Hi From DownUnder

[Johnkeizer]

Hi, as only been here some 16 hours, still trying to get through the many interesting threads, so will get to it.
Enjoyment is why I am in this hobby, and go to live concerts as well. The hardware and room make it possible.
I don’t build my own amps, worked in the oil and minerals industry, not electronics.
Am not against feedback if used judiciously and do believe numbers are an important part when judging hifi, or cars etc for that.
For me, my favourite gear I use tends to use smaller amounts of feedback, other people may enjoy the sound of gear with higher levels.

 

[DVDdoug]

For me, the main issue with measurements is that I don't know what the audibility thresholds are... i.e. How bad does the distortion have to be before I can hear it. But actually, I've never heard distortion from anything that wasn't broken or overdriven. And, most modern electronics has flat frequency response so I don't worry about that either.

Sometimes noise is audible (hum, hiss, or whine in the background). But the audibility of nose depends on many factors and there is more than one way to measure it, so the "spec" isn't that useful. Or, your may have ground-loop nose or some electrical interference that doesn't happen in the lab measurements. (The reviews here do use a standardized noise measurement so at-least they are comparable.)

For me, my favourite gear I use tends to use smaller amounts of feedback, other people may enjoy the sound of gear with higher levels.

I don't want to get hung-up on feedback, but I will say that you can't tell the "amount" of feedback by measuring or listening. And it's usually not in the specs so we usually don't know. I'd put it in the same category as the class of the amplifier... You can't tell by listening or measuring if an amp is Class-A, Class A/B or Class D... Or if it has tubes, transistors, MOSFETs, or ICs. (Sometimes there are "clues" with a badly made tube amp.)

A few more links to "de-program" some of the "audiophile nonsense" that you may have been reading:
Controlled Audio Blind Listening Tests (video)
What is a blind ABX test? An ABX test simply determines if there is any real audible difference between A & B. It doesn't determine which one is best or preferred.
Audiophoolery discusses the few actual characteristics of "sound quality".

 

[Sal1950]

I have learned that one can get good numbers and actually make the sound worse, eg heaps of negative feedback.

Oh brother, now aren't you sorry you typed those last few words.

Once more, Welcome to ASR John.

 

[Johnkeizer]

Oh brother, now aren't you sorry you typed those last few words.

Once more, Welcome to ASR John.

Thank you for the welcome.
I suppose every hobby and forum has it’s share of people with extremely tightly held views, I try to take it with a grain of salt and hopefully find something to learn in their posts.
I joined this site due to the excellent technical reviews that Amir publishes, which in a few cases have strongly influenced my buying decisions.
End of the day this is a hobby which is supposed to be fun. We all have different rooms, different hearing etc so will get different results from most of our gear.

 

[JSmith]

I have learned that one can get good numbers and actually make the sound worse, eg heaps of negative feedback.

That would be incorrect, there is nothing negative about negative feedback in an amp and is also nothing new.


JSmith

 

[Johnkeizer]

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl and find a good bottle of red or a nice bourbon to be conducive to a most pleasant listening session?

 

[Jcrow]

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl and find a good bottle of red or a nice bourbon to be conducive to a most pleasant listening session?

Can’t argue with second part, though, I usually pair music with a Belgian Quad or Imperial Stout. Either way, I imagine the results are similar.
Plenty of people here listen to vinyl (not me though), but probably a minority.

 

[AudioJester]

I suppose every hobby and forum has it’s share of people with extremely tightly held views, I try to take it with a grain of salt and hopefully find something to learn in their posts.

Oh, I was thinking exactly the same about your convictions on negative feedback, lol

Anyway welcome, Iam another Aussie based in Sydney

 

[Johnkeizer]

Thank you for your welcome.
And not wedded to that view, only what I have experienced in my journey so far.
To quote the ancient Greeks: Everything In Moderation.

 

[Johnkeizer]

About to start my evening listening session , using my A&K ST1000 and Aune AR5000 headphones.
Have some MQA files on it as well as normal FLAC files.
Much to my surprise, the MQA files seem to have a clearer, cleaner sound signature. Don’t know why, and contrary to what I had hoped as I had a set against it.

 

[Sal1950]

I suppose every hobby and forum has it’s share of people with extremely tightly held views, I try to take it with a grain of salt and hopefully find something to learn in their posts.

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl and find a good bottle of red or a nice bourbon to be conducive to a most pleasant listening session?

