Carlos,
Thank you for your post. You are too kind......
My cat is fine, except I threw him out last night late and he returned this morning with a large piece of rump missing. I guess he had a big fight. He is a feisty little fellow, jumps on my keyboard when I am typing, but like all cats he is a complete slave to his stomach........
Anthony makes a good point, and tries to calm the subjectivist v. objectivist debate. I've somewhat lost patience with this debate. Here are my reasons.
1. Some of the best amps in the world - the Ongaku, for one - have distortion figures of 2% or higher, even at listening levels.
2. Some of the worst sounding amps in the world feature 0.05% or less, yet sound like shredded sandpaper.
3. Tubes have high distortion. Yet some here won't listen to anything else!
4. The best engineers in the world have concentrated for five decades on low distortion and ruler-flat linearity. I think linearity is important, certainly the transfer function should be curved, not jagged, but rarely do very low distortion amps sound good. They please their designers, that is clear, and they win marvellous urinary trajectory contests, but they may not sell very well because people quickly tire of listening to them.
5. There is a world of difference between steady state sine testing and music. I know of no audiophile who listens solely to sine waves. The real test is music, but music is so complex that meaningful, objective tests are almost impossible. Some test with greater correlation is needed, and THD is not one of them. Perhaps distortion spectrum tests are the answer; more work is needed.
6. Any group who have privileged knowledge will naturally feel superior to those who do not, so any layman naysayer will be immediately derided by the engineer class who design the world's amplifiers. This is normal, and follows the same path as political correctness. Until this codified knowledge reliably produces a better mousetrap, the objectivist camp can expect relentless scepticism and open challenge. Self is the clear objectivist here and I'm surprised he's not in here boots and all.
7. Maths analysis is not the solution to the problem, no more than art critics can produce great paintings. Empiricism is the answer, and so little is reliably known about what makes a good amp that it just has to be a good deal of experience and hard work. PSpice is helpful to some extent, but certainly not essential. A new outlook on recorded music (and specifically psychoacoustics and what might fix the perceived problems) is more likely to give the world a better amplifier.
I'd better get off. The cat's hair is lousing up the keyboard......
Cheers,
Hugh
Thank you for your post. You are too kind......
My cat is fine, except I threw him out last night late and he returned this morning with a large piece of rump missing. I guess he had a big fight. He is a feisty little fellow, jumps on my keyboard when I am typing, but like all cats he is a complete slave to his stomach........
Anthony makes a good point, and tries to calm the subjectivist v. objectivist debate. I've somewhat lost patience with this debate. Here are my reasons.
1. Some of the best amps in the world - the Ongaku, for one - have distortion figures of 2% or higher, even at listening levels.
2. Some of the worst sounding amps in the world feature 0.05% or less, yet sound like shredded sandpaper.
3. Tubes have high distortion. Yet some here won't listen to anything else!
4. The best engineers in the world have concentrated for five decades on low distortion and ruler-flat linearity. I think linearity is important, certainly the transfer function should be curved, not jagged, but rarely do very low distortion amps sound good. They please their designers, that is clear, and they win marvellous urinary trajectory contests, but they may not sell very well because people quickly tire of listening to them.
5. There is a world of difference between steady state sine testing and music. I know of no audiophile who listens solely to sine waves. The real test is music, but music is so complex that meaningful, objective tests are almost impossible. Some test with greater correlation is needed, and THD is not one of them. Perhaps distortion spectrum tests are the answer; more work is needed.
6. Any group who have privileged knowledge will naturally feel superior to those who do not, so any layman naysayer will be immediately derided by the engineer class who design the world's amplifiers. This is normal, and follows the same path as political correctness. Until this codified knowledge reliably produces a better mousetrap, the objectivist camp can expect relentless scepticism and open challenge. Self is the clear objectivist here and I'm surprised he's not in here boots and all.
7. Maths analysis is not the solution to the problem, no more than art critics can produce great paintings. Empiricism is the answer, and so little is reliably known about what makes a good amp that it just has to be a good deal of experience and hard work. PSpice is helpful to some extent, but certainly not essential. A new outlook on recorded music (and specifically psychoacoustics and what might fix the perceived problems) is more likely to give the world a better amplifier.
