Is Audio Science Review going about it all wrong? Or partly wrong? Or all right?

[LTig]

It can make what better? I know of severe distortion added to guitar amps and such but no case of music being done and then in mastering dialing in more distortion to make it sound better.

I think this is one of those fish stories that has been said so many times that it is accepted as fact by both subjectivists and objectivists. I don't think it has merit.

There are lots of special microphone preamps (or so called channel strips) just for the purpose of making voices sounding better/more musical/richer/whatever. Many of them praised to have a famous Neve sound (Mr. Neve is an old guy making nice sounding equipment for recording studios). This stuff is really expensive and I don't think that it is not used in studios. Often this equipment uses tubes and/or special made audio transformers to create a specific sound.

No one can tell me that tubes or audio transformers are more transparent then the best solid state chips/transistors. So the only way to achieve this special sound must be distortion of some kind. And the engineers who use it like this sound and think it's better than a transparent channel.

 

[Bliman]

Blumlein covered the ground where I was heading quite thoroughly, so the mechanics should be relatively clear. I might note that 1 kHz test tones are common and present no real trouble for most multimeters. Since you're looking for relative rather than absolute levels, even if a multimeter is rolled off a bit, the matching ability will not be diminished.

Here's a general overview on the other side of testing- what variables you need to keep in mind when setting up the test format. And my hat is tipped to you for your curiosity and willingness to dive in on understanding and experiencing this sort of experimentation!

Thank you. I had read the overview. And in a sense it is depressing to read.
It even creates a sort of placebo for itself. It points you in the direction that there isn't a difference, even if you hear one. It sets you up in a sort of way.
But that will only be the case for those that have read it of course.
But I will also try it with someone that doesn't have a clue about these things. That to me is the best way.
Don't you love it how the brain works.

 

[SIY]

It points you in the direction that there isn't a difference, even if you hear one. It sets you up in a sort of way.

Quite the opposite- it points you in the direction of "Trust your ears." If you hear a difference without peeking, it's real.

 

[mansr]

Are DACs ever off key? Say it's a 440hz test tone and they play it at 445hz?

The worst I have seen is the Audioquest Dragonfly. With multiples of 44.1 kHz sample rate, it runs about 400 ppm fast. This means a 440 Hz tone plays as 440.18 Hz. That's not enough of an error to be audible.

 

[Shadrach]

Quite the opposite- it points you in the direction of "Trust your ears." If you hear a difference without peeking, it's real.

Good link. I hadn't read this one.

 

[Bliman]

Quite the opposite- it points you in the direction of "Trust your ears." If you hear a difference without peeking, it's real.

Yeah but this applies to those that haven't read about it all. If you have read all of it, you will be more inclined to not believe your ears anymore because you are already tainted with this material.
In that way, the material you have read already is a sort of pill that works as a placebo.
You constantly hear that there is no difference between a small 100€ amplifier and a 30000€ monoblock that you are already biased when you do the test.

 

[SIY]

If being told that peeking can bias your perceptions and learning about means to avoid that is "tainting," then I would caution you not to investigate what people have determined about Santa Claus.

 

[andreasmaaan]

There are lots of special microphone preamps (or so called channel strips) just for the purpose of making voices sounding better/more musical/richer/whatever. Many of them praised to have a famous Neve sound (Mr. Neve is an old guy making nice sounding equipment for recording studios). This stuff is really expensive and I don't think that it is not used in studios. Often this equipment uses tubes and/or special made audio transformers to create a specific sound.

No one can tell me that tubes or audio transformers are more transparent then the best solid state chips/transistors. So the only way to achieve this special sound must be distortion of some kind. And the engineers who use it like this sound and think it's better than a transparent channel.

It’s true that engineers use distortion widely in the production of some genres of music (as well as artists in the creation of it).

Rarely, however, is a uniform distortion filter applied to