About design philosophy _ are minimalists right or not ?

[gino1961]

Hi
I apologize in advance for a question that might seem a little confused (like i am)
Let me start by saying that I agree on the paramount importance of measurements in the sense that if a component measures well it cannot sound bad
Perhaps it can be conceded that something measuring so-so sounds pleasant
I'll get to the point. I'm a bit obsessed with line preamplifiers. I have read tests, downloaded diagrams, and listened to many units during years.
One thing I noticed is the extreme difference in the level of complexity of the circuitry.
I have seen circuits with only one active component per channel and others with 20 or more that perform the same function in practice.
I would like to understand in practice whether the so-called circuit minimalism is a valuable design approach and those who complicate it are wrong or minimalism has limits that cannot be overcome and complexity is, let's say, a necessary evil.
How much the following principle is valid ?

KISS principle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

the KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided

To be more specific and talking about measurable performance I wonder if very low distortion and noise, the peculiar qualities of good sound, can be achieved also with very simple circuits.
I'm rather confused because often the simplest circuits, if done well, make a very favorable impression on listening.
Are those who complicate things that could be simple wrong ?

 

[Scytales]

To be more specific and talking about measurable performance I wonder if very low distortion and noise, the peculiar qualities of good sound, can be achieved also with very simple circuits.

It can. It all depends on the skills of the designer.

 

[DVDdoug]

You can build a very good basic "preamp" circuit with an op-amp and a few passive components. And an op-amp is more "foolproof" than discrete components.

A "line level" preamp with line-in and line-out, which is more of a buffer (and an attenuator with the volume turned-down) should be audibly transparent (except for tone controls).

In fact... Most modern electronics should be low-noise, low distortion, with flat frequency response.

 

[kemmler3D]

if a component measures well it cannot sound bad

Agree with the caveat that this is only true if the measurement in question actually could show the "bad sound" phenomenon you hear (assuming the bad sound actually exists.)

Are those who complicate things that could be simple wrong ?

"the proof of the pudding is in the eating". Or, "If it sounds good, it is good". Minimalism can be a good way to achieve a given design goal, but other approaches can be as good or better... it all depends on what the gear is designed to do, and not do.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I for a long time believed in the simple circuit. Built some myself for preamps. They can be good to excellent. But minimalism is really a misguided myth in audio. Really no reason for any modern preamp not to be op-amp based. That is simple functionally, but it hides some complexity inside the op-amp. Doesn't matter though, it is possible to have very low noise, very low distortion and a very wide bandwidth at rather low cost. Most of the cost will end up being in how fancy the case is made.

 

[gino1961]

It can. It all depends on the skills of the designer.

hi if i understand well you mean that is easier to get good performance from a more complex design than a basic one ?
i remember a comment from an expert who was analyzing a circuit of a line preamp
He was saying that even if the schema was very basic and with debatable design choices the unit provided excellent measured performance probably for the good choice of parts values and quality
Instead of going for the more complex option i would try to get the most from a basic schema
Imho optimizing a simple circuit should be easier than a complex one ? less variables

 

[gino1961]

You can build a very good basic "preamp" circuit with an op-amp and a few passive components. And an op-amp is more "foolproof" than discrete components.
A "line level" preamp with line-in and line-out, which is more of a buffer (and an attenuator with the volume turned-down) should be audibly transparent (except for tone controls).
In fact... Most modern electronics should be low-noise, low distortion, with flat frequency response.

Hi these are very important points Some designers have no problems with opamp while others avoid them even if their discrete designs fail to provide the same level of measured performance Strange

 

[tomtoo]

Reach the goal with minimal efford is great. Missing it is not so good.

 

[Vincent Kars]

Unfortunately we don't listen to philosophies, we listen to implementations. Just like we don't listen to marketing blurb.
But if you believe in the philosophy (or the marketing blurb), you sure will hear the tremendous difference.