I'd better get off. The cat's hair is lousing up the keyboard......
Cheers,
Hugh
AKSA said:
it is hard to argue that way as your opponents can easily say that
1. Some of the worst sounding amps in the world have distortion figures of 2% or higher;
2. Some of the best sounding amps int he world feature 0.05% or less distortion, etc.
Then you have no way to conclude based on those statements.
I think like anything else in the world, there are always art in amp design, tho. I wouldn't suggest it to be as significant as others have suggested. As such, it will not be completed an "engineering" thing, and how an amp sound, not just how well it measures, is the deciding factor.
However, I think if you were to take the world of amps as a universe, you will find a good correlation between good performing amps and good sounding amps - that is not to say that you will not find an exception to the above but there are rare and far between.
measured performance cannot assure us of a good sounding amp. However, if you have to rely on it, it will be a reliable proxy for us.
Like any good proxy, it will fail from time to time, unfortunately. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it as a proxy.
Hi tlf9999,
Thank you for your considered, measured post.
However, I beg to disagree.
If it's true that some of the best amps in the world have 2% distortion, and others have 0.005%, and some of the worst amps in the world have 2% distortion, and others have 0.005%, then I believe we can say categorically that we are measuring the wrong parameter because the correlation is statistically very low.
OTOH, I have always heard sonic improvements when I have improved linearity, so there's something to this somewhere......
And finally, given that one man's meat is another's poison, is this not like fashion? Is it true that some like it hot, while others take the opposite view? And is there not evidence of political correctness in amplifier design? If this is the case, then there may be room under the sun for almost ANY amp design!!
Owzat, Jose!!!?
Cheers,
Hugh
Thank you for your considered, measured post.
However, I beg to disagree.
If it's true that some of the best amps in the world have 2% distortion, and others have 0.005%, and some of the worst amps in the world have 2% distortion, and others have 0.005%, then I believe we can say categorically that we are measuring the wrong parameter because the correlation is statistically very low.
OTOH, I have always heard sonic improvements when I have improved linearity, so there's something to this somewhere......
And finally, given that one man's meat is another's poison, is this not like fashion? Is it true that some like it hot, while others take the opposite view? And is there not evidence of political correctness in amplifier design? If this is the case, then there may be room under the sun for almost ANY amp design!!
Owzat, Jose!!!?
Cheers,
Hugh
AKSA said:
That is a very good couple of points.
Should amplifier manufacturers publish data sheets like transistor and opamp manufacturers, with 4 pages filled with 6 graphs each of tested performance data?
If they did, would we have a better curve-fitting to good amplifers vs. some measurement?
hmmm...
Well dear Hugh, TLF and Stocker, not matter what you say, they will find oposite
Things to say.
That's the way they are.... their personalitty, beeing Stocker, as i could perceive, less agressive than TLF, but also like to insert needles inside our fum!
They use to play this way...it is a matter to enter their game or not dear Hugh.
I suggest you not to discuss with them, as i think they want to unstabilize, some sadic character i suppose.
I am sorry very much TLF9999 and Stocker, big fat charlie do not apreciate you two...and be happy that i leave big distance related you...as i am not a courageous man...and beeing near you i can feel so big afraid that i can fall down over you...loosing good air inside my brain...and the result can be smash you two...as i am very heavy...350 pounds of fat on you guys.
I am sorry very much, and in advance i apologize to be so true.
I do not like you two!.... and really, forum have more than 20K guys...but , related you two guys, do not came to brazil giving me your adress here because i will not resist to give you some special reception!
You will lost time to discuss with me...as i will not read nothing from you, only some adress you give me for my kind future visit.... as you where banished from my life!
How deer you boys!.... try to create problem with Hugh, the King!
Everybody likes him...he is humble and kind, and have patience enougth to loose his precious time discussing with you... and you two was pointed for many forum guys that already perceived, sending me direct mails with comments abouty you two... saying that perceived that in many threads, you two are clearly entering to unstabilize!
I am sure, the justice forum Cannons, from moderators, may be already pointed to you...waiting you made the first mistake to pulverize you two.
In advance, forum moderators, i apologize to Stocker and to TLF9999 because i was so rude with them.
