Erm, I can't help, but don't these words resemble plain snake oil advertising?
Best regards!
Best regards!
For a great number of participants the magic of valves lay in a "more than real" reproduction of a recording. There is nothing wrong with that conception, as is with the pick of connection cables. On the other hand for most participants on this forum it is the THD number that dictates the success of the actual build.
At the end what matters most is to accept the compromise of a less than perfect reproduction, either from a source or loudspeakers or an amplifier as there is much satisfaction in getting your hands dirty and build your own. Just live with it and be happy
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The way it´s written this is an Ad, pure and simple, and should be in the Vendor area of the Forum.
And to boot includes all the snake oil words and then some.
FWIW "intactaudio" SELLS these very same transformers so praised in this so called "review" so it can´t be taken at face value "as if" it were a bona fide Member post.
As I'm well into tube technology and have designed and built much more tube amplifiers than SS ones, I clearly see and understand the magic that lays within them. But I'm more than sceptic with snake oil babble words like those in post #1.
Best regards!
If someone is enthusiastic about a DIY amp and especially a single part of it, why not write an enthusiastic review? I like nickel transformers, too. But I see, its always the summary of the parts that make or break the sound, never a single item.
Btw, I've build tube amps since 30 years but never measured THD. For what should I do this? I choose operating points from the data sheets of each tube, sometimes choose the OP points they advise to use and then listen to the amp and tweak a bit here and there. Listening is more important than measuring for me. Because I have no contest to win, no client to build for, no customer to satisfy. Its my own amp, and it has to sound superior. Nothing more and nothing less. I know of enough amps with good measurements which sound awfull. So I never wanted to choose that route.
Btw, I've build tube amps since 30 years but never measured THD. For what should I do this? I choose operating points from the data sheets of each tube, sometimes choose the OP points they advise to use and then listen to the amp and tweak a bit here and there. Listening is more important than measuring for me. Because I have no contest to win, no client to build for, no customer to satisfy. Its my own amp, and it has to sound superior. Nothing more and nothing less. I know of enough amps with good measurements which sound awfull. So I never wanted to choose that route.
Please express your own opinion. These issues are not decided by majority voting.
Bangpuku pointed me here and I want to be clear he is a happy customer and posted his honest assessment. I think it is insulting to both him (and me by extension) to insinuate anything nefarious is happening here. I did not ask or encourage him to post here and if enthusiastic prose is not your cup of tea then don't drink it.
dave
Enthusiastic, maybe. The vast majority of words in posting #1 are highly subjective, though, and may have never been proven by hard facts. The just resemble snake oil marketing babble, nothing else. Most probably they'll never be proven at all. Where's the proof that nickel (whatever is meant by that: An alloy? The pure metal?) is better (whatever that means…) than, say, GOSS? Are there any reliable data or measurements to document this?
If an amplifier with good to excellent data doesn't sound good to you, you might be after an effects device rather than high fidelity reproduction. Well, that's up to you, I think.
Best regards!
Audio is always highly subjective, when it comes to listening.
You are comparing listening with measuring and most of the audio experts say that there are amps which measures the same but sounds different. Even the CEO of Audio Note makes this statement. So in the end, all whats there is to listen to a device in audio.
I like Nickel lams, because they give a good tone to the voice. Even Tamura makes that statement in their official audio transformer catalog. It was their aim in design, to give their permalloy transformers a good tone. The same is with Tango transformers. Read the reviews, they say it all. They have suceeded in this goal.
And furthermore, the audio component which acts like a piece of wire without doing anything to modify the sound has not been invented yet.
All I can say is, that most of those 0.000000001 percent distortion amps are sounding death boring to me. And thats the worst practical outcome of the so called super amps, weighting a ton and costing a fortune. When they sound so boring that only switching them off can ease that pain. Totally nonsense in terms of music reproduction, totally success in the goal of designing an amp with hyper specs.
So yes, I can make the statement that I'm after a sound producing machine. Something that adds and creates a special sound. Because everything does add and create its own sound. Even a straight piece of wire does. Every testing and comparing shows that. Even in the digital domain, wires sound different.
You must be very lazy or late not to have participated in those discussions. It has been discussed since the early 1970's and now we are at the point where one can make the statement that in audio, everything is audible but not everything is measurable. Its no false statement. But in 1970 we were at the stage when serious magazines wrote: "Do different LP record players can sound different?". And in the 1980's we were at the stage when the magazines wrote: "Can different digital CD players do sound different?" Everybody laughs today about those questions, but at their time it was a serious question and the technicians took all their great measurement gear to demonstrate that this could never happen. Two digital units that sound different. Its a joke in todays audio world.
You are comparing listening with measuring and most of the audio experts say that there are amps which measures the same but sounds different. Even the CEO of Audio Note makes this statement. So in the end, all whats there is to listen to a device in audio.
I like Nickel lams, because they give a good tone to the voice. Even Tamura makes that statement in their official audio transformer catalog. It was their aim in design, to give their permalloy transformers a good tone. The same is with Tango transformers. Read the reviews, they say it all. They have suceeded in this goal.
And furthermore, the audio component which acts like a piece of wire without doing anything to modify the sound has not been invented yet.
All I can say is, that most of those 0.000000001 percent distortion amps are sounding death boring to me. And thats the worst practical outcome of the so called super amps, weighting a ton and costing a fortune. When they sound so boring that only switching them off can ease that pain. Totally nonsense in terms of music reproduction, totally success in the goal of designing an amp with hyper specs.
So yes, I can make the statement that I'm after a sound producing machine. Something that adds and creates a special sound. Because everything does add and create its own sound. Even a straight piece of wire does. Every testing and comparing shows that. Even in the digital domain, wires sound different.
You must be very lazy or late not to have participated in those discussions. It has been discussed since the early 1970's and now we are at the point where one can make the statement that in audio, everything is audible but not everything is measurable. Its no false statement. But in 1970 we were at the stage when serious magazines wrote: "Do different LP record players can sound different?". And in the 1980's we were at the stage when the magazines wrote: "Can different digital CD players do sound different?" Everybody laughs today about those questions, but at their time it was a serious question and the technicians took all their great measurement gear to demonstrate that this could never happen. Two digital units that sound different. Its a joke in todays audio world.
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Because its true nature is subjective. Thats why everyone tries to create objective data about gears. But everyone knows from statistics, that you should only trust those statistic, that yourself have manipulated. Never trust any other. And all those measurements are based on simplified physical mathematical models that try to depict the reality but never even come close to it.
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I guess all I can say is that I'm quite a bit more optimistic about our ability to discern what is most likely true despite having an imperfect subjective reality that only really exists in our head as our reference point.
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