rknize said:I think the argument is that "more accurate" isn't necessarily "better sounding" to everyone's ears. It's strictly a matter of personal taste and such arguments fall under the same category as politics and religion IMO.
I agree with "better sounding" definition, but it is totally different to what I am doing.
The TechTube article reminds me of the Vaic valve VV300B; a retrofit with the 300B. An article appeared in the Sound Practises article fall 1994. A valiant rekindle but are Dr.Kron and Vaic still going ? Last I heard was a probable algamation with Tesla.
Anyone fill me in with recent history ?
Perhaps like TechTube ideas, their products simply just won't be around in quantity but as pricy retrofit equivalents.
richy
Anyone fill me in with recent history ?
Perhaps like TechTube ideas, their products simply just won't be around in quantity but as pricy retrofit equivalents.
richy
rknize said:I think the argument is that "more accurate" isn't necessarily "better sounding" to everyone's ears. It's strictly a matter of personal taste and such arguments fall under the same category as politics and religion IMO.
Right
But did I say anything different?Wavebourn:I can tell that it is my friend on the phone.I don't like to hear my music through a phone speaker though.Not my taste
What is real to me might sound colored to you.For me it is not just "accurate"voice,drums and guitars,but a musical whole.Good that recording engineers do not try to record things as "accurately"as possible.Schizophrenic??? I have heard that before..........fdegrove:Yes.the target is musicality.But what is absolute fidelity?Personally I am using a few "naster tapes"that I have made myself.
I apologize if I made you understand that I meant that,I wasn't.What I meant was what rknize explained a couple of posts after.By taste I mean of course what each of us likes.I may know that my system's sound is not that "accurate"but I may also like to sucrifice some "accuracy"and get some more "musicality" or color if you prefer.What is" real" is a diferent story to me.Your example of real voice and the voice through a speaker was good,but if you hear an uknown voice through two different speakers/systems,then,can you tell which is closer to the real thing?I can't,but if I have to choose between the two then I will according to my taste.
And to return back to our topic,the same we will all do when and if these new tubes are available.
And to return back to our topic,the same we will all do when and if these new tubes are available.
Apologies accepted.
How to tel, which one is more accurate? Easy. When it fools your imagination, and you can believe that somebody is playing guitar and singing in your room. When you hear your friend's voice and believe that is himself, instead of the record. But if you easily recognize that it is a record, it is not accurate. When water starts running, you jump turning around before realizing that it is a waterfall on CD, no water in your room. When a beast is roaring causing goose bumps. Every time when subconscious mind reacts before you realize it is the record, it sounds accurate. When father in law was asking, "Who played piano in your house last night?", or when a guest said, that frogs on my backyard sing nice, while they were recorded actually.
Accurate reproduction fools imaginations, so it is hard to tell, does the system sound, or real instruments and voices. If you hear the system, and can tell it is the system sounds, it is not accurate.
How to tel, which one is more accurate? Easy. When it fools your imagination, and you can believe that somebody is playing guitar and singing in your room. When you hear your friend's voice and believe that is himself, instead of the record. But if you easily recognize that it is a record, it is not accurate. When water starts running, you jump turning around before realizing that it is a waterfall on CD, no water in your room. When a beast is roaring causing goose bumps. Every time when subconscious mind reacts before you realize it is the record, it sounds accurate. When father in law was asking, "Who played piano in your house last night?", or when a guest said, that frogs on my backyard sing nice, while they were recorded actually.
Accurate reproduction fools imaginations, so it is hard to tell, does the system sound, or real instruments and voices. If you hear the system, and can tell it is the system sounds, it is not accurate.
richwalters said:
Dr. Kron sadly died a couple of years ago, not sure what is going on with KRON these days. For some time at least his widow I believe ran it successfully. Did you mean JJ instead of Tesla? As far as I know they are still going strong.. Link here: http://www.kraudioproducts.com/Kr/ProductMain.aspx?CatID=13
And KR Audio site itself: http://www.kraudio.cz/
NOTErevious link I posted is not an authorized dealer.
NOTE
revious link I posted is not an authorized dealer.
awedio said:Wow,
I am really shocked by the level of progress-fearing catty backtalk on this forum sometimes. Luddites the lot of you!!!
Here we have some folks who are eager to try and push forward vacuum tube design for the first time in decades - possibly the only real innovation in this wonderful technology in a long time and perhaps the last to ever invest in trying for all time to come...
And all you guys can do is bash their marketing attempts. NO, these are not Blackburn Mullard reissues. LOOK AT THE TUBES - THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING ELSE MADE. Are they playing off the name for the sake of Marketing? Yeah, sure why not? Is that so evil? Is the new Bugatti Veyron like an old Bugatti? No. Does it suck because it is really a Volkswagen? NO!
I have to agree these guys have a tough row to plough, I hope they can make it, and the delays have been interminable. Can't argue that. But if they fail, none of y'all will have helped. Distortion characteristics and such technical data would be nice but in the meantime do any of you know how to better describe the character of sound difference between tubes? Or how many of you guys think that there ARE NO DIFFERENCES... and then go spend $$$ on eBay for your precious Bugle Boys and, yes, Mullards...
I have no affiliation with TechTube but I for one can't wait to try them. Don't cry to me when there are finally no new production vacuum tubes ever made again - it will be a sad day, and you can all go and spend even more for your NOS tubes then. Enjoy the future you will have helped create.
Take a look at the tone of my earlier posts, (positive and open minded) you will see I have been waiting a long time and even wanted to purchase a few to evaluate. Note how long this thread has been open. These guys are muddling along.
I don't think too many of us would consider ourselves Luddites, and I certainly buy my share of current production products - and I would probably buy these too if I could. As I indicated though this outfit is the consummate marketing BS'er - lots of empty promises so far.
