Maybe.....but not the Sakuma way IMO. Old recordings? Check variations in RIAA....a phono preamp with multiple choices for RIAA equalizing might bring you back to the old days.
That, and why not make experiments with tailored response and dispersion diy speakers first. They are the most drastic for manipulating tone.
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Sakuma used horn speakers and Lowther. I realize this is another key to finding the sound I seek. I have been sitting on a new Lowther driver for a couple or more years already but no time to build the horn for it.
I will look at the Sakuma RIAA again.
I will look at the Sakuma RIAA again.
Key should be large coaxial driver on wide baffle cabinet. Open back or large reflex window 1940's style. There's much in the speaker end to capture a bygone audio era. I have even heard vintage guitar amps aficionados saying that most of a combo's tone comes from the loudspeaker choice and the character of the tone stack circuit.
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This is my current speaker: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/a-bigun-the-audio-nirvana-super-15.217893/
Coaxial if you consider the whizzer cone a mechanical cross-over, also fairly wide and open back.
This is also the speaker that I will use my Sakuma-styled 845 with but a horn speaker is in my future.
Image: the big one in the middle is the one I'm talking about.
Coaxial if you consider the whizzer cone a mechanical cross-over, also fairly wide and open back.
This is also the speaker that I will use my Sakuma-styled 845 with but a horn speaker is in my future.
Image: the big one in the middle is the one I'm talking about.
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Looks like you are on the right path already. Only missing a decorative arch, a brass grill, and a Brill building entrance poster on the wall. Last but not least get few different wattage NOS incandescent bulbs for that judicial compressor effect before they disappear completely. 🙂
To manipulate tone it is best to deal with that at line level whether with preamp or preamp with tone controls, also possibly addition of equalizer, compressor, or any "color" and effects box. The best way is to have a bypass switch so you can reference back to the clean signal and compare to the colored signal.
Yes, it's a contrast to typical audiophile purist approach. For me a purist "straight wire with gain" approach can only be as good as the recording itself which the listener has no control over and you end up with listening to
nothing but "audiophile approved" recordings. Unfortunately those typical recordings are musically boring. Notice some audiophiles would prefer Kenny G over Charlie Parker just because the former has better recordings and the latter sound is too primitive for their modern ears.
In modern digital recording process, the signal never had to go through a power amp. All manipulations are done at line level before the deliverables whether it's streaming or CDs or whatever. In fact many young recording engineers had never hooked up a power amplifier to speakers in their life! They grew up with powered or active speakers. The idea of separating amp from speakers is baffling to them! My point is that line level allows easier manipulation of tone and effect. Get a clean sounding power amp that matches well woth your speakers. Solid state is fine and doesn't have to be tube. Find the tone and color you want at line level.
Granted in making vinyl the signal at least has to go through a cutter head amplifier so it does have influence over the sound but not as much as line level processing.
Yes, it's a contrast to typical audiophile purist approach. For me a purist "straight wire with gain" approach can only be as good as the recording itself which the listener has no control over and you end up with listening to
nothing but "audiophile approved" recordings. Unfortunately those typical recordings are musically boring. Notice some audiophiles would prefer Kenny G over Charlie Parker just because the former has better recordings and the latter sound is too primitive for their modern ears.
In modern digital recording process, the signal never had to go through a power amp. All manipulations are done at line level before the deliverables whether it's streaming or CDs or whatever. In fact many young recording engineers had never hooked up a power amplifier to speakers in their life! They grew up with powered or active speakers. The idea of separating amp from speakers is baffling to them! My point is that line level allows easier manipulation of tone and effect. Get a clean sounding power amp that matches well woth your speakers. Solid state is fine and doesn't have to be tube. Find the tone and color you want at line level.
Granted in making vinyl the signal at least has to go through a cutter head amplifier so it does have influence over the sound but not as much as line level processing.
Sure, but loudspeakers produce response and directivity interacting directly with room acoustics making them influential on another level. Ideally both line level manipulation and right era cabinets should be combined. For that ultra poetic colored sound goal. Which is not Hi-Fi at all.
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I have long since left behind the idea that I need a hi-fi.
Sakuma didn't ask anybody else to copy his amplifiers - from what I understand he said others should find their own tone, that which suits their own tastes. If there's one thing I believe he may have implied as something we should all try out at least once - that single speaker mono is enough and that's something I discovered myself as an approach whichI like. My yet to be built 845 Sakuma inspired amp is going to be a single chassis mono amp, for my single speaker.
Sakuma didn't ask anybody else to copy his amplifiers - from what I understand he said others should find their own tone, that which suits their own tastes. If there's one thing I believe he may have implied as something we should all try out at least once - that single speaker mono is enough and that's something I discovered myself as an approach whichI like. My yet to be built 845 Sakuma inspired amp is going to be a single chassis mono amp, for my single speaker.
Its also naturally easier to accept mono is enough when having to build two times the battleship amp and vintage Coldspot refrigerator speaker if for stereo. 🤣
directdriver,
Thanks!
