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

[MattHooper]

We have a Japanese home market pair of NS1000Ms (circa 1984 with gold anodised anniversary badges- 10th year after the '74 introduction) along with their matching SPS-500 stands. My father, who is in his mid 80s, loves them of course for his classical music. We share a lifetime of HiFi addiction between us and at any given point, he has 50 or 60 pieces of my gear and I likely have about the the same number of things of his in my repair queue... Last week he mentioned he had about 20 pairs of bookshelf speakers of mine if I wanted any back to 'play with'.

Good Gawsh! And I thought my speaker addiction was out of control with a mere 5 speakers to play with!

 

[Wombat]

We must understand that John has gone troppo.

 

[watchnerd]

We have a Japanese home market pair of NS1000Ms (circa 1984 with gold anodised anniversary badges- 10th year after the '74 introduction) along with their matching SPS-500 stands. My father, who is in his mid 80s, loves them of course for his classical music. We share a lifetime of HiFi addiction between us and at any given point, he has 50 or 60 pieces of my gear and I likely have about the the same number of things of his in my repair queue... Last week he mentioned he had about 20 pairs of bookshelf speakers of mine if I wanted any back to 'play with'.

My issues with the NS-1000ms have always been a lack of bottom end, even when I was selling the X series in the very early 90s (NS-5/30/100/700/1000X), they were not my cup of tea and the NS-2000 was more of the same with a token effort at improving the bass. (and yes, we had the classic cut-in-half NS1000M on the sales floor). The NS-1000s may sound better when you throw power at them, but some people don't like 'loud' just to get a flattening in the perceived spectrum and or more bottom end.

I have a pile of active subwoofers including a pair of ununsed PSB subsonic 5is sitting here. And a pair of unused Mirage powered 10" subwoofers. As it would involve a fair bit of rearranging in his main HiFi room, do you think placement of the NS1000Ms on top of the PSBs (they are forward firing) would be preferable to side-by-side? I guess I just want him to hear bottom end again. It was about 1986 when his 15" 3 way Empire Royal Grenadier 9000M mk2s died a death. (I still have them in my storeroom in original cartons c/- marble tops) and he's been using small/medium sized speakers ever since. I gave him a B&W ASW-600 subwoofer about 10 years ago and he's never used it.

So he needs a bass-intervention.

At what point did the Japanese stop shooting for a 'flat' response and was it a sudden adoption of 'western' sound? Having owned plenty of high quality big Japanese speakers by the big players, I found they all sounded quite similar and ultimately disappointed in the long term.

Got any reel to reels in that collection?

I'm looking at acquiring a 2nd one....

 

[Thomas savage]

To be honest I've gotten very lazy in my old age, too much cutting and chopping.
Here's what I made today.
I used 9 links of sweet Italian sausage and 4 lbs of pork neckbones
Brown your meat in a huge cooking pot with about 2 oz of olive oil over very low heat
I add 4 each,
Bertolli Italian Sausage, Garlic, & Romano Sauce
Classico Italian Sausge, Pepper & Onion Sauce
About 1/2 cup of fresh grated Romano cheese

Bring to a very low simmer then keep well stirred for 2-3 hours until neckbones are tender enough to eat..
Divide into freezer containers
Oh course you can make less at a time. LOL

View attachment 29338

Ah , why are you miss using that great old pot there , surely you should be wearing it to combat EMI/RFI interference.

How thick is it btw?, I like to see 4mm .

For some reason when I saw this I immediately thought of ...,

 

[restorer-john]

Got any reel to reels in that collection?

Not very many actually- all NAB 10.5" except one or two. They're all in storage.

A few Tascams/big Teacs, maybe 3, including a monster 100V Japanese one I can barely lift.
A few bigger Akai decks. My favourite is a GX-625:

A Sony TC-755 that needs restoration.
A 7" Teac, some A-xxxx something.
A Revox A-77 I partially restored and then lost interest.
A few other random ones.

Sold the Pioneer RT-909s and a huge silver TOTL gear to a collector a while back.

I always liked the Akais as they used three motors, simple back tension system and their pinch rollers/heads stood the test of time. The 625 was full of noisy transistors when I got it and it got a rebuild. On BASF/EMTEC 468 they sound fabulous.

 

[Sal1950]

The real thing is huge, enveloping and crescendos are, to me, "dynamic" even when the sound levels are lower than I can generate at home. The dominant frontal sound of stereo can't do it and turning up the volume doesn't help. A tasteful multichannel upmix is a more satisfying experience, even at moderate sound levels.