Grumpf!
regards,
Carlos
Things to say.
That's the way they are.... their personalitty, beeing Stocker, as i could perceive, less agressive than TLF, but also like to insert needles inside our fum!
They use to play this way...it is a matter to enter their game or not dear Hugh.
I suggest you not to discuss with them, as i think they want to unstabilize, some sadic character i suppose.
I am sorry very much TLF9999 and Stocker, big fat charlie do not apreciate you two...and be happy that i leave big distance related you...as i am not a courageous man...and beeing near you i can feel so big afraid that i can fall down over you...loosing good air inside my brain...and the result can be smash you two...as i am very heavy...350 pounds of fat on you guys.
I am sorry very much, and in advance i apologize to be so true.
I do not like you two!.... and really, forum have more than 20K guys...but , related you two guys, do not came to brazil giving me your adress here because i will not resist to give you some special reception!
You will lost time to discuss with me...as i will not read nothing from you, only some adress you give me for my kind future visit.... as you where banished from my life!
How deer you boys!.... try to create problem with Hugh, the King!
Everybody likes him...he is humble and kind, and have patience enougth to loose his precious time discussing with you... and you two was pointed for many forum guys that already perceived, sending me direct mails with comments abouty you two... saying that perceived that in many threads, you two are clearly entering to unstabilize!
I am sure, the justice forum Cannons, from moderators, may be already pointed to you...waiting you made the first mistake to pulverize you two.
In advance, forum moderators, i apologize to Stocker and to TLF9999 because i was so rude with them.
Grumpf!
regards,
Carlos
Attachments
Re: Well dear Hugh, TLF and Stocker, not matter what you say, they will find oposite
You are on 2000V Carlos in that pict?
destroyer X said:
You are on 2000V Carlos in that pict?
Carlos,
You must not sit on top of the Van de Graaf generator - it will strip your cathode.......
http://science.howstuffworks.com/vdg2.htm
Seriously, no one is attacking me, and if it happens I am well able to defend my POV.
Chars,
Hugh
You must not sit on top of the Van de Graaf generator - it will strip your cathode.......
http://science.howstuffworks.com/vdg2.htm
Seriously, no one is attacking me, and if it happens I am well able to defend my POV.
Chars,
Hugh
AKSA said:
I am far less confident that we (or anyone) can say that, given the lack of emperical data to support such a claim.
You would think that this is in the interest of either the subjectivists or objectivists to have a scientific study into the audioability of "performance measures". Given the amount of money involved, it is quite curious that none has been done to help us categorically state one way or the other.
AKSA said:
yes, there always is. That is true even if there is a strong correlation between performance measures and sonic quality: the ultimate purpose of an amplifier (or any other commercial product) is to please people. As far as people's needs are diverse (which has nothing to do with science or even rationality), you will find people who desire different things and it is rational to satisfy such a need, however irrational it is.
Oh!...pain!...this instrument is too much big.
I prefer to continue to use my voltimeter tips.
Hello Elso...hallojoy sent you regards,
Hugh..message received!
by
Carlos
I prefer to continue to use my voltimeter tips.
Hello Elso...hallojoy sent you regards,
Hugh..message received!
by
Carlos
Re: Oh!...pain!...this instrument is too much big.
Halojoy, Oh my God........
He can reach me on chat in Yahoo......
destroyer X said:
Halojoy, Oh my God........
He can reach me on chat in Yahoo......
Tlf9999,
You have asked for empirical evidence that THD is not well correlated with subjective sonic excellence. I would counter that it really needs to be shown that it is!! Sadly this becomes a semantic quest, because our assessment criteria are entirely subjective. Empiricism and subjectivity to do not marry convincingly well; this is, I suspect, the reason that the math and measure marketing to which audiophiles are daily subjected is still practised. After all, most are taught that if you can't measure it, it's not there. Divide and rule - a highly effective strategy in the war for our pockets........😀
However, I should have thought the evidence is all around us. Almost any SE tube amp (without feedback, such as the Ongaku or the Cary 805 in all its variants) classifies as a mighty fine amplifier. The DecWare is another. A year ago I did a 6EM7 SET of 1.5W which is very good. All these amps captivate most listeners for their outstanding, organic, vocally sympathetic sonics, yet exhibit very high distortion by SS standards, typically 1.5% at listening levels, much more at full power.
