Very good points. For me, and many others, there is so much to learn on so many interesting subjects and so little time. Only 80-90 years if lucky. One can only narrowly specialize if they wish to keep up. I prefer to learn on an As Needed basis and with Google and publications and professional literature, it isn't hard to come up to speed which will get you most of the way towards your goal. Then the final details take some time to sort thru. Thats when the specialist comes in handy.
For those who listen critically to live and recorded music over a life time and do so almost daily to a wide variety of systems and components, you become the specialist in listening and can tell when a design isn't quit up to par realistically.
THx-RNMarsh
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Intresting comments Dick, the brain is a wonderful thing and I feel lucky that I could run in idle and do the electronics thing. Where you get off saying that I have a narrow extreme knowlege of very little I don't know, especially since you don't know me. I've absorbed an enormous amount knowlege of art and culture from numerous countries, one just needs a filter on the suplerfluous. I usually shock my hosts on my knowledge of their culture and in France the chefs usually want to come out and see an American that actually understands their food and wine.
What was the comment you made, I think it was I only travel as a tourist. Were you thinking the shorts and Hawaiian shirt perhaps? In fact I have blood relatives in Japan and travel in China as a guest of well connected locals.
Apologies to all, I was very disturbed by Bonsai's comment and wanted to explain my sometimes sarcastic darts at Mr. Marsh which will cease forthwith.
EDIT - I don't have a clue how turbochargers work and freely admit it, some reciprocity would be appreciated.
What was the comment you made, I think it was I only travel as a tourist. Were you thinking the shorts and Hawaiian shirt perhaps? In fact I have blood relatives in Japan and travel in China as a guest of well connected locals.
Apologies to all, I was very disturbed by Bonsai's comment and wanted to explain my sometimes sarcastic darts at Mr. Marsh which will cease forthwith.
EDIT - I don't have a clue how turbochargers work and freely admit it, some reciprocity would be appreciated.
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Oh Scott, you shouldn't have taken it as personally directed to only you. I thought Ii was talking for myself about a perspective looking back... maybe for the youngsters here.... to explain why I don't know as much as I could in design.
I share some personal things regarding what I do besides this here. Sometimes it is taken poorly. You have talked about wine and food and many things on this and other forums.
Having said that, the fact remains that the more time spent on one thing, the less time has been spent on learning other things. Natural facts. Its all about balance, my friend.
I try to find a balance in design/audio as well. It is a moving target but fortunately doesn't move too fast over the ages.
THx-RNMarsh
I share some personal things regarding what I do besides this here. Sometimes it is taken poorly. You have talked about wine and food and many things on this and other forums.
Having said that, the fact remains that the more time spent on one thing, the less time has been spent on learning other things. Natural facts. Its all about balance, my friend.
I try to find a balance in design/audio as well. It is a moving target but fortunately doesn't move too fast over the ages.
THx-RNMarsh
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Yes, Scott, Richard and I most probably can't compete with you on your excellent taste for food and wine. We were raised differently. For example, we run circles around you when it comes to automobile appreciation, and even auto modification. That's what we did when we were young, while you studied so hard. That is where you lost out. However, I doubt that you know more than me about foreign films, classic American films, or many other things that are cultural in nature. I spent years of my college life too, seeing foreign films, and have collected them on DVD etc. Richard and I are not complete barbarians. '-)
That's where you have it wrong, I don't give a shite about cars and never did on that me and SY are one. I didn't study so hard BTW it came easy.
How could you ever care about cars, if you were not brought up in a car culture? I worked on my uncle's race car when I was 13, and went to the races every week in summer, I was in a car club at 16, and then started modifying a 54 Chevy, with dual carbs, exhaust, etc at 17. I lived driving cars at the time, and dreamed of modifying them the best that I could. Later, I rebuilt my Renault Dauphine completely over 5 years and 90,000 miles, and tried to modify it too!. Later yet, I modified my SAAB Sonnet with a Weber carb, 3/4 cam, dual exhaust, milled heads, etc to extract the best that I could from a fibre-glass covered sports car. In the old days, before 1970 or so, we were free to do this in the USA. Richard did a lot more than me and our mutual experiences made us more motor savvy than many, and I am sure, you, but we don't belittle you just because you didn't bother.
For me, good food and even good wine is OK. I too, have lived in Europe, and had a number of culinary experiences, but it just isn't that important to me today, and so what?
For me, good food and even good wine is OK. I too, have lived in Europe, and had a number of culinary experiences, but it just isn't that important to me today, and so what?
Yes, some of us grew up in S. California's car culture and can appreciate a fine car or have learned how to modify them, I'm one of those guys and still get to push it every day on Mulholland Drive on top of the mountain. I'll admit that certain things just came easily for me, mechanical design in general, but please don't ask me to deconstruct an English sentence and name all the parts! We all have our talents that is obvious from our chosen professions and our conversations.
