That could certainly be bad data source but that isnt the situation I am discussing... JC and Esperado, myself and others own evaluations. BTW - I do not subscribe to any of those consumer magazines nor read them. I find them a waste of time and money most of the time.
THx-RNMarsh
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I envy you, my eldest daughter is married to an Australian and lives in Brisbane. Distance is a bitch.
There were several sets of measurements linked on the main page. For example SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com | BHK Labs Measurements: Benchmark Media Systems AHB2 Stereo/Mono Amplifier . The 19/20 IMD plot that many like to see is not there. And of course the 15A peak current will put off those who think their amplifiers should be able to weld (or owners of Mk1 WATTS and classic apogees).
The thing that raised my eyebrows was the claim you need 200KHz bandwidth in an amp to play back 24/192 files properly! The benchmark engineering team need to keep marketing slightly in check!
Will certainly be interesting to see if the THX AAA concept appears anywhere else.
The thing that raised my eyebrows was the claim you need 200KHz bandwidth in an amp to play back 24/192 files properly! The benchmark engineering team need to keep marketing slightly in check!
Will certainly be interesting to see if the THX AAA concept appears anywhere else.
They burned a lot of witches there, e.g. 20 miles up north at the coastline.
(lots of witches in my family, some charcoaled, some still smoking)
AAA
Well, now I am interested again in hearing this amp with its' <-100dB distortion. anyone know about the thx AAA design? Would like to measure other parameters and compare sound to DADoD's.
[the Master Recorder sounds so dull and life-less that I figured opamp upgrades or cap or something need to be changed to get it up to current standards. When I found the 5532 in there and so many of them soldered directly to pcb I gave up. After some tests on jitter and total distortion of record and playback, I might just use the transport and digital output into BenchMark 2.]
THx-RNMarsh
Well, now I am interested again in hearing this amp with its' <-100dB distortion. anyone know about the thx AAA design? Would like to measure other parameters and compare sound to DADoD's.
[the Master Recorder sounds so dull and life-less that I figured opamp upgrades or cap or something need to be changed to get it up to current standards. When I found the 5532 in there and so many of them soldered directly to pcb I gave up. After some tests on jitter and total distortion of record and playback, I might just use the transport and digital output into BenchMark 2.]
THx-RNMarsh
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It is a pity. A real pity.
Instead of sharing our experiences, witch are rich because so different from an individual to an other, working together to try to figure out what really matters in audio, I mean, noise and distortion theresholds, find explanations for what we can feel and not explain ... we, endlessly, continue this stupid controversy between the two parties, each one accusing the other to be "believers", liers, or member of some lobby group.
This war of religion is tiring, stupid, pitiful.
Instead of sharing our experiences, witch are rich because so different from an individual to an other, working together to try to figure out what really matters in audio, I mean, noise and distortion theresholds, find explanations for what we can feel and not explain ... we, endlessly, continue this stupid controversy between the two parties, each one accusing the other to be "believers", liers, or member of some lobby group.
This war of religion is tiring, stupid, pitiful.
The chance that we all have not thoroughly enjoyed music that has passed through at least one if not many 5534's is virtually nil.
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Christophe,
It is what it is. You have those with an open mind and those without, the facts are all known and nothing new to explore, and then those in the middle who are willing to take a look at something and determine if there is anything new to explore.
I understand the resistance to opamp rolling, it just doesn't make sense in a specific way to me. Yes you may accidentally find that one sounds better in a specific application than another, but if you haven't optimized the circuit for each individual opamp have you really made a good decision or just something by chance? I can see if someone says that they modified a circuit to optimize a specific opamp to work in a circuit and comparing that to another opamp that has also been optimized and then making a choice based on subjective listening but to just try every different one you happen to have seems to be a non ideal way to do this.
I think the same type of selection by chance is what happens so many other times in not only circuits but when I see people who just swap one speaker for another in cabinets and make statements about how much better the other speaker is when there is no optimization going on to get the best results from each device.
There is nothing wrong with using subjective selection once you have optimized each thing you are comparing, but to just use subjective selection when one component has been optimized and the other is just switched in as a substitute seems very unrealistic and that seems to be where the arguments come into the conversation.
It is what it is. You have those with an open mind and those without, the facts are all known and nothing new to explore, and then those in the middle who are willing to take a look at something and determine if there is anything new to explore.
