Dan D’Agostino on measurements

[b1daly]

I wonder how much of this is a myth. I wonder whether these producers have ever evaluated the equipment under blind, level-matched conditions.

As someone who's been around Pro equipment all my working life, all the measurements I've seen or done myself indicate that things like mike amps are transparent, so wonder where this 'favour' come from other than the same place that Audiophiles' preferences come from.

I'm excluding specific effects processors as those are clearly intended to change the sound, and I can fully understand how some producers prefer one processor over another, whether for the sound created, or for ergonomics or both, but for items that are meant to be transparent, like mic amps, they generally are.

S.

There was a fascinating blinded mic preamp shootout Sound On Sound did which Included a range of preamps from cheap to pricy. The listeners had a hard time distinguishing them and to the extent there was a preference it tended towards the affordable options!

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/preamp-post-mortem

I‘ve used many preamps to record all sorts of things and my feeling has always been that some sound ‘better’ so this was yet another great reality check.

Mic preamps can be driven into distortion and in this they start to sound quite different, especially some tube preamps.

But there are some subtle distinctions in how ’non-transparent’ audio gear is used on the production side vs the reproduction side.

One issue is that when you are recording you have a whole chain starting with by far the most determinative factor which is the source. Next very important factor is the mic, but still much less important than the source. Every after that will at most provide subtle ‘color’ unless you are using obvious effects like distortion or delay effects.

So you never really know what is responsible for the sound you are getting. On occasion you might swap a component out, but at best you will have an intuition that a change in sound is for the better. AB testing is impossible in production environment which is why these ‘shootout’ experiments are so useful.

The other factor is that unless you are making some kind of purist recording of a live acoustic event the concept of ‘transparency’ is not very relevant in production. What you are really doing is blending a pallet of sounds into something that hopefully is meaningful to listeners. This involves countless choices and options. Different types of distortion is commonly used, and often require, to create the end product. It doesn’t matter if it is at the source (distorted guitar), mic, preamp, special box, converter, DSP. Often distortion Is applied to the whole mix.

Where hopefully you do have some transparency is in the studio monitoring so you can hear your signal. And then you hope the playback system has some level of transparency, enough so at least the gist of the mix comes through.

This is part Floyd Toole’s mission, to improve transparency on the speakers on both ends of the playback.

And why attempts to introduce deliberate ’coloring’ or ‘sound signatures’ in amps is a waste. Whether or not a specific type of distortion is ’flattering’ to a signal is highly dependent on that signal. In mastering people sometimes use distortion but it is tailored by ear to that particular mix.

So any attempt to introduce ’color’ in a signal chain in a high end box will by necessity be ’subtle’ in other words cant effect the sound much. Because if it did, it renders the amp less useful as the distorted may or may not flatter the mix.

My guess is that people who claim to hear the effects of these small distortions are fooling themselves. For example, Nelson Pass describes that his customers tend to favor small amounts of certain kinds of distortion. This is some kind of shared delusion between him and his customers.

The other thing that moots this is that the vast majority of playback systems introduce much larger distortions at the speaker and room stage. So any subtle amp distortion is ’swamped’.

 

[sergeauckland]

Completely agree. Microphones sound different, and that can be seen from their frequency response and polar pattern, but probably more than that, the placement of microphones very much affects what they pick up and therefore what one hears.

As to mic amps clipping, yes indeed, and if any electronics is allowed to overload, then all bets are off as to what they'll sound like.

I also completely agree that 'transparency' is only really relevant to 'purist' acoustic recordings, and that is modified as mentioned, by microphone positioning. Anything involving electronic amplification or subsequent mixing/processing will create the sound, not be a reflection of what was being performed.

I've notice with my own recordings, which are generally completely unprocessed, no EQ, no compression, that when I play them at home they sound 'boring' compared with what had been broadcast through the Optimod and taken from our Off-Air logger. I see it as the audio equivalent of make-up for models and TV celebrities. They usually look a lot better on TV than when they went in to make-up.

S.

 

[b1daly]

Completely agree. Microphones sound different, and that can be seen from their frequency response and polar pattern, but probably more than that, the placement of microphones very much affects what they pick up and therefore what one hears.

As to mic amps clipping, yes indeed, and if any electronics is allowed to overload, then all bets are off as to what they'll sound like.

I also completely agree that 'transparency' is only really relevant to 'purist' acoustic recordings, and that is modified as mentioned, by microphone positioning. Anything involving electronic amplification or subsequent mixing/processing will create the sound, not be a reflection of what was being performed.

I've notice with my own recordings, which are generally completely unprocessed, no EQ, no compression, that when I play them at home they sound 'boring' compared with what was been broadcast through the Optimod and taken from our Off-Air logger. I see it as the audio equivalent of make-up for models and TV celebrities. They usually look a lot better on TV than when they went in to make-up.

S.

There is a major, glaring problem with the concept of purist hi-fi recording which is that playback level is almost different than the source recordings. (Usually quieter). If you record a nice acoustic source with a decent mic, then play it back on a decent system at about the same level as the original sound source then an unprocessed recording can sound pretty nice.

But playback at a low volume, coming out of smaller speakers that have qualities like point sources, that’s a very different story. The perceptual dynamic range you have to work with is a fraction of that experienced being a room with live music. This is especially compounded by noisy environments.

So at a minimum dynamics processed is required to get a recording that will present on modest playback systems.

Dynamics processing, compression, is the most important signal processing for audio production and just running a good live recording through some heavy compression can make a much more presentable source.

 

[MattHooper]

This post reminds me of pizza purists who declare that "The only authentic Pizza is X pizza" or "Pineapple should NEVER go on pizza!"

Anyway...forgive me for the following nitty-picky...

The problem with the perspective that Mr. D'Agostino expressed is the presumption that amplifiers ought to have any sound signature at all. In my opinion they should not. Amplifiers are not musical instruments, and should be talked about in a manner that suggests commonality with musical instruments. The output of an amplifier should be a perfectly linear replication of the input.