 

[gino1961]

Agree with the caveat that this is only true if the measurement in question actually could show the "bad sound" phenomenon you hear (assuming the bad sound actually exists.)
"the proof of the pudding is in the eating". Or, "If it sounds good, it is good". Minimalism can be a good way to achieve a given design goal, but other approaches can be as good or better... it all depends on what the gear is designed to do, and not do.

hi very interesting I started from the assumption that the design goals should be low noise low distortion and good linearity
are there others ?

 

[Sokel]

hi very interesting I started from the assumption that the design goals should be low noise low distortion and good linearity
are there others ?

For a good preamp?
Ability to mix and match I/O without penalties,balanced in-unbalanced out for example.
Ability not only to attenuate but to also amplify.
Makes sure no impedance mismatches.
A good number of I/O.
And more as we go up.

 

[gino1961]

I for a long time believed in the simple circuit. Built some myself for preamps. They can be good to excellent. But minimalism is really a misguided myth in audio. Really no reason for any modern preamp not to be op-amp based. That is simple functionally, but it hides some complexity inside the op-amp. Doesn't matter though, it is possible to have very low noise, very low distortion and a very wide bandwidth at rather low cost. Most of the cost will end up being in how fancy the case is made.

hi yes i see the point An opamp is everything but minimalist containing a lot of transistors From the web

The standard 741 Op-amp circuit contains 20 transistors and 11 resistors

Honestly i have always been fascinated more by discrete designs I would love to see more line stages with very few active parts still providing excellent performance Instead this is rarely the case

 

[gino1961]

Unfortunately we don't listen to philosophies, we listen to implementations. Just like we don't listen to marketing blurb.
But if you believe in the philosophy (or the marketing blurb), you sure will hear the tremendous difference.

hi personally i believe only on measurements because they are objective
Noise is bad distortion is bad a warped square wave is bad Mine was just a general question
If excellent performance can be achieved with a small number of parts why take the complexity route
this should be justified with some kind of improved figures

 

[1st.Virtual.Me]

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Albert Einstein

 

[Scytales]

Honestly i have always been fascinated more by discrete designs I would love to see more line stages with very few active parts still providing excellent performance Instead this is rarely the case

It's more common than you think and it doesn't have to be expensive. But we must not confuse the goal with the means. As Bruno Putzeys once said : "The Road to Hell: Specify the Design, Accept the Performance. The Road to Heaven: Specify the Performance, Accept the Design. "

 

[Blumlein 88]

hi yes i see the point An opamp is everything but minimalist containing a lot of transistors From the web

Honestly i have always been fascinated more by discrete designs I would love to see more line stages with very few active parts still providing excellent performance Instead this is rarely the case

But why do you want discrete simple line stages? I get the fascination and the implied philosophy. But if what you really want is performance, it is irrelevant. You asked if there are other things than linearity, distortion and low noise. I would add frequency response and beyond that there is nothing in the sound such a unit manages. I've built some simple preamps with 3 transistors. They were good, but so are some op amps. An LM4562 or OPA 891 is probably beyond reproach for an audio line level preamp.

Audio Research famous for their vacuum tube preamps, when they finally made a SS model in the 1980's had a few of what they called Analog Gain Modules. Some super great design by them. Many assumed it was a high quality discrete FET design. Nope, they had some good OP amps potted in epoxy to obscure that fact and put covers over that to make it look more substantial than it was. I think they used NE 5532 op amps, but might remember that wrong. I know if the gain modules go bad knowledgable people replace them with LM4562 op amps.

 

[MattHooper]

I don't know enough about electronics to have an informed opinion.

But my own skepticism about this long-in-the-tooth audiophile claim that "simple paths are better" were formed pretty early on. For instance, we know you can find people manufacturing certain types of speakers on the principle of "removing as much possible between the path of the amp and the drivers"...so minimzing crossover parts etc. Every part is purported to get in between you and the musical signal, add veiling/distortion etc, and the simpler the design the "more you will hear."

