In a well designed SE amp, distortion percentage goes down as the level goes down. Some people speak about taking care that the first watt should be as clean as possible.
This is what I read in a review of your DPA 300B. Therefore I'm going to build a power amp with that topology of yours, but with different OP tubes. Thank you.
Agreed.
Though I have zero experience in designing tube amps, it looks to me correct.
From listening to a SET amp, compared to PP amps, I know what extended microdynamics is when listening to an amp.
Like you, I wish I'd know how microdynamics can be measured.
If you are really interested, I prefer to discuss it on the phone, rather than in this forum, since it's way off topic.
Hello Wavebourn and All,
Re: post 154.
Yes we are speaking of SET’s.
1) Increasing power output = increasing THD, 2nd is highest
2) Decreasing power = decreasing distortion, 2nd is still highest however as power level decreases 2nd decreases faster than 3rd. something that complicates this thing with decreasing power and decreasing distortion is that the 3rd, 4th and on up get lost in the noise floor.
The theory does not address the noise floor. Practically speaking there are fewer harmonics as the power level decreases.
Now again where are you headed?
DT
All just for Fun!
Re: post 154.
Yes we are speaking of SET’s.
1) Increasing power output = increasing THD, 2nd is highest
2) Decreasing power = decreasing distortion, 2nd is still highest however as power level decreases 2nd decreases faster than 3rd. something that complicates this thing with decreasing power and decreasing distortion is that the 3rd, 4th and on up get lost in the noise floor.
The theory does not address the noise floor. Practically speaking there are fewer harmonics as the power level decreases.
Now again where are you headed?
DT
All just for Fun!
There is nothing original or interesting on his website but it is peppered with gems such as this:
"Many stock market traders in Wall St and London (before the bubble burst) were cocaine addicts and soft targets for fake gold watches, SET amps and audiophile magical cable etc."
Not to mention all of the heroin dealers and pimps who bought into single-ended triode amps.
And technical gaffs like this one:
"Choke input filter power supplies, also referred to as Swinging choke power supplies, are often seen in industrial electronics where a large amount of DC current is required with high regulation."
All power supplies that use swinging chokes are choke input but not all choke input power supplies utilize a swinging choke. This is elementary knowledge that he doesn't seem to understand.
No, it's a pretty worthless website except to someone after his own heart who wants to use his quotes to bolster their own position.
John
Perhaps that's a topic for a different thread. This one is about line stages.
Here's a question for Allen: I have no idea what "microdynamics" means (nor apparently do the people using the term). Do you understand it? If so, since you make both balanced and single ended line stages, do your balanced line stages lack this purported quality? It's unclear to me how the addition of a pile of distortion makes an amplifier more neutral.
This is what I said. I forgot to say there a lot of interesting pictures also. 🙂
You think it's pretty worthless and it sounds like you don't like the guy, that's OK to me. But I didn't quote him to bolster my own opinion as I don't have a fixed one - I am not an audio partisan. I enjoy my SE and PP amps and am open to different opinions about audio, that's why I said it's an interesting site. His opinions about many things don't match my own.
I've never met him.
Even this quote, as noble as it may sound, it is nothing more than a definition of stubbornness or hardheadedness. All western men are stubborn all of the time? I mean, it really is nonsense. How are eastern, southern, and northern man different? 🙂
John
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I don't mean to try to speak for anyone, least of all Allen, but I'll give the microdynamic definition a try...
Re: Microdynamics -- As I've heard the term used, it means the ability of the reproducing system to bring out the small, quickly and constantly changing amplitudes and/or changes in dynamic timbre present in music.
E.g. - Most audio playback systems of moderate or higher power can give you the "macrodynamic" slam of a big orchestral bass drum, or the blast of the brass in a large scale symphonic work of the Post-Romantic/Early Modern persuasion (think Shostakovitch Sym. 5, or the bass drum hits in "The Rite of Spring"). But very few reproduction systems can give you the numerous shades of dynamic "texture" in a well-recorded piano (hammer striking string, decay of string vibration), or all the nuances of a well-played snare drum with brushes, or even a sensitively-played jazz ride cymbal. Most playback systems will make those things sound 'generalized' or more 'two-dimensional.' You want there to be many layers of shading between the the very quietest and moderately quiet sounds. Differences between moderate level to moderately loud to 'really loud' should be easily discernible (i.e. no dynamic compression). All the subtle changes in timbre as instruments are struck or blown harder should be easily discernible. Shifts from one dynamic level to the next should be quick and 'effortless' sounding.
Whew, that wasn't easy!
Now how to achieve this? Don't ask me, I'm just a former musician and sufferer of audiophilia nervosa.
--
How could it be measured if you can't even define it? Is it related to the umbrella effect, vanquished by Don Morrison's preamp?
rongon, your definition sounds like plain old linearity and dynamic range. More romantic description of the effects of linearity and dynamic range, but still the same. And both of those are severely compromised in SET power amps, but can be done in a very satisfactory way in single ended preamps.
Impossible to say form 8000 miles away, so I can only speculate. But it could well be compression, which often has the subjective effect of pushing detail forward. It could also be expectation, since you were well aware of the identities of the equipment you listened to, and I seriously doubt that you did a level-matched comparison.
Could some of what is being described as microdynamics also be slew rate limiting due to bandwidth limitations at higher power levels, which are needed for impules reproduction?
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