Except that people are different and have different criteria, tastes and goals. That includes for audio equipment as anything else. That includes designers of audio equipment and consumers. Your "ought" is not necessarily another person's "ought."

This perspective ought not need any justification, because it is manifest that otherwise there would be no assurance that what is heard through the speakers or headphones is faithful to what was recorded at the microphone. There are no two ways about it.

Actually there are plenty of ways about it. Because, again, there are people with different tastes and goals.
And so it DOES require justification. You may justify it for yourself, and others who share your goal, but not for others. Some people may like a bit of coloration (or even a lot). And between the microphone and the finished mix, there can be plenty of coloration added, of course.
As for amplifiers at the consumer end, again, some like coloration. For instance of the type brought by some tube amplification. And to argue what is "faithful" to the recording can go down the rabbit hole of "for what purpose?" which gets you to things like "the artists intent" which become murky pretty fast. And it brings in issues like "how much departure from neutral equates to 'not being faithful?" How much departure really matters in the big picture in terms of either "hearing what is on the source" or "getting the artists intent."

I don't have any big problem with that, however I will point out that there is a fundamental distinction between listening to make an assessment of how much distortion you can hear, vs. listening to find out whether the amplifier sounds the way that you like for amplifiers to sound.

Technically-minded people, who would advocate listening to an amplifier in order to assess how much distortion you can hear, do understand that an amplifier's job is to faithfully replicate the input signal. People who are not technically minded and who listen to amplifiers and talk about whether they like the sound of this amplifier better than the sound of this other amplifier, etc., generally do not quite understand that the job of an amplifier is to faithfully reproduce the input signal. They make it all too apparent that they just don't understand this essential, fundamental truth about amplifiers.

Or, you have not understood the fundamental truth that amplifiers like any other piece of gear only serve the purposes of people, and people vary in their purposes. Someone may well like a less-than-neutral tube amp (like me), and even seek this less-than-neutral sound. And given that goal, insofar as we are talking of amplifiers that truly can sound audibly different, it's perfectly reasonable to speak of those differences in any way that gets a point across. It seems perfectly valid to me to speak of certain tube amps as producing a "warmer, softer sound" relative to a neutral SS amp, in the same way one may think of the differences between different makes of instruments. That may not be your goal, but life's a box of chocolates.

Personally I'm very happy that many designers have persued neutrality and low distortion. I'm also happy that not everyone is thinking inside that box because that means there are other types of products that can suite my tastes, which would not otherwise exist if your view were adopted as The Only Goal There Ought To Be. Designers can design for neutrality for their own purposes, and for those who share that purpose. Others serve a different niche. As it should be.

 

[rdenney]

I recall the story of Bob Carver rising to the “Stereophile Challenge”, making his solid-state amplifier sound identical to their reference amplifier (a Conrad Johnson tube amp?) over a three day period, while locked in a hotel suite. He did it by wiring the amp outputs out of phase into a single speaker, so that only the difference was heard. He then adjusted his amp to eliminate the difference product. His first round reduced the differences to -30 dB (as I recall it), and the amps could still be identified in blind testing. His second round reduced it further to -60 dB, and the blind test forced them to conclude that he could indeed make his transistor amp sound identical to their reference high-grade tube amp.

Several points come to mind. One suspects that Carver walked in with an amp that would measure quite well. One also suspects that the reference amp did likewise. Yet there was a difference acknowledged in listening and measurements.

And one also learns that the threshold of difference at which experienced listeners can reliably distinguish two amps is between -30 and -60 dB, if I’m remembering those numbers correctly.

And is is clear the actual transparency was not the goal for one or both of those amps in their initial state, and Carver was not striving for transparency in the experiment.

It may be assumed that the goal of amp design is transparency, but I rather doubt that is really the case all that often.

In the photographic world, the theoretically “transparent” lens would have a modulation transfer function of 100% at any spatial frequency, less the limitations of diffraction. None do—lenses are apparently a bigger challenge than amps. The manner in which they do not is the distinction between them. But some lenses are particularly loved for their rendering of skin for portraits, for example. Those lenses often have a rather poor MTF compared to modern optimized lenses, particularly at wide apertures. Example: the classic Zeiss Sonnar 180mm/F2.8 medium-format lens versus, say, an excellent Pentax or Mamiya lens of similar spec. The latter will be sharper and more transparent. The Sonnar will make subjects look better.

Are some beloved amps like the Sonnar in that they make source material more desirable? That may be a reason subjectivists love them in spite of measurements.

I run parallel B&K Reference 125.2 amps each driving a pair of Advent NLAs in stacked arrangement. I suspect the amps are pretty transparent, but the speakers I’m sure are not. Their departure from transparency, however, seems to me generally favorable to music, particularly for less than ideal recordings. This is in the category of stuff we might love while acknowledging that it does not measure that well.

Rick “who has heard supposedly better stuff that made euphoniums sound like trombones” Denney

 

[MrPeabody]

Far easier to do that at the source.

This is the point that lots of people just don't get, and it is puzzling to me that they do not. Sound effects generation, whether it is an affect on tonality or even the introduction of a small amount of 2nd-harmonic distortion, do not belong in an amplifier. This is not the job of an amplifier. The job of a power amplifier is already difficult enough as is, being expected to faithfully replicate the input signal. Where it really gets incongruous is when people insist on having a separate power amplifier and at the same time think of the amplifier as a device that ought to have its own individual sound signature such that you would select one that sounds the way that you like for an amplifier to sound.

 

[MrPeabody]

No, I'm not in the market for a high end one myself. I just think that something additional like classic amp emulations would help high end manufacturers justify their high prices.

