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How far have ss amps really come in the last twenty years??

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solderdude

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I would like to add that buying stuff like the RME DAC2 also has other benefits than pleasure of ownership.
Knowing it is well build/quality stuff helps already but format support, various input/output options, specific DSP and other functionality is not found in your run of the mill nor high-end DACs + it has a good ADC.
 

Thomas savage

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This may sound silly but I see no inherent contradiction between objectivism and subjectivism in audio.

I think that it is clear that the performance of audio equipment is best demonstrated by measurement. Especially for the parts of the chain before the speakers. Speakers can also be measured of course but their actual performance in the home is also largely determined by set up and room interactions (although now there are very good DSP packages to help people optimize speakers). So I don't think there is any rational argument against objective evaluation.

However, I also think that if people are happy with a particular item or system then whether or not it measures well is moot. Usually on audio forums this line of argument is used by golden eared types to advocate high end boutique gear and stuff like cables but I look at it from the other direction. Once a product achieves transparency then further improvement is technically interesting but unlikely to alter the listening experience. And even if it isn't transparent there is an area of performance where there are discernible audible improvements to be found but which is still satisfying. To be happy with audio equipment does not require it to be state of the art but to facilitate enjoyment without feeling that the experience is constrained by the equipment. Hence the value of accompanying objectivism with subjectivism. To put it another way, yes, accept that measurement is truth but don't fall into the trap of chasing the rainbow if you are happy with what you've got or spend more than you need to if a lesser item meets your needs or expectations.

Conversely the fact that something is audibly no better than a much cheaper alternative does not mean that it is not attractive. I honestly believe that transparent performance in DACs is available for peanuts and that for most purposes on board DACs are fine unless really badly implemented. I also see no reason to go beyond the JDS Atom for a headphone amp if only considering SQ. But, I do understand why people buy stuff like RME and Benchmark as pleasure of ownership is a legitimate driver and there is a satisfaction in knowing you have something which is engineered to such a high standard.

Style, finish and tactile feel all make a difference to how we feel about a product and those are subjective qualities.

So, I really believe that objectivism and subjectivism both have their place. What I do hate is golden eared objectivism trying to hype expensive products as sounding better if not supported by measurement or in denial of mediocre measurement.
This actually sums up where ( I hope ) we are as a forum , it's certainly what I tried to impart from the start.
 

Wombat

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cjfrbw

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Romy's favorite word is 'moron' and he has a hundred different ways to let you know that you are it and he is NOT! His vitriol wading into the self anointed grandees on the blogs is pretty funny, though.
 

svart-hvitt

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This discussion is not only about SOTA, is it? The point is, it makes sense to see how one producer has evolved over time because this producer has had the same restrictions over the entire period. This line of thinking is why statisticians use terms like «same store sales» and «year on year» etc. to control for non-organic growth and seasonalities.

So given certain restrictions (budget being the most important), it seems like amplifiers have shed over 80 percent of their weight while specifications have increased in the process. I guess the same picture would appear if you could hold SOTA products up against each other in the past 2-3 decades.

@andreasmaaan ,

Just adding to my previous answer:

Many would agree that many recordings from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s surpass the quality of modern recordings.

Isn’t it strange, then, that people were able to make such good recordings on bulky equipment that measure mediocre at best compared to today’s technical SOTA gear?

Maybe the sound engineers of the 1960s made recordings waiting to shine in 2019, while recordings of 2019 better be played back on 1960s gear?

Or could it just be that even ASR’s objective focus leads us astray, on a path to gear that measure good for no other reason than measuring good?
 
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solderdude

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Consider that the equipment used was already good enough ?
Power amplifiers differ substantially from line and mic level equipment though.

Back in the days there weren't many DSP effects and other crap sound engineers unleash onto us which also does not increase fidelity in general when it comes to faithful reproduction.
 

Cosmik

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Many would agree that many recordings from the 1960, 1970 and 1980 surpass the quality of modern recordings.

Isn’t it strange, then, that people were able to make such good recording on bulky equipment that measure mediocre at best compared to today’s technical SOTA gear?

