I thought AR2's comments regarding building a linestage out of an IC and with discrete components would be an interesting test.
Would it possible to do an 'apples to apples' comparison this way? It was unclear to me whether the circuit in the IC he used was the same as that used in the BOSOZ.
Could someone suggest a chip and circuit which might provide a valid test?
I am a big fan of "listen and see for yourself".
Incidintally, the BOSOZ can be easily "tarted up a bit" to make a linestage that sounds much, much better than the two not-cheap multi-channel preamps I (unfortunately) own.....
JJ
Would it possible to do an 'apples to apples' comparison this way? It was unclear to me whether the circuit in the IC he used was the same as that used in the BOSOZ.
Could someone suggest a chip and circuit which might provide a valid test?
I am a big fan of "listen and see for yourself".
Incidintally, the BOSOZ can be easily "tarted up a bit" to make a linestage that sounds much, much better than the two not-cheap multi-channel preamps I (unfortunately) own.....
JJ
GRollins said:
Lets hear a technical dissertation on overstuffed marshmallows please, oh great one.
John, you priced it too low and didn't back it up with an entertaining enough line of BS. That's your problem, you're perfectly willing to say, "I compromised this design for reasons of price and practicality, but the performance is still first-rate." No, no, no. "NO detail was overlooked. The capacitors are hand-wound from the stretched dessicated hymens of Persian girls, but only from Shiraz. The transistors were hewn from silicon extracted by hand from the black sand of Maui. All output transistors are individually matched and individually serialized by Swiss craftsmet after auditioning each one and rating it from 1-100 (only transistors that score 95 points or higher are used in this amp). And the amp costs only $25,000!" It also helps if you stroke the reviewer (that's not your nature, you're very direct and don't suffer fools) and give them something mystical to write about, preferably with punchy one-line quotes. You're just too damn honest and you make well-engineered products that sell for reasonable multiples of the BOM.
I admittedly don't have much experience with the Class A-rated solid state stuff, but I have some with many of the tube amps with that rating. And if there's any correlation with quality, it escapes me- they're recommended some TERRIBLE components, based more on the story they could tell, the friends they could help, the looks and perceived cachet. Certainly not on the sound quality, the reliability, or the engineering.
I admittedly don't have much experience with the Class A-rated solid state stuff, but I have some with many of the tube amps with that rating. And if there's any correlation with quality, it escapes me- they're recommended some TERRIBLE components, based more on the story they could tell, the friends they could help, the looks and perceived cachet. Certainly not on the sound quality, the reliability, or the engineering.
SY said:
Exactly. Just have a look at the price of the JC-1 compared to the other amps on the list. The other amps are a ripoff by comparison.
You might start with a dictionary...doesn't even have to be a big, expensive one. Look up the words "analogy," "simile," and any other descriptive devices that you can find.
Actually, I can make this even easier and simpler:
www.m-w.com
They have an online dictionary and thesaurus. There are others, of course, should you have something against Merriam-Webster.
The proper use of language includes the ability to describe things indirectly if direct terms aren't available or if the accepted terms don't exactly cover what you need to say.
An extraordinary case came up in the study of gorillas. A gorilla, who had been taught sign language, was given a piece of watermelon to eat. The gorilla had never had watermelon, and had not been taught any signs to cover the naming of watermelon. The gorilla, being far more clever than anyone anticipated, simply used the signs it did know: It described the watermelon using the signs for "candy" and "fruit." Now, fruit is fairly obvious, but the use of "candy" was inspired. Was the watermelon "candy," in the literal sense? No, of course not. But in context, it was a marvelous way to communicate.
Grey
Actually, I can make this even easier and simpler:
www.m-w.com
They have an online dictionary and thesaurus. There are others, of course, should you have something against Merriam-Webster.
The proper use of language includes the ability to describe things indirectly if direct terms aren't available or if the accepted terms don't exactly cover what you need to say.
An extraordinary case came up in the study of gorillas. A gorilla, who had been taught sign language, was given a piece of watermelon to eat. The gorilla had never had watermelon, and had not been taught any signs to cover the naming of watermelon. The gorilla, being far more clever than anyone anticipated, simply used the signs it did know: It described the watermelon using the signs for "candy" and "fruit." Now, fruit is fairly obvious, but the use of "candy" was inspired. Was the watermelon "candy," in the literal sense? No, of course not. But in context, it was a marvelous way to communicate.