If classic amplifiers had different sounds, it has to be true that all of them (except possibly for one of them) altered the sound. You and I have very different notions of what an amplifier is for. I would not find it useful to have an amplifier that could replicate the distortion that various older amplifiers introduced. To me, the idea that this is something that would be thought desirable is just weird. Why would I want to hear the distortion that a bunch of old amplifiers introduced to the sound? I just don't get it. I want the sound that comes out of an amplifier to be exactly the same as the sound that went into the amplifier (in the form of an electronic signal), and as concerns old amplifiers where the sound that came out wasn't an especially good match to the sound that went in, I have no desire to hear this except maybe once to satisfy morbid curiosity. Certainly not on any ongoing basis. Clearly, you and I have fundamentally different concepts for what an amplifier is for.

 

[b1daly]

This post reminds me of pizza purists who declare that "The only authentic Pizza is X pizza" or "Pineapple should NEVER go on pizza!"

Anyway...forgive me for the following nitty-picky...



Except that people are different and have different criteria, tastes and goals. That includes for audio equipment as anything else. That includes designers of audio equipment and consumers. Your "ought" is not necessarily another person's "ought."




Actually there are plenty of ways about it. Because, again, there are people with different tastes and goals.
And so it DOES require justification. You may justify it for yourself, and others who share your goal, but not for others. Some people may like a bit of coloration (or even a lot). And between the microphone and the finished mix, there can be plenty of coloration added, of course.
As for amplifiers at the consumer end, again, some like coloration. For instance of the type brought by some tube amplification. And to argue what is "faithful" to the recording can go down the rabbit hole of "for what purpose?" which gets you to things like "the artists intent" which become murky pretty fast. And it brings in issues like "how much departure from neutral equates to 'not being faithful?" How much departure really matters in the big picture in terms of either "hearing what is on the source" or "getting the artists intent."






Or, you have not understood the fundamental truth that amplifiers like any other piece of gear only serve the purposes of people, and people vary in their purposes. Someone may well like a less-than-neutral tube amp (like me), and even seek this less-than-neutral sound. And given that goal, insofar as we are talking of amplifiers that truly can sound audibly different, it's perfectly reasonable to speak of those differences in any way that gets a point across. It seems perfectly valid to me to speak of certain tube amps as producing a "warmer, softer sound" relative to a neutral SS amp, in the same way one may think of the differences between different makes of instruments. That may not be your goal, but life's a box of chocolates.

Personally I'm very happy that many designers have persued neutrality and low distortion. I'm also happy that not everyone is thinking inside that box because that means there are other types of products that can suite my tastes, which would not otherwise exist if your view were adopted as The Only Goal There Ought To Be. Designers can design for neutrality for their own purposes, and for those who share that purpose. Others serve a different niche. As it should be.

I swear to God people not understanding the core issue that it is very hard to distinguish between amps unless one is majorly broken is driving me insane. The issue is not that you are wrong if you like an amp that is coloring the sound in some supposedly euphonic way. This is a subjective opinion and can’t be wrong.

What is wrong is that people are selling high priced amps with very modest, minute, levels of distortion that can’t even be percieved and telling customers that this will sound more ‘tube like’ or ‘airy’ or what have you. But in a blind test you will not be able to distinguish this fancy-pants amp from the supposedly ‘sterile, clinical’ amp.

So you are tripping if you fall for this nonsense and have been around any critical reasoning in audio at all.

If there is an audible difference in an amp it almost certainly in simple frequency response and can be emulated completely with EQ.

WTF.

How can there be such a lack of understanding of basic audio concepts among people who should know better?!!

 

[MrPeabody]

This post reminds me of pizza purists who declare that "The only authentic Pizza is X pizza" or "Pineapple should NEVER go on pizza!"
...
Except that people are different and have different criteria, tastes and goals. That includes for audio equipment as anything else. That includes designers of audio equipment and consumers. Your "ought" is not necessarily another person's "ought."
...
...
...

You are arguing that amplifiers ought to color the sound according to individual preference. I can only respond to this by saying that you and I have fundamentally different (and incompatible) ideas about what an amplifier is for. In my view of what an amplifier is for, any coloration of any sort is patently contrary to the purpose of the amplifier.

to argue what is "faithful" to the recording can go down the rabbit hole of "for what purpose?" which gets you to things like "the artists intent" which become murky pretty fast. And it brings in issues like "how much departure from neutral equates to 'not being faithful?" How much departure really matters in the big picture in terms of either "hearing what is on the source" or "getting the artists intent."

This makes no sense, and it is very easy to show that it doesn't. It is inarguably true that in order for the artist to have full control over what the listener hears, it is absolutely and fundamentally necessary for the amplifier to not color the sound. This couldn't be any more apparent, and yet you have argued the opposite.

It seems perfectly valid to me to speak of certain tube amps as producing a "warmer, softer sound" relative to a neutral SS amp, in the same way one may think of the differences between different makes of instruments. That may not be your goal, but life's a box of chocolates.

It comes down entirely to the question of whether you do or do not think it is desirable for an amplifier to distort the sound. I happen not to believe this. I've already explained why, and I shouldn't have bothered, because the reason is manifest to anyone who hasn't managed to get it all turned around the way you did.

Personally I'm very happy that many designers have persued neutrality and low distortion. I'm also happy that not everyone is thinking inside that box because that means there are other types of products that can suite my tastes, which would not otherwise exist if your view were adopted as The Only Goal There Ought To Be. Designers can design for neutrality for their own purposes, and for those who share that purpose. Others serve a different niche. As it should be.

You can use personal preference to argue most anything. For example, you could argue that there should be video monitors that mix up the colors in a certain way that you happen to prefer.

We might as well agree to disagree, but I think a truthful summarization is pertinent:

- I say that an amplifier should be as accurate as possible because I want the sound that comes out of the amplifier to be as faithful as possible to the sound that enters the amplifier in the form of an electrical signal, which is obviously a necessary condition that must be met in order that what I hear will be a faithful reproduction of what the artist recorded.

- You say that an amplifier shouldn't be as accurate as possible because it wouldn't sound the way you prefer for amplifiers to sound.

