I've built high voltage instrumentation where resistor non-linearity was an obvious problem. Changing to a different type reduced the problem to negligible levels. I've also built solid state instrumentation where resistor noise was an obvious problem. Changing to a different type reduced the problem to a negligible level. For each case, the problem component was of different fabrication, and the correct part that solved the problem was of different style, but was a close tolerance metal film resistor. Though I think generalizations suit us poorly, I'd suggest that the parameters you have to look at are often different for tube and ss amplifiers. The best resistor, however, will still be a metal film, bulk metal foil or wire wound part. I can't imagine why anyone would still want to use a carbon comp in an amplifier designed to accurately reproduce sound. Generalizations don't apply, but I've also had trouble with excess noise in thick film smt resistors, and linearity issues with high temperature MOX resistors. Other than the above mentioned metal types, you probably have to measure what you've got to be sure it's as good as you think.
My user-name tells my diy philosophy.
Hi.
I already repeatedly posted why I use "cheap-Jack" in Audio Asylum as same question often raised on me.
"cheap" - as a DIYer, its is my philosophy to build or upgrade anything audio from scraps, i.e. basic parts as "cheap" as possible. The last thing I want to do is to finance any vendors unless for something I can't build, like a DVD-audio player & a LP turntable.
"Jack" - my first name.
If a resistor, a passive device which is most frequency linear device vs a tube or a choke or a transformer, is now challenged on its being "non-linear", why exclude those active & magnetic passive devices? You may accuse me 'technically' for going off topic. But this won't change the physics.
Any specs. manual of a tube or a bi-polar device will show you how "linear" can they be as tested. Read them up!
Read up the texbooks, e.g. RDH4, you will find out how frequency linear, or non-linear is a choke or a transformer. Once you read to learn the theories how they work, you will agree with me.
Read more to learn more & know more. I went thru such tedious work before I comment.
I am "cheap" in spending my hard-eaned cash to finance any vendors, but I am very generous to invest my time in reading to learn more, everday.
c-J
PS: FYI, I am in HV power engineering for last 20 years. But I still want to read to learn whatever electrical/electronic that interest me.
316a said:
Hi.
I already repeatedly posted why I use "cheap-Jack" in Audio Asylum as same question often raised on me.
"cheap" - as a DIYer, its is my philosophy to build or upgrade anything audio from scraps, i.e. basic parts as "cheap" as possible. The last thing I want to do is to finance any vendors unless for something I can't build, like a DVD-audio player & a LP turntable.
"Jack" - my first name.
If a resistor, a passive device which is most frequency linear device vs a tube or a choke or a transformer, is now challenged on its being "non-linear", why exclude those active & magnetic passive devices? You may accuse me 'technically' for going off topic. But this won't change the physics.
Any specs. manual of a tube or a bi-polar device will show you how "linear" can they be as tested. Read them up!
Read up the texbooks, e.g. RDH4, you will find out how frequency linear, or non-linear is a choke or a transformer. Once you read to learn the theories how they work, you will agree with me.
Read more to learn more & know more. I went thru such tedious work before I comment.
I am "cheap" in spending my hard-eaned cash to finance any vendors, but I am very generous to invest my time in reading to learn more, everday.
c-J
PS: FYI, I am in HV power engineering for last 20 years. But I still want to read to learn whatever electrical/electronic that interest me.
Hi,
Within the range of available metal film resistors there are still audible and measurable differences between various brands.
No resistor's ever perfect and as within the context of various applications we may well have to use a different technology of resistor for reasons of power or voltage.
Thinking about passive components in a way that may have you think that picking only technically perfect passive components will bring audio nirvana is misleading and will expose the imperfections of the active components of the circuit.
One of the lessons brought by people such as Jean Hiraga and contemporary fellows is that one should learn how to "marry" components to make a musically consistent result.
People wondering why a 10% THD amp is or rather can be more musically involving than a lab amp with 0.001% of THD should ask themselves why.
One could go on and on but let me assure you that no amp made of a collection of technically perfect parts is in any way a guarantee for a perfect amp.
For decades people tried to pass the signal as unaltered as could be without losing the music in the process.
More often than not measurements clearly showed the signal passed "unaltered" in the lab but time and again the music was lost. Why?
Could the answer be just keep it simple?
Cheers,
Within the range of available metal film resistors there are still audible and measurable differences between various brands.