Maybe the sound engineers of the 1960s made recordings waiting to shine in 2019, while recordings of 2019 better be played back on 1960s gear?

Or could it just be that even ASR’s objective focus leads us astray, on a path to gear that measure good for no other reason than measuring good?
Big difference between recording and playback - and related to my previous comment: When recording, the sources are often given their own individual mics, feeds, channels through the mixer. Harmonic distortion will, literally do what it says on the tin (or get closer anyway), and not be offensive. The composite signal need only come together at the output stage.

Playback always requires the composite mix to be passed through the equipment, and so distortion, phase shifts, frequency response errors etc. are applied to the whole mix, highlighting problems that would not be apparent on isolated feeds.

And some purists may dispute the quality of some of the older recordings that were, possibly, by today's standards over-produced by 'spotlighting', gain riding etc. but which, nevertheless overcame the problems in the equipment of the time.
 
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BDWoody

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For me the important dysfunctional idea to get away from was that if I just spent more on the latest miracle gear I could finally reach audio nirvana.

On the other other hand, what matters at the end of the day is whether my gear actually makes music enjoyable to listen to. But that info is about as useful as how attractive I find my wife is or how smart I think my kids are.

I always thought your wife was hot...
 

Cosmik

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Perhaps it is worth noting that active speakers also perform this splitting of the signal into separate 'feeds' thus avoiding some of the intermodulation distortion that would otherwise be produced by the amp - and they also, of course, much reduce the stresses on the amp(s) compared to an amp driving a passive crossover and all the drivers together.

Stereo is also a way of splitting the signal into separate feeds. In the early days, hard-panned stereo was the first time that many people had heard recorded sources that weren't intermodulating in the amp and speaker. That alone was one reason why stereo sounded so 'clean' compared to what had gone before.
 

Wombat

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How far have they come? From far away China, mostly. ;)
 
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MattHooper

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The Premier 12 looks pretty similar to the one I linked, with a higher output impedance. The Eico looks quite colorful. Impressive scale on the tone controls. All three have relatively high bass distortion, the Eico especially. If you like the sound these amps are giving you, I can see why you would feel something is missing with most Solid State designs. Maybe there's a harmonic distortion EQ you could engage to emulate the tube performance in an SS amp but fine tuning that curve vs. output (since the distortion varies with power and frequency) sounds like a nightmare.

What speakers do you use? Is this only two channel and music or is it also put to use for home theater purposes?

I currently use them on a variety of speakers. I just sold my Thiel 3.7s - Jim Thiel's last flagship speaker - and believe it or not I actually loved how they sounded when I occasionally substituted the tiny 14W Eico amp (I don't tend to play music really loud). Currently using the slightly smaller Thiel 2.7s, a bit less sensitive, probably similar impedance characteristics. Also, Spendor S3/5s, an older pair of Thiel 02s, Waveform Mach MC monitors, Hales Transcendence monitors. I've used the amps on a large variety of speakers at home, including floor standing speakers like Von Scheikert VR 4 Gen2, Hales Transcendence 5, various Audio Physic speakers, bigger Thiel speakers (CS6), and many others.

The reason I have stuck with the Premier 12s is that they seem to give some of that "tube sound" I like, but with very little penalty in the bass region.
That is, bass doesn't get all flubby, loose - every speaker I've ever used on them, no matter how demanding the load, has given me taught, well controlled bass, even if the sound over-all is a tiny bit thickened.

AND I used both those amps on my MBL 121 Radialstrahler! These are quite a demanding speaker, similar specs to the bigger models at 81dB sensitivity, and as Atkinson wrote in his measurements of the big model "demand a good, high-powered amplifier rated at 4 ohms to give of its best, especially as there is a current-hungry combination of 3.8 ohms and –51° electrical phase angle at 37Hz."

So, going on specs and the recommendations of the typical objectivity-accuracy oriented audiophile/engineer, you would not go using an underpowered, reactive amp like the Eico 81. And yet, I tried it and it proved to be my favorite combination. The sound retains a sense of brilliance and aliveness, yet thickens a bit more making it sound bigger and richer, and the bass I think is less controlled by the Eico - but the subjective effect isn't an obvious "sloppiness" but rather it sounds like the bass is richer and goes deeper - it makes the little speaker sound even bigger then it normally does.

