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If "Tube Sound" Is a Myth, Why Tubes?

Line level. And you'll want to do a 5 or 10:1 attenuation unless you're listening quietly or have efficient speakers; most ADCs tolerate 4V max before reacting in ill humor. The value isn't critical as long as the resistor ratios are well-matched between channels. If your ADC has input volume controls that can knock down the measured voltage, you're gold.

If you need the attenuator, the cheap and easy way is to buy a couple of 47-50k resistors (matched to 0.1% or so), get RCA cables with connectors that can be unscrewed, unscrew them on the ADC end, disconnect the "hot" lead from the center pin of the RCA plug, then solder the resistors in series with the "hot" lead and the center pin of the RCA plug.

If your ADC is balanced, it can get slightly trickier.
I suppose these would work, but I don't know if the resistors inside them are safe for putting several volts across. XLR in line attenuators.
https://www.parts-express.com/in-line-xlr-attenuator-pad-20db--240-416
600 ohm in/out impedance.

This might be better. I knew they made RCA in line attenuators, but had not seen this product. 1% distortion is too much however.
https://www.hlabs.com/products/attenuators/index_files/Page384.htm

Good for 500 watts input.
 
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This is about a guy recognizing the sound of the CJ amps he's lived with and loved for years. He's already confident he's good with a two-day gap. Why does he need instantaneous switching? With cooperation from a family member, all he needs to do is listen all evening and check one of two boxes: CJs or Not CJs. My wider point was, if this guy can remember the sound of his amps after two days, why do we pretend our auditory memory is four seconds long?

I have a strong impression that I can remember the general character of my CJ amps vs the solid state amp. However, I don't profess confidence in passing a blind test with days in between switching! Our perception can change depending on mood, maybe how much our ears have gone through that day, etc. So I'd much prefer to be able to switch more quickly. Note that's what I did even in the first post: listened to tracks and switched directly from the Bryston to the CJ to re-listen to the same tracks, which seemed to confirm the impressions I had with the Bryston.

As I still have the Bryston, I'm not sure for how long, and no way to blind test yet, I've just had to switch sighted as usual.

[Anecdote] I've been doing this back and forth between the amps yesterday and today, and there certainly is a strong impression of a sonic difference.

Tonight I played a whole bunch of tracks that I've listened to a bazillion times - e.g. the Star Trek original soundtrack, a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack, and another soundtrack, all with very brilliant sounding horns - especially because some of them were clearly recorded with close micing. On the Bryston I was often wincing at the horns which seemed distinctly more hard and piercing. My ears wanted to "scrunch" more closed, my teeth gritting kind of thing. I kept wanting to turn the volume down. Quickly switched to the CJ (probably about couple minutes total between), replayed the tracks and that problem vanished. The horns still sounded brilliant and vivid, but rich, more full, and the sound was "relaxed" so I didn't have any teeth-gritting discomfort. In fact I kept turning the tracks louder and louder, with no discomfort. As someone with sensitive ears including some tinnitus, this type of sonic effect is a godsend. I played one of my all tine favorite tracks, a string section oriented piece, and on the Bryston it just didn't sound as nice to my ear - the way string sections can sound icey and artificial through the recording/reproduction process came through so I was extra aware they didn't sound "right." But back on the CJ the string sections had this relaxed, liquid, velvety texture that my ear just found to be gorgeous, as I'm used to hearing on my system. If the CJs are altering the sound a bit, it's doing so in precisely the ways I love. I'm not bad with EQ, as I use softare EQ all the time, but honestly I'm dubious that I could nail exactly the sound of the CJs using an SS amp and trying to get that sound via EQ
[/Anecdote]

Whether I end up doing a blind test or not, I'm sure curious how it goes for Levimax.
 
I have a strong impression that I can remember the general character of my CJ amps vs the solid state amp. However, I don't profess confidence in passing a blind test with days in between switching! Our perception can change depending on mood, maybe how much our ears have gone through that day, etc. So I'd much prefer to be able to switch more quickly. Note that's what I did even in the first post: listened to tracks and switched directly from the Bryston to the CJ to re-listen to the same tracks, which seemed to confirm the impressions I had with the Bryston.