At the other end of the spectrum we have some very good SS amplifiers, like the JLH, the Hiraga variants, the Electrocompaniets, the Pass Class A designs, and, dare I say it, my own AKSA. These amps measure well; typically less than 0.05% (though I'm not sure about the JLH or the Pass SE designs, haven't measured them). They also sound good, and in most instances have the great advantages of more headroom and better load tolerance than the SETs.
But there are tube amps which don't cut the mustard. Some of the ordinary EL34 PP designs are very ho hum, and the cheaper stuff of the fifties and sixties can sound very average. And you've only to visit your budget hifi mart to behold a diverse range of Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese execrations which sound, well, bad enough to avoid altogether. Yet most of them measure quite well.....
Part of my design team is a brilliant young psychologist, a PhD, who is about to take up a research position in psycho-acoustics at a local university. My company will be negotiating a sponsorship to try to determine the correlations between electrical measurement and sonic excellence. This has been done before, of course, notably by Cheever, who has recently attracted strong criticism on this forum. If we can get government/university sponsorship to support Aspen, it will go ahead. Ben already has a few ideas and so do I; but framing the terms of reference is proving quite a challenge. However, the results could be very interesting, and might generate some useful conclusions and possibly improve the art of audio. We are acutely aware that any effort will come under intense, almost vituperative sniping, so it must be rigorous.
More than this I really cannot say. But one thing is certain; in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Are you King, tlf?
Cheers,
Hugh
You have asked for empirical evidence that THD is not well correlated with subjective sonic excellence. I would counter that it really needs to be shown that it is!! Sadly this becomes a semantic quest, because our assessment criteria are entirely subjective. Empiricism and subjectivity to do not marry convincingly well; this is, I suspect, the reason that the math and measure marketing to which audiophiles are daily subjected is still practised. After all, most are taught that if you can't measure it, it's not there. Divide and rule - a highly effective strategy in the war for our pockets........😀
However, I should have thought the evidence is all around us. Almost any SE tube amp (without feedback, such as the Ongaku or the Cary 805 in all its variants) classifies as a mighty fine amplifier. The DecWare is another. A year ago I did a 6EM7 SET of 1.5W which is very good. All these amps captivate most listeners for their outstanding, organic, vocally sympathetic sonics, yet exhibit very high distortion by SS standards, typically 1.5% at listening levels, much more at full power.
At the other end of the spectrum we have some very good SS amplifiers, like the JLH, the Hiraga variants, the Electrocompaniets, the Pass Class A designs, and, dare I say it, my own AKSA. These amps measure well; typically less than 0.05% (though I'm not sure about the JLH or the Pass SE designs, haven't measured them). They also sound good, and in most instances have the great advantages of more headroom and better load tolerance than the SETs.
But there are tube amps which don't cut the mustard. Some of the ordinary EL34 PP designs are very ho hum, and the cheaper stuff of the fifties and sixties can sound very average. And you've only to visit your budget hifi mart to behold a diverse range of Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese execrations which sound, well, bad enough to avoid altogether. Yet most of them measure quite well.....
Part of my design team is a brilliant young psychologist, a PhD, who is about to take up a research position in psycho-acoustics at a local university. My company will be negotiating a sponsorship to try to determine the correlations between electrical measurement and sonic excellence. This has been done before, of course, notably by Cheever, who has recently attracted strong criticism on this forum. If we can get government/university sponsorship to support Aspen, it will go ahead. Ben already has a few ideas and so do I; but framing the terms of reference is proving quite a challenge. However, the results could be very interesting, and might generate some useful conclusions and possibly improve the art of audio. We are acutely aware that any effort will come under intense, almost vituperative sniping, so it must be rigorous.
More than this I really cannot say. But one thing is certain; in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Are you King, tlf?
Cheers,
Hugh
There is no such thing as the Best amplifier in the world.
Just good, very good, Excellent or just plain bad.
There are far to many Opinions and design objectives to make that judgement.
__________________
Warm Regards
Anthony Holton
whatever, Anthony holton?? are you the guy who wrote an article in the mid 90s
about a high perfprmance amp,gee unreal, objectivist then right?!
