That's all that differs in a well designed amplifier and gives characterful sound, I am into HiFi and so prefer to listen to as little distortion as possible. How about you?
Well...no. I'd rather not. That's why I got a J2 for my horns, instead of say, a SET amp.
Ever play a Marshall stack cranked to 11....or listen to a recording of one? Thats about 30% THD according to my HP8903A.
But that's an instrument producing a unique sound, not a hi-fi system intended to faithfully reproduce any sound.
Not sure where you're going with that; but if measurements matter, it has about 0.008% THD at 100mW output. That, or a bit less is what the horns take for my normal listening.
I'm always shocked at how inaudible low order distortion can be. I try to get distortion as low as possible, but it's amazing how undistorted a pair of EL34 tubes wired as UL sound WITHOUT global feedback. The problem is of course the lack of damping, so you get a massive tonal shift from your speakers.
I compared simple hybrid ( anode follower -> cathode follower -> near unity gain chipamp ) and Class A/AB mosfet amp with low distortion. For silent background music I prefer hybrid, it is somehow "easier" to listen. But when I want to listen some acoustic guitar tracks, low distortion amp feels better. For symphonic blackened deathcore I like /anode follower -> cathode follower -> mosfet follower/(No feedback). I believe everyone will have a bit different opinion, depending of what they listen. Some like transparent amps,some like the ones which "color" sound.
In music, yes I enjoy distortion. For an example, Meshuggah sounds so good it gives me goosebumps.
In the hi-fi world, no thanks.
In the hi-fi world, no thanks.
I already disagree with the part before the comma. According to Lipshitz and Vanderkooy, some people can hear 0.2 dB differences in signal level and similar differences in frequency response around midrange frequencies under double-blind conditions. I think most amplifiers have frequency response errors far above that when loaded with a typical loudspeaker system, so why the focus on (non-linear) distortion?
Anyway, I try to keep the non-linear distortion of the stuff I build low, and the frequency response very flat.
Thinking about this again, perhaps you meant is the J2 better than a SET. My answer would be "yes" because I am looking specifically for clarity and detail, but obviously there are a lot of people who would beg to differ which is best.
So, if we look at this like wine, since only a few people can really appreciate a fine wine (because most of us can't taste the difference between fine wine and box wine), then it follows that those of us who have tin ears, or hearing loss, or what have you, shouldn't really bother with high quality hifi gear. Since I have hearing loss, and tinnitus, I probably shouldn't be in this arena, but I think designing circuits is still fun even if only my wife can really appreciate the sound. I still like music but I don't claim to have any listening talent.
Hi,
The simple answer is yes under some and sometimes many circumstances.
But said distortion is the valve innocuous type, not really a problem.
You can't lump distortion into one thing and one number, that is clueless.
You can't even discuss it if you think "distortion" is a single quantifiable
entity associated to a THD+N number, you don't understand THD+N.
rgds, sreten.
The simple answer is yes under some and sometimes many circumstances.
But said distortion is the valve innocuous type, not really a problem.
You can't lump distortion into one thing and one number, that is clueless.
You can't even discuss it if you think "distortion" is a single quantifiable
entity associated to a THD+N number, you don't understand THD+N.
rgds, sreten.
That measure doesn't. But since it is SE (a JFET instead of a tube) it will have the same character of distortion as a SET.
dave
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