John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

Status
Not open for further replies.
Mark Johnson said:
What's wrong with buying and using and praising what you like most, even if it is "distorted"?
Nothing at all, provided that you don't proclaim your favoured distortion as being more faithful to the input signal than less distortion. A subtle variant of this is to tolerate relatively large amounts of known measured (and avoidable) distortion while claiming (without offering evidence) that this avoids unknown unspecified distortion in 'conventional' circuits.
 
... I'm more concerned with the no distortion signal path being considered inferior....
Amplifier distortion is only one part of perceived distortion present at listening position. The signal needs to go through some type of driver with its associated distortion. Anybody works to minimize distortion of the whole chain? No? Not even any interest?

For some unclear reason, amplifier distortion seems important but no or low total distortion is perhaps, for the mean time, inferior or at least not considered important enough.
 

TNT

Member
Joined 2003
Paid Member
John I have a question, ....

...To put this in other words, I would think the two signals that the recording engineer created are due the respect of being passed on with maximum fidelity. This is a job for EE as is practiced in the rest of most diciplines.

If indeed the signal to be amplified is able to create fidelity - yes.

But is it? Why amplifying something perfectly if it is faulty from the beginning?

All this if "Hi-Fi" means fidelity to reality - on system level... (pressure variation -> system -> pressure variation)

Do you believe in pre-distorsion? :)

//
 
Last edited:
One of the problems we have with distortion is that some people are choosing components which only affect amp distortion down at the 0.0001% level or below, while others are happily listening to amps with 1-5% distortion and saying that they sound better than amps with 0.1% distortion. In some cases it may even be the same people! Of course, what both approaches have in common is that they deliberately ignore known engineering principles, so it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in some cases it is this which is the actual aim.
 
I am pretty sure that the ORIGINAL BYBEE DEVICES, the so called Bybee Purifiers, are present in some form in advanced military and aerospace projects. They were made for that use (the essential core) for that very reason by companies that make only military grade products. Bybee just adapted them for audio use.
 
Last edited:
The real problem in amplifier design is NOT small or even medium amounts of lower order harmonic distortion, but the UNMEASURED distortions, where there isn't any calibrated test equipment available to test it and give it a specific number. I personally define audio distortion as ANY deviation from the original signal, either by adding, subtracting, phase shifting, or any other change to the audio signal DA, PIM, and who knows what else is out there that changes the sound character of the electronics?
 
I tended to be more interested in experimenting with mind altering substances (but within reason) than the physical bouncing around in the mosh pit

LSD gives a great insight into just how our perceptions are internally generated & experiencing synesthesia directly confirms this

Yes, because there is a huge rumination and recognition aspect to seeing your own brain on the cooling board.

Without it, the ego retains it's abstract hands off arm's length talk but don't walk control of the self. When really, all the ego is, is just a automaton placeholder until the real intellect steps up and takes charge of the avatar. 99.99% of people never make it past childhood. Depending on the person, there may be as much as 20 to 100 iq points on the backside of that exploration. Avoiding the initial insanity of direct open connection to the hindbrain can be a problem for the unprepared.

Not that post event is externally any better. As they say, "before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." The carrier, mode and environment does not change, the intelligence riding on/in it does.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.