Please don't try to make it seem like anything other than this, or more complicated than this. This is all there is. This is what we disagree on.

 

[MattHooper]

I swear to God people not understanding the core issue that it is very hard to distinguish between amps unless one is majorly broken is driving me insane.

Unfortunately, I think that's the case because you have missed some people's point ;-)

Various points can be made in threads like these, and usually are.

The issue is not that you are wrong if you like an amp that is coloring the sound in some supposedly euphonic way. This is a subjective opinion and can’t be wrong.

Agreed, except we often enough see people writing here in a way that implies they are not giving subjective opinions but objective facts. E.g. "The Job of an amplifier is to be perfectly transparent, that's just a fact!" Which is actually a subjective opinion. It's often used to say "you may LIKE the sound of X but what it is doing is wrong."

So lots of assumptions get tangled up in these conversations.

What is wrong is that people are selling high priced amps with very modest, minute, levels of distortion that can’t even be percieved and telling customers that this will sound more ‘tube like’ or ‘airy’ or what have you. But in a blind test you will not be able to distinguish this fancy-pants amp from the supposedly ‘sterile, clinical’ amp.

So you are tripping if you fall for this nonsense and have been around any critical reasoning in audio at all.

If there is an audible difference in an amp it almost certainly in simple frequency response and can be emulated completely with EQ.

WTF.

How can there be such a lack of understanding of basic audio concepts among people who should know better?!!

The point you have missed is that a conversation has started in this thread about "why would someone want to choose an amplifier that AUDIBLY DEPARTS from neutral/transparent?"

This is the question raised by MrPeabody (and often others in this forum). And that's the point I'm addressing. We all know that amplifiers can be fairly easily designed to sound "the same" (audibly transparent) including tube amp designs. But for sake of argument we are talking about the cases where an amp, e.g. tube or whatever, audibly departs from neutral, and why would that appeal to anyone?

I'm unsure why you didn't perceive this, since you flirted with it in your previous statement here:

And why attempts to introduce deliberate ’coloring’ or ‘sound signatures’ in amps is a waste. Whether or not a specific type of distortion is ’flattering’ to a signal is highly dependent on that signal. In mastering people sometimes use distortion but it is tailored by ear to that particular mix.

So any attempt to introduce ’color’ in a signal chain in a high end box will by necessity be ’subtle’ in other words cant effect the sound much. Because if it did, it renders the amp less useful as the distorted may or may not flatter the mix.

So you say that one can introduce audible amp distortion - what we are talking about here - but then also claim that too much won't be "useful" because it won't "flatter the mix." Well, how am I supposed to accept that purely subjective claim? What doesn't "flatters the mix" may flatter the mix to someone else.

For example, the subtle (but to me significant) coloration from my tube amps, to me, flatter virtually all the sound that passes through my system. I've recently again been comparing my tube amps to a Bryston solid state amp, and there is virtually no track I've found of any genre where I preferred the SS amp. You may assess otherwise and prefer how my system sounds with the Bryston...but that' subjectivity for you.

*(Again: we need to be able to keep separate the issue of "whether an amp does indeed sound different" vs "Given audible differences, why would one choose a deviation from transparency?" And the point I've been speaking to is the latter).

 

[MrPeabody]

I recall the story of Bob Carver rising to the “Stereophile Challenge”, making his solid-state amplifier sound identical to their reference amplifier (a Conrad Johnson tube amp?) over a three day period, while locked in a hotel suite. He did it by wiring the amp outputs out of phase into a single speaker, so that only the difference was heard. He then adjusted his amp to eliminate the difference product. His first round reduced the differences to -30 dB (as I recall it), and the amps could still be identified in blind testing. His second round reduced it further to -60 dB, and the blind test forced them to conclude that he could indeed make his transistor amp sound identical to their reference high-grade tube amp.

I read this story before, including once very recently, and I like it as much this time as I have previously.

It may be assumed that the goal of amp design is transparency, but I rather doubt that is really the case all that often.

In the photographic world, the theoretically “transparent” lens would have a modulation transfer function of 100% at any spatial frequency, less the limitations of diffraction. None do—lenses are apparently a bigger challenge than amps. The manner in which they do not is the distinction between them. But some lenses are particularly loved for their rendering of skin for portraits, for example. Those lenses often have a rather poor MTF compared to modern optimized lenses, particularly at wide apertures. Example: the classic Zeiss Sonnar 180mm/F2.8 medium-format lens versus, say, an excellent Pentax or Mamiya lens of similar spec. The latter will be sharper and more transparent. The Sonnar will make subjects look better.

Are some beloved amps like the Sonnar in that they make source material more desirable? That may be a reason subjectivists love them in spite of measurements.

As you say, lenses are a bigger challenge than amps. The more important thing for me to point out is that the analogy you are trying to use is not a good analogy, at all. In fact it is a terrible analogy. A much better analogy would be between amplifiers and photocopiers.

I run parallel B&K Reference 125.2 amps each driving a pair of Advent NLAs in stacked arrangement. I suspect the amps are pretty transparent, but the speakers I’m sure are not. Their departure from transparency, however, seems to me generally favorable to music, particularly for less than ideal recordings. This is in the category of stuff we might love while acknowledging that it does not measure that well.

Rick “who has heard supposedly better stuff that made euphoniums sound like trombones” Denney

I bought a pair of NLA in the early '80s and kept them for twenty-five years. I loved them, but I always knew that they weren't exceptional except in terms of value. Something was always missing. If I still had them and if I also had a second pair that I could use to stack them one on the other, I would put the top one one right-side up (tweeter on top) and put the bottom one upside-down (woofer on top) and would disconnect the tweeter in the bottom one. Then I would replace the crossover in the bottom one with an easy-to-design and easy-to-build 2nd-order low-pass filter with cutoff point very low, around 50 Hz, maybe lower. And I would probably pad the woofer in the top one just a little bit, the effect of which would be equivalent to increasing the tweeter level just a little bit. I wouldn't be concerned with the loss of bass, because the other woofer will take care of that. If I had two pair of NLA, this is absolutely, positively what I would do, without delay.