I understand the resistance to opamp rolling, it just doesn't make sense in a specific way to me. Yes you may accidentally find that one sounds better in a specific application than another, but if you haven't optimized the circuit for each individual opamp have you really made a good decision or just something by chance? I can see if someone says that they modified a circuit to optimize a specific opamp to work in a circuit and comparing that to another opamp that has also been optimized and then making a choice based on subjective listening but to just try every different one you happen to have seems to be a non ideal way to do this.
I think the same type of selection by chance is what happens so many other times in not only circuits but when I see people who just swap one speaker for another in cabinets and make statements about how much better the other speaker is when there is no optimization going on to get the best results from each device.
There is nothing wrong with using subjective selection once you have optimized each thing you are comparing, but to just use subjective selection when one component has been optimized and the other is just switched in as a substitute seems very unrealistic and that seems to be where the arguments come into the conversation.
More common than some will admit, swapping cables to make an amp/speaker combo stop oscillating. Let's not say full on oscillation but how about on peaks or certain regions of I and V or load phase?
I met at least one equipment reviewer that was adamant about having no interest in even exploring the idea. A mutual friend did swap one of his speaker cables with #12 lamp cord which went unnoticed for over a week, I wish I could remember thee great story he made up to put that under the rug.
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I don't think "non ideal" and "chance" are unrealistic. I would say they are more or less unavoidable to a less-than-omniscient being. I think the issue stems from the weight given to subsequent conclusions, or if there's even a rational conclusion to be gleened.
Author Marc Perlman calls it "The Contest for Epistemic Authority in Audiophilia" in his Golden Ears and Meter Readers paper and I can easily find myself empathizing his position.
Author Marc Perlman calls it "The Contest for Epistemic Authority in Audiophilia" in his Golden Ears and Meter Readers paper and I can easily find myself empathizing his position.
That suggest no Zobel/Boucherot and some seriously nasty cables. Zip cord sounds like an improvement! (And all I use anyhow)
Edit to add:
Comparing/contrasting biomedicine and audio--hah, colors me amused (and covers a couple fields I live in).
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But there ARE some odd things not so easy to explain and even harder to describe.
Over the years, by trial and error, and rechecking with ourher people as refrees, I have found that most Marantz and Philips CD players will always, some more than the pthers, sound better once their output stage, which use stpck NJR op amps, are replaced with OPA 275 dual op amps. The sound becomes livelier, cleaner, better focused. The improvement is easily heard in most cases, but varies, sometimes it's very obvious, other times you herd it, but it's no revelation.
Having tired the same procedure with some op amps which are nominally supreior to way superior to the 275 (mostly from AD, 329, 828, etc), I still have absolutely no idea why that particular op amp does so obviously better than others. Just as I am still bewildered by the fact that it's not just obe model from just one manufacturer, but almost all models from two separate manufacturers (alhtough during the early 90-ies they were not really separate).
Scott, you are neck deep in op amps - any ideas?
Over the years, by trial and error, and rechecking with ourher people as refrees, I have found that most Marantz and Philips CD players will always, some more than the pthers, sound better once their output stage, which use stpck NJR op amps, are replaced with OPA 275 dual op amps. The sound becomes livelier, cleaner, better focused. The improvement is easily heard in most cases, but varies, sometimes it's very obvious, other times you herd it, but it's no revelation.
Having tired the same procedure with some op amps which are nominally supreior to way superior to the 275 (mostly from AD, 329, 828, etc), I still have absolutely no idea why that particular op amp does so obviously better than others. Just as I am still bewildered by the fact that it's not just obe model from just one manufacturer, but almost all models from two separate manufacturers (alhtough during the early 90-ies they were not really separate).
Scott, you are neck deep in op amps - any ideas?
There are patents. The "inventors" are Owen Jones and Laurie Fincham. Assigned to THX.
I made some acerbic remarks somewhere, in antediluvian portions of this thread I believe, as to how much I thought of various of this duo's recent patents, remarks which I will probably come to regret. But I doubt that they would carry the day for the plaintiff in a libel suit.
The Benchmark DAC product is well-reviewed and I recall that it even measures well. The THX appellation for the power amp is probably mostly marketing. I suspect there is someone competent at Benchmark.
Does anyone know who designed those? They were from the days of Signetics, if I recall correctly. Still an impressive achievement, particularly considering the limits of the bipolar processes of the day. I'll bet the designer had no inkling of what the product's longevity would turn out to be.
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