No resistor's ever perfect and as within the context of various applications we may well have to use a different technology of resistor for reasons of power or voltage.
Thinking about passive components in a way that may have you think that picking only technically perfect passive components will bring audio nirvana is misleading and will expose the imperfections of the active components of the circuit.
One of the lessons brought by people such as Jean Hiraga and contemporary fellows is that one should learn how to "marry" components to make a musically consistent result.
People wondering why a 10% THD amp is or rather can be more musically involving than a lab amp with 0.001% of THD should ask themselves why.
One could go on and on but let me assure you that no amp made of a collection of technically perfect parts is in any way a guarantee for a perfect amp.
For decades people tried to pass the signal as unaltered as could be without losing the music in the process.
More often than not measurements clearly showed the signal passed "unaltered" in the lab but time and again the music was lost. Why?
Could the answer be just keep it simple?
Cheers,
OK Frank,
I respect you but we will have to agree here to disagree! Since explaining the whole caboodle will be lengthy (and go completely off-thread), and
since the distance between us makes treating you to a cup of coffee rather difficult, I will sum up on very valid questions you asked, just for the record - hopefully with permission from OldmanStrat, the owner of this thread.
It has been said that our job here is relatively easy: We must simply make an amplifier that passes the input unchanged - in audio terms, add no audible products.
The problem with many of the points that you offer is that as soon as folks want amplifiers to be 'musical', it invariably means it must produce a pleasant sound - which can be shown to be not a perfect reproduction of the input. It simply means we make the input "nice" to our taste - it can be shown that all such amplifiers contain benign 'nice' extra harmonics. It has become a musical instrument. This is the one thing Hiraga could not understand; the difference between added (thus undesirable) harmonics, and the original ones generated by the musical instruments. Thus he invented the notion of 'NFB cancelling/deleating some of the original signal' - a mathematical and practical impossibility.
That an amplifier that measures 'perfect' may not sound nice: Not in my book or experience. Firstly the subjective 'niceness' of the sound is too subjective to constitute proof of anything; I am sorry. Secondly, which measurements? I notice you quote THD - that is a sorely lacking statistic becoming more meaningless by the day. It is that which masks many factors of annoyance. An amplifier can have a THD of say 0,01% and contain many high-order harmonic generating anomalies immediately making it a candidate for listener fatigue, 'sounding dead' and all the well-known names for the same symptom. I will stick my neck out and say that with any amplifier where THD was low but sounded un-nice, I will show you why - after a proper analysis
And here I am cheating on my undertaking to be brief; already too long. So I end with this; thanks OldmanStrat for deviating your gardenwater some.
From Fdegrove:
I will sign off with the real reason. The right measurements were not performed/understood. Spectral analysis would have shown that nothing was lost; something was added.
I respect you but we will have to agree here to disagree! Since explaining the whole caboodle will be lengthy (and go completely off-thread), and
since the distance between us makes treating you to a cup of coffee rather difficult, I will sum up on very valid questions you asked, just for the record - hopefully with permission from OldmanStrat, the owner of this thread.It has been said that our job here is relatively easy: We must simply make an amplifier that passes the input unchanged - in audio terms, add no audible products.
The problem with many of the points that you offer is that as soon as folks want amplifiers to be 'musical', it invariably means it must produce a pleasant sound - which can be shown to be not a perfect reproduction of the input. It simply means we make the input "nice" to our taste - it can be shown that all such amplifiers contain benign 'nice' extra harmonics. It has become a musical instrument. This is the one thing Hiraga could not understand; the difference between added (thus undesirable) harmonics, and the original ones generated by the musical instruments. Thus he invented the notion of 'NFB cancelling/deleating some of the original signal' - a mathematical and practical impossibility.
That an amplifier that measures 'perfect' may not sound nice: Not in my book or experience. Firstly the subjective 'niceness' of the sound is too subjective to constitute proof of anything; I am sorry. Secondly, which measurements? I notice you quote THD - that is a sorely lacking statistic becoming more meaningless by the day. It is that which masks many factors of annoyance. An amplifier can have a THD of say 0,01% and contain many high-order harmonic generating anomalies immediately making it a candidate for listener fatigue, 'sounding dead' and all the well-known names for the same symptom. I will stick my neck out and say that with any amplifier where THD was low but sounded un-nice, I will show you why - after a proper analysis
And here I am cheating on my undertaking to be brief; already too long. So I end with this; thanks OldmanStrat for deviating your gardenwater some.