That's Kool. In life all things are best approached with a bit of moderation. A bit of red, a couple fingers of neat bourbon can make many thing a little more enjoyable. But splash down a whole 2 L bottle of Makers Mark and you might regret it in the morning. LOL
Hang out and soak up a bit of the real engineering side of audio along with enjoying some good comradery. We have some of best minds in todays audio design here, along with some real characters like me, LOL. In time you just might find you learn a few new things from them along the way.

Much to my surprise, the MQA files seem to have a clearer, cleaner sound signature. Don’t know why, and contrary to what I had hoped as I had a set against it.

MQA was a lossy compression scheme that ultimately was declined by the market.
There are many surprising things in audio. One is that some distortion can end up being a more pleasing sound that agrees with your personal preferences. OTOH, High Fidelity means delivering to your ear a waveform that is as close as possible a perfect copy of what was captured by the mikes and introduced into the playback medium.
In the end you decide what you want to hear.
cent' anni
Sal

 

[JSmith]

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl and find a good bottle of red or a nice bourbon to be conducive to a most pleasant listening session?

Sounds good to me... I still spin vinyl too, but am well aware of the technical limitations of the format too.


JSmith

 

[Johnkeizer]

I enjoy the experience of playing vinyl and like the sound (usually) but can’t agree with those that claim it’s a high rez format.
As you say, too many technical limitations.

 

[DSJR]

Thank you for the welcome.
I suppose every hobby and forum has it’s share of people with extremely tightly held views, I try to take it with a grain of salt and hopefully find something to learn in their posts.
I joined this site due to the excellent technical reviews that Amir publishes, which in a few cases have strongly influenced my buying decisions.
End of the day this is a hobby which is supposed to be fun. We all have different rooms, different hearing etc so will get different results from most of our gear.

I have to suggest this - One day, the hobby side may dissipate, leaving the gear to be simply the tool to reproduce the music. I can't tell you how free one feels when that happens, despite still being interested in new 'tools' for the job

As for vinyl, that for me is where the remaining hobby-side resides. I had huge fun resurrecting the old Rega P3-2000 from a collection of mostly donated and some inexpensive used parts (currently my avatar) and despite the deck and vinyl's limitations, I've had great pleasure playing some records on it and with the standard black EBLT, it actually plays at more or less the correct speed... 'High Fidelity' be damned

 

[Audiofire]

For me, the main issue with measurements is that I don't know what the audibility thresholds are...

People probably find this interesting, and there is an overview at the bottom of the first post with quantitative thresholds:

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[boswell]

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl and find a good bottle of red or a nice bourbon to be conducive to a most pleasant listening session?

Four Roses is a favourite, good bottles of red too, interestingly there are parallels between quality and price of red wine (any wine) and audio gear;
there are outrageously priced reds that are quite ordinary and reasonably priced ones that are exceptional.
For those of you in Australia(east coast) try subscribing to WINESTAR as they have a lot of good wine reduced due to the Chinese market being blocked,
They are in Victoria but I believe there is free shipping available to NSW and other places, Newcastle included. Unfortunately being a Pinot fan complicates things $$$ as does the crackle and pop of vinyl, I believe I could still predict when the most annoying clicks would occur on my albums from the 60's that I haven't played since the 80's

 

[Johnkeizer]

My one wine regret is discovering the delights of French reds just before I retired, putting most of them now out of my reach.
Ditto for Japanese whisky.

 

[Sal1950]

Is this a good time to come out and admit I also play vinyl

We all have our views on Vinyl. For me I spent my first 4 decades (1950s +) of music listening with vinyl, cursing it's sound problems, inconveniences and need for constant attention and tweaking. When CD came along, it was the answer to a audiophiles prayers and I couldn't wait for a time when I could replace all of my beloved LP music library with clean, noiseless, wide bandwidth digital sound. Today my passion is filled to overflowing with 2, 4, 5.1, and Atmos recordings, of Redbook and better digital sound files. So much glorious music, so little time. I just can't imagine why anyone would still waste any money or time on dragging to drag a rock thru a ditch 1950s style.
YMMV

 

[Johnkeizer]

Good morning, can’t argue with any of your points but can’t part with my vinyl either. Perhaps it’s because what I grew up with, perhaps the tactility of it.
I certainly don’t believe it’s a superior format though.

 

[Audiofire]

I have vinyl, some albums that are only on vinyl.