Wavebourn, I like you in person, but you appear to be too self absorbed with your own ideas, to really help me find a better way of doing things.
I am successful, because I try to 'get it right'. I don't do 'everything' right, sometimes because of lack of power to do so, or just plain ignorance of 'something important', but it does not help to criticize without offering an alternate solution.
You should come to understand that I do NOT judge my own work, or those around me, exclusively. I leave it to independent reviewers and customers, who are further removed from the design process. This gives me an advantage of finding out what really works, from what I presume works.
I am successful, because I try to 'get it right'. I don't do 'everything' right, sometimes because of lack of power to do so, or just plain ignorance of 'something important', but it does not help to criticize without offering an alternate solution.
You should come to understand that I do NOT judge my own work, or those around me, exclusively. I leave it to independent reviewers and customers, who are further removed from the design process. This gives me an advantage of finding out what really works, from what I presume works.
Yeah, quantum analysis of bright spot under light on parking lot in order to find car keys lost in some other place that is in darkness.
Well, we have to start somewhere, So I did. I made something that is impossible to ignore, even though many try to ignore it.
You know, I made too. However, major attentin was paid on speakers and their enclosures, and on bahavior of active electronic components. Some speakers in walls are cannected through cat 5 network cables, some through power cables from Home Depot. No fancy boutique capacitors, nor diodes. But sound is incredibly natural, according to people who heard, if we play the game "I don't trust my own feelings, I trust other people more"
John, the key words in my humble opinion are what I presume works.
I don't criticize you, and I don't offer any solutions. I express my humble opinion, that when I search for answers in different places I get working models that are awfully cheap, instead of being stuck with some explanation that requires enormous resources.
Wavebourn, if you don't know what we do,(in hi end) how do you know how well we do it?
Maybe you could learn something new that did not cost too much. Perhaps you have overlooked something that is easily fixed. You never know.
I personally have been associated with power amp designs, for example, that might cost $10 retail to $25,000 retail (in today's prices). Not everything I design has every 'refinement' and if I can do it for less, I will do so. For example, Parasound makes 3 different amplifiers with my name associated with them, from $9,000 to less than $1,000 retail. They sound somewhat different, but they are all reasonably good sounding, and [great bang for the buck] some reviewers say. My first order recommendation for connectors, for example, may not reach down to the $1,000 unit because of cost considerations, or sometimes because we buy the 'better' connectors in such high quantity, the quality connectors can be used in the cheaper stuff. At least we recognize and rectify the problem when we are able to, rather than ignoring it, claiming it is unimportant.
Maybe you could learn something new that did not cost too much. Perhaps you have overlooked something that is easily fixed. You never know.
I personally have been associated with power amp designs, for example, that might cost $10 retail to $25,000 retail (in today's prices). Not everything I design has every 'refinement' and if I can do it for less, I will do so. For example, Parasound makes 3 different amplifiers with my name associated with them, from $9,000 to less than $1,000 retail. They sound somewhat different, but they are all reasonably good sounding, and [great bang for the buck] some reviewers say. My first order recommendation for connectors, for example, may not reach down to the $1,000 unit because of cost considerations, or sometimes because we buy the 'better' connectors in such high quantity, the quality connectors can be used in the cheaper stuff. At least we recognize and rectify the problem when we are able to, rather than ignoring it, claiming it is unimportant.
Hi,
The small ones all have (magnetic) steel pin, if you want to keep them, test them using less strong magnets, if you don't believe my word.
That said, for example copper anode tubes have a reputation for better sound quality than standard ones. So one wonders what non-magnetic tubes would do sonically. Alas, very few that are even "low magnetic" exist.
Ciao T
The small ones all have (magnetic) steel pin, if you want to keep them, test them using less strong magnets, if you don't believe my word.
That said, for example copper anode tubes have a reputation for better sound quality than standard ones. So one wonders what non-magnetic tubes would do sonically. Alas, very few that are even "low magnetic" exist.
Ciao T
Their saving grace is the ability to impedance match on/in the dynamic conditions, as the action is all in plasma form.
