I'm curious about this test you have just mentioned.
Which speakers were you using?
And it was 7 out of how many? If it was 7/100 people tested, it's a landslide majority that can tell the difference. If it's 7/10, then it's another story...
More info needed.
Which speakers were you using?
And it was 7 out of how many? If it was 7/100 people tested, it's a landslide majority that can tell the difference. If it's 7/10, then it's another story...
More info needed.
Just read that. Lots of talk of quite a lot of distortion with underpowered amplifiers. Am not into over driving amps into anything like that kind of distortion. It is no problem to build solid state amps of 400 watts into 8 ohms so this distortion does not occur. Does that make the results less useful? Maybe.
Tubes have a singular advantage over transistors, bandwidth. A power tube like my favorite 833 is a 5 gigahertz 300 watt device. There are no similar solid state devices and certainly the bandwidth available to tube designer in any socket size is likely greater than the solid state.
Thank you CAL- to cool to not use!
=SUM🙂
"A power tube like my favorite 833 is a 5 gigahertz 300 watt device. "
http://www.wps.com/archives/tube-datasheets/Datasheets/Amperex-CC-363/8.JPG
http://www.wps.com/archives/tube-datasheets/Datasheets/Amperex-CC-363/8.JPG
Well, that should be obvious, we aren't anywhere near 15,000 posts yet, or was it 15,000 pages, I've already forgotten. In any event, since this is not limited to cables and AJ in FLA is, sadly, missing in action, it might not get as rancorous as the cable thread and the posts will be infinitely more confusing, due to the breadth of the scope.
Ahh, more popcorn please....
Bud
oh! contraire
I've heard differences in amps. 30 or so years ago using a heath AA-1600 amp, whenever Barbara Strei(gulp!)sand hit the high note on "there's a place for us"😱
🙄, with the gain cranked to 11, the darn thing would blow the rail fuses, and be done. My nakamichi 730, OTOH, which I still have driving 2nd zone in house, would sail right through that gruesome moment (although the heatsinks do get mighty hot). And with only single power devices per side at that!..
So these two amps certainly sounded different... even after I added a coupla 100,000 uF computer caps to the power supply, it still popped the rails... pos... don't own it anymore...
so there, speak only for yourself please😉🙄🙂
John L.
I've heard differences in amps. 30 or so years ago using a heath AA-1600 amp, whenever Barbara Strei(gulp!)sand hit the high note on "there's a place for us"😱
🙄, with the gain cranked to 11, the darn thing would blow the rail fuses, and be done. My nakamichi 730, OTOH, which I still have driving 2nd zone in house, would sail right through that gruesome moment (although the heatsinks do get mighty hot). And with only single power devices per side at that!..So these two amps certainly sounded different... even after I added a coupla 100,000 uF computer caps to the power supply, it still popped the rails... pos... don't own it anymore...
so there, speak only for yourself please😉🙄🙂
John L.
7 out of 7. 1 violin maker, 1 audio engineer, 1 audio salesman and 4 customers. I switched 30-40 times between A and B with jazz, classical & pop. We tried really hard but failed to hear any difference. The loudspeakers: Canadian Mirage dipoles & German 3-way Fischer & Fischer (slate housing). XLO LS cables & MIT shotgun RCA cables. The frontend.... I really can't remember but probably the 3 case Micromega CD-Player from France or Krell. The Creek was the 4140s2 model - really nice British glory.
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Wow, this is a wildly controversial thread...
To sate my own interest, I built that Amp testing remote controlled gizmo from ESP that lets you switch amps on the fly with same preamp and speakers to identify differences between just the amps.... I tested my Krell KSA-50 Clone and the Aleph 5 I built. The difference was tiny (gain adjusted) and was quite surprised...I like the Krell just a tad more...but not anywhere near as much a margin that I previously had before building the gizmo...I remember thinking the Krell totally trounced the Aleph...not so.. I have heard a much bigger difference changing out the opamp in my DAC than swapping amplifiers.
Also keep in mind these are two extraordinary amps...
One has to wonder why this is such a hot topic....why do people get so bent outta shape over this?
Preamp - Aikido 6SN7/6SN7
Speakers - Magnepan Tympani IVa
DAC - Home made Cirrus 4398 jobbie
To sate my own interest, I built that Amp testing remote controlled gizmo from ESP that lets you switch amps on the fly with same preamp and speakers to identify differences between just the amps.... I tested my Krell KSA-50 Clone and the Aleph 5 I built. The difference was tiny (gain adjusted) and was quite surprised...I like the Krell just a tad more...but not anywhere near as much a margin that I previously had before building the gizmo...I remember thinking the Krell totally trounced the Aleph...not so.. I have heard a much bigger difference changing out the opamp in my DAC than swapping amplifiers.
Also keep in mind these are two extraordinary amps...
One has to wonder why this is such a hot topic....why do people get so bent outta shape over this?
Preamp - Aikido 6SN7/6SN7
Speakers - Magnepan Tympani IVa
DAC - Home made Cirrus 4398 jobbie
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None of this is correct. In the first place, the 833 is good to 30MHz at 100% of nominal ratings, and good to 75MHz with appropriate derating. It'll never get anywhere close to 5.0GHz, and VTs that are designed to operate in that territory are built much differently than the ones used for audio.