Fun stuff. (At least, to me).
 

MattHooper

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My previous post about using technically less accurate amps gets me thinking:

These are the types of experiences that keep me with a foot in the "subjectivist" side. NOT in the sense of buying in to all the bad, technically unsound arguments given by subjectivists, including their rejection of science, and dismissal of blind testing - I think my posts show they drive me nuts too. But rather in the sense that for me, when it comes to actual audible differences, I need to have the right subjective experience over whatever technical claims are made for a product. I've enjoyed a number of products that would never have seen the light of day had many in the 'objectivist" community been running the show, as in "no competent designer would EVER have designed that!"

Measurements are clearly incredibly valuable - they give us more knowledge and knowledge is power. But at least for me, my technical knowledge is limited and, honestly, I want to spend more time in other areas than becoming an EE so that I can read and understand every technical spec and it's implications.

At this point I can not predict solely on measurements what speaker I will enjoy upon hearing it. When I look at the measurements of speakers I've really liked, they are all over the map - from really neutral and very much in keeping with what a Floyd Toole would recommend, to those that deviate quite a bit.

Now the immediate response to that could be: Well, that just shows the unreliability of sighted listening! You can't know what you like in sighted listening. But of course I can: I'm the one who can tell you what I like in sighted listening, just as I'm the one who would be telling you what I like in a blind test. It may be the case that the sighted evaluations would not predict what I like in blind testing (e.g. maybe I'd pick a Revel speaker over one that I liked in my own sighted auditions). But that could be flipped around as well: does the blind test predict what I'd like in sighted evaluations? Given sighted evaluations are how I listen to my system, even if bias of some sort plays a role in "how they seem to sound to me" - maybe I should allow that to factor in. In this sense, the knowledge gained in blind testing is valuable for determining if it's just the sound I prefer or not, but it's not necessarily indicative of which speaker I should buy.

Anyway, this is another reason why I still actually value subjective audio writing. If I took only the viewpoints of many obectivists, I would never have considered certain products. But upon reading what seems like a consistent description of a product's sound (e.g. speaker) across various reviewers and owners, I find myself thinking "that's describing the type of qualities I am looking for, that I think I'd like." And indeed some products do sound just like the reviewers described, and I did indeed enjoy the sound very much. Something that I can not yet predict, myself, via measurements.
 

SIY

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Now the immediate response to that could be: Well, that just shows the unreliability of sighted listening! You can't know what you like in sighted listening.

Making claims about the sound with sighted listening is the issue, not your sighted preference.
 

MattHooper

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Making claims about the sound with sighted listening is the issue, not your sighted preference.

Yes I can see that seems at first blush a good way of putting it.

But I don't think it actually gets to one of the points I was making.

The sighted bias *causes* a change in the perception of the sound. That is what purportedly makes sighted tests unreliable.

So the subjective impression of the sound IS being correctly reported in the sighted test. Even if, for instance, it is not accurately correlating with what measurements would tell us.

The blind testing helps us unravel the variables. So you could find that in a sighted evaluation you preferred the sound of Speaker A over Speaker B, but in the blind test you preferred speaker B,. That can indicate that whatever caused you to prefer Speaker A in the sighted test, it wasn't due strictly to the sound. Some other factors where influencing the impression you had. But, nonetheless, those other factors DID influence "how it seemed to sound" to you.

And if you consistently preferred speaker A in the sighted tests, maybe that's something you can reasonably factoring in to buying it, given you'll be using it in sighted conditions. The blind tests give more knowledge, but don't have to be decisive in the choice of the speaker, other things considered. (Of course some people CAN decide the blind test is decisive, given their criteria and desires, which of course makes sense).

