Great, love to hear your and other opinions.
Okay thanks for your opinion that seem to concur with mine.
Okay clear.
My friend has the Uno and tomorrow we're gonna listen to his newly acquired Coincident Statement line stage that he bought after he had listened to my ancient Conrad Johnson Premier Three pre-amp and concluded that he needed a good tube pre-amp instead of driving his SIT-2 directly from his DA with passive pot.
That's another weird thing I can't explain why a good pre-amp always seems to insert more body and bloom when inserted into a setup without a preamp although the output of the DAC is on paper more then enough to drive the power amp to its full potential.
My hypothesis is - its about the loads presented to the source component. Preamps tend to have higher input impedances (100k and up) and poweramps are in the 10k - 47k range typically. Heavier loading on the source, even when its perfectly capable of driving the current, induces more noise onto the power supplies.
You brought up the subject of "hard evidence"; I didn't. I was speaking of truth, and reminding you that even if something is 'commonly accepted' among the audio community that does not mean it is true. Actually, I am not certain that 'simple is better than complex' is widely accepted, but even if it is that says very little about its truth status. You cannot compare 'generally accepted by the audio community' with 'generally accepted by the science community', as one group has significantly greater knowledge than the other and a much better track record at searching for and finding truth.RobertS61 said:
You seem very persistent in asserting your confusion about audio equipment. That makes me wonder if you are commercially invoved in audio?
Arguments based on false premises do not support anything.
No it's the other way around. You stated in the quote here under the term evidence for the first time. I never implied that my statements were grounded on evidence, au contrair, I was searching for answers out of curiousity. If I had hard evidence there was no need for questioning on my part.
Not yet ;-)
That's a good argument in itself but it doesn't relate to my questions and statements in this matter. I described a phenomena/behaviour and tried to deduce a conclusion but before a final judgement (based maybe on intersubjectivity on this matter or falsified) I ask some questions/discuss it with people that are heavily involved with building amplifiers. Seems to me that there's nothing wrong with that.
This seems to indicate that you prefer preamps that act as 'effect boxes' rather than transparent and neutral preamps. Nothing wrong with it of course, but good to know.
Jan
There is nothing wrong with having a discussion: floating ideas and seeing what other people think of them. Someone floating a false idea, or an incompletely thought through idea, may find that the majority of comments are critical. He may then choose to drop his idea, or modify it. Or he may choose to stick with it even though the flaws in it have been pointed out to him.RobertS61 said:
It would put in perspective your preferences for specific equipment. That seems obvious to me?
BTW I did not say you 'love' effect boxes; I said that it seemed to indicate you prefer them. Don't put words in my mouth please...
Jan
Hopefully, we can avoid a possible tendency towards dichotomous thinking on the issue of "effects boxes," or "colored" reproduction system components. Not referring to any particular tendency on your part, just trying head off general human brain tendencies that apply to all people at times to oversimplify some things that may not so complex so as to require simplification in order to remain tractably understandable.
For example, I generally prefer low distortion audio component boxes, particular for critical listening tasks. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy, for example, a slightly and tastefully colored preamp in an otherwise low distortion reproduction system for casual listening situations.
Might even prefer the colored box for casual listening only for particular genres of music.
A preamp or power amp that produces a little 2nd harmonic at low volumes, and for higher volume transient produces less 2nd, and a little more 3rd and 4th harmonics, for example, might sound good to me. Or maybe not, depending on the particulars.
But, I would not and don't especially take a purist view that anything other than the lowest possible distortion for casual listening uses would be necessarily undesirable. If the listening is for fun, then enjoy whatever sounds good, would be my philosophy.
By saying what I just said, however, it should not be inferred that I prefer effects boxes, only that I might prefer a particular one under some circumstances. Don't see any reason to rule that option out.
I don't know Mark, that's all fine and dandy, but I am confused what your point is re: the quoted post.
Somebody describes which kind of stuff he prefers; it is equipment that colors the sound; and I conclude that it seems he prefers stuff that colors sound. Seems straightforward to me.
My use of the words 'effect boxes' might have been a bit black-and-white but that is often useful to pinpoint a, ehh, point. I hope that specific expression did not offend anyone, it was certainly not intended as such.
Jan
Somebody describes which kind of stuff he prefers; it is equipment that colors the sound; and I conclude that it seems he prefers stuff that colors sound. Seems straightforward to me.
My use of the words 'effect boxes' might have been a bit black-and-white but that is often useful to pinpoint a, ehh, point. I hope that specific expression did not offend anyone, it was certainly not intended as such.
Jan
I just took an opportunity to say something that had be percolating in my mind. Thought it might be worth raising the question in the current conversation as to whether the somebody in this case is actually an unconditional effects prefer-er, or the situation is actually a little more complex. And it may be more complex whether or not the somebody is aware of it, or has fully thought it through.
Anyway, I just wanted to link to one post in the related back and forth conversation in order to clarify the connection of my thoughts to that conversation. Yours was the last post, so decided to pick it up from there. Maybe could have done better in that regard.
Anyway, I just wanted to link to one post in the related back and forth conversation in order to clarify the connection of my thoughts to that conversation. Yours was the last post, so decided to pick it up from there. Maybe could have done better in that regard.
Surely the ultimate unconditional effects preferer are those recording engineers that sit in front of huge mixing desks. So how can audio equipment be seriously judged when there has been so much electronic sleight of hand in the studio?
I see no problem in being the penultimate effects preferer, it is our equipment and the recordings are our choice.
Due to casual subjective unscientific comparison methods. When such method is used, human bias as well as volume mismatch will contribute to perceiving differences. Plus, those reviewers published on periodicals need the cash flow. If they didn't give flowery descriptions to those amps, they will soon notice the advertisement sections (which generates income) start going vacant.
There are some store bought amps with esoteric design that really does "color" sound but they are rare and you want to avoid them.
Bettered in what way?
There's that magic word...
Yes it does, assuming the consumers are kept in the dark, the sales potential. 😉
I don't know that the preference for or against "passive" preamplifiers over "active" ones is (or for that matter, isn't) because of coloration. I don't think we can neglect the effect on our brains of knowing that there is still more 'gas in the tank' when we turn up the volume control! Knowing the volume knob is at 11AM rather than at 5PM, when playing the system at its loudest, isn't likely to be ignored. I think we tend to also "hear" what we think might possibly be a limitation even it when it doesn't occur. We are never disinterested evaluators of things that produce emotion-generating sounds.
These types of threads can be very productive, for another reason.
It is a good filter to ascertain those to add the list.
It is a good filter to ascertain those to add the list.
On a more person-to-person note, I think I fully understand what you mean.
After all, we're straving for the best quality and if they're all premium amps, they SHOULD sound the same. Unfortunately, that's not how technology evolves; Ideology is far from here.
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