As I still have the Bryston, I'm not sure for how long, and no way to blind test yet, I've just had to switch sighted as usual.

[Anecdote] I've been doing this back and forth between the amps yesterday and today, and there certainly is a strong impression of a sonic difference.

Tonight I played a whole bunch of tracks that I've listened to a bazillion times - e.g. the Star Trek original soundtrack, a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack, and another soundtrack, all with very brilliant sounding horns - especially because some of them were clearly recorded with close micing. On the Bryston I was often wincing at the horns which seemed distinctly more hard and piercing. My ears wanted to "scrunch" more closed, my teeth gritting kind of thing. I kept wanting to turn the volume down. Quickly switched to the CJ (probably about couple minutes total between), replayed the tracks and that problem vanished. The horns still sounded brilliant and vivid, but rich, more full, and the sound was "relaxed" so I didn't have any teeth-gritting discomfort. In fact I kept turning the tracks louder and louder, with no discomfort. As someone with sensitive ears including some tinnitus, this type of sonic effect is a godsend. I played one of my all tine favorite tracks, a string section oriented piece, and on the Bryston it just didn't sound as nice to my ear - the way string sections can sound icey and artificial through the recording/reproduction process came through so I was extra aware they didn't sound "right." But back on the CJ the string sections had this relaxed, liquid, velvety texture that my ear just found to be gorgeous, as I'm used to hearing on my system. If the CJs are altering the sound a bit, it's doing so in precisely the ways I love. I'm not bad with EQ, as I use softare EQ all the time, but honestly I'm dubious that I could nail exactly the sound of the CJs using an SS amp and trying to get that sound via EQ
[/Anecdote]

Whether I end up doing a blind test or not, I'm sure curious how it goes for Levimax.
I don't think I mentioned that only two amps ever passed the Swedish AES (LTS) series amplifier testing for full transparency. One was an Audio Research SS amp that passed the sighted portion, but failed the blind portion. The Bryston was undiscernible blind or sighted.

So if you would permanently set up your CJ as a unity gain buffer to the Bryston you could have all the power etc of the Bryston with the sound of the CJ.
 
I suppose these would work, but I don't know if the resistors inside them are safe for putting several volts across. XLR in line attenuators.
https://www.parts-express.com/in-line-xlr-attenuator-pad-20db--240-416
600 ohm in/out impedance.

This might be better. I knew they made RCA in line attenuators, but had not seen this product. 1% distortion is too much however.
https://www.hlabs.com/products/attenuators/index_files/Page384.htm

Good for 500 watts input.

Thank you. My ADC has line level input volume controls so I should be good but I will check carefully to be sure.
 
Whenever I see a statement that recorded horns sounded hard and piercing I wonder if the individual has heard horns 'live'. Most brass instruments are 'brassy'.

It is as though the listener prefers the muted sound.
 
Whenever I see a statement that recorded horns sounded hard and piercing I wonder if the individual has heard horns 'live'. Most brass instruments are 'brassy'.

It is as though the listener prefers the muted sound.

I grew up with a jazz musician father who played trombone and trumpet in the house regularly. I played in all the school bands, stage band etc. I have attended countless concerts featuring brass instruments, from jazz to orchestral and otherwise, and I played in a funk band for 15 years, featuring a full horn line up. Further, I live beside a highly populated city street where we regularly have live bands playing in pubs, and street musicians playing brass instruments. Just about every time someone is playing a horn, I stop, close my eyes, to take a measure of how live horns sound compared to what I'm used to in reproduced sound. Further, one son played sax, the other trombone, and I recorded both, comparing the live vs reproduced through various speaker systems in our home. I'm a bit obsessed with live vs reproduced sound, fascinated by it.