Floyd, This has been on my mind since you posted it. I was wondering if you have a particular upmixing format you prefer?

 

[watchnerd]

Not very many actually- all NAB 10.5" except one or two. They're all in storage.

A few Tascams/big Teacs, maybe 3, including a monster 100V Japanese one I can barely lift.
A few bigger Akai decks. My favourite is a GX-625:
View attachment 29352
A Sony TC-755 that needs restoration.
A 7" Teac, some A-xxxx something.
A Revox A-77 I partially restored and then lost interest.
A few other random ones.

Sold the Pioneer RT-909s and a huge silver TOTL gear to a collector a while back.

I always liked the Akais as they used three motors, simple back tension system and their pinch rollers/heads stood the test of time. The 625 was full of noisy transistors when I got it and it got a rebuild. On BASF/EMTEC 468 they sound fabulous.

I've got a 10.5" Revox PR-99 (NAB EQ) that I recapped / restored. Also with 3 motors, and seek function.

I need another 10.5" so I can have one in my studio and one in my living room.

 

[Sal1950]

Last week he mentioned he had about 20 pairs of bookshelf speakers of mine if I wanted any back to 'play with'.

That is one serious addiction you two are sharing, you always talk about things being in storage.
Are you just a hoarder or do you buy&sell too?

How thick is it btw?, I like to see 4mm .

Naw, that's an OLD sheet metal pot. Measures about .040 or just over 1mm
Been in my family all my life AFAIR

 

[Wombat]

That is one serious addition you two are sharing, you always talk about things being in storage.
Are you just a hoarder or do you buy&sell too?

 

[jsrtheta]

So do all Stereophile writers, Why would you only discount Sam?
They only write about the products they like.
To hear them tell it. ???

Sam (Tom) was particularly ridiculous. Besides, you mentioned him.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The one track I specifically remember being utterly transformed by this system relative to anything I'd previously heard it on was 'Tamacun' by Rodrigo Y Gabriella - they make significant use of percussive slapping of their guitars and the impact of that plus the aggressive transients of the strings was spectacular.

This is an interesting observation because it begs other questions IME.
I like Rodrigo y Gabriella but I usually listen to classical music and when I play their tracks they are L-O-U-D, the most extreme proponents of the loudness wars in my collection. The sound is hugely dynamically compressed and hammering up against 0dB on my meters.
On reflection I think it may be impressive simply because the average loudness is so high, and it is well known that louder sounds better on audition. Their recordings are "impressive" but not even slightly "realistic" to the microphone signal based on my experience of recording but heavily manipulated.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This is an interesting observation because it begs other questions IME.
I like Rodrigo y Gabriella but I usually listen to classical music and when I play their tracks they are L-O-U-D, the most extreme proponents of the loudness wars in my collection. The sound is hugely dynamically compressed and hammering up against 0dB on my meters.
On reflection I think it may be impressive simply because the average loudness is so high, and it is well known that louder sounds better on audition. Their recordings are "impressive" but not even slightly "realistic" to the microphone signal based on my experience of recording but heavily manipulated.

I've had this experience playing recordings for musicians on two occasions. I get them together let them hear it. Let them hear it with a little tasteful, and useful amount of compression. They like it with the compression.

Then a little more about enough so you could listen in a quiet car pretty well. They like it better.

Then some more with different attack and release settings, and they like it better.

Then some more which I now use frequency variable compression, and they like it better.

Then one more level of frequency variable compression, and they like it better.

Then I play them that second level of compression which is just enough for car use, and the last most compressed version. Their noses wrinkle, they look askance, they ask what did I do. They proclaim that last most compressed version verses the earlier one sounds horrible. They don't want that!

I just wonder how much of the super compressed loudness wars type mastering would get kicked to the curb if it was done like this for the musicians?

 

[Frank Dernie]

We have a Japanese home market pair of NS1000Ms (circa 1984 with gold anodised anniversary badges- 10th year after the '74 introduction) along with their matching SPS-500 stands. My father, who is in his mid 80s, loves them of course for his classical music. We share a lifetime of HiFi addiction between us and at any given point, he has 50 or 60 pieces of my gear and I likely have about the the same number of things of his in my repair queue... Last week he mentioned he had about 20 pairs of bookshelf speakers of mine if I wanted any back to 'play with'.