Guys noone here likes Self thats for sure, then how do you expect the guy to
get here and debate you guys
you brought up the subject of subjectivism vs objectivism linearity one of the components for best sound is the property of objectivis?science? or subjectis?
where is its root come from (from the human ear) i dont wish to go on
it would be pointless, one thing is for sure linearity is king!! and is the product
of art beased on high science, at the end of the day the best is the best
there is such thing as best,dont kid yourselves,it has become harder to see these days though
cheers
Just good, very good, Excellent or just plain bad.
There are far to many Opinions and design objectives to make that judgement.
__________________
Warm Regards
Anthony Holton
whatever, Anthony holton?? are you the guy who wrote an article in the mid 90s
about a high perfprmance amp,gee unreal, objectivist then right?!
Guys noone here likes Self thats for sure, then how do you expect the guy to
get here and debate you guys
you brought up the subject of subjectivism vs objectivism linearity one of the components for best sound is the property of objectivis?science? or subjectis?
where is its root come from (from the human ear) i dont wish to go on
it would be pointless, one thing is for sure linearity is king!! and is the product
of art beased on high science, at the end of the day the best is the best
there is such thing as best,dont kid yourselves,it has become harder to see these days though
cheers
AKSA said:
I don't have concrete evidence that it is. However, my observations, since the 1970s, has been that on average, sound quality of audio equipment has vastly improved. This applies to both valve and SS amps. You can buy much better sound today than you could 20 years ago, on constant dollar basis.
AKSA said:
I haven't heard any of those you have mentioned but have heard plenty commercial valve amps. Other than their rolled off high frequency response, i am not sure they sound better than comparable SS amp, if you compensate for the clipping behaviors of those amps.
AKSA said:
It is not just measurement that matters. In the end, do those amps sound better or worse than a Denon, Krell, or Ongaku? I have not seen concrete evidence that they do (or they don't for that matter).
I belong to the camp that amps, when kept in their performance envelope, sound the same. That is espcially true when you factor in speaker distortion.
One example that I know of: the BMW and Lincoln LS6 use the same transmission (by ZF). And you will hear tons of praises for the BMW's silky operation and also tons of complaints about the LN's rubbery shift. 🙂. Surprisingly, our brains can be quite cruel, especially for the clueless.
AKSA said:
I would be interested in hearing what Cheever has to offer.
Originally posted by AKSA
And you've only to visit your budget hifi mart to behold a diverse range of Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese execrations which sound, well, bad enough to avoid altogether. Yet most of them measure quite well..
for sure, generally speaking measure well? have you measured their loudspeakers? Mr hugh come on low powered highly compromised systems those who made them are not highend designers thats for sure those systems are lemon hifis everyone knows that, lemon!!! measuring well,you cant be serious???
And you've only to visit your budget hifi mart to behold a diverse range of Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese execrations which sound, well, bad enough to avoid altogether. Yet most of them measure quite well..
for sure, generally speaking measure well? have you measured their loudspeakers? Mr hugh come on low powered highly compromised systems those who made them are not highend designers thats for sure those systems are lemon hifis everyone knows that, lemon!!! measuring well,you cant be serious???
I did a search on "cheever" and found this paper (http://w3.mit.edu/cheever/www/cheever_thesis.pdf), "A new methodology for audio frequency ..." by Daniel Cheever. quite an interesting read. My 2 cents (from a sanitory worker's point of view, 🙂).
I am not convinced that the foundation of the work is sound. The author started the thesis by saying that "There exists general agreement that the commonly accepted test and measurement protocols for audio frequency power amplifiers fail to correlate with the subjectively accessed devices sound quality.".
To me, that's the very question we were trying to find answer for: Is there really a link between sound quality and measured performance? Are those praises for "great sounding amplifiers" really based on verifiable listening preference? Or are they the by-product of well known brands, high price tags, exortic topologies, or marketing influence? At least I have not seen any concrete evidence that support a positive correlation between poor measurement and high sound quality.