I'm pretty familiar with the sound of live horns :)

But this gets exactly to the issue I've brought up before in terms of the subjectivity involved in preferences and evaluating sound, especially in regards to "does it sound natural/believable?"

For the most part as we all know, reproduced sound, starting with the artificiality of the recording/mixing process onward, is full of compromises in terms of any sense of "realism." It's pretty much laughable to compare, for instance, the horn section in some of the funk tracks I was playing last night with a real horn section playing beside me (as they did when I was a keyboardist in the funk band), or just in the same room (as I rehearsed with them for 15 years). The reproduced horns are teeny representations, diminished in virtually every way, to toy versions.

So I'm not likely to be fooled any time soon that I'm hearing real horns or other instruments. But live sound is for me a guide to some of the essential characteristics I want to hear in even a toy version of an instrument.

You are certainly right! Brass instruments can have a sharp blatty attack to their sound, of course! But in the presence of horns when I listen for the sound characteristics I'm struck by how huge and rich the sound is, how the "blattiness" of the horn isn't at all like the over-sharpened spiky sound of a lot of horn recordings, but even the leading edge is bigger, rounder, shimmering with harmonics. Real instrumental tone is both clear, vivid yet RELAXED sounding to my ear.

It's that combination of qualities that I enjoy most when I can get it in reproduced sound. So when I hear horn sections on my system that sound vivid, dynamic, with that "blatty" attack yet at the same time sound more full and relaxed, that to me sounds more natural. I luxuriate in it the same way I do when listening to live instruments.

But these preferences in selecting my sonic compromises are informed by my own experience and criteria.

Presuming for sake of argument the sound of trumpets via the Bryston are different in the way I describe them from the CJ: I can easily imagine that you may hear the sharper, brighter attack of the Bryston version and judge it more realistic. Which is perfectly legitimate. But since the horn sound is so compromised to begin with, in my view you'd be seizing on one aspect that strikes you as more real to you, where I am siezing on others - the slightly fuller, rounder, more relaxed quality, that I find to be more "accurate" to the real thing. Neither version captures everything about the real sound of horns, so we may prefer different areas of compromise.

Cheers!
 
I grew up with a jazz musician father who played trombone and trumpet in the house regularly. I played in all the school bands, stage band etc. I have attended countless concerts featuring brass instruments, from jazz to orchestral and otherwise, and I played in a funk band for 15 years, featuring a full horn line up. Further, I live beside a highly populated city street where we regularly have live bands playing in pubs, and street musicians playing brass instruments. Just about every time someone is playing a horn, I stop, close my eyes, to take a measure of how live horns sound compared to what I'm used to in reproduced sound. Further, one son played sax, the other trombone, and I recorded both, comparing the live vs reproduced through various speaker systems in our home. I'm a bit obsessed with live vs reproduced sound, fascinated by it.

I'm pretty familiar with the sound of live horns :)

But this gets exactly to the issue I've brought up before in terms of the subjectivity involved in preferences and evaluating sound, especially in regards to "does it sound natural/believable?"

For the most part as we all know, reproduced sound, starting with the artificiality of the recording/mixing process onward, is full of compromises in terms of any sense of "realism." It's pretty much laughable to compare, for instance, the horn section in some of the funk tracks I was playing last night with a real horn section playing beside me (as they did when I was a keyboardist in the funk band), or just in the same room (as I rehearsed with them for 15 years). The reproduced horns are teeny representations, diminished in virtually every way, to toy versions.

So I'm not likely to be fooled any time soon that I'm hearing real horns or other instruments. But live sound is for me a guide to some of the essential characteristics I want to hear in even a toy version of an instrument.

You are certainly right! Brass instruments can have a sharp blatty attack to their sound, of course! But in the presence of horns when I listen for the sound characteristics I'm struck by how huge and rich the sound is, how the "blattiness" of the horn isn't at all like the over-sharpened spiky sound of a lot of horn recordings, but even the leading edge is bigger, rounder, shimmering with harmonics. Real instrumental tone is both clear, vivid yet RELAXED sounding to my ear.