Your Post # 148 made me think.
In regard to the total process of making a Vinyl recording, you mentioned the cutter heads.
. . . But I bet more than 90% of Cutter Amplifiers are Push Pull (and that means Not Single Ended).
Right?
If you like Vinyl, then . . .
Food for thought for some fans of one amplifier topology versus another.
I think I can hear worms crawling out of the open bucket.
Thanks!
Your Post # 148 made me think.
In regard to the total process of making a Vinyl recording, you mentioned the cutter heads.
. . . But I bet more than 90% of Cutter Amplifiers are Push Pull (and that means Not Single Ended).
Right?
If you like Vinyl, then . . .
Food for thought for some fans of one amplifier topology versus another.
I think I can hear worms crawling out of the open bucket.
This is the same argument David Manley of VTL and Manley Labs had against single ended in the 90s when the flame of SE was burning fast (It was mainly spawned by Sound Practices and Japanese collectors that the pope of high end the insufferable Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound once called them the audio atheists or anarchists!) with Cary and other major manufacturers joining the bandwagon. Manley used to own a record label and studio so he knew about the vinyl making process.
I don't have anything for or against either topology but they do have distinctive sonic characters that the listener might prefer one over the other. I do have to remind myself that I've yet to hear the kind of imaging quality SE has in PP amps. (Perhaps one reason I prefer split-load/cathodyne/concertina or transformer phase splitting for PP as it is closer to that SE imaging quality. By the way, the famous cutter head amp Westrex RA-1574A uses split-load, a variant of Williamson.) I don't know how to explain it but you know it when you hear it. It's a quality that might not even be that important to some people. The SE camp can argue that if you already split the phase once so why split it again and make it worse? 🤔
They both can sound good. You can have both, you know.
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directdriver,
I just wanted to say that there is more than one way to do things.
Sometimes it is necessary to get people's attention; I guess it worked.
Instead of Vinyl, how about a lot of tape recorders. Many are single ended (I did not want to leave out the possibility of a push pull tape recorder).
My first good music selection was playing back prerecorded tapes.
Soon, I made tapes of Vinyl recordings using a turntable, cartridge, tone arm, and phono preamp.
Later, I used a pair of Electro Voice omnidirectional microphones to record a church choir doing a cantata.
The doctor who had a mono system, thought stereo was all bunk. But he commented how good my simple recording setup sounded when played back.
Commercial sales and marketing might, or might not, say anything that helps them.
But if Cary was pushing all push pull amplifiers . . . then why did he build single ended amplifiers too? Oh!
I just wanted to say that there is more than one way to do things.
Sometimes it is necessary to get people's attention; I guess it worked.
Instead of Vinyl, how about a lot of tape recorders. Many are single ended (I did not want to leave out the possibility of a push pull tape recorder).
My first good music selection was playing back prerecorded tapes.
Soon, I made tapes of Vinyl recordings using a turntable, cartridge, tone arm, and phono preamp.
Later, I used a pair of Electro Voice omnidirectional microphones to record a church choir doing a cantata.
The doctor who had a mono system, thought stereo was all bunk. But he commented how good my simple recording setup sounded when played back.
Commercial sales and marketing might, or might not, say anything that helps them.
But if Cary was pushing all push pull amplifiers . . . then why did he build single ended amplifiers too? Oh!
i think Sakuma San was an artist, first his realizations start making coherent design, then
just put tubes and transformers toghether witout calculations becose he now whats he doing
real artists feel all senses get in comunications with his realization
without calculation and reflextions but into trance and estatic joy to build his idea
just put tubes and transformers toghether witout calculations becose he now whats he doing
real artists feel all senses get in comunications with his realization
without calculation and reflextions but into trance and estatic joy to build his idea
Bigun, something that might be interesting for you: as an experiment, get a cheap shellac pickup cartridge (e.g. AT-VM95SP) and some old shellac records, hook that up to a gain stage without equalisation and listen. It is coloured, it is noisy, but alive and dynamic in away I have never ever heard from post war recordings no matter what gear used for replay.
Unfortunately I don't care for pre war music, so this experience of an "alive" replay is just another white rabbit to chase....
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Interesting!
Perhaps the old deca equalization curves are what are needed, could try making an inverse filter and listed to some modern music through it.
Perhaps the old deca equalization curves are what are needed, could try making an inverse filter and listed to some modern music through it.
It isn't about a different (e.g. Decca) equalization curve but NO equalization curve. More the point that shellac records up to a certain point were cut with a minimum of processing. No equalisation curve, no compression, no eq, ...
Fidelity, tone colours, resolution, etc are all a joke compared to what you get from your cell phone these days. But that aspect of liveliness and a tactile experience is rather special.
That strays from the actual topic of that thread, but reading where it went I thought that might be interesting.
Fidelity, tone colours, resolution, etc are all a joke compared to what you get from your cell phone these days. But that aspect of liveliness and a tactile experience is rather special.
That strays from the actual topic of that thread, but reading where it went I thought that might be interesting.