However, at least here is one datapoint by Bussey and Haigley (http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~mleach/papers/TubeVsTrans.pdf) that showed that when adjusted for level, frequency response, and clipping behaviors, golden ear types cannot statistically tell a tube amp from SS amp based on sound quality. I would like to see some follow-up studies to that myself.
on page 23 of the Cheever paper, Dan tried to link low prices of a SS amp on eBay (vs. its tube counterpart) with their sonic quality. But that's an extremely poor argument as this descrepency can be easily explained away by supply and demand: tube amps need far greater maintenance and as the stock of tubes goes down, there will be far lower supply of tubes and tube amps than SS amps which for the most part are maintenance free. This, everythign else being equal, will yield higher market prices for tube amps, which has zero relationship to their sonic quality.
One thing I will agree with the author is that the use of feedback is detrimental in terms of generating higher order harmonics. What isn't studied is how that is offset by the reduction of distortion through the use of feedback.
The use of TAD, as proposed by the author, is lacking in its empirical support, as the author only did so based on the (highly) limited samples of amps used in the study, and there was no listening sessions conducted to empirically support the supeiority of TAD.
However, I find the rest of the thesis well written, especially the literature review session.
I thought a much better topic would have been a large listening session (on double blind basis) that can prove a correlation between the perception of high sound quality by test subjects and the perception of high sound quality by stereophile editors / reviewers.
My experience and limited knowledge don't support the claims of high sound quality of those exortic amps.
I am not convinced that the foundation of the work is sound. The author started the thesis by saying that "There exists general agreement that the commonly accepted test and measurement protocols for audio frequency power amplifiers fail to correlate with the subjectively accessed devices sound quality.".
To me, that's the very question we were trying to find answer for: Is there really a link between sound quality and measured performance? Are those praises for "great sounding amplifiers" really based on verifiable listening preference? Or are they the by-product of well known brands, high price tags, exortic topologies, or marketing influence? At least I have not seen any concrete evidence that support a positive correlation between poor measurement and high sound quality.
However, at least here is one datapoint by Bussey and Haigley (http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~mleach/papers/TubeVsTrans.pdf) that showed that when adjusted for level, frequency response, and clipping behaviors, golden ear types cannot statistically tell a tube amp from SS amp based on sound quality. I would like to see some follow-up studies to that myself.
on page 23 of the Cheever paper, Dan tried to link low prices of a SS amp on eBay (vs. its tube counterpart) with their sonic quality. But that's an extremely poor argument as this descrepency can be easily explained away by supply and demand: tube amps need far greater maintenance and as the stock of tubes goes down, there will be far lower supply of tubes and tube amps than SS amps which for the most part are maintenance free. This, everythign else being equal, will yield higher market prices for tube amps, which has zero relationship to their sonic quality.
One thing I will agree with the author is that the use of feedback is detrimental in terms of generating higher order harmonics. What isn't studied is how that is offset by the reduction of distortion through the use of feedback.
The use of TAD, as proposed by the author, is lacking in its empirical support, as the author only did so based on the (highly) limited samples of amps used in the study, and there was no listening sessions conducted to empirically support the supeiority of TAD.
However, I find the rest of the thesis well written, especially the literature review session.
I thought a much better topic would have been a large listening session (on double blind basis) that can prove a correlation between the perception of high sound quality by test subjects and the perception of high sound quality by stereophile editors / reviewers.
My experience and limited knowledge don't support the claims of high sound quality of those exortic amps.
Tlf,
You make some damn good points, sanitary worker or whatever, your mind is excellent......
Specifically you make this excellent point:
In our media-laden societies, such is the exposure to advertising that we are all of us saturated with brand loyalties by our teens. Look at Nike, Converse, MacDonalds, I-pod, Windows - their advertising strategies are pervasive and highly successful. Of course you are right when you draw attention to '...known brands, high price tags, exotic topologies, and marketing influence.' These aspects are ruthlessly pivotal in the formation of product prejudice and buying patterns. And you are right, there is no evidence supporting positive correlation between poor measurement and high sound quality, or the obverse. In truth, there is little correlation supporting poor measurement with PERCEIVED sound quality, and in fact there is high correlation between price and perceived sound quality due to the marketing factors alluded to, and due to the fact that we are all brainwashed to believe that high price means high quality.