On the other hand there were speaker designers like Jim Thiel who felt that was mostly nonsense and that good engineering was good engineering however it shakes out in the results, and his own approach necessitated more parts, and complicated crossovers, than the average speaker. The results to my ear were every bit as "transparent/detailed" sounding as the minimalist designs. (I'm also thinking of other designs, like the Waveform Mach 17 which was tri-amped and more complicated than your average lowther-based minimalist speaker, but the Waveform speakers were resolution/detail monsters).

So just on subjective familiarity with various designs I felt I had reason to doubt the claims of minimalism. Likewise for electronics, clearly knowledgeable manufacturers like Benchmark have given very reasonable arguments against the assumption of minimalism in amplification design.

(Not to mention: I've owned gear and still do, like my CJ preamp, and a lot of the CJ marketing speak there concerns minimizing the signal path. Sounds great to my ears, but not as transparent either sonically or measurably vs my Benchmark preamp).

 

[kemmler3D]

I don't know enough about electronics to have an informed opinion.

But my own skepticism about this long-in-the-tooth audiophile claim that "simple paths are better" were formed pretty early on. For instance, we know you can find people manufacturing certain types of speakers on the principle of "removing as much possible between the path of the amp and the drivers"...so minimzing crossover parts etc. Every part is purported to get in between you and the musical signal, add veiling/distortion etc, and the simpler the design the "more you will hear."

On the other hand there were speaker designers like Jim Thiel who felt that was mostly nonsense and that good engineering was good engineering however it shakes out in the results, and his own approach necessitated more parts, and complicated crossovers, than the average speaker. The results to my ear were every bit as "transparent/detailed" sounding as the minimalist designs. (I'm also thinking of other designs, like the Waveform Mach 17 which was tri-amped and more complicated than your average lowther-based minimalist speaker, but the Waveform speakers were resolution/detail monsters).

So just on subjective familiarity with various designs I felt I had reason to doubt the claims of minimalism. Likewise for electronics, clearly knowledgeable manufacturers like Benchmark have given very reasonable arguments against the assumption of minimalism in amplification design.

(Not to mention: I've owned gear and still do, like my CJ preamp, and a lot of the CJ marketing speak there concerns minimizing the signal path. Sounds great to my ears, but not as transparent either sonically or measurably vs my Benchmark preamp).

To this point, you could say that a design with more functions has more opportunities for errors, so if you're not confident of the designer's engineering capabilities or manufacturing process, simpler could be better. And more parts is more potential points of failure.

But if you're not feeling shaky about the product in that regard... I think we should care about the output a lot more than how the output got there.

 

[Keith_W]

On the other hand there were speaker designers like Jim Thiel who felt that was mostly nonsense and that good engineering was good engineering however it shakes out in the results, and his own approach necessitated more parts, and complicated crossovers, than the average speaker. The results to my ear were every bit as "transparent/detailed" sounding as the minimalist designs. (I'm also thinking of other designs, like the Waveform Mach 17 which was tri-amped and more complicated than your average lowther-based minimalist speaker, but the Waveform speakers were resolution/detail monsters).

A complex crossover is a different animal to a complex amplifier circuit though. Every component you add to a passive XO wastes more amplifier power and turns it into heat. When we are talking about those crazy gargantuan Class A amps that cost a lot of money to buy and waste a lot of electricity to produce each Watt ... each Watt is precious. So I can see why a simpler XO would be beneficial.

 

[EERecordist]

Go to the library and get Small-Signal Audio Design by Douglas Self or some of the books by Walter Jung. Both are longstanding Audio Engineering Society members who explain circuit design. There are tube design books too. In design there are always limits and tradeoffs. Today's audio-optimized op amps are a pretty exchangeable gain block with high input impedance, low output impedance, wide power supply range, high gain-bandwidth product, low noise, and low cost. Essentially they are a voltage-controlled current source. They gained a foothold in analog computers, then revolutionized low level audio.