Take closer look at tube amp/preamp materials, it's not just the circuit or the devices used.
Tube materials add 'tube signature' same as other materials add signature.
12AX7 tube has center tapped heater, total 40R or so.
This could be used instead of usual build out resistor, with choice of single 20R, parallel 10R, series 40R with optional low value shunt cap to ground to provide filtering and further 'voicing'.....polystyrene, silver/mica etc etc the choice is endless.
Two tubes could be built into a small portable passive box....tube sound anywhere !.
Other locations include Rf and Rg or as emitter feedback resistors perhaps current feedback amplifier feedback point.
Nuvistors are small and effectively shielded but only one heater.
Just some suggestions JC, quick and easy and cheap and may provide some answers to what 'tube sound' really is.
Dan.
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No, I don't think so 😉
If your system is so good, please mention/describe things that you don't like with the sound. If you can't, please stop tweaking, it is not easy to get to the 'holly grail' (even JC is still amazed by tube sound) 😉
Delay and phase is the same thing and can be both referred to as timing. Delay is suitable in describing acoustic event while phase is more suitable to describe electronic event. Acoustic event, such as delayed bass due to different distances of woofer and tweeter to the ears can be fixed by changing the distance (or delay circuit). But phase as electronic event is more serious, harder or almost impossible to change/fix when two or more components have been mixed.
@DPH
You (and Mark and Jakob) have made good points on this topic. I won't repeat my mea culpa above.
Do you have examples of the papers on auditory perception you mention?
There is a difference between what is actually said in papers and how it is reported in the news and on the web. In the news, one finds that "coffee is good for you" and "coffee is bad for you". Both true, but depending on whether you are a rat forced to consume the equivalent of 10 pots, or a human who drinks one cup. Same with a glass of red wine.
Of the 1000 (give or take) articles I've read carefully (really not a complete cross-section), I've rarely seen "proven", "debunked" or strong declarations of "it is unambiguously, unquestionably so". Most of my colleagues and I remember a big controversy in the 80's, when one group said "the site of plasticity is certainly here", while another group said "no, wrong, it is definitely there". It turns out both were right, depending on how the experiment was done (one short term, one long). Most of us use care in both reading and writing about "facts", focussing particularly on the methods and realizing the results are "valid" only with those methods. We say "the results indicate..." or "it is likely...".
It is also important to recognize whether an article is labelled "article", or "letter", "rapid communication" or "engineering report". Although also peer-reviewed, the process is loosened up and sped up.
You (and Mark and Jakob) have made good points on this topic. I won't repeat my mea culpa above.
Mark linked the Ioannidis paper above. I've seen it, but I think it would be good for me to thoroughly read it.
Do you have examples of the papers on auditory perception you mention?
There is a difference between what is actually said in papers and how it is reported in the news and on the web. In the news, one finds that "coffee is good for you" and "coffee is bad for you". Both true, but depending on whether you are a rat forced to consume the equivalent of 10 pots, or a human who drinks one cup. Same with a glass of red wine.
Of the 1000 (give or take) articles I've read carefully (really not a complete cross-section), I've rarely seen "proven", "debunked" or strong declarations of "it is unambiguously, unquestionably so". Most of my colleagues and I remember a big controversy in the 80's, when one group said "the site of plasticity is certainly here", while another group said "no, wrong, it is definitely there". It turns out both were right, depending on how the experiment was done (one short term, one long). Most of us use care in both reading and writing about "facts", focussing particularly on the methods and realizing the results are "valid" only with those methods. We say "the results indicate..." or "it is likely...".
It is also important to recognize whether an article is labelled "article", or "letter", "rapid communication" or "engineering report". Although also peer-reviewed, the process is loosened up and sped up.
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There is huge pressure on (especially) younger academics and scientists to 'produce' papers.
Where I worked, a lot of the solid state physicist guys working on foundry processes did their PhD's because there was an abundance of subject matter.
I spoke to one of the guys once (who got his PhD) and he said a lot of the stuff was not worth the paper it was written on, or it was not worthy of the credit it was given - they were primarily exercises in getting a piece of paper.
Add to that the fact that the internet may have popularized science, but its dumbed it down as well - so you get anti-vaxers, communities that want to 'take science back', UFO bs and alien proctological probing promoted as serious research and you can see why there is a problem. Closer to home, here in audio land . . . nah, I'll leave it at that
🙂
Where I worked, a lot of the solid state physicist guys working on foundry processes did their PhD's because there was an abundance of subject matter.
I spoke to one of the guys once (who got his PhD) and he said a lot of the stuff was not worth the paper it was written on, or it was not worthy of the credit it was given - they were primarily exercises in getting a piece of paper.
Add to that the fact that the internet may have popularized science, but its dumbed it down as well - so you get anti-vaxers, communities that want to 'take science back', UFO bs and alien proctological probing promoted as serious research and you can see why there is a problem. Closer to home, here in audio land . . . nah, I'll leave it at that
🙂
Take your time. 🙂
N was small but afair (I've to reread it too) they did not try to extrapolate, no inference to population parameters; just reporting that there was an effect.
