It happened to two of my posts to be merged too. It's just encouraging us to be more concise . Focus Sherlock, get focused! Now i know to whom i should thank
Since it's evident that several of you have built Groner's composite super op-amp, what are your subjective assessments? Do you believe that you hear any difference between it and other op-amp designs you've tried?
My expectation is that the extraordinary objective performance offered is simply vast overkill, and would not be audible in playback application. So, should the resulting sound not seem distinguished in some subjective manner, then the implementation effort and cost are not justified in audio gain stage applications. Perhaps, something special is revealed upon listening to music. However, Groner himself implies the design is intended for audio frequency instrumentation application.
My expectation is that the extraordinary objective performance offered is simply vast overkill, and would not be audible in playback application. So, should the resulting sound not seem distinguished in some subjective manner, then the implementation effort and cost are not justified in audio gain stage applications. Perhaps, something special is revealed upon listening to music. However, Groner himself implies the design is intended for audio frequency instrumentation application.
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Why not? Hobbyists can build whatever they like no matter whether it sounds better, worse or the same as something else and professionals design whatever sells well, no matter whether it sounds better, worse or the same as anything else. In any case, a line level amplifier with audible distortion would have to be a really bad design.
Marcel, certainly, DIY hobbyist can build whatever seems worth the effort to them. In addition, many of us do find satisfaction in building circuits which objectively perform as well or even better than what's available commercially.
However, limited resources is among the primary reasons why some of us sacrifice the time and effort required to engage in DIY. As a consequence, we are motivated to be selective about which of many possible projects we commit to realizing as an working physical device developed enough (i.e., having a mounting base or enclosure, power supplies, connectors, etc.) to be suitable for insertion in a signal chain. A significant part of that selection process, at least for me, is to read about the experiences and opinions of others who've physically built a given circuit or project.
However, limited resources is among the primary reasons why some of us sacrifice the time and effort required to engage in DIY. As a consequence, we are motivated to be selective about which of many possible projects we commit to realizing as an working physical device developed enough (i.e., having a mounting base or enclosure, power supplies, connectors, etc.) to be suitable for insertion in a signal chain. A significant part of that selection process, at least for me, is to read about the experiences and opinions of others who've physically built a given circuit or project.
Ken, if you look around in these forums, you'll that people build stuff for all kinds of reasons. The design and build of a 'neutral' audio chain that doesn't change anything to the signal was completed in the previous century. So there's no more need to spend effort to design for 'no audible difference' for those reasons, those designs are widely available.
I use the Groner opamp in test equipment to be able to measure deeper than I could so far. I am just curious how circuits perform, why, and how to design simpler and cheaper circuits that perform even better. Whether that gives an audible difference isn't that important to me.
Jan
I use the Groner opamp in test equipment to be able to measure deeper than I could so far. I am just curious how circuits perform, why, and how to design simpler and cheaper circuits that perform even better. Whether that gives an audible difference isn't that important to me.
Jan
From what I see here, that's only a very small number. Many designs are much more involved and certainly more expensive than what you can buy.
I sometimes see power supplies for amps that cost more than a complete amp with stellar performance you can just order. And what about $ 100 capacitors, $ 300 enclosures?
Jan
Let's just face it: DIY is an expensive sport today!
Yet i found the reason why Sheiks buy hundreds of very expensive carbon fiber Lamborghini cars.I thought like many others that it is because of their vanity until i knew a guy who did diamond trafficking between Saudi Arabia and Germany for a sheik...He had about 24-30 hours to get a Lamborghini filled with diamonds to Germany and guess what: the diamonds and high quality carbon fiber are indistinguishable on x-ray detectors.
So...Are we able to cross the borders undetected with indistinguishable quality music in these buffers ?
Yet i found the reason why Sheiks buy hundreds of very expensive carbon fiber Lamborghini cars.I thought like many others that it is because of their vanity until i knew a guy who did diamond trafficking between Saudi Arabia and Germany for a sheik...He had about 24-30 hours to get a Lamborghini filled with diamonds to Germany and guess what: the diamonds and high quality carbon fiber are indistinguishable on x-ray detectors.