 

[rdenney]

The point is that the objective you have for an amplifier may not be the designer’s objective at all. That is a question of design philosophy, not really a technical question at all. I think about engineering process (and also teach it) enough to emphasize the difference between objectives and tactics, and also the difference between objectives and performance measurements. Those are often confused. When objectives are not stated, the measurements—and often only those that are easy and available—become the objective.

I like the Advents as they are. They ask the tweeter and woofer both to do a lot of mid-ranging, and they roll off the top half of the top octave, which I can’t hear anyway. But instruments from bass drum to piccolo retain their characteristic sound, and I can’t say that about the speakers I’ve auditioned that fulfill my other requirements, including high SPL in some use cases, price, and residing on the high shelf where architecture and domestic harmony dictate they must go. I did replace the caps with audio-grade caps which transformed their sound.

Rick “that last line was a joke—you can laugh” Denney

 

[MattHooper]

You are arguing that amplifiers ought to color the sound according to individual preference.

No!

Or, at least, that is a potentially misleading way of putting it, insofar is it seems to imply I'm arguing that amplifiers 'ought' to be colored (and thus to preference instead of neutrality).

I'm saying audio gear is designed by and for people, and people can have different goals. Amplifiers OUGHT to be designed for sonic transparency where THAT IS THE GOAL. And it's clearly a very well justified goal (and one that has pushed progress on that front in the audio world). But *some* people may have a slightly different goal, where some degree of deviation is desired or enjoyed, and insofar as that satisfies a desire THAT TOO can be a rational goal. It may be a niche relative to the number of people who want transparency, but if it exists, it's not irrational, just a slightly different goal.

I work in pro sound. For most of us, for various reasons, we don't want audible distortion produced by the amplification so we choose decent solid state amplification.

But in my home 2 channel system I can relax some of the criteria and I have slightly different goals that tube amps satisfy.

This makes no sense, and it is very easy to show that it doesn't. It is inarguably true that in order for the artist to have full control over what the listener hears, it is absolutely and fundamentally necessary for the amplifier to not color the sound. This couldn't be any more apparent, and yet you have argued the opposite.

The artist never has "full control" over what the listener hears, and the listener virtually never has access to the precise equipment/room used in the recording. And yet, the communication between musician and listener has been successful for as long as there has been recorded sound.
Your flat out declaration just ignores all the variables. The average consumer system, even hobbiest, will involve various compromises, and in fact that is baked in to the problem.

Take someone who uses a tube amp that very slightly colors the sound, vs someone who is using very neutral speakers and SS amplification, but has those speakers in a very live room, the room adding all sorts of colorations. Does the person who chose the neutral speakers get to say "YOU have chosen to listen to inaccurate sound, whereas I have not!" ? No, because it may be that the amount of coloration added by their room is more than that added by the tube amplification. Bricks thrown in glass houses and all that.

Ok, but what of someone who is "accuracy obsessed." He has bought the most neutral amplification possible, neutral speakers, has gone to lengths to treat his room, added digital room correction where needed, so now he has a system that, to the degree possible, produces the least distortion of the *recorded signal on his source.*

Can that person now say "NOW I am listening to the music JUST AS THE ARTIST/MIXER heard it!"

No! At least not in the vast majority of recorded music. Because so much of the catalog of recorded music was produced in all sorts of equipment and listening rooms that depart from the one this person has set up. You will not be hearing Bowie's Let's Dance, Roxy Music's Avalon or countless other examples as they sounded on the less-than-neutral Yamaha NS10s they were mixed on! You've deviated from the 'original sound' heard in the mixing studio by the artist/mixers! Countless other examples of this abound.

So now what do you do? What was your goal? To reproduce Roxy Music's Avalon as they heard it in the studio? Fail. So...what do you do with all the music created in scenarios that you can not reproduce in your home - (you can't even know how much of the catalogue was produced!)?
Do you throw it out? Presumably: no. Presumably your goal, like most music listeners, isn't an impossible science experiment, but rather to enjoy music through your system. So you'll enjoy Avalon in any case because you like the music and it still sounds great on your system!
And that is is *generally* the desire of artists: that people enjoy their music, however they are listening to it.

So you necessarily get in to the weeds of *how much compromise/distortion is allowed and why?" How much does damage to the goal of connecting the listener to the art of the artist? For the reasons just given: that isn't an easy answer that anyone can just declare. People have connected with musical artists over many years, through countless versions of compromises between "exactly as the artist heard it" and their own sound system.

And that is exactly what I get from my system, even though I use tube amplification. The music sounds diverse, wonderful, just as it does with an SS amp. I get all the seemingly relevant artistic/production choices coming through. Who would you be to say this is "wrong?" Or that I am not getting the artists intent?

I'd also add: I've had numerous musician friends over to listen go both their finished recordings, and to compare their current choices of mastering, on my sound system. Even though there are some tubes in the mix, they LOVE hearing their music on my system because, generally, the sound is so "realistic" and compelling, and it also allows very fine distinctions in the mastering to be heard as well.

So, again, any transgressions from transparency/neutral can be discussed in the context of "To what degree? How important are those deviations and why? And what are the implications in regard to 'accuracy,' 'artist's intent,' etc.

We might as well agree to disagree, but I think a truthful summarization is pertinent:

- I say that an amplifier should be as accurate as possible because I want the sound that comes out of the amplifier to be as faithful as possible to the sound that enters the amplifier in the form of an electrical signal, which is obviously a necessary condition that must be met in order that what I hear will be a faithful reproduction of what the artist recorded.

- You say that an amplifier shouldn't be as accurate as possible because it wouldn't sound the way you prefer for amplifiers to sound.

Please don't try to make it seem like anything other than this, or more complicated than this. This is all there is. This is what we disagree on.