Generally it would be considered as quite unlikely that Oohashi's participants were the only group within all humans to show this effect. (If the effect was for real; additional corrobation is always needed)
Your second remark is a surprise as Oohashi et al. especially did not use only one method, instead they tried more objective measures like PET scans, EEG and in addition a more traditional listening test segment.
Yes. Back in the 80's I met a lot of guys from Rockwell semis, and others. The all told me that they had to publish, and that they were under constant pressure to be doing another degree. Paper and degree counts mattered a lot at the pointy hair level.
This concept has spread from the US to RoW to some extent.
Not to mention University funding - there's a lot of pressure to pass high paying overseas students.
Hands up those here, who believe that every 'subjective' magazine review is voodoo. No ABX switch box in sight.
Subjective reviews are generally useful but of course not all can be relied on, too many variables.
The Stereophile Subjective/Objective approach is probably the best balance possible and is quite useful to correlate sounds with measurements, reader comments are good input.
Dan.
Of course, we've mentioned this phenomenon several times before, but to me it seems as if things were getting worse.
Is it really that difficult to admit having made an error?
The recent discussion about Oohashi et al. and Ashihara & Kiryu is a sad example in this regard.
I really appreciate SaM different stance on this..... 🙂
A very useful article. I am not one to sweat the details about phasing, or beaming, as I tend to move around (dance) or sit close to (listen). That is the uncanny thing about a horn speaker, it’s like having a waterfall of sound in the room. It isn’t true or high fidelity and I don’t care. ToS
interesting demo:
3D Audio Demo | Redscape Audio
Subjective reviews are only useful if you understand the preferences etc of the reviewer...
3D Audio Demo | Redscape Audio
Subjective reviews are only useful if you understand the preferences etc of the reviewer...
We never quite know when you are joking and when you are serious. I will assume you are joking.Max Headroom said:
People reading published papers on any subject need to understand that publication does not mean that someone (editor or reviewer) thinks the paper is correct. The test is not 'correct' but 'worth publishing' - which roughly means 'might be correct' and 'sufficiently well written'. This test is applied by people who only have maybe 10-20 minutes to read the paper, and in some cases might not be experts on the actual topic (although hopefully knowledgeable on some closely related topic). Papers get published which are rubbish and should have been recognised as such, and papers get rejected which are correct.
I have been on both sides of this procedure, as author and reviewer. I have been surprised at how a reviewer clearly didn't understand the simpler parts of a paper I had written. I have been surprised at the poor quality of some submitted papers I was asked to review.
The usual expectation is that a paper which is wrong will eventually be corrected by someone else, but this could be years later and in a different journal which few people read. I guess nowadays it is harder to hide a paper in an obscure or inappropriate journal because Google can still find it. However, lack of rebuttal does not mean the paper is right. If it is about a subject which few academics are interested in then it could stay in place and even get included in textbooks for engineers, while still being wrong.
I wonder if there's a (slow) degradation of the value of the degrees.
I used to sit in the panel of jury of the technical uni of Geneva; our job is to complement the teachers to deliver the final grades to the thesis. After they introduced the Bologna Process in Switzerland, our impression is the quality of the thesis has suffered a lot. According to the teachers, that's because a BSc is now 3 years instead of 4 for the previous "engineering diploma". It took us a couple of years to adjust, and most of us are still not happy with the outcome.
Or it can be a political manoeuver: my thesis was about noise in semi-conductor. My thesis director who did some research said in a FET, the noise is directly proportional to Igss. Who am I to contradict him? I just added in fine print it's also related to 1/Gm. Everybody's happy, I got my degree with honors, and the teacher had his apprentice prove his point. 🙂
Thanks Scott,
Good article.....agree with most of it.
Seems much of what I’m dealing with is phase shift and group delay.
Could be I’m just right there at sweet spot for time alignment and where electrical summing is best for acoustical summing.
And when I say moving in/out of focus I’m just moving the summing about in/out of its sweet spot?
I knew the math behind relative phase shifts and the compensation involved with a 1st order tweet and a 2nd order woofer and then 4th order sub...add in some dsp delay and the ability to ‘fine tune’ becomes apparent.
Interesting indeed........like mm said might just be the fact that I’ve never heard this level of ‘correct’ before and once you hear it your ruined! 😛
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What’s nice about a subjective review (honest ones) is the common folk can relate. Now of course this opens the the door for being misled (snake oil etc)
But an honest personal opinion from a trusted source can be invaluable to the consumer for multiple reasons, a big one is the fact most of us can no longer hear the gear before buying it. might be you know the description of the sound your looking for and if you see agreement from different sources you know your on the right track.....reliability, ease of use,functionality all can be related subjectively.
Not everyone has the knowledge base here to draw upon, I’ve been in the audio hobby for 40+ yrs and I’m just starting to understand it!
Maybe think twice before chucking all subjective reviews into the trash can.
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