My issues with the NS-1000ms have always been a lack of bottom end, even when I was selling the X series in the very early 90s (NS-5/30/100/700/1000X), they were not my cup of tea and the NS-2000 was more of the same with a token effort at improving the bass. (and yes, we had the classic cut-in-half NS1000M on the sales floor). The NS-1000s may sound better when you throw power at them, but some people don't like 'loud' just to get a flattening in the perceived spectrum and or more bottom end.

I have a pile of active subwoofers including a pair of ununsed PSB subsonic 5is sitting here. And a pair of unused Mirage powered 10" subwoofers. As it would involve a fair bit of rearranging in his main HiFi room, do you think placement of the NS1000Ms on top of the PSBs (they are forward firing) would be preferable to side-by-side? I guess I just want him to hear bottom end again. It was about 1986 when his 15" 3 way Empire Royal Grenadier 9000M mk2s died a death. (I still have them in my storeroom in original cartons c/- marble tops) and he's been using small/medium sized speakers ever since. I gave him a B&W ASW-600 subwoofer about 10 years ago and he's never used it.

So he needs a bass-intervention.

At what point did the Japanese stop shooting for a 'flat' response and was it a sudden adoption of 'western' sound? Having owned plenty of high quality big Japanese speakers by the big players, I found they all sounded quite similar and ultimately disappointed in the long term.

I have not noticed them being bass light, mind you I have them up against the wall in front of me but well away from corners.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I've had this experience playing recordings for musicians on two occasions. I get them together let them hear it. Let them hear it with a little tasteful, and useful amount of compression. They like it with the compression.

Then a little more about enough so you could listen in a quiet car pretty well. They like it better.

Then some more with different attack and release settings, and they like it better.

Then some more which I now use frequency variable compression, and they like it better.

Then one more level of frequency variable compression, and they like it better.

Then I play them that second level of compression which is just enough for car use, and the last most compressed version. Their noses wrinkle, they look askance, they ask what did I do. They proclaim that last most compressed version verses the earlier one sounds horrible. They don't want that!

I just wonder how much of the super compressed loudness wars type mastering would get kicked to the curb if it was done like this for the musicians?

If you don't change the gain each time you do a compression it gets louder = better, if in that final comparison the gain was adjusted to get approximately equal apparent loudness I would not be at all surprised the compressed one does sound awful the problem of louder sounding better deceives yet again!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I like Rodrigo y Gabriella but I usually listen to classical music and when I play their tracks they are L-O-U-D, the most extreme proponents of the loudness wars in my collection. The sound is hugely dynamically compressed and hammering up against 0dB on my meters.

Yes. I tried it and had the same reactions.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I agree with this comment. Having spent a lifetime listening to all manner of loudspeakers and having designed a few, for the experience, not to get commercial, all I can say is that my interpretation of "dynamic" can be fulfilled by both cones and domes and by horns. Until recently timbral peculiarities of most horns put me off, but the latest examples, such as the JBL Pro M2 are absolutely competitive with the best cone/dome designs such as the Revel Salon2 in terms of sound quality - and this behavior is well described in anechoic spinorama measurements; i.e. evaluating linear distortions. When driven by power amps capable of delivering the necessary power without voltage or current clipping, or protection activation, both delivered the goods in terms of bandwidth and sound levels within prudent hearing conservation levels.

For me, much of the sensation of "dynamics" is delivered by very low frequencies. So I have a seriously capable multiple subwoofer system. Take that away, or tone it down, and things revert to much "smaller" and "ordinary" right away. Reproduction to 20 Hz or below is impressive even if it is not shaking your body, which is is also capable of doing, most often in movies. Many modern music recordings have "organ pedal" frequencies in them, and it is seductive. One wonders if they were heard in the control rooms.

Another factor is directivity and the extent to which the room is energized. Here is where horns often distinguish themselves by putting the listener in a more dominant direct sound field - it is why they are used in professional audio - to address an audience with minimal excitation of the venue. Although at domestic sound levels horns and compression drivers exhibit low distortion, in their professional roles air non-linearity in the throat can generate audible distortion at high sound levels. They found their way into consumer products because of their high efficiency at a time when amplifier power was seriously rationed. That is no longer an issue. I go to live symphonic concerts about a dozen times a year, and it is a very different experience from any stereo rendering of the same music. The real thing is huge, enveloping and crescendos are, to me, "dynamic" even when the sound levels are lower than I can generate at home. The dominant frontal sound of stereo can't do it and turning up the volume doesn't help. A tasteful multichannel upmix is a more satisfying experience, even at moderate sound levels.