It's that combination of qualities that I enjoy most when I can get it in reproduced sound. So when I hear horn sections on my system that sound vivid, dynamic, with that "blatty" attack yet at the same time sound more full and relaxed, that to me sounds more natural. I luxuriate in it the same way I do when listening to live instruments.

But these preferences in selecting my sonic compromises are informed by my own experience and criteria.

Presuming for sake of argument the sound of trumpets via the Bryston are different in the way I describe them from the CJ: I can easily imagine that you may hear the sharper, brighter attack of the Bryston version and judge it more realistic. Which is perfectly legitimate. But since the horn sound is so compromised to begin with, in my view you'd be seizing on one aspect that strikes you as more real to you, where I am siezing on others - the slightly fuller, rounder, more relaxed quality, that I find to be more "accurate" to the real thing. Neither version captures everything about the real sound of horns, so we may prefer different areas of compromise.

Cheers!
My area of compromise doesn't overlap with Matt's as regards LPs [and other sound-making round objects, as I'm all in for file based audio]. However, it does with his attraction to tubes. "Tube sound is a myth", there's twisted a priori for you. I guess this myth has an origin story, but short version is, the longer the memory, the more likely one would witness the birth of the myth. The original transistor designs mostly didn't sound as good as tubed designs: fewer people knew what to do with semiconductors back then, so it took time for the active devices to meet in the center of confusion.

When I got my Stax Lambada Signature Pro headphones I had my choice of the transistor amp/energizer or the Stax SRM-T1 [$400 more] I clearly heard a more musical presentation through the tubed amp. Why? I don't know for sure. But I agree with the description of brass sounds by Matt, how there are different balances of the vowel sounds and consonant sounds of horns, with most transistor gear of the past accentuating the edges at the expense of the middle.

The gear I'm listening to now is all new. It's the first time in ages where I'm listening to all-new designs, new tech. Just found the free online parametric equalizer last week. I've been dreaming about that for ages. And as regarding the "Tube Sound" myth, I don't know a thing about digital tube sound emulators, but I'm sure they exist, that I heard their effect somewhere down the line and when I did I couldn't hear the difference between a real and a fake "tube sound" anyway. What I'm listening to now reminds me a lot of the Stax headphone/amp combo. There's other advantages to how I'm listening to music now, such as ease of access to any given title. I'm not quite sure to make of horn sounds, need to spend more time listening to brass-heavy music through this gear to suss that out. But otherwise, that quality of smoothness that lots of people associate with tube gear is present in the Topping E/L 30 combo and EQ-ed Drop 6XX headphones.

1250205-stax-sr-lambda-pro-signature-earspeakers-with-srmt1-tubed-driver-unit.jpg


The demographics of High-End audio naturally tilts to older people. The market has a lot of older folk who finally can afford the audio system of their dreams. I got that Stax gear thirty years ago, it was TOTL at the time. And us older folk tend to have a lot of past to compare to our present. A lot of older folk remember that stereo they heard a quarter century ago, a couple of technological lifetimes ago. So naturally there will be a market for euphonic distortion, nostalgia, and other dreams.
 
I grew up with a jazz musician father who played trombone and trumpet in the house regularly. I played in all the school bands, stage band etc. I have attended countless concerts featuring brass instruments, from jazz to orchestral and otherwise, and I played in a funk band for 15 years, featuring a full horn line up. Further, I live beside a highly populated city street where we regularly have live bands playing in pubs, and street musicians playing brass instruments. Just about every time someone is playing a horn, I stop, close my eyes, to take a measure of how live horns sound compared to what I'm used to in reproduced sound. Further, one son played sax, the other trombone, and I recorded both, comparing the live vs reproduced through various speaker systems in our home. I'm a bit obsessed with live vs reproduced sound, fascinated by it.

I'm pretty familiar with the sound of live horns :)

But this gets exactly to the issue I've brought up before in terms of the subjectivity involved in preferences and evaluating sound, especially in regards to "does it sound natural/believable?"

