Re: thank you Mantram, MBK and Circlotron
But one man's sow's ear may be another man's silk purse and vice versa.
Who are you to dictate to others what is and what is not a silk purse or a sow's ear? And who are you to mock and belittle those whose subjective tastes and preferences are different from yours? Why do you seem to believe that your particular subjective tastes and preferences have some universal superiority over the subjective tastes and preferences of others?
Why do you seem so troubled over others having different tastes and preferences from your own?
se
DrG said:
But one man's sow's ear may be another man's silk purse and vice versa.
Who are you to dictate to others what is and what is not a silk purse or a sow's ear? And who are you to mock and belittle those whose subjective tastes and preferences are different from yours? Why do you seem to believe that your particular subjective tastes and preferences have some universal superiority over the subjective tastes and preferences of others?
Why do you seem so troubled over others having different tastes and preferences from your own?
se
DrG
yes, you'ver built chip amps, but you admit that they are not the same as the Gainclones. You also point out that the Krells have large supply caps as if that is alway superior. People here are telling you that a smaller cap actually sounds better in a chip amp, but I suspect you put plenty of cap(acity) in your chip amps.
A Technics receiver uses chips and probably sounds sub optimal, just like your efforts. Just because you have made some sort of chip amp and have no interest in persueing the (minimal) effort to try making a real gainclone, doesn't mean that they can't be good. Touchy about associated equipment- absolutely. I can easily believe that a a Pass X amp is often better. The people here are just saying 2 things:
1. Try to make a decent gainclone, following the research pioneered by the Gaincard folks.
2. Consider that in the right circumstances, they might sound very, very good, in fact better thatn a monster Krell.
Of course you mainly enjoy argueing, so have fun..
yes, you'ver built chip amps, but you admit that they are not the same as the Gainclones. You also point out that the Krells have large supply caps as if that is alway superior. People here are telling you that a smaller cap actually sounds better in a chip amp, but I suspect you put plenty of cap(acity) in your chip amps.
A Technics receiver uses chips and probably sounds sub optimal, just like your efforts. Just because you have made some sort of chip amp and have no interest in persueing the (minimal) effort to try making a real gainclone, doesn't mean that they can't be good. Touchy about associated equipment- absolutely. I can easily believe that a a Pass X amp is often better. The people here are just saying 2 things:
1. Try to make a decent gainclone, following the research pioneered by the Gaincard folks.
2. Consider that in the right circumstances, they might sound very, very good, in fact better thatn a monster Krell.
Of course you mainly enjoy argueing, so have fun..
A Ding-Dong, not a pie
And there's always the wise guy who points out that silk and pigskin both carry money equally well. The only advantage to silk is the image.
This is a corollary of the old joke about the three things that every man is convinced he can do better than any other man (Drive a car, make love to a woman, and manage a baseball team). One can get into the philosophy of esthetics (Was my sister right? Was Bobby Sherman really better than the Beatles?), but philosophy is a dangerous thing, as Cronenberg pointed out in Videodrome.
Steve Eddy said:
And there's always the wise guy who points out that silk and pigskin both carry money equally well. The only advantage to silk is the image.
This is a corollary of the old joke about the three things that every man is convinced he can do better than any other man (Drive a car, make love to a woman, and manage a baseball team). One can get into the philosophy of esthetics (Was my sister right? Was Bobby Sherman really better than the Beatles?), but philosophy is a dangerous thing, as Cronenberg pointed out in Videodrome.
touchy, touchy...
Hmmm... could there be an element of guilt here? Anything to do with the $575 item you're peddling? Now help me out here Steve, would that qualify as a silk purse or a sow's ear, or perhaps a sow's ear inside a silk purse... I'm confused...?
If you follow the thread you'll find that preference per se is irrelevant. It's a free world. But I do believe that the higher one aims, the better the result is likely to be. The sky is the limit and I always try to aim as high as I can in the hope I'll exceed all expectations. And ultimately everybody here wants that. But feel free to have your own view and aim anywhere you like.
I was just trying to figure out for myself why and more importantly, how gainclones seem to have gained (no pun intended) such momentum. And my conclusions are cost and convenience, incidentally the exact design aims of the devices in question . Which is cool... no-one needs my approval... but I simply don't think waxing lyrical and creating the impression that these are the best goodies since the oral contraceptive pill are either accurate or justified.
Hmmm... could there be an element of guilt here? Anything to do with the $575 item you're peddling? Now help me out here Steve, would that qualify as a silk purse or a sow's ear, or perhaps a sow's ear inside a silk purse... I'm confused...?