Again, you have characterized the subject in a way that is misleading, and which I've tried to clarify.

And, yes, it is more complicated than you imply, for reasons I've argued.

 

[MrPeabody]

Unfortunately, I think that's the case because you have missed some people's point ;-)

Agreed, except we often enough see people writing here in a way that implies they are not giving subjective opinions but objective facts. E.g. "The Job of an amplifier is to be perfectly transparent, that's just a fact!"

And that is a patently false representation of what has transpired here. Nowhere did I ever say "that's just a fact!", or anything quite like that.

Which is actually a subjective opinion. It's often used to say "you may LIKE the sound of X but what it is doing is wrong." So lots of assumptions get tangled up in these conversations.

Assumptions? What assumptions? I didn't make any assumptions, nor did I even use the word "wrong" in any way at all. Sheesh. Can we at least stick to being honest in our characterizations of what each other has said?

"why would someone want to choose an amplifier that AUDIBLY DEPARTS from neutral/transparent?" This is the question raised by MrPeabody (and often others in this forum).

That's much closer to an honest characterization of what I actually said, but there is still a difference in how I went about saying it and the way you've said it just now. But a fair and honest characterization nevertheless.

By the way, I basically agree with b1daly's point. If most all decent amplifiers don't sound identical, the differences are so minute in comparison to the differences among speakers that it doesn't make a lot of sense to fuss over amplifiers. (Except with respect to very basic considerations, power in particular, although even with respect to power I suspect that the amount of power that people think they need isn't rooted in reality.)

Of course I do think that the question of whether it is ideal for an amplifier to color sound is a meaningful question.

Mr. D'Agostino said things in the video that many people interpret to mean that all that matters is whether you like the sound of an amplifier, i.e., that if you like it, it does not matter whether it is accurate. The point I was making is simply that there is a very obvious, substantive, compelling reason why it DOES matter whether an amplifier is accurate. I explained the reason even though the reason is obvious. You made me explain it again, because in your response you made it clear that with respect to this reason, why it matters whether an amplifier is accurate, you are confused. I'm going to say it again: If there is to be assurance that what the listener hears is a faithful replication of what what the artist recorded, it is necessary for the amplifier to be accurate. But to be honest it makes me feel kind of silly to say this, because to me, it should be sufficient to say that if an amplifier is to produce a faithful replica of the signal presented to it, it has to be accurate. And again, this is just obvious. The only way that anyone could disagree with it is by way of arguing that a preference for avoidance of coloration of sound is itself a subjective preference. If I had wanted to argue what you argued, I would maybe have said just that. A preference for avoidance of coloration of sound is itself a subjective preference. I think you should consider putting this in your signature thingie.

 

[usersky]

I like what and how he says. He doesn't pursuit exactness of the sound and for what he seeks (goosebumps), he seems quite convincing. And yes, amplifiers that doesn't have to measure well can color sound in who-knows-what ways, including goosebumping (no idea, not enough money here to check).

 

[tomelex]

I find this to be a good thread and have enjoyed reading the thoughtful comments from all concerned. Since we have no idea of how the actual sound was when mastered, we are left here to reproduce the recording.

However,is there one kind of BBQ sauce that is the really the best, and we all can agree on it (never!) , given that one piece of steak, and you sample the steak plain, and you sample it with different sauces on the other bites, what if you prefer some sauce over just the original steak?

If you always reach for that sauce, while you are not technically getting the "unique" flavor of the virgin steak you grill every Saturday, you are allowed by all of us to love you some sauce dude.

Amplifiers, all have their own harmonic spray, and they are affected by their speaker loads in different ways, testing an amp on a resistor is just that, testing an amp on a resistor, good for comparing that one singular test, but not a fully comprehensive test though, and amplifier designers know that.

What Dan is saying ( and i forgive him but his old ears are not hearing everything his amp is doing, but he hears what he can hear as what it is doing) is that THD is not a good indicator of how his amp will sound, and he is also saying that driving for the absolute best accurate reproduction left him feeling less interested in the music at Krell, those old ears wants some sauce!

Now, if you like a "sound' that an amp makes in conjunction with your speakers and room, enough that it distinguishes itself from another amp, then there you go, you found your sauce. However, you may at some point want a different sauce, and thats OK too.

As long as we all know that we like to put some sauce on our music, whether coloring everything in one way or other via the amp, or using EQ or whatever, its the same thing they did at the studio, colored the sound the way they thought you would like it!

So if you have headphones and you want to EG them a bit to suit your taste, then that is not a bad thing at all. For example, if your phones lack a bit of bass and treble, for you, and you EG them some, no harm done there, you are unique, and you get to do what you want to "your" sound.

Is it best to add sauce, well, i dont think anyone can tell you it is not, they can tell you why they think it is not, based on if they want the actual flavor of the steak because they like to taste the variety of the steaks meat, but then again, preferences.

Let me tell you, there are times when i place my SET amp into service, when i want some added dynamics to my music, and it delivers. Sometimes i feel like one type of sauce, sometimes i feel like another, but no matter, you are always putting "some" sauce on that recording, especially the amp to speaker to room interface.

in the late seventies when i was exploring audio, we had all kind of cool stuff, echo boxes, dynamic range expanders, stereo enhancers, parametric equalizers with bar graphs (wow) and sub harmonic synthesizers and stereo image expanders and all kinds of stuff, and when some, any , or all were used in moderation, they typically made anything played sound better. Then came high end audio and said, dude, those tone controls are ruining your music, that was the beginning of the great lye/scam of high end audio. they claimed they wanted to get to the real music, but they gear they had was so colored it was unbelieveable , some of it sounded like i had turned on all my processors boxes to the max all at one time, hahahahaah.

two channel stereo is such a limited reproduction system, is it any wonder folks want to add some sauce!

 

[MattHooper]

That's much closer to an honest characterization of what I actually said, but there is still a difference in how I went about saying it and the way you've said it just now. But a fair and honest characterization nevertheless.