For the most part as we all know, reproduced sound, starting with the artificiality of the recording/mixing process onward, is full of compromises in terms of any sense of "realism." It's pretty much laughable to compare, for instance, the horn section in some of the funk tracks I was playing last night with a real horn section playing beside me (as they did when I was a keyboardist in the funk band), or just in the same room (as I rehearsed with them for 15 years). The reproduced horns are teeny representations, diminished in virtually every way, to toy versions.

So I'm not likely to be fooled any time soon that I'm hearing real horns or other instruments. But live sound is for me a guide to some of the essential characteristics I want to hear in even a toy version of an instrument.

You are certainly right! Brass instruments can have a sharp blatty attack to their sound, of course! But in the presence of horns when I listen for the sound characteristics I'm struck by how huge and rich the sound is, how the "blattiness" of the horn isn't at all like the over-sharpened spiky sound of a lot of horn recordings, but even the leading edge is bigger, rounder, shimmering with harmonics. Real instrumental tone is both clear, vivid yet RELAXED sounding to my ear.

It's that combination of qualities that I enjoy most when I can get it in reproduced sound. So when I hear horn sections on my system that sound vivid, dynamic, with that "blatty" attack yet at the same time sound more full and relaxed, that to me sounds more natural. I luxuriate in it the same way I do when listening to live instruments.

But these preferences in selecting my sonic compromises are informed by my own experience and criteria.

Presuming for sake of argument the sound of trumpets via the Bryston are different in the way I describe them from the CJ: I can easily imagine that you may hear the sharper, brighter attack of the Bryston version and judge it more realistic. Which is perfectly legitimate. But since the horn sound is so compromised to begin with, in my view you'd be seizing on one aspect that strikes you as more real to you, where I am siezing on others - the slightly fuller, rounder, more relaxed quality, that I find to be more "accurate" to the real thing. Neither version captures everything about the real sound of horns, so we may prefer different areas of compromise.

Cheers!

Hi Matt: What speakers are you using to compare the amps? Do you have an impedance curve for these speakers? If you hear such a large difference I can't help but think the SS amp is delivering more power and louder sound into an impedance "dip" at some frequency compared to the tube amp. Although there may be some other explanation, since I don't believe in "amp magic", FR differences seem like the most likely explanation. I will have my "Neurochrome Mod-86 vs Dynaco ST-70" ABX test set up shortly.
 
Hi Matt: What speakers are you using to compare the amps? Do you have an impedance curve for these speakers? If you hear such a large difference I can't help but think the SS amp is delivering more power and louder sound into an impedance "dip" at some frequency compared to the tube amp. Although there may be some other explanation, since I don't believe in "amp magic", FR differences seem like the most likely explanation. I will have my "Neurochrome Mod-86 vs Dynaco ST-70" ABX test set up shortly.

Yes that is certainly a possibility.

Currently driving Spendor S3/5s. This is probably the closest version I've seen measured:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/spendor-s35se-loudspeaker-measurements

And the Joseph Audio Perspective (original), which has a pretty benign impedance for tube amps:

"The Joseph is a very easy load for the partnering amplifier to drive. Not only is the phase angle relatively low, the impedance remains above 8 ohms at almost frequencies, with a minimum magnitude of 6.27 ohms at 135Hz. "

https://www.stereophile.com/content/joseph-audio-perspective-loudspeaker-measurements

But I also have the Thiel 2.7s (which replaced bigger 3.7s driven by the CJ):

"Amplitude Response 35Hz-20 kHz ±2.5 dBPhase Response Minimum ±10°Sensitivity 87 [email protected] V-1mImpedance 4 Ω (2.4 Ω minimum@160Hz) "

Really...I've used the CJs on a wide variety of speakers, everything from Quad ESL 63s to beastly-to-drive MBL ominis.

And I've noted this before (maybe in this thread): the CJ amps have tended to produce essentially the same sonic signature relative to an SS amp - the fuller, rounder, more relaxed and spacious sound - no matter what speaker I've used.