If you follow the thread you'll find that preference per se is irrelevant. It's a free world. But I do believe that the higher one aims, the better the result is likely to be. The sky is the limit and I always try to aim as high as I can in the hope I'll exceed all expectations. And ultimately everybody here wants that. But feel free to have your own view and aim anywhere you like.
I was just trying to figure out for myself why and more importantly, how gainclones seem to have gained (no pun intended) such momentum. And my conclusions are cost and convenience, incidentally the exact design aims of the devices in question . Which is cool... no-one needs my approval... but I simply don't think waxing lyrical and creating the impression that these are the best goodies since the oral contraceptive pill are either accurate or justified.
Re: A Ding-Dong, not a pie
Oh a wiseguy, eh? Keep it up and I'll go Curly on yo' ***. Whoooopoopoopoopoopoop! 🙂
Yup. And as Phaedrus discovered in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
se
SY said:
Oh a wiseguy, eh? Keep it up and I'll go Curly on yo' ***. Whoooopoopoopoopoopoop! 🙂
Yup. And as Phaedrus discovered in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
se
Re: thank you Mantram, MBK and Circlotron
Actually seemingly it was; check http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM1875.pdf and have a look at the suggested applications on the 1st page
Although I'm being very immature with this post 😛, what im not going to even try to do is argue whether they actually achieved the 'high performance audio' goal 😱 (but i think they did)
oh hang on looks like i couldnt resist after all, I need to grow up.
Beggar
DrG said:
Actually seemingly it was; check http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM1875.pdf and have a look at the suggested applications on the 1st page
Although I'm being very immature with this post 😛, what im not going to even try to do is argue whether they actually achieved the 'high performance audio' goal 😱 (but i think they did)
oh hang on looks like i couldnt resist after all, I need to grow up.
Beggar
DrG said:
You see, when you start comparing Krell to GainClones, you might end up using Krell as a stand for the little amps😉:http://www.sakurasystems.com/show/chrissystem.html
Re: touchy, touchy...
Guilt over what? Sorry, I've no idea what you're trying to say here.
If by "that" you mean the $575 item you mentioned previously, then just as anything else, whatever sort of purse it is to any particular individual can only be determined by each particular individual. And depending on the individual in question, it may be any of the three flavors of purse you mentioned.
What sort of purse it may be is not for me to decide for anyone else other than myself.
We're all ultimately aiming at the same thing. The enjoyment of reproduced music. But what one finds to be the most enjoyable is going to be highly subjective and will not be the same for every other individual and will be as varied as other subjective tastes and preferences. So what gives you the greatest enjoyment won't necessarily be what gives someone else the greatest enjoyment.
And just because someone may get greater enjoyment out of something which wouldn't give you as much enjoyment doesn't mean you're aiming any higher than they are. Such a notion is just sheer elitism and arrogance.
Looking at your original post, I don't see any evidence that you were trying to figure out anything. You'd obviously already reached a conclusion and that your intent was simply to mock and belittle.
The last paragraph of your first post makes this plainly evident:
C'mon guys, demote these toys to the lowly status they deserve or go mad with sub-woofer or AV-multichannel applications, but don't desecrate the spirit and no-compromise fun of diy-fi by lending voluminous credence, not to mention megs of forum webspace, to these instant-coffee hi-fi wannabes...
Again, the "best goodies" are in the ears of the beholder. And the ears of the beholder don't need ANY justification. Nor are they deserving of the intolerant ridicule you've been trying to heap on them from your very first post in this thread.
se
DrG said:
Guilt over what? Sorry, I've no idea what you're trying to say here.
If by "that" you mean the $575 item you mentioned previously, then just as anything else, whatever sort of purse it is to any particular individual can only be determined by each particular individual. And depending on the individual in question, it may be any of the three flavors of purse you mentioned.
What sort of purse it may be is not for me to decide for anyone else other than myself.
We're all ultimately aiming at the same thing. The enjoyment of reproduced music. But what one finds to be the most enjoyable is going to be highly subjective and will not be the same for every other individual and will be as varied as other subjective tastes and preferences. So what gives you the greatest enjoyment won't necessarily be what gives someone else the greatest enjoyment.
And just because someone may get greater enjoyment out of something which wouldn't give you as much enjoyment doesn't mean you're aiming any higher than they are. Such a notion is just sheer elitism and arrogance.
Looking at your original post, I don't see any evidence that you were trying to figure out anything. You'd obviously already reached a conclusion and that your intent was simply to mock and belittle.
The last paragraph of your first post makes this plainly evident:
C'mon guys, demote these toys to the lowly status they deserve or go mad with sub-woofer or AV-multichannel applications, but don't desecrate the spirit and no-compromise fun of diy-fi by lending voluminous credence, not to mention megs of forum webspace, to these instant-coffee hi-fi wannabes...