Right. The first two quotes were generalizations of the attitude I've sometimes encountered here. When I got to your specific point, I DID address your specific point.

But the way you replied DID imply you were making a case for why amplifiers OUGHT to be neutral. The fact you said things like "in my opinion" does not automatically negate this. First, let's remember that the phrase "in my opinion" does not automatically denote "this is merely subjective." It can be meant as a sort of "you like chocolate, I like vanilla, no one is right or wrong." But it's often used to mean "This is my personal best inference from the facts to a conclusion" So you can get "In my opinion, removing Trump from office via the 25th amendment would lead to armed protests vs letting him complete his term." Which is not a subjective claim but an objective claim. And claims about what "should" be the case tend to be objective too - you don't use "should" if you are merely talking subjective taste - you don't say "you SHOULD like chocolate and I SHOULD like vanilla." You constantly told us what "should" be the case.

So your post DID originally express your opinion in a way that IMPLIED you were making a factual case about how amplifiers SHOULD be designed, and you held that the justifications for this are "obvious."

Though I went in to why even those justifications are not so "obvious" given the implications and assumptions that seem to underlie the claim.
You seemed to just ignore the points I brought up, for some reason.

By the way, I basically agree with b1daly's point. If most all decent amplifiers don't sound identical, the differences are so minute in comparison to the differences among speakers that it doesn't make a lot of sense to fuss over amplifiers. (Except with respect to very basic considerations, power in particular, although even with respect to power I suspect that the amount of power that people think they need isn't rooted in reality.)

But if what to you is a "minute" difference is to another person a subjectively *significant* difference, why SHOULDN'T that person "fuss" over this difference? See, the problem is that what counts as "minute" is hard to pin down given the difference in subjective impact/preferences among people. If we are a pair of couples having dinner, the most fleeting glance or look passing over the face of my wife may seem "minute" and of little impact to you, but maybe to me it has much greater significance. Same with what sonic changes you may care little or more about, vs me.
(And, goodness, one could say that many on this forum spend a lot of time fussing over very "minute" differences in audio signals!)

So as to amplification, as I've said before about my tube amps, the way I evaluate the difference is:

The sonic difference in coloration between a neutral SS amp and the tube amp is "small" from a certain Big Picture standpoint, but very significant in terms of it's subjective impact on how much I enjoy the sound of my system. So for me, it's a "small deviation" in the sense that it seems all the relevant sonic characteristics between tracks remains, but BIG in how much subjective importance I afford it, because it really does impact my listening experience. Someone else may hear the sonic difference and feel strongly "I'd rather be using the SS amp," where someone else also may listen and say "Meh, it's not a difference I really care about, I'll take either."

Of course I do think that the question of whether it is ideal for an amplifier to color sound is a meaningful question.

Well, there we go again. That is a perfectly legitimate question of course! But surely you must know that to answer that question, arguing for the proposition "It Is Ideal For An Amplifier To Be Neutral" implies the answer would go beyond mere "I like vanilla, you like chocolate," right?

And it's perfectly legitimate to try to make that case! And usually the case it made along the lines you've already appealed to: some version of "getting the artist's intent" being The Goal. But...it's not actually that easy a case to make, especially in regard to the level of sonic deviation in, say, tube amps, for the reasons I gave, and which you seemed to have ignored.

The point I was making is simply that there is a very obvious, substantive, compelling reason why it DOES matter whether an amplifier is accurate. I explained the reason even though the reason is obvious. You made me explain it again, because in your response you made it clear that with respect to this reason, why it matters whether an amplifier is accurate, you are confused.

You are mixing up "confused" with "nuanced."

And you are doing so by just ignoring the nuance I argued.

If there is to be assurance that what the listener hears is a faithful replication of what what the artist recorded, it is necessary for the amplifier to be accurate. But to be honest it makes me feel kind of silly to say this, because to me, it should be sufficient to say that if an amplifier is to produce a faithful replica of the signal presented to it, it has to be accurate. And again, this is just obvious. The only way that anyone could disagree with it is by way of arguing that a preference for avoidance of coloration of sound is itself a subjective preference.

Nope. There is all sorts of nuance between that false dichotomy, and I went in to it. Remember I went through the implications of the different ways in which a system can depart from neutrality? And the compromises you meet even when chasing the strictest neutrality in your system? And how this burrows down in to the very justification you are using - "why are you trying for neutrality, to what end? And if you can't actually meet that end, what overriding GOAL justifies still enjoying the music on your system?" - and it's further implications for what you've been saying?

Where you ever going to address what I wrote?

 

[Zog]

Dan's gear certainly is pretty, but insanely expensive.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think his amps are vulgar.

 

[Ron Texas]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think his amps are vulgar.

I think his prices are vulgar. The gear looks OK to me.

 

[MattHooper]

I just want to address this a bit, as this confusion about why someone would choose a piece of colored piece of gear when more neutral options are available, comes up often enough. Some people know that, yeah, people have preferences, but they just can't wrap their head around WHY anyone would have an alternative preference.

If classic amplifiers had different sounds, it has to be true that all of them (except possibly for one of them) altered the sound. You and I have very different notions of what an amplifier is for. I would not find it useful to have an amplifier that could replicate the distortion that various older amplifiers introduced. To me, the idea that this is something that would be thought desirable is just weird. Why would I want to hear the distortion that a bunch of old amplifiers introduced to the sound? I just don't get it. I want the sound that comes out of an amplifier to be exactly the same as the sound that went into the amplifier (in the form of an electronic signal), and as concerns old amplifiers where the sound that came out wasn't an especially good match to the sound that went in, I have no desire to hear this except maybe once to satisfy morbid curiosity. Certainly not on any ongoing basis. Clearly, you and I have fundamentally different concepts for what an amplifier is for.