I have used blind testing to help me decide where I want to spend money in some cases - e.g. I won't be buying an audiophile power cable any time soon. In certain other cases, I'm ok with allowing that I don't have total confidence that bias isn't playing a role, but I don't mind, so long as I'm not making objectively incorrect claims. As to speakers, I find speaker measurements enlightening to a degree, but not decisive in terms of determining the decision on which speaker I like or will purchase.
 

wynpalmer

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Objectivists should read this article from DIY audio about Hovland and it's products. It's pretty funny. I really enjoy the lady who determines the strict polarity of resistors by holding them to her chest while listening to a transistor radio through headphones. The 'tube dowser'/'transformer dowser' was pretty priceless, too.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubes-valves/227913-time-hovland-hp-100-lore.html

Stereophile gave the HP 100 a rave review, and even had reasonable measurements from the review sample. How, I don't know.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/hovland-hp-100-preamplifier-measurements-part-2

Word I heard was the preamp's 'secret sauce' was a final JFET output connected to a special ringing metal capacitor that produced second order harmonics. However, that's from memory, so I don't know exactly how the circuit operated.

I actually have an HP100. An interesting exercise that I've recently performed is to ABX the output of the Hovland sourced from an RME ADI-2 PRO FS vs the direct output from the PRO FS. The outputs can be level matched to within about 0.25dB with a bit of messing about as the Hovland has a c. 2dB/step volume control with 14dB of gain, and the RME can be adjusted in 0.5dB steps.
The two outputs are quite distinguishable in an ABX test despite the Hovland output having a measured -3dB point of about 200kHz.
I have no idea what the harmonic distortion is like, but the Hovland line stage consists of three minimal design tube gain stages with a 4:1 resistor attenuator in between and an N-FET buffer output with an equivalent c.1k series R and, if I remember correctly, a tantalum bead cap.
Somehow, with some music, the Hovland sounds subjectively better than the RME source.
The power amp I used for this is a Benchmark AHB2 driving a pair of Martin Logan Montis.
 
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SIY

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Yes I can see that seems at first blush a good way of putting it.

But I don't think it actually gets to one of the points I was making.

The sighted bias *causes* a change in the perception of the sound. That is what purportedly makes sighted tests unreliable.

So the subjective impression of the sound IS being correctly reported in the sighted test. Even if, for instance, it is not accurately correlating with what measurements would tell us.

The blind testing helps us unravel the variables. So you could find that in a sighted evaluation you preferred the sound of Speaker A over Speaker B, but in the blind test you preferred speaker B,. That can indicate that whatever caused you to prefer Speaker A in the sighted test, it wasn't due strictly to the sound. Some other factors where influencing the impression you had. But, nonetheless, those other factors DID influence "how it seemed to sound" to you.

And if you consistently preferred speaker A in the sighted tests, maybe that's something you can reasonably factoring in to buying it, given you'll be using it in sighted conditions. The blind tests give more knowledge, but don't have to be decisive in the choice of the speaker, other things considered. (Of course some people CAN decide the blind test is decisive, given their criteria and desires, which of course makes sense).

I have used blind testing to help me decide where I want to spend money in some cases - e.g. I won't be buying an audiophile power cable any time soon. In certain other cases, I'm ok with allowing that I don't have total confidence that bias isn't playing a role, but I don't mind, so long as I'm not making objectively incorrect claims. As to speakers, I find speaker measurements enlightening to a degree, but not decisive in terms of determining the decision on which speaker I like or will purchase.


Again, if you're peeking, then you can't legitimately say anything about the sound. Sound is evaluated by ears, not eyes. This is VERY different than customer satisfaction, which incorporates other variables.
 

pkane

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That can indicate that whatever caused you to prefer Speaker A in the sighted test, it wasn't due strictly to the sound. Some other factors where influencing the impression you had. But, nonetheless, those other factors DID influence "how it seemed to sound" to you.

Factors that can influence sighted testing: price, color, weight, marketing, magazine reviews, food you ate earlier, difficult day at work, weather conditions, your mood, your wife's mood, etc.

Sure, you can use all of these to help pick a speaker that you prefer. Or, you can pick it based on qualities that matter, like the ability to reproduce sound. Totally your choice ;)
 
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