Again, the "best goodies" are in the ears of the beholder. And the ears of the beholder don't need ANY justification. Nor are they deserving of the intolerant ridicule you've been trying to heap on them from your very first post in this thread.
se
Steve: Despite the merits of some of what you say, psychological analysis and evaluation of others' posts is rarely useful.
common ground.. not!
Clearly there's little common ground here, Steve (pun intended this time).
Now unless (a) you have clients with uniquely confused and disparate audiphile tendencies (who might buy a $575 q-audio InterFace and hook it up to a $2 LM chip...) or (b) you got caught hook, line and katootie by 47 Labs, your viewpoint seems somewhat hipocritical.
That is to say the following: big, hairy expensive amp (any brand) is to gainclone what InterFace is to Radio-shack interconnects. Simple enough analogy which, if extended logically, should have you favouring $2 Radio-shack interconnects uber alles. This dichotomy of position is tough to rationalize... unless... yep, my money is on option (b)!
But in all (due) deference to InterFace, your market should be those dimwitted high-enders who cannot acknowledge gainclown for the miracle it truly represents... dimwitted as they are, they remain the only ones likely to fork out $575 for what is, effectively, one set of RCA interconnects. How many do you recommend for a surround setup?
Perhaps there's a cheap imitation out there somewhere: Interfaceclone..?
Clearly there's little common ground here, Steve (pun intended this time).
Now unless (a) you have clients with uniquely confused and disparate audiphile tendencies (who might buy a $575 q-audio InterFace and hook it up to a $2 LM chip...) or (b) you got caught hook, line and katootie by 47 Labs, your viewpoint seems somewhat hipocritical.
That is to say the following: big, hairy expensive amp (any brand) is to gainclone what InterFace is to Radio-shack interconnects. Simple enough analogy which, if extended logically, should have you favouring $2 Radio-shack interconnects uber alles. This dichotomy of position is tough to rationalize... unless... yep, my money is on option (b)!
But in all (due) deference to InterFace, your market should be those dimwitted high-enders who cannot acknowledge gainclown for the miracle it truly represents... dimwitted as they are, they remain the only ones likely to fork out $575 for what is, effectively, one set of RCA interconnects. How many do you recommend for a surround setup?
Perhaps there's a cheap imitation out there somewhere: Interfaceclone..?
Re: common ground.. not!
Bad analogy... a buddy just built up some interconnects using the cheapest RS RCAs he could find, plus Cat 5 strands and they smoked a couple different kinds of big-buck cables.
Frugal-phile(tm) will sometimes out perform much more expensive kit...
... and the budget interconnects sometimes do the same thing.
dave
DrG said:
Bad analogy... a buddy just built up some interconnects using the cheapest RS RCAs he could find, plus Cat 5 strands and they smoked a couple different kinds of big-buck cables.
Frugal-phile(tm) will sometimes out perform much more expensive kit...
... and the budget interconnects sometimes do the same thing.
dave
Re: common ground.. not!
I fail to see what any of this has to do with my viewpoint. My only viewpoint is that an amplifier based around a $2 monolithic power opamp IC is not inherently inferior to one made using discrete components. At least not in terms of the only context that truly counts for something, that being how it sounds to a particular listener.
Why would anyone be any more "confused" because they hooked up an InterFace to an amp that was based on a $2 LM chip than if they hooked it up to any other amp? If such a combination should give them greater satisfaction in the end, where exactly is the confusion?
What each of those are in relation to anything else is for each person to decide for themselves.
And what has price to do with it? LM chips sell for $2 a pop because they enjoy a large economy of scale, highly automated production processes, and monolithic architecture that allow them to be priced as low as they are. How does that make them inherently inferior to discrete circuits which cost much more because parts are all manufactured and purchased separately in small quantities and require considerably more human labor and other resources to manufacture?
I use IC power opamps that cost $60 each. That's more than the typical parts cost for discrete designs. Does that mean the power opamps I'm using are inherently superior to discrete designs? I don't believe so, but that's the logical conclusion if you look at things from a pricing context.
Hey SY, does it really take Sigmund Freud to figure this one out?
se
DrG said:
I fail to see what any of this has to do with my viewpoint. My only viewpoint is that an amplifier based around a $2 monolithic power opamp IC is not inherently inferior to one made using discrete components. At least not in terms of the only context that truly counts for something, that being how it sounds to a particular listener.