And that leaves me both puzzled and suspicious. Puzzled because if the sound I perceive is ONLY some frequency deviations due to interactions with speaker impedences, then I would think the character would change more among all the speakers - that is be more obviously rolled off or whatever compared to an SS amp on a "tough" impedance curve, but less so or no difference on an easy impedance. But it doesn't seem to. Whatever the speaker, if I compare the CJ to a SS amp, I hear essentially the same type of change in sound.

So perhaps either there are other things going on (transformer-born artifacts?) that accompany the CJ sound across different speakers, or perhaps some expectation bias on my part. Which is another reason why a blind test would be very interesting. As I said, the sonic impressions I have between the Bryston and CJ certainly seem distinct. One is wearing on my ears and makes me want to turn the volume down, especially with aggressive music, the other I can listen to all night, and at any volume I want.
 
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My area of compromise doesn't overlap with Matt's as regards LPs [and other sound-making round objects, as I'm all in for file based audio]. However, it does with his attraction to tubes. "Tube sound is a myth", there's twisted a priori for you. I guess this myth has an origin story, but short version is, the longer the memory, the more likely one would witness the birth of the myth. The original transistor designs mostly didn't sound as good as tubed designs: fewer people knew what to do with semiconductors back then, so it took time for the active devices to meet in the center of confusion.

When I got my Stax Lambada Signature Pro headphones I had my choice of the transistor amp/energizer or the Stax SRM-T1 [$400 more] I clearly heard a more musical presentation through the tubed amp. Why? I don't know for sure. But I agree with the description of brass sounds by Matt, how there are different balances of the vowel sounds and consonant sounds of horns, with most transistor gear of the past accentuating the edges at the expense of the middle.

The gear I'm listening to now is all new. It's the first time in ages where I'm listening to all-new designs, new tech. Just found the free online parametric equalizer last week. I've been dreaming about that for ages. And as regarding the "Tube Sound" myth, I don't know a thing about digital tube sound emulators, but I'm sure they exist, that I heard their effect somewhere down the line and when I did I couldn't hear the difference between a real and a fake "tube sound" anyway. What I'm listening to now reminds me a lot of the Stax headphone/amp combo. There's other advantages to how I'm listening to music now, such as ease of access to any given title. I'm not quite sure to make of horn sounds, need to spend more time listening to brass-heavy music through this gear to suss that out. But otherwise, that quality of smoothness that lots of people associate with tube gear is present in the Topping E/L 30 combo and EQ-ed Drop 6XX headphones.

View attachment 88727

The demographics of High-End audio naturally tilts to older people. The market has a lot of older folk who finally can afford the audio system of their dreams. I got that Stax gear thirty years ago, it was TOTL at the time. And us older folk tend to have a lot of past to compare to our present. A lot of older folk remember that stereo they heard a quarter century ago, a couple of technological lifetimes ago. So naturally there will be a market for euphonic distortion, nostalgia, and other dreams.

Interesting stuff, Robin! I'd love to hear that Stax gear. Not being an earphone aficionado I don't believe I've heard them. Great rep, that's for sure.

As you've done recording you know well how microphones "hear" things different from our ear-brain mechanism.

When recording, especially in the field, I always have to watch out for this. I was recently recording a neighborhood dog barking and someone came walking along the sidewalk, across the other side of the street. With my ears I could faintly hear either keys or change jingling in his pocket and thought "oh damn!" Because the microphone doesn't discriminate very well like our brains, applying the right distance and filtering sounds out of attention. Those sharp metallic transients just leap through space and on the recording the guy may as well have been beside the microphone. So I have to cut them all out of the track. Same with frictiony footsteps nearby and plenty of other things that ruin recordings.

Of course with the right type of mic, and at the right type of distance you can balance the sound of an instrument or voice better. But as we know plenty of instruments are recorded with the microphone very close, so you get a distorted balance, often favoring the leading edge over the "body" of the instrument.