I have actual legitimate problems with the technical specifics of this device:
* The fact that they tell you not to ping the envelope tells you immediately that it is extremely microphonic, they alluded to that when they added the top mica.
* The marketing claptrap makes microphony sound like a virtue, from a technical standpoint it isn't. I have had enough trouble with microphony already. Warning people to isolate them from vibration would have been the honest thing to do.
* The part is NOT a plug in equivalent to the 12AX7A/ECC83 despite their marketing it as such. Substantantial differences in mu, rp and other parameters make it a slightly to very different tube depending on viewpoint.
* Filament current is a major problem in devices with 24Vdc series strings like my ReVox G36 (first mic stage and tape replay amp) and units where either constant current heating or dropping resistors are used. Why they didn't stick to the standard 300mA @ 6.3V I do not understand.
* Value, this tube is expensive for what you are getting - at least 4X as expensive as the typical current production 12AX7A and there are some good ones. (The ExpoPul Mullard reissues are quite good, as are the Sovtek 12AX7LPS and 12AX7LP.) I will support the guys at ExpoPul (New Sensor's Russian plant) who have at times struggled to survive the Russian Oligarchs and tough economic times before I consider these guys. They are the real deal.
* At the end of the day this is just a planar triode made from repurposed CRT parts, nothing cutting edge about that at all. A number of people have designed phono stages with existing types - Russian made or WE planar triodes.
kevinkr said:
Kevin, I would go further than you and dispute their claim to being planar.
The true planars were extremely rigorous designs. Maybe an order of magnitude more exacting than anything in a CRT. Example is the WE416C of course. They had a monoatomic layer of gold on the grid to counter grid emission. To stack up the components they employed optically lapped saphire spacers. They had a cathode to grid separation of .02 mm. And so on. The 416 grid was so fine and exact that WE advertised it as being capabe of use as an optical diffraction grating. They set up a demo in their lab showing it splitting light into its spectrum. The 416 was operating at 4 Ghz, carrying some 20K simultaneous telephone conversations in the old AT&T TD2 transcontinental radio relay system. One wonders if the Blackburn 'planar' could keep up.
Their descriptive copy is both hilarious and preposterous. Micron construction? Really?
If Blackburn is having such troubles getting even a single sample out to their adoring public, one wonders how they justify the claim of 10,000 hour reliability. Extrapolation from a data point?
Planar? Not really. The construction is probably best compared to the frame grid designs, which dominated receiving tube design at the end.
Not bad stuff, just not planar. So, the claim that this is a planar design doesn't hold water. The term planar means something very specific. A small receiving tube cobbled from the CRT parts bin cannot be a planar, as the term is understood. Reminiscent of advertising copy where everything is laser this and laser that.
My favorite line from the Blackburn advertising copy is the claim of '6.3 driving volts.' To me this is hilarious and demonstrates serious lack of undrstanding. Obviously this means filament supply, but they do not say filament supply. They say 'driving volts.' Wonder if they even understand what will happen to their design when driven with 6.3 volts.
The end Blackburn design may well become an interesting device, but it will not, cannot resemble a 12AX7. I hope that they survive their advertising.
Gary
Goodness! Their marketing spinmeister sure has everyone talking. I guess he is doing his job after all!
I am skeptical that they will actually ever get tubes out the door. Let them do that, then tell me if they deliver tropical hot dog payday. There is no reason to believe that shipped tubes (if they ever ship) will have anything to do with their newsletter drivel. Apparently, making a tube is hard, and, apparently, they have not quite figured it out.
I am skeptical that they will actually ever get tubes out the door. Let them do that, then tell me if they deliver tropical hot dog payday. There is no reason to believe that shipped tubes (if they ever ship) will have anything to do with their newsletter drivel. Apparently, making a tube is hard, and, apparently, they have not quite figured it out.
Hi,
And that's what I understand by "Absolute Fidelity".
In my life I've heard systems come close on some recordings but I've never, ever heard any system that had me believe I was listening to a live instrument, ever.
While the search of that particular holy grail is certainly a laudable one it's also as delusional as Don Quichote's fighting windmills from Cervantes' masterpiece.
Cheers,
Panicos K said:I believe we agree
And that's what I understand by "Absolute Fidelity".
In my life I've heard systems come close on some recordings but I've never, ever heard any system that had me believe I was listening to a live instrument, ever.
While the search of that particular holy grail is certainly a laudable one it's also as delusional as Don Quichote's fighting windmills from Cervantes' masterpiece.
Cheers,
fdegrove:
IMO an audio system will never reach "absolute fidelity".That is why I said that I have tried to tune my system to my taste/liking.Frank you are one of the very few friends here who uses the word musicality.Many recordings are simply lacking in musicality,old and new.And many very good recordings might not be the kind of music someone likes.In the end it is quite an achievement to have a system that at least it is not annoying and allows you to sit in front of it for a while and enjoy some music
IMO an audio system will never reach "absolute fidelity".That is why I said that I have tried to tune my system to my taste/liking.Frank you are one of the very few friends here who uses the word musicality.Many recordings are simply lacking in musicality,old and new.And many very good recordings might not be the kind of music someone likes.In the end it is quite an achievement to have a system that at least it is not annoying and allows you to sit in front of it for a while and enjoy some music
I am an Aborigine from a different camp, gentlemen. I go back and back to the wildness, and I hear it is approaching!
It is not the same as building amps for better standard measurements; it is to select measurements that lead right back to the wildness. Amps built according to standard measurements remind me nice looking clean apple juice from concentrates with artificial flavors.
It is not the same as building amps for better standard measurements; it is to select measurements that lead right back to the wildness. Amps built according to standard measurements remind me nice looking clean apple juice from concentrates with artificial flavors.
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