My initial thinking is that the ability or the perception to produce aggressive dynamic sound must come from amp ability to drive lower end of LF with minimum phase shift (it might mean that it should be able to drive difficult load easily, too)
I think the amp should not be an el84, kt77 or el34, they are awfully colored tubes.
It is also pointless to built anything with non-linear devices which are not stable, immune to parasitics, fields effects, radio waves, temperature, or which have unstable dynamic conditions, or have 3rd order generating power supplies, which are affected by hysteresis, which requires high frequency filtering, which clips hard, etc
The important is that 'noise' is gone. Every each sound, reverberation, vibration that you hear from your system should come from an IDENTIFIABLE instrument, or group, with distinct tone, decay, attack.
This is the one reason vinyl sounds good, it is a compressor and expander of such sounds, which helps a lot the ear in knowing which or what made that 'noise' or sound, which you can recognize.
When you switch to CD in a typical system, everything sounds clean but blended at the same time, because of that filter is gone.
It is also pointless to built anything with non-linear devices which are not stable, immune to parasitics, fields effects, radio waves, temperature, or which have unstable dynamic conditions, or have 3rd order generating power supplies, which are affected by hysteresis, which requires high frequency filtering, which clips hard, etc
The important is that 'noise' is gone. Every each sound, reverberation, vibration that you hear from your system should come from an IDENTIFIABLE instrument, or group, with distinct tone, decay, attack.
This is the one reason vinyl sounds good, it is a compressor and expander of such sounds, which helps a lot the ear in knowing which or what made that 'noise' or sound, which you can recognize.
When you switch to CD in a typical system, everything sounds clean but blended at the same time, because of that filter is gone.
I don't think so. This is the lounge so there will be plenty of FUD flying around, best sit back, grab the popcorn and if you feel you must, for the sake of balance, throw in a few facts
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I am not exactly doing that ..... there are no dark confabulations on my part, (with anyone, although I recognize that through the forums sometimes empathies are achieved with other participants) nothing is further from my way of being. I express what I think and if it is personal I directly name the recipient. You should do the same and not say "others" ..... that is wasting time and does not help clarify the technical issues.That's what I said. You are simply restating what other has stated. Everybody knows that you can set different audio quality with YT (of course I always choose 'HD'). Now, you're ready to ABX 256k versus higher bitrate, to see if I knew what I was saying?
It was I who stated that I did not know (that was until I decided to refresh my knowledge and upload them here) YT bitrate rates, I once knew, but there are things that are forgotten because I have never uploaded material to YT, I hope to do it someday , I have inherited some 78 RPM pasta discs, which I would like to share. For this I had to acquire a Lenco with 78 rpm (shattered) and also a dedicated needle for an archaic capsule Shure MC44C) but everything is still waiting.
Returning to the theme of the OP about the most important points in an audio system, it is very complex but I think the following:
Why do we want to hear soft voices? Why do impact instruments have to be heard "aggressive"?
There is a mix of concepts here. One thing is dynamic range, something desirable if we want to imitate live music. For me, nothing is more boring than a system that "sweetens" everything so that our ears don't suffer.
I don't talk about distortions here. I speak of a sound system (and mainly of the speakers) that must reproduce the "timbre" of each instrument, and all those amplified by electronic means are excluded from this group. For example, if you attend a rarity in these times (but there are still some opportunities), a chamber music concert. A piano, a violin and a female voice. How do you evaluate if the piano is aggressive in certain passages if the work requires this when hitting the low notes?
How do you want the female voice to be soft if she is a contralto capable of breaking (exists?) A glass cup keeping her voice sharp for so long that it can even be exasperating?
I think that many audiophiles never attend these events live, - "chamber music" - and hence their claims to "music on demand", but that is not the reality of music. There are aggressive sounds and soft sounds by nature and it's fine that way. It is the tone of the voices and the timbre of the instruments that are at stake, and there are passages of low sound intensity and passages of tremendous sound volumes. This is the music.
And in that aspect, is the "attack" of a percussion instrument, for example, aggressive? That is wrong ? It must be! and good speakers are responsible for that, much more than any distortion index of an amplifier. A mediocre amplifier will sound "acceptable" with good speakers. Never the other way around. Without incorporating the analysis of the rooms in this reasoning, please ....
PD: I would not accept an ABX between 128 K and 320 K, the result is obvious. Between 256 and 320 it might be interesting, I still hear 15 Khz, but I don't think I could perceive differences.
Have you read my attachment of ABX experiences between tubes and SS?
'soft' and 'aggressive' are only words, which should be seen as something subjective. Transconductance is what we need in an amp to play certain instruments with control and speed. We want hexfet, bipolars, not latfet or tube. That the general rules. But what happen then with human voices, it sounds exactly like those instrument (aggressive vocal). Good for the instruments, but not for the vocals. OTOH, when the vocal is 'correct' the instruments dynamic is wrong (too soft).
Which one is it? I think I have read something but don't remember about ABX.
Words are not " only ", they represent everything and you have to use them as accurately as possible. The language barrier is difficult here. Post 42 Like you, I have not read it completely, as a bird fly I thought I saw the X. But the conclusions about mental exhaustion in listeners about the sound of the transistor are interesting .....
I agree.
It is precisely what I notice regarding the sound source when I listen to a certain song in the last groove of an LP, with the inherent compression and distortion, and then I listen to it through a good DAC and streaming.
And I think, this sounds much better! (We ignore the discussion of the topic of the capsule here) So, is that topic digitized from the same LP, in the same groove? Is it heard better because it is another edition and is it in the first groove (the best) or is it heard better because a excelent DAC does not introduce jitter?
Just to comment on another nuisance, I will not argue about this personally, but if someone does, I will read it with pleasure.
But still sound different.
dave
Far too big a generalization. Execution is VERY important.
Every amp has transconductance. One of the most interesting amps i have heard was a variable transconductance amp, with a knob on the front that let one dial in output impedance from near zero to near infinity. Each speaker seemed to have a slightly different optimum setting.
Amp & speaker (and the connection between them) should be looked at as a system.
dave
I haven’t heard KT77 but i have both EL84 (Class A, triode wired) and EL34 (triode AB) that sound superb. The EL84 is particualrily sweet, althou low poswer (3.2w).
dave
Accurate amplifiers are, but most people seem to prefer amplifiers that distort in some way
Absolutely not, especially when driving a XO and drivers coils, it resonates, it loses damping etc,
Send a music signal through an amplifier and check the output, it is totally different...
It should be noting that damping (a poorest inverse of output impedance) is often better if it is lower. Optimum damping depends on the speaker you are driving. Higher (as some mistakingly believe) is not a panacea.
dave
Here it was. Just to verify my memory....
God is in the Nuances | Stereophile.com
The "Letters" pages have been filled by readers who have taken us to task for not adhering to rigorous scientific methods in the evaluation of components, those rigorous scientific methods usually being equated with double-blind listening.
ABX test - Wikipedia
ABX tests can easily be performed as double-blind trials, eliminating any possible unconscious influence from the researcher or the test supervisor. Because samples A and B are provided just prior to sample X, the difference does not have to be discerned from assumption based on long-term memory or past experience.
That is not at all the case. The right output impedance of an amplifier depends on the speaker.
Too much damping on some speakers overdamps the bottom and the sound becomes too lean.
dave
SIT single ended amps sound very accurate imo, more accurate than most amps I know. May require some EQ to make the speaker response as intended.
I hear that a lot that some speakers require low damping but I've not come across any at all that sound more accurate when compared to live music.
So the question is which particular speakers or drivers would need low damping for accuracy?
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