Secondly, though it's quite true that any VT, even the supposedly "audio only" types (12AX7, 6SL7, 6V6, 50C5, etc) will operate well into the VHF band as well as they'll function at DC, whereas solid state (especially BJTs) is at its best at DC and it's all down hill from there, the Hi-Z nature of the VT mitigates against wideband performance. Getting useful gain from a transistor with passive collector/drain loads of 100R or even lower is easy-peasy. The resulting low impedance will play well with stray and device capacitance. Getting wide band performance from a VT amp will frequently require compensating inductance to "tune out" capacitance at the higher frequencies north of 100KHz. (Now that I mentioned it, how long until we start seeing audio amp designs with these coils? 🙄 )
I tend to stay well away from threads like this one because I know they'll just bring out the drama-llamas. Given all the potential difficulties: passing hundreds of frequencies through (more or less) non-linear active devices, expecting an iron core OPT to pass 20Hz, 20KHz, and everything in between, all at once, speeks with ill-defined load impedances and which have their own distortion, and to demand that the same device reproduce the sound of a full orchestra with all sorts of instruments made from widely different materials and operating on widely different principles, all at once, and let's not forget what happens to the signal from the mic(s) in the recording studio to the speeks in your living room, it's a miracle it works at all, let alone as well as it does.
Eyes don't lie, and if I design a video amp with inadequate bandwidth, and horrid phase distortion that doesn't show fine detail on the screen, and smears large objects across the screen, and gets the colors all wrong, no one is going to argue over the finer points of that type of distortion. Everyone will agree: it's a bad design.
Ears deceive, and it's amazing just how quickly any one listener can adjust to some truly hideous-sounding equipment. I'm sure that back in the day there were those "audiophiles" who swore that a wind-up turn table, a steel needle, and a wooden horn gave "concert hall reality", and that these new-fangled electronic record players were decidedly inferior and a passing fad.
The more things change... yada, yada, yada.
my oops corrected
Yes you are correct, full power bandwidth of the 833 is 30MHz. Sorry to not be clear. With a gain of 35 that puts Ft at 5 gigahertz. Ft is commonly used for BJT power transistors bandwidth in the data sheet so that value was stated for comparison purposes. Also note that 400 watts is for the carbon plate and not the metallic one. National, Svetlana, and others manufacture this tube in 300 watt metallic plate quartz envelope for something like $125 retail. Fast BJT for low frequency is 40MHz Ft for On Semiconductor, 15 amp device.
I never said anything about transformers in the output and don't use them myself. Others do and that is fine with me.
Miles Prower- Would you please direct me to a data sheet of a power transistor with Ft=5gigaHertz and 300 watts of power dissipation? I would like to use such a device in the new amplifier I am playing with. Seems like it could be good. Thanks in advance!
=Sum
Yes you are correct, full power bandwidth of the 833 is 30MHz. Sorry to not be clear. With a gain of 35 that puts Ft at 5 gigahertz. Ft is commonly used for BJT power transistors bandwidth in the data sheet so that value was stated for comparison purposes. Also note that 400 watts is for the carbon plate and not the metallic one. National, Svetlana, and others manufacture this tube in 300 watt metallic plate quartz envelope for something like $125 retail. Fast BJT for low frequency is 40MHz Ft for On Semiconductor, 15 amp device.
I never said anything about transformers in the output and don't use them myself. Others do and that is fine with me.
Miles Prower- Would you please direct me to a data sheet of a power transistor with Ft=5gigaHertz and 300 watts of power dissipation? I would like to use such a device in the new amplifier I am playing with. Seems like it could be good. Thanks in advance!
=Sum
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It was not intended to bring out the drama - my zero feedback amps are bringing enough drama to my life - it was intended as a defense against one-minded fascistoid thinking people insulting me & my friends trying to take the rights out of our hands to speak for ourselves.
Hi Dave,
I listened to an Alpair 10 vs. over 30 other speakers and the Alpair 10 won hands down every duel, some 6.000euro Scanspeak speakers were degraded so brutally it was not funny anymore.
Sorry, a little out of context here.
Regards
I have treated mine and they are even better. I expect the Mk 2 should be another step up, and it will be interesting what the A10 SE will do (essentially the best exFostex guys and Mark together on a driver made in a new factory where they are ultaAnal).
dave
These SiC Static Induction Transistors should get you close. Good luck getting ahold of these.
Doanworryboudit until Pres. Obama appoints Peter Aczel as "Sound Czar". Until then, he's just one guy with an opinion and a ready soap box. Nobody's forcing you to agree with him.
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If you'd ever heard a good vocal recording on an Edison disc player, you might be swearing the same thing. Amazing machines. Much, much better than the Victrolas and such. Not as versatile as the "new-fangled" stuff, but still beautiful. Music, you know?
The paradox is that if people accept the notion that you can't
hear the difference, then the entertainment is over, and both
the critics and designers can go home.
😎
Those were the best 500$ I've spent in my life. I said "goodbye" to my earth-induced asymmetrical wavefront distortion after that!
LMFAO
Good luck with this thread....they generally don't go well.
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