From Fdegrove:
I will sign off with the real reason. The right measurements were not performed/understood. Spectral analysis would have shown that nothing was lost; something was added.
may be done
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Hi,
@Johan P.
I'm afraid you're misinterpreting what I posted. Or perhaps I didn't express myself well enough.
Either way I agree with you in what a good amp should be like and I'm certainly no advocate of the kind of amplifier that "always" sounds nice regardless of the rubish being fed.
Besides that, an amp with 10% THD can sound pleasing to the ear just as the same 10% can sound shrill and harsh just the same.
As such THD on its own is only meaningful when you know what it's composed of.
Back to resistors.
Cheers,
@Johan P.
I'm afraid you're misinterpreting what I posted. Or perhaps I didn't express myself well enough.
Either way I agree with you in what a good amp should be like and I'm certainly no advocate of the kind of amplifier that "always" sounds nice regardless of the rubish being fed.
Besides that, an amp with 10% THD can sound pleasing to the ear just as the same 10% can sound shrill and harsh just the same.
As such THD on its own is only meaningful when you know what it's composed of.
Back to resistors.
Cheers,
"Thinking about passive components in a way that may have you think that picking only technically perfect passive components will bring audio nirvana is misleading and will expose the imperfections of the active components of the circuit."
Frank, I'd certainly agree with that. Perfect components don't insure anything, but imperfect components guarantee an imperfect design. Since there are no perfect components...
Still, the stray capacitance and inductance in any resistor don't come into play until the high RF region. I have a vector impedance meter and can confirm this easily. Thus, unless the part is affecting the stability of the circuit way out of the audio region (which I believe is audible if it happens), or unless it has a particularly bad voltage coefficient that creates harmonics (I doubt many are that bad), I don't think there's all that much difference between resistors. *Most* claims of resistor differences are, IMHO, snake oil or the result of expectation bias. A sensitive differential measurement reveals almost everything, and it doesn't reveal much about different resistors.
Frank, I'd certainly agree with that. Perfect components don't insure anything, but imperfect components guarantee an imperfect design. Since there are no perfect components...
Still, the stray capacitance and inductance in any resistor don't come into play until the high RF region. I have a vector impedance meter and can confirm this easily. Thus, unless the part is affecting the stability of the circuit way out of the audio region (which I believe is audible if it happens), or unless it has a particularly bad voltage coefficient that creates harmonics (I doubt many are that bad), I don't think there's all that much difference between resistors. *Most* claims of resistor differences are, IMHO, snake oil or the result of expectation bias. A sensitive differential measurement reveals almost everything, and it doesn't reveal much about different resistors.
I have a friend who professionally build custom high quality speaker, one set at a time
He has fore years evaluated the sound using his small pepped up "monster" amp, 20watt classA
Because he consider it the best amp available
Unfortunately his customers didnt always experience the same sound he thought they would
I told him to maybe use a different more "normal" amp fore develloping and evaluating his speakers
Not excactly resistor related, but still
He has fore years evaluated the sound using his small pepped up "monster" amp, 20watt classA
Because he consider it the best amp available
Unfortunately his customers didnt always experience the same sound he thought they would
I told him to maybe use a different more "normal" amp fore develloping and evaluating his speakers
Not excactly resistor related, but still
tinitus said:
Same problem with Beer.
Try someone elses receipe and it tastes better! I question the dreadful over-use of the word "professional" as sales slick; when there isn't such an animal as professional beer, nor professional snake audio.
People often ask me which is my favourite sounding amp in my collection with a particular set of speakers and positioning in room. Depends on music tastes, what mood one is in, and so on. The Nab is, one gets "used" to the sound one frequently hears. <<Familiarity breeds contempt>>>
I try to satisfy most but not all.
richy
oldmanStrat said:
I am guilty of a colloquialism. Here in the RSA (even to the surprise of some locals) water is at a premium. (We are a semi-desert!) Thus, still in many rural areas, water goes to agricultural farming from a central dam and is distributed by way of 'somebody's turn for so-long' (with the resultant stealing of one another's water). Thus!
Frank,
Then my apologies. Your post appreciated. (Still wish we could have that coffee somewhere - somewhere neutral, as in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean ??)