I really don't think I can add much more to this debate. I would add one thing to your comments on negative feedback - what about the masking effect of low order harmonic distortion? However, I'm out of ideas now. But I appreciated the exchange.......
Mastertech, I was referring only to amplifiers, not systems. The crappy amps still measure quite well, most under 0.5%.
Cheers,
Hugh
You make some damn good points, sanitary worker or whatever, your mind is excellent......
Specifically you make this excellent point:
In our media-laden societies, such is the exposure to advertising that we are all of us saturated with brand loyalties by our teens. Look at Nike, Converse, MacDonalds, I-pod, Windows - their advertising strategies are pervasive and highly successful. Of course you are right when you draw attention to '...known brands, high price tags, exotic topologies, and marketing influence.' These aspects are ruthlessly pivotal in the formation of product prejudice and buying patterns. And you are right, there is no evidence supporting positive correlation between poor measurement and high sound quality, or the obverse. In truth, there is little correlation supporting poor measurement with PERCEIVED sound quality, and in fact there is high correlation between price and perceived sound quality due to the marketing factors alluded to, and due to the fact that we are all brainwashed to believe that high price means high quality.
I really don't think I can add much more to this debate. I would add one thing to your comments on negative feedback - what about the masking effect of low order harmonic distortion? However, I'm out of ideas now. But I appreciated the exchange.......
Mastertech, I was referring only to amplifiers, not systems. The crappy amps still measure quite well, most under 0.5%.
Cheers,
Hugh
Carlos, you mistake my point! 😱
Hugh and I speak of the same question from two points of view... and, as far as I can tell, are in agreement!
If I did ever pay a visit, be sure you would be pacified by lots of samples of good wines before I ever got to you... 😉
And since we are apparently all drinking buddies on first-name basis, mine is David
Hugh and I speak of the same question from two points of view... and, as far as I can tell, are in agreement!
If I did ever pay a visit, be sure you would be pacified by lots of samples of good wines before I ever got to you... 😉
And since we are apparently all drinking buddies on first-name basis, mine is David
Hi Stocker (or should I say David?),
You suggested that we should supply comprehensive graphs with amps, presumably showing the full distortion spectra and some kind of pulse representation for First Cycle Distortion (Graham Maynard's excellent descriptor, not mine).
This ain't such a bad idea. However, I have a notion that the strides in sonics over the last twenty years have been little to do with topology, but rather with component quality, particularly caps and semis.
Dielectric absorption and linearity have delivered the big numbers, respectively. A large proportion of the sound of the amplifier is related to the quality and choice of the capacitors. And speed of semis is important, along with constancy of hfe with collector current.
Cheers,
Hugh
You suggested that we should supply comprehensive graphs with amps, presumably showing the full distortion spectra and some kind of pulse representation for First Cycle Distortion (Graham Maynard's excellent descriptor, not mine).
This ain't such a bad idea. However, I have a notion that the strides in sonics over the last twenty years have been little to do with topology, but rather with component quality, particularly caps and semis.
Dielectric absorption and linearity have delivered the big numbers, respectively. A large proportion of the sound of the amplifier is related to the quality and choice of the capacitors. And speed of semis is important, along with constancy of hfe with collector current.
Cheers,
Hugh
AKSA said:
I was asking a semi-rhetorical question, trying to expand on your thoughts, which I quoted. I (personally, specifically) don't know why the amplifiers are better than they used to be, I am only glad that they are!
Seems like it would be an awful lot of hassle for amplifier manufacturers to go through...
Especially since "some" manufacturers can charge $xxxxx.xx for the same basic amplifiers that we can build here, for $xxx.xx! "Value is what the market is willing to bear", and the market is apparently willing to bear a great deal of hype for large sums of money.
Is it an unfair thing to say that most people who would benefit from amplifier datasheets would have at best an academic benefit, and at worst, the ******* matches would have one more set of topics?
I stir the pot
and find it
is already stirred...
****
I reread my post and find it... will be mildly offensive to certain persons who will never be called Charlotte due to extensive experimentation, and with whom I usually tend to agree or at least sympathise. The above statements and questions should be understood to be in no way referring negatively to AKSA, PASS or other specific brands of amplifiers.
-David
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