critical is how it was designed and made, with which parts and who's checking the quality. I never doubted that the Chinese could make excellent transformers if they wanted to. But a 300 VA trafo is only and just that, a 500 VA one could do better to much better, eveyrthing else being the same, only it would cost more.
Frankly, I do not see that modern semiconductors (of the same type, like BJT) will do anything critically better than older ones, and I know for a fact that modern BJTs DON'T do some things as well as older ones. By way of example, pick a few low noise modenr devices of the NPN persuasion, and compare their noise figures with those of the ancient BC 109. No contest, 109 wins with something like 0.8 db noise figure, but is still limited by its 30V capability. Ditto for comparing BC 414/416 with BC 550, old guys win.
Where the transformer comes from is of no importance, what is critical is how it was designed and made, with which parts and who's checking the quality. I never doubted that the Chinese could make excellent transformers if they wanted to. But a 300 VA trafo is only and just that, a 500 VA one could do better to much better, eveyrthing else being the same, only it would cost more.
Frankly, I do not see that modern semiconductors (of the same type, like BJT) will do anything critically better than older ones, and I know for a fact that modern BJTs DON'T do some things as well as older ones. By way of example, pick a few low noise modenr devices of the NPN persuasion, and compare their noise figures with those of the ancient BC 109. No contest, 109 wins with something like 0.8 db noise figure, but is still limited by its 30V capability. Ditto for comparing BC 414/416 with BC 550, old guys win.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.