Hi,
While a single resistor may not have much of an audible or measurable influence a bunch of 50+ of the same brand and type of resistor may.
This is also what I refered to when I suggested to mix and match passive components in order to pertain a neutral tonal balance.
I wish I had an instrument other than my own pair of ears to tell me there's no difference between resistor A or B.
Unfortunately, even when I don't measure any difference, I can still hear it.
Admittedly, in the case of resistors, it takes more than just one resistor to show it's difference.
Nonetheless there's still alot of stuff out there I whish I could measure because I can hear it.
Maybe one day we will....
In the meantime we should accept the dynamics involved and keep an open mind.
Cheers,
Conrad Hoffman said:
While a single resistor may not have much of an audible or measurable influence a bunch of 50+ of the same brand and type of resistor may.
This is also what I refered to when I suggested to mix and match passive components in order to pertain a neutral tonal balance.
I wish I had an instrument other than my own pair of ears to tell me there's no difference between resistor A or B.
Unfortunately, even when I don't measure any difference, I can still hear it.
Admittedly, in the case of resistors, it takes more than just one resistor to show it's difference.
Nonetheless there's still alot of stuff out there I whish I could measure because I can hear it.
Maybe one day we will....
In the meantime we should accept the dynamics involved and keep an open mind.
Cheers,
Frank, along those lines I think if there's anyplace that a large group of resistors makes a difference, it's stepped attenuators. Still, I don't trust my ears because of that expectation bias. It's too hard for me to accept that a cheap Radio Shack pot sounds the same as an Alps pot or a high quality resistive divider chain soldered to a silver contact switch. The sound difference might just be the accuracy of balance, but given my uncertainty and inability to measure, I go with the stepped attenuator.
Johan Potgieter said:
Douglas Douglas Douglas, of course instruments have 'niceness controls', either explicit as dials, replaceable parts, etc. or implicit in the thousands of man hours invested in creating their signature sounds. While that doesn't speak to the validity of modeling amplifiers on same, it does reflect on Self's strange perspective on the field.
Re: Yes, a resistor can "sound" good or bad.
More audiophoolery.
Yes, let's take that example:
Xl= 2piFL
Xl= 2(pi)(30E3)(0.0007E-6)= 0.000132R
Xl= 2(pi)(30E3)(0.017E-6)= 0.0032R
The 100R nominal resistance is EEEEEEEEEEEENORMOUS, compared to the inductive reactance. Z= 100 + j0.0032R is Z= 100R for any practical purpose. Those few nanohenries that could make a big difference at 300MHz aren't going to make any difference at 30KHz, where any errors introduced are orders of magnitude smaller than common variances in tolerance, or variations in characteristics of normal VTs, transistors, or IC's.
Anyone who thinks that makes an audible difference is only kidding themselves. Resistors are about the last thing I worry about. My main concern here is that these have been getting smaller. Last project, I ordered some 68K / 1W metal films, and these were the size of 0.25W C-comps. That's just fine for solid state construction, especially where you're looking for miniaturization. Not so swell for VT equipment where that's just asking for a flash-over.
Pay $10.00 or more for resistors? Not in this lifetime, of that I can assure you.
More audiophoolery.
cheap-Jack said:
Yes, let's take that example:
Xl= 2piFL
Xl= 2(pi)(30E3)(0.0007E-6)= 0.000132R
Xl= 2(pi)(30E3)(0.017E-6)= 0.0032R
The 100R nominal resistance is EEEEEEEEEEEENORMOUS, compared to the inductive reactance. Z= 100 + j0.0032R is Z= 100R for any practical purpose. Those few nanohenries that could make a big difference at 300MHz aren't going to make any difference at 30KHz, where any errors introduced are orders of magnitude smaller than common variances in tolerance, or variations in characteristics of normal VTs, transistors, or IC's.
Anyone who thinks that makes an audible difference is only kidding themselves. Resistors are about the last thing I worry about. My main concern here is that these have been getting smaller. Last project, I ordered some 68K / 1W metal films, and these were the size of 0.25W C-comps. That's just fine for solid state construction, especially where you're looking for miniaturization. Not so swell for VT equipment where that's just asking for a flash-over.
Pay $10.00 or more for resistors? Not in this lifetime, of that I can assure you.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.