(But I believe you have recorded far more musical instruments than I have, and know more studio tricks for instruments).
 
Interesting stuff, Robin! I'd love to hear that Stax gear. Not being an earphone aficionado I don't believe I've heard them. Great rep, that's for sure.
You can skip right past them for Topping E/L 30 and Drop 6XX, save a bundle.

As you've done recording you know well how microphones "hear" things different from our ear-brain mechanism.
Yes, getting a believable sound out of a harpsichord is a major challenge.

When recording, especially in the field, I always have to watch out for this. I was recently recording a neighborhood dog barking and someone came walking along the sidewalk, across the other side of the street. With my ears I could faintly hear either keys or change jingling in his pocket and thought "oh damn!" Because the microphone doesn't discriminate very well like our brains, applying the right distance and filtering sounds out of attention. Those sharp metallic transients just leap through space and on the recording the guy may as well have been beside the microphone. So I have to cut them all out of the track. Same with frictiony footsteps nearby and plenty of other things that ruin recordings.
Much like what you said about what happens to the sounds of brass. Sometimes the metal part of the sound can overbalance the body of the tone.

Of course with the right type of mic, and at the right type of distance you can balance the sound of an instrument or voice better. But as we know plenty of instruments are recorded with the microphone very close, so you get a distorted balance, often favoring the leading edge over the "body" of the instrument.

(But I believe you have recorded far more musical instruments than I have, and know more studio tricks for instruments).
I don't know all that many "studio tricks", this was location recording of acoustic events, so I was aiming for uncompressed reality. Being as I was recording concerts of the San Francisco Early Music Society I did hear a lot of instruments others haven't, clavichords, serpents, theorbos and their ilk. Took me some time to figure out that compression and reverb can be your friend. I didn't know what microphone would be 'best' for a given situation so I asked engineers with experience [you want Schoeps Collettes for harpsichords, in case anyone's interested].The kinds of audio effects swirling around a teen-ager's home studio and baked into modern pop music are way over my head.

Figure A:---Harpsichord Microphone:
schoeps_cmc62g_set_cmc_6_ug_amplifier_1513026.jpg
 
And I've noted this before (maybe in this thread): the CJ amps have tended to produce essentially the same sonic signature relative to an SS amp - the fuller, rounder, more relaxed and spacious sound - no matter what speaker I've used.

Right there is what would make me suspicious and want to check my perception. Looks like you're headed that way as well.:D

I'm envious of you guys- my mike locker is stuffed with omnis and figure 8s, but nothing else. And I happen to need a hypercardioid at the moment...
 
Right there is what would make me suspicious and want to check my perception. Looks like you're headed that way as well.:D

I'm envious of you guys- my mike locker is stuffed with omnis and figure 8s, but nothing else. And I happen to need a hypercardioid at the moment...

Human imagination is a remarkable thing. You just have to look around the world and see the astonishing variety (and logical incompatibility) of experiences people believe they have had, to see how far unfettered subjectivism can take you.

If people can imagine they have been abducted and probed by aliens, I'm sure I can imagine a bit of extra brightness in a hi-fi amp :)
 
The examples usually cited are e.g. a violin - if you heard one for the first time in ten years, you would still know it was a violin. Or your mother's voice on the phone, and so on. In our world, some loudspeakers are like that. Suppose your formative years had been spent listening to original L100s ... you would recognize that sound even decades later.
Actually, I recognise a violin whether I hear it live, or through whatever sound reproduction system (even the tinniest). I guess some people are able to discern the “speaker signature” in the violin sound, but I am more likely to recognise the violinist than the violin (I suppose I discern the mannerisms, not the actual sound).
It is my belief that somehow our lack of ability to memorise the actual distortion of the reproduction equipment allows us to recognise an reproduced instrument (even when we notice it’s not the original sound). We listen for matches, not differences. This then segues into the imagined differences the audiophiles hear between cables etc.
 