So...Are we able to cross the borders undetected with indistinguishable quality music in these buffers ?
Jan, I concur on that point.
I think we disagree here somewhat. There are two different views of what neutral means. One view is subjective and the other is objective - I know, here we go yet again with the topic of objective versus subjective. However, it is germane. The objective view of neutrality is inherently supportable via instrumented parameter measurement. Indeed, just as you indicated, we have long ago reached objective neutrality.
The subjective view, being human ear based, is inherently open to error. Yet, isn't it the subjective view of (musical) neutrality which drives the great majority of the specialty audio market? If it were not, then we'd all be hard pressed to justify purchasing (or DIY building) anything that's more costly than Far East manufactured mass-market A/V receivers, disc players and such. Which, by the way, could be confidently ordered via mail without any audition. After all, the objective measurements of such products are typically beyond reproach with respect to the established limits of human hearing perception.
Except, there's one fly in that ointment, which is that many us feel quite positive that we occasionally hear differences among products which all feature objective performance, supposedly, beyond the limits of human perception. The still unresolved key question is, of course, why? In the meanwhile, since home audio systems are only intended for the joy of human listenening, and not the joy of spectrum analyzer measurement, companies such as Audio Research, Krell, Pass Labs and Levinson successfully exist. Providing, what their customers perceive as, subjective musical neutrality.
This applies as well for the DIY community. Admittedly, DIY exists for a myriad of reasons, but one of those reasons is the desire to create gear that subjectively sounds musically neutral to the builder. While DIY is more costly than many a mass-market product, it's typically far less costly than an high-end market commercial product.
Yes, Groner himself indicated in his paper that instrumentation was the motivating application for his design.
But, for many of us, that is not only important it's a priority.
Jan[/QUOTE]
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Sure, whatever your priority is, go for it! That's what hobbies are for.
BTW If audible differences are what you are after, build a single-ended tube amp next! Guaranteed to sound different from whatever you have now, and lots of people swearing it is the best sounding amp on the planet!
Jan
BTW If audible differences are what you are after, build a single-ended tube amp next! Guaranteed to sound different from whatever you have now, and lots of people swearing it is the best sounding amp on the planet!
Jan
Jan, so, you're clearly implying that all competently designed solid state electronics, by definition, sound the same. Fair enough. Can we safely assume then that your system is centered around some relatively inexpensive mass-market A/V receiver or integrated amp, etc.? If not, why not?
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So you're a poor man too, like most of us here.You may be rich amongst us, as we consider your knowledge , your effort and your time that you gave us, BUT:
Your sentence is profoundly untrue in the rich people's world.For them , the time taken for DIY is the measure of failure as that time is more valuable for them than the high end products price on specialized store.Plus you can rarely beat the high end design and you can never beat the "branding"
Please be specific about what you believe to be profoundly untrue about that statement. I suspect that you've misunderstood something.
No I only use stuff I designed myself. Believe it or not, about 2 years ago when I moved I gave away most of it. Half a dozen amps, couple of preamps (OK, not mine, but heavily modified), speakers, a quartet of subs, even the rack.
Minimalist is good!
Jan
I built Sam's op amp in the the old pro 2520 format pinout. I have found it to be outstanding for audio applications. I have just ordered the parts to build several more to experiment with.
The money have different value for different people.Some people don't see the money, they see the thing's value in making other money .
Buy the AES journal paper and read it! This circuit is an amazing piece of engineering, particularly the one-off, purpose built, software that authors Groner et al created, themselves, to find the optimum value of frequency compensation components UNDER CONSTRAINTS that they supplied. Bravissimo! Having programmed a few constrained optimization problems myself, I appreciate the enormous difficulty of the task. Luckily computers are cheaper and faster today than when Roger Fletcher and M.J.D. Powell published the first almost-practical algorithms.
Or put a diode across the feedback resistor in an opamp gain stage. That'll create gobs of second order harmonic distortion. With some tweaking, you can make it sound quite tube-like. It'll certainly sound different than any clean amplifier stage.
Tom
Not really, your comment borders on insulting why not let the schools of though live apart peacefully.