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  1. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    Similar to my 1994 Adcom 5800. The orange distortion light comes on when distortion reaches 1% (well above distortion at max continuous power). I've seen it flicker once in the 31 years I've owned it, and that was while playing a dynamic range test track.
  2. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    Yes that modern car will be more practical, at least for a few years. To take the analogy further, do you think that new low mileage electric car will still be working 30 years from now? Almost certainly not. It relies too much on software and logic boards that will eventually be abandoned and...
  3. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    I like a big black box with nothing but an on/off button. Anything else is extraneous. Form should serve function. You called that "modern amp" but it depends on your definition of "modern". Mine is like that and is over 30 years old. And that style was at least 20 years old back when it was...
  4. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    Those pics remind me of a tube headphone amp I owned many years ago, the Wheatfield Audio HA-2 by Pete Millett. It was intended to drive high impedance cans like the HD-600 so it had no output transformer. When people use these amps, it's like driving a classic vintage car. You don't do it...
  5. MRC01

    Power amplifier tests with respect to FTC: 16 CFR Part 432 (July 5, 2024) requirements on output power claims

    To me, "continuous" can mean 2 different yet related things. (A) smoothly connected (as in a mathematically continuous function) and (B) uninterrupted. Neither of these necessarily implies forever, but over some defined interval in space or time.
  6. MRC01

    Power amplifier tests with respect to FTC: 16 CFR Part 432 (July 5, 2024) requirements on output power claims

    I think the term "continuous power" implies some kind of time window. But I don't think that window has to be forever. It should be appropriate to the application - whether cars or audio amps. I think most of the participants here agree on that in principle. The tricky part is quantifying it...
  7. MRC01

    Power amplifier tests with respect to FTC: 16 CFR Part 432 (July 5, 2024) requirements on output power claims

    Car and truck engines have mixed results when used in aviation and marine applications. Most were never designed to produce their max rated power continuously. The typical car engine uses only about 1/4 of its rated power continuously when cruising down the freeway and its full rated power only...
  8. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    If the can is labeled "fresh bait", they should still be alive ;)
  9. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    There is one key difference that may be relevant: how long can the amplifier sustain its rated "continuous" power? Some amplifiers cannot sustain it for more than a minute or two (or even less), making one wonder what the word "continuous" really means. Others can. The difference is all about...
  10. MRC01

    Older Amplifiers Better?

    Not really. Good amps from 30-40 years ago were clean enough to have distortion below audible thresholds, and much better than the speakers they are driving. It's hard to improve sound quality beyond that ;) Class D amps have improved and the good ones offer the same high sound quality with...
  11. MRC01

    Classical Instruments: Historical or Modern?

    The first time I heard Bach's Goldberg Variations played on harpsichord, it was a revelation to me. I've mentioned this before.
  12. MRC01

    Classical Instruments: Historical or Modern?

    This discussion made me think of a converse analogy, something like this:
  13. MRC01

    Focal scala for 9000$ worth it? Buying advice

    Some speakers age well. I bought my Magnepan 3.6/R new in July 2001. After 23+ years of daily use they still function and measure like new, meeting OEM specifications.
  14. MRC01

    Watches - Are These the Best of Times or Worst of Times?

    Most of the quartz watches I've owned over the years run 0.5 secs fast per day at room temperature. The mechanicals I've owned, I adjust them to "neutral" which means they run slightly fast or slow depending on their physical orientation with respect to Earth's gravitational field. For example...
  15. MRC01

    Watches - Are These the Best of Times or Worst of Times?

    Cheating! There's a purity and elegance of design in timepieces that don't rely on external references. Sounds like a TCXO, temperature compensated crystal oscillators, which drive the clocks in most of the DACs that we listen to every day. Otherwise known as OCXOs, oven controlled crystal...
  16. MRC01

    Vinyl/LP Needle Tracking Video

    This guy used an electron microscope to video a phono needle tracking an LP groove. I found the video fascinating, especially the method he used to capture this. PS: he describes other audio & video formats too!
  17. MRC01

    Watches - Are These the Best of Times or Worst of Times?

    IME that (quartz watch accuracy) mainly depends on temperature.
  18. MRC01

    Shouldn't we upgrade the 20-20 audible range ?!

    It's a bit oversimplifying to say dogs can hear better. Sure, they can hear higher frequencies than humans. But human low frequency hearing is better than dogs - and most other animals. Of course there is also amplitude sensitivity, and some dogs do beat humans there at least in the high...
  19. MRC01

    Do CD players sound different to each other?

    I thought the definition of "audiophile" is someone who uses music to listen to his audio system. Everyone else does the opposite. ;)
  20. MRC01

    Do CD players sound different to each other?

    Most CD players do sound "the same" at least when level matched in a proper system. But not all, and I can think of several reasons why: They tend to have different output levels, and even slight differences (less than 1dB) are perceptually detectable, so they sound different unless the...
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