John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier

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#14,041
john curl said:
The real mechanism is electromechanical, and I doubt that it can be PERFECTLY linear. Mostly linear, for sure.
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Partly true. I have determined and published in Journal of Applied Physics, in an other context than audio, but for the general case of polar dielectrics, that DA is essentialy a nonlinear phenomenon. The current decay through a polar dielectric after a voltage step is applied is essentialy exponential, which leads to the RC model approximation. From this point, its all about small signal vs. large signal models. The threshold between these models are directly related to the polar material dipole size and of course the signal amplitude. I would say that for materials used in discrete components and for common AC signal voltages the effects are mostly linear (except for pathological cases). If these effects are audible, that's a different story. I would say they are not, but that's just me...
 
#14,043
scott wurcer said:



They were a gift, I tend not to indulge on such things especially since I don't particularly like headphone listening. Other people on this forum put then on a short list of favorites certainly citeing them as capable of "easily" telling 16/44.1 from 24/96. If I swap 3.5mm to 1/4" adaptors I can't tell the difference between any of them including a 25yr old Radio Shack unplated one. I'm sure some one sells a $125 one as well as a $1000 1 meter interconnect for my little amp. All my interconnects are DIY BTW, I have a 1000' spool of Belden shielded twisted pair. It just keeps on going.
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Scott, my dear fellow, you are actually making the case against your own point!

Surely you can afford the little bit of time and the effort of a minor investigation to acquire the very good Stax (you need the better ones) ESL headphones? You can likely resell them after a little while and recoup your "investment." Buy a used pair if you wish. I would think given your professional position of employment that the amount involved is under the heading of "discretionary purchases"?

The other half of the coin is that you then have the possibility of making the sort of determination for yourself regarding the assertion that you have oddly enough (in a converse fashion) made by your last two posts on this matter!

To make it clear, I am suggesting that it is possible that the reason that your headphones sound "bad" is because they are capable (maybe just barely) of (let us use the term) "resolving" the very sorts of things that we all have been kicking around like a beat up soccer ball for some time. So you now can investigate the lunatic claims that "do not exist" for yourself.

Remember now, you claimed that through the headphones things sound "bad". I am saying that there are good reasons that they sound "bad" to you, and they include your source, your cables, and those little jacks... clean all that up and suddenly it isn't the headphones that were the "cause" of it sounding "bad" at all! It might even <gasp> be the electronics?

Furthermore, according the thesis you (and others) usually put forward, the headphones ought to sound no different than any other reasonably good electromechanical interface to the ear, certainly not "bad"!! (unless of course something is "bad" in the headphones - is there something "bad" in those headphones?? If so, what could it be??)

And, it matters not a bit if you nor I "like" or "prefer" headphone listening if it represents a relatively fascile and inexpensive means of obtaining a "high resolution" transducer - whatever that means to an engineer... So, why not investigate?

_-_-bear
 
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