Many high quality cone & dome systems have low sensitivity combined with low impedances and these require serious horsepower to generate cinema sound levels - I'm using 800 watts at 4 ohms. Typical receivers lack the power and are not even specified to drive 4 ohms without misbehavior, so mass market audio has understandably been seeking more "dynamics". Yes, when the volume is turned up distortion increases, but one needs to ask where it originates. I have had two instances of misbehaving overload protection circuits in my home systems, and these were in high priced, high power amps that were not happy driving the complex, and sometimes low, impedances that show up in consumer loudspeakers. It was complicated in my situation because I had several amplifiers and several loudspeakers circulating through my life - tracking down the culprit was tricky. This sort of thing must be common in mass market receivers when they are pushed. So, of course at least some of the time the speakers get the blame.

Non-linear distortion can occur at the low-end of the tweeter frequency range. Although much attention is paid to diaphragm materials, it is often the invisible and not discussed motor that really makes an audible difference. Another factor in alleviating this distortion that occurs in an unfortunate frequency range is to employ a shallow waveguide (a.k.a. horn) to increase the directivity and on-axis output in this frequency range. It has the equally important advantage of improving the directivity match at crossover to a midrange. Put a well designed, linear, motor on a tweeter with a waveguide and it matters less what the diaphragm material is - except to the marketing department.

I'm rambling so I will stop. Just to point out that what we perceive as dynamic performance is not simple. Not everything we may describe as "dynamic" has to do with sound level. You may want to look at Part 3 of my series "how to design a home theater" in the companion website to the 3rd edition of my book. It is open access, no need to buy the book. www.routledge.com/cw/toole. This discusses amp & speaker matching in some detail - click on the title at the top of the web page.

@Floyd Toole , out of curiosity, I wondered:

Do you think amplifier power is a substitute for driver sensitivity?

Amps are getting smaller and more powerful, so do you think at one point (high) sensitivity will be a non-issue?

 

[Floyd Toole]

Floyd, This has been on my mind since you posted it. I was wondering if you have a particular upmixing format you prefer?

I have much enjoyed Lexicon's Logic 7 in years past, but it has changed, and I no longer have equipment with it. I am currently able to find satisfaction with the Auro 3D upmixer in my SDP-75. It can be adjusted in "room size" (time domain) and in amplitude of enhancement. No one setting suits all recordings but it is rare that stereo does not benefit from some amount of added envelopment. As always, this is me in my room.

 

[Floyd Toole]

@Floyd Toole , out of curiosity, I wondered:

Do you think amplifier power is a substitute for driver sensitivity?

Amps are getting smaller and more powerful, so do you think at one point (high) sensitivity will be a non-issue?

Up to a point, and for many applications, of course one can trade off power and sensitivity. In small rooms the amount of sound power needed is modest. In large venues it can be enormous, so sensitivity is important for two reasons - keeping amplifier power needs reasonable, and keeping loudspeaker voice coils cool. Size is not much of a problem, so high sensitivity works.

My Revel Salon2s have low sensitivity (85 - 86 dB) and low impedance (4 ohms) so for cinema sound levels - which are almost never used - I need about 800 watts at 4 ohms. These days this is easily achieved in stand-alone amps. However, there are comparably good sounding speakers with much reduced power demands, so for domestic needs I would say that sensitivity is not a major factor. But budgets have an influence on one's perspective.

And if you are into single-ended triode amps high sensitivity, and high impedance, are essential

 

[Blumlein 88]

If you don't change the gain each time you do a compression it gets louder = better, if in that final comparison the gain was adjusted to get approximately equal apparent loudness I would not be at all surprised the compressed one does sound awful the problem of louder sounding better deceives yet again!

Yes, you have described it well. I didn't change the playback gain during my demonstration. By the end even though it sounded louder it was so messed up it still sounded worse. Had I adjusted for RMS level of the track so the most compressed was turned down a bit, then it would have sounded even worse vs the early slightly compressed file. At some point louder vs cleaner becomes too dirty. If you approach it stepwise a little at a time the slightly louder file always wins out.

 

[Krunok]

My Revel Salon2s have low sensitivity (95 - 96 dB)

I guess this is a typo, it's probably 85-86dB, right?