So more to the point as in any project I work on unless you have some clear end goal in mind and know your requirements and such, only then can you start to discuss what you are trying to do. So what are we saying is required in a phone pre-pre and what is the generally accepted RIAA pre-emphasis we are looking for? What is required to make these electronics exceed the capabilities of the vinyl, what are we supposed to be shooting for? Perhaps there should be a minimum requirements listing to achieve those levels of performance.
So more to the point as in any project I work on unless you have some clear end goal in mind and know your requirements and such, only then can you start to discuss what you are trying to do. So what are we saying is required in a phone pre-pre and what is the generally accepted RIAA pre-emphasis we are looking for? What is required to make these electronics exceed the capabilities of the vinyl, what are we supposed to be shooting for? Perhaps there should be a minimum requirements listing to achieve those levels of performance.
Unfortunately, Kindhornman, specs alone will not tell us how good a certain design will sound. We already achieve low enough distortion for most anybody, and we can make the RIAA to .1dB or so without any big hassle, just a little more cost. Still, phono stages sound different from each other.
Okay John I understand the part about them sounding different. At the same time don't you have some minimum parameters that you do check before you do any so called tuning or voicing of your designs? You just gave a -0.1db value for the RIAA curve, do you have a list of purely electronic requirements when you start and do you test to make sure you hit some target values? It can't just be a subjective exercise, your not just throwing parts into a circuit and seeing if it might work. You just so happen to have already set yourself some kind of standards perhaps unspoken, you most likely pee-conceive the circuit before ever putting pencil to paper from prior knowledge.
Wavebourn has a good point, but when it works it is extra special, just like an extra fine wine.
How does CA car culture compare to British car culture? I always had images of flegmatic Brits fiddling with their Austin Healeys and Morgans. Disclamer: I am one of the few people here that consider cars as transportation means 😉
Jan
Jan
You are asking the wrong people as John will never admit that it can be done affordably or to a written objective specification. If you look at (say) the PS audio sprout for an example that is woefully out of spec but reviewed well and initially sold like hotcakes.
The Self designs referenced would give you more than good enough performance although may eat into your component budget a bit. Your target market are unlikely to be hooking $5K cartridges up to this.
Not sure about the Brits... seems mostly preservation oriented.... never throw anything away.... keep it running. So Cal is about speed. And that takes HP.
Want a spec? 500 cu in max, >1200 HP per cylinder. 8 cylinder max. OK now go design and build it. High-End audio is similar with few specs because it is the lowest noise, the lowest distortion the best this and that and the most this and that. There is no spec. just the best that can be done. Otherwise, it isn't High_End, its something else.... like basic transportation is to cars.
THx-RNMarsh
riiight. so quoting a top fuel engine. Does about 900 revs between rebuilds and burns ridiculous fuel. And 1980s 4-pot turbo F1 cars produced considerably more HP/CI than top fuel dragsters due to not being hampered by cr*ppy superchargers.
Oh and top fuel costs about $1000 a second to run.
So you are saying high end should be fearsomely expensive, cost a fortune to run, be horribly unreliable and not as good as other ways of doing it? Yeah that seems to match the way that the industry has gone.
Oh and top fuel costs about $1000 a second to run.
So you are saying high end should be fearsomely expensive, cost a fortune to run, be horribly unreliable and not as good as other ways of doing it? Yeah that seems to match the way that the industry has gone.
If we want to allude to southern California car scene, we'll either have to talk about how the Tesla model S probably has the plurality on the expensive side of the market, which points to hypex doing well or talk about all the rice burners, whereupon the analogy of taking a perfectly decent, modest, machine and bolting on a bunch of flashy, expensive parts that are less reliable and of zero performance benefit (at best!).
So, I agree, the socal car analogy works great.
So, I agree, the socal car analogy works great.
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I find most Tesla owners and fans to be tech people and not necessarily car people.
Numb self-driving appliances are actually the antithesis of sports cars, nevermind how fast they can reach 60 mph.
Numb self-driving appliances are actually the antithesis of sports cars, nevermind how fast they can reach 60 mph.
Chris, don't ruin my analogy. ;-)
And barely anyone, even those with the money, wants a sports car, a few select nuts want a sports saloon. There's precious little space to leverage their outrageous performance, much less driver skill, even in the advent of super duper traction control systems. I used to be way more of a car person (did formula SAE, where we actually had to design a car!), but I outgrew that phase. Or well, got way more into self propelled two wheeled vehicles. 🙂
And barely anyone, even those with the money, wants a sports car, a few select nuts want a sports saloon. There's precious little space to leverage their outrageous performance, much less driver skill, even in the advent of super duper traction control systems. I used to be way more of a car person (did formula SAE, where we actually had to design a car!), but I outgrew that phase. Or well, got way more into self propelled two wheeled vehicles. 🙂
Trophy cars, like 35-years-younger-than-thou trophy women. All but forgot what they were for, but nice to show off 😀
Jan
Jan
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