Why would anyone be any more "confused" because they hooked up an InterFace to an amp that was based on a $2 LM chip than if they hooked it up to any other amp? If such a combination should give them greater satisfaction in the end, where exactly is the confusion?
What each of those are in relation to anything else is for each person to decide for themselves.
And what has price to do with it? LM chips sell for $2 a pop because they enjoy a large economy of scale, highly automated production processes, and monolithic architecture that allow them to be priced as low as they are. How does that make them inherently inferior to discrete circuits which cost much more because parts are all manufactured and purchased separately in small quantities and require considerably more human labor and other resources to manufacture?
I use IC power opamps that cost $60 each. That's more than the typical parts cost for discrete designs. Does that mean the power opamps I'm using are inherently superior to discrete designs? I don't believe so, but that's the logical conclusion if you look at things from a pricing context.
Hey SY, does it really take Sigmund Freud to figure this one out?
se
Steve:
1. The correct answer to DrG's question is, "Five."
2. The other correct answer is, "As long as the check clears and the buyer knows exactly what he's getting, I don't give a rat's patootie about his IQ."
Just remember to tithe me when all those surround sales start pouring in.
1. The correct answer to DrG's question is, "Five."
2. The other correct answer is, "As long as the check clears and the buyer knows exactly what he's getting, I don't give a rat's patootie about his IQ."
Just remember to tithe me when all those surround sales start pouring in.
I've heard so many annoyingly amusical "discrete" SS amplifiers over the years that I would disregard out of hand any argument that uses them as it's ultimate goal. Are there musical sounding discrete SS amps? Of course.
Would I believe any recommendation by DrG? Given the arrogance of his opinions: probably not.
BTW, I did build an IGC out of necessity when my old BK when up in smoke. I just tossed the circuit in the old carcass, and it was so superior to the deceased that it definately gave me pause to re-evaluate my own prejudices. Until I can afford to build a fairly high-powered OTL amp, it will stay in my system...and I'll probably build a few variations in the meantime.
Would I believe any recommendation by DrG? Given the arrogance of his opinions: probably not.
BTW, I did build an IGC out of necessity when my old BK when up in smoke. I just tossed the circuit in the old carcass, and it was so superior to the deceased that it definately gave me pause to re-evaluate my own prejudices. Until I can afford to build a fairly high-powered OTL amp, it will stay in my system...and I'll probably build a few variations in the meantime.
OK, Chris, I'll oblige ya. Current generation of power amp chips have low enough distortion, sufficient bandwidth and speed, and low enough source impedance to be audibly transparent with reasonable loads. If you're not driving 1 ohm loads, they'll work as well as the tank-like arc welders from the Big Names. The overload characteristics of the chip amps are well thought out, often better than many expensive amps.
For normal audio applications, they only lack the weight, styling, price, and prestige of most "audiophile" units. And they don't make your room nice and toasty like the fashionable silicon furnaces so popular in some circles or the hollow state units that I prefer.
For normal audio applications, they only lack the weight, styling, price, and prestige of most "audiophile" units. And they don't make your room nice and toasty like the fashionable silicon furnaces so popular in some circles or the hollow state units that I prefer.
Hi,
WOW...now I've really seen it all.
A xformer coupled IGC wouldn't be such a bad idea to match all those egotripping individuals together after all?
Maybe SE could be the Xformer consultant and any other BE ( Big Ego) could be the circuit consultant?
Geez fellows get a grip...🙄
Cheers,...errr where's that gainclown emoticon now?😉
WOW...now I've really seen it all.
A xformer coupled IGC wouldn't be such a bad idea to match all those egotripping individuals together after all?
Maybe SE could be the Xformer consultant and any other BE ( Big Ego) could be the circuit consultant?
Geez fellows get a grip...🙄
Cheers,...errr where's that gainclown emoticon now?😉
Re: common ground.. not!
OK, heres the issue right here. From the way you talk, The only way in your mind that a product is worthy of being considered audiophile grade is if you spend a ton of money on it. If you've noticed, alot of the GC's on here have been built with very high quality parts. Caps, connectors, wires are all top notch. Not with "radioshack" parts. It's people with that kind of thinking that the best MUST cost the most that fuels the hoaxes, snake oils, and scams in the Hi-Fi industry.DrG said:
fdegrove said:
Oops. Sorry. I borrowed it and forgot to mention it. Here ya go.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
se
SY said:
What, we're up to 10 channel surround sound now?
I'll be too busy handling all the complaints pouring in after selling them twice as many channels as they need to think about tithing anyone. 🙂
Oh, and anyone interested in making an InterFaceclone can simply ring up Jensen Transformers and order up a pair of JT-11P-1s.
se
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