Grey
GRollins said:
OK, so the reviewer probably wasn’t talking about marshmallows after all. He could have been talking about passionfruit, apple pies or pumpkins. Thanks a lot, that really clears thing up.
BTW, you are conveniently avoiding any attempt to actually quantify in reasonable terms what the reviewer actually meant by “overstuffed marshmallows”.
It’s really amazing, but such inexplicit prose will likely be interpreted 10 distinctly different ways by 10 different people. That's in part what makes it nonsensical fluff.
rfbrw said:
Yep.
rfbrw said:
Ermmm....... I would hope that most credible critics of those things would have words in their vocabulary that better convey the underlying technical attributes of their subject a darn sight better than what “overstuffed marshmallow” does for sound reproduction......
G.Kleinschmidt said:
Maybe. Maybe not. But at least there is no delusion, with the last two categories at least, that one can separate the objective from the subjective as is done on Planet Self.
Once again, you impugn my efforts. I know the difference. My associates know the difference. Only YOU don't know the difference. What have I advertised in the JC-1 that is so special? 50 more Watts? Big deal! Lower distortion? NO! More peak current? Slightly, 135A instead of 120A, who cares? Wider bandwidth? NO. Give me ONE good reason that the JC-1 got an A rating! We don't even advertise in 'Stereophile' anymore.
OK, I WILL give you one, it costs more to make than the earlier effort.
OK, I WILL give you one, it costs more to make than the earlier effort.
john curl said:
The reason it got an "A" rating is because it is better.
Here is a private communication from a Stereophile reviewer who must remain anonymous:
"Oh, wow, right on, Charlie. Did you ever tell JA! You are so right.
Measurements don't mean sh*t. Not in terms of musical pleasure,
anyway. I suppose they are useful to audio engineers to make sure
stuff doesn't blow up.
Case in point:
I was -- ahem -- "privileged" to hear one of the Halcro amps for two
weeks. But I actually did not want to listen to it for two weeks. I
couldn't listen for one week.
Three days after the Halcros arrived -- the greatest amp ever,
according to Stereohile -- John Curl's Parasound JC-1's came in. I am
not saying this amp is perfect, but the amp is one of the best solid
state amps I have ever had in my system. It is so much more musical
than the Halcro. I used the Halcros as stands for the Parasounds.
So ... Charlie ... congratulations on a great letter. I could not
agree more."
Good job on the JC-1's, John!
That was most enlightening, Charles, thank you.
Fully recovered? You seem in fine fettle.......
Hugh
Fully recovered? You seem in fine fettle.......
Hugh
Your efforts at manipulating magazines and marketing, yes. Your efforts to design reliable, practical, excellent amplifiers at less than #$@!-you pricing, quite the opposite- I think you do that as well as anyone alive today. No offense meant to Charlie, whose amplifiers I have not listened to.
It is clear that G.Kleinschmidt, among others, has never read a wine magazine. An attempt to describe wine purely with numbers--alcohol percentage, acidity, color, phenol content, etc. will get you nowhere in terms of actually describing the taste of the wine...
Though I'm sure that some would find analysis of the alcohol content down to five decimal points an interesting pursuit in and of itself. Just don't confuse it with the actual purpose of wine, which is to be enjoyed by drinking.
Grey
Though I'm sure that some would find analysis of the alcohol content down to five decimal points an interesting pursuit in and of itself. Just don't confuse it with the actual purpose of wine, which is to be enjoyed by drinking.
Grey
GRollins said:
Acidity, etc would be conveyed in any meaningful description of the taste fer crying out loud. If somebody tells me that a wine tastes either sweet or sour, I can make a resaonable assumption about the composition of the substance. If a freaking food critic writes that a risoto was excessively soft and mushy, the rice was probably overcooked. If the steak sauce was too hot then it probably had too much pepper.
If an audio reviewer writes that an amplifier helps convey a sound of "overstuffed marshmallows" WTF does that mean?
GRollins said:
Yeah, and I'm sure that in an alternate universe your arguments are seem rational and make sense.
G.Kleinschmidt said:
Sorry to hear that your imagination has passed away. Please accept my regrets.
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