Note that the desire to avoid coloration in amplifiers is essentially the same for any piece of gear. For instance: Why would one every choose vinyl as a source when there are more neutral, accurate digital sources available?

Answer: Because vinyl tends to sound different, often due to coloration, and some people enjoy that particular sound. Also, there are aesthetic aspects of music collecting/listening that attend to vinyl, which some find enhance the experience.

Question: Well, if you like coloration why put it at the source? Why not introduce it later...via..EQ and/or some plug in you can maybe implement that mimics vinyl distortion?

Answer: Why? I get all that just playing a record. I don't have to bother fiddling with EQ or chasing down and implementing plug-ins or whatever. I just buy a record and play it and it does what I want. Plus, I like the other cool aspects of playing records.

Essentially the same answers can be given for why someone might buy a tube amp (like me).

But how do people arrive at these seemingly divergent paths?

Let's go back to our first encounters with "high end" sound systems.

In my case it was when my Dad brought home Kef 105.4 speakers and Carver amplification. I vividly remember the shock of hearing "imaging and soundstaging," 3D depth and timbral realism. I remember listening to Phil Collins singing The Roof Is Leaking and thinking just how *real* it sounds, like I'm peering in to the acoustic listening to Phil singing right there!

Many years later, long after leaving home and leaving that system behind, I had another eye-opener. My friend who got bit by the audio bug bought Quad ESL 63s and invited me over. Most people can remember their first listen to Quads or stats or panel speakers. That presentation I'd never heard before where the colorations that usually attend box speakers, that you don't even think about until they are gone, didn't seem to be there. A clarinet being played through the speakers just sounded like a clarinet hovering in air playing, clear as day. Everything took that step towards More Real sounding.

When I play my 2 channel system for guests, that is overwhelmingly the impression they express. It doesn't matter if the source is a good digital recording, or a well recorded record. The talk about how much more "real" things sound, more than they thought possible because they never really thought speakers "could sound real." The last guest said "That was amazing. It felt like I was sitting in the studio listening to the musician playing live!." Like me hearing the KEF or Quads the first times, they had no idea how the tracks were recorded, what equipment was used, the original room acoustics, whatever manipulation was used. They had no idea what if any colorations were being introduced in my equipment. All they really knew and reacted to was The Sound - how music sounded through the system - it had aspects that mimicked reality.

So it shouldn't be surprising that at least some (if not many) people impressed by sound this way carry on pursuing "how the system sounds" or "a sense of hearing the real thing" as their goal or benchmark. It doesn't mean at all that perfect recreation of reality is attainable. It's generally not. But getting closer to certain aspects of "real sounds" that someone cares about is a perfectly reasonable goal. It's an unattainable goal that you can only perhaps get closer to. But then, so is trying to hear the sound "as the original mixer/artist heard it" as well! (And I don't think that, in fact, pursuing the former necessarily departs that much from the latter!).

And of course others may not necessarily be smitten with how a sound system mimics real acoustic sounds. Maybe they are more in to electronic music and notice "listen to that slamming bass! Those crystalline highs!" And maybe they pursue simply "sonic attributes I like." And there can be a mix "I want it to sound more like the real thing, but there are also some sonic attributes I find that make me like the sound better."

So to bring this back to an example of tube amps, using my own preferences: The things that get me to plant my butt down and listen to music on a sound system are, first and foremost: certain sonic qualities of timbre that appeal to my ear and qualities that mimick certain aspects I percieve in real life acoustic sounds. I find most reproduced sound to be to electronic, to edge-oriented, to hardened, squeezed down and skeletal, and harmonically bland, relative to the real thing. I find that certain tube amp colorations seem to introduce a certain ear candy factor I like AND also introduce attributes I associate more with real voices and instruments: more richness and body, roundness, dimensionality, clarity without edge, a certain organic texture etc. Whenever I compare the tube amplification to the SS amps (as I've been doing again lately) things just sound that much more relaxed and natural to my ear, making me sink in to the "illusion of live" more effortlessly. And it makes listening more easeful. It's subtle differences in the Big Picture, but to me of great significance to my enjoyment. And I get this with seemingly very little penalty in regards to hearing the essential sonic characteristics of the recordings. There is NOTHING I can hear that goes missing in the variations in production quality, artistic choices, track to track, when I'm using the tube amps vs solid state. So to me it's a big subjective gain without any major penalty of "disguising the artistic intent/being grossly inaccurate to the recording." Because I ALSO want to hear the essential characteristics of recordings and production. With my tube amps I get just enough nudge in the direction of "organic" that I want, while maintaining the ability to hear recordings change in a chameleon-like way track to track. Again: my system is good enough that we can evaluate fine differences in mastering or recordings brought over by musicians.

So...why add this coloration at the amplification stage? Why not keep it neutral and add this coloration down the line?
Similar answers to the vinyl questions above: Because my tube amps do EXACTLY what I want. I just turn them on and they do it.
I don't have to go fiddling with EQ to try to mimic the tube sound (I actually tried early on and couldn't do it). Or go searching for ways to incorporated tube sound in some other part of the chain, additional gear, plugins or whatever. It's just set and forget and I feel no need to fiddle.

Also, like vinyl, tube amplification brings aesthetic pleasures I don't get from SS amps. I love the look of tube amps. Love the history tube amps represent. Love the glow of the tubes. Love the fact that in the glowing tubes I'm actually SEEING the music being amplified before my eyes.
Little things like this add to the experience IF you like them.

So there's a rational. It's not that we diverge that much, in the big picture. I do want a certain level of accuracy: I want to be able to hear quite acutely the differences between recordings. I don't want a coloration so overt that things start all sounding the same. I just want enough coloration that adds an additional pleasing quality and which nudges the sound in the direction of "more believable" to my ears, but which allows me to hear the distinct characteristics of recordings. And the amount of distortion introduced by my tube amps seem to do exactly that! They just nail this goal, leaving me feel little need to fiddle with EQs or other post-amp coloration devices, so why would I want to keep using them?