Actually, I recognise a violin whether I hear it live, or through whatever sound reproduction system (even the tinniest). I guess some people are able to discern the “speaker signature” in the violin sound, but I am more likely to recognise the violinist than the violin (I suppose I discern the mannerisms, not the actual sound).
It is my belief that somehow our lack of ability to memorise the actual distortion of the reproduction equipment allows us to recognise an reproduced instrument (even when we notice it’s not the original sound). We listen for matches, not differences. This then segues into the imagined differences the audiophiles hear between cables etc.
Saying the same thing in slightly different terms our minds are pattern matching machines. The patterns do have a bias in finding differences in something that matches nearly perfectly, but first we match patterns. And for instance recognizing someone's voice or a violin starts with matching patterns, and once enough are matched we judge it as someone we know or some instrument we recognize.
 
I can see why ABX ing amps is not done that often.... lots of issues to solve especially when tube amps are involved. I have my ABX test set up working on my bench without issue. I have a Niles A/B switch which I wired up a little differently so when it switches "out" the Tube amp it goes to my 8 ohm 200 watt dummy load instead open. The only issues is that the switch can only switch one channel from each amp this way and send the output to one speaker. I think this is fine and is how Toole recommends testing be done but I know some people like stereo. I am going to bring the test set up inside and hook up to my main system as soon as I have time. One question I have is what is the most "scientifically valid/ transparent" way to level match? Originally I used a preamp (DIY Op Amp based works great) on one channel but I also have a "voltage divider variable resistor RCA adapter" than can do the same thing passively. Both seemed to work fine but in case people question my methods which is preferred ?..... I have plenty of gain going directly from my DAC and the tube amp, where I would use the RCA attenuator, has 300 K ohm input impedance if that figures into the answer.
 

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I can see why ABX ing amps is not done that often.... lots of issues to solve especially when tube amps are involved. I have my ABX test set up working on my bench without issue. I have a Niles A/B switch which I wired up a little differently so when it switches "out" the Tube amp it goes to my 8 ohm 200 watt dummy load instead open. The only issues is that the switch can only switch one channel from each amp this way and send the output to one speaker. I think this is fine and is how Toole recommends testing be done but I know some people like stereo. I am going to bring the test set up inside and hook up to my main system as soon as I have time. One question I have is what is the most "scientifically valid/ transparent" way to level match? Originally I used a preamp (DIY Op Amp based works great) on one channel but I also have a "voltage divider variable resistor RCA adapter" than can do the same thing passively. Both seemed to work fine but in case people question my methods which is preferred ?..... I have plenty of gain going directly from my DAC and the tube amp, where I would use the RCA attenuator, has 300 K ohm input impedance if that figures into the answer.
I'd think passive resistor network is preferred. Likely to be lower distortion etc. What you have to watch out for are output impedances that can interact with cable capacitance causing a high frequency roll off. Point one is put the attenuator as close to the following input as possible with as short a cable as possible. So what is the input and output impedance of your variable resistor RCA adapter?
 
I'd think passive resistor network is preferred. Likely to be lower distortion etc. What you have to watch out for are output impedances that can interact with cable capacitance causing a high frequency roll off. Point one is put the attenuator as close to the following input as possible with as short a cable as possible. So what is the input and output impedance of your variable resistor RCA adapter?
Thank you.
There is a picture of the attenuator attached to my post...it is just a 20 k variable resistor soldered onto an RCA plug and jack. DAC output impeadance is low and adapter would attach directly to the tube amp RCA input which is 300k ohm input impeadance.
 
Thank you.
There is a picture of the attenuator attached to my post...it is just a 20 k variable resistor soldered onto an RCA plug and jack. DAC output impeadance is low and adapter would attach directly to the tube amp RCA input which is 300k ohm input impeadance.
Okay, is the variable resistor connected to a series resistor or is that a variable output 20 k ohm pot? I can't tell from the picture.

If it is a variable output pot it should be fine. Max output impedance would be 5 k ohm at -6 db. And you'll be using it at a lower setting with an even lower output impedance.
 
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