It should be pointed out that just because T and I use strong magnets to test connectors, etc, it does not mean that a slight attraction is necessarily bad enough to put aside. For example, Resista resistors have slightly magnetic end caps, and they work well.
It is when the connector and magnet find TRUE LOVE. You will know it when you try it. Then you know the body of the connector is some sort of iron, perhaps covered over with a plating. These we discard.
It is when the connector and magnet find TRUE LOVE. You will know it when you try it. Then you know the body of the connector is some sort of iron, perhaps covered over with a plating. These we discard.
Again you misunderstood me John. Nothig pesronal. You always take differences in opinions about technical things as personal offences. Just according to my humble experience very often people see the main reason in what they think is significant ignoring kind of side effect. While the side effect that costs much less alone makes the whole difference. Like properties of capacitors matter much less when what they couple have more linear dynamic resistances. Of course, it is possible to improve sound by using thousand times more expensive capacitors, while slight change of topology that costs nothing (except humble and earnest experience) causes the same effect. Or, instead of buying very expensive honourable high-end-audio vacuum tube used in kind of clichea topology properly implemented topology around very cheap military sleeper tube give the same result. And so on...
As you assume that I am closed-minded and don't want to learn, may be it is you who deny that other opinions can be valid as well???
Contrary to this "reputation" I've found that tubes with anodes made of nickel alloy sound better than others with copper and graphite anodes.
May be it is a good idea to search for TRUE LOVE, but I personally would look for it in a different place. Just let's go to scrapyard where parts of old good used-to be shiny cars are laying around. No, not for TRUE LOVE. For experiment. And peel some nickel layer from iron bumper. What is under it? Rust. May be let's ask SY, he is a chemist here, what happens when manufacturers decide to use chaper materials in production, while some other materials were specified according to technology?
Like I said before, magnet may be a good indicator to find the "cause" of "side effect" that has nothing to do with magnetic properties of the materials involved? May be magnetic properties can be used as indicator of cheating that lead to some other effects?
I can hear those differences. the parts difference, and the topology differences.
And in my experience, no topological change can substitute for a quality parts change. In my experience, if the parts quality is not there, no topological change will make any difference, in those critical areas of signal fidelity.
The injection of false signal/noise..simply cannot be overcome. This is entirely obvious, it is self evident.
I'm not looking for compromise, I have learned that I can get to where I want to be. Always upward, always toward more fidelity. I'm looking to beat compromise to death, so it never enters my audio world.
I'm looking for specific things, specific types of fidelity in the sonic presentation... and in my experience, once heard, there is no going back.
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I have the same experience: once heard, there is no going back.
I don't mean some exceptional topologies to use absolutely crappy parts. I mean optimization of efforts. You can examine any best restaurant food under microscope and find can of different worms inside, no matter how well you clean and polish plates, forks, and knives. It is what I mean. I don't mean that plates, dishes and knives can be dirty.
I don't mean some exceptional topologies to use absolutely crappy parts. I mean optimization of efforts. You can examine any best restaurant food under microscope and find can of different worms inside, no matter how well you clean and polish plates, forks, and knives. It is what I mean. I don't mean that plates, dishes and knives can be dirty.
Yeah, I have the bad taste to look at the resistors, the transistor, or the capacitor.. or the copper, or the given alloy, or the solder, and so on.... and say, "You know, this sucks. It should have been built this way....."
That's why I've found that sometimes it is usefull to try it all together how it tastes, instead of choosing one ingrediant and polish it endlessly. However, when it does not taste good, some ingredient can be missed, odd, bad, needs to be re-arranged, etc, and it takes microscopes to see it as close as possible.
But still, most attention require active components, transducers, and their enclosures. All together. One duet insisted on selling them couple of my microphone prototypes, no matter how I tried to explain that microphones alone can't give such result that they loved. I am pretty sure they were dissatisfied and found that they can't stand on 1 meter disance from them sounding for each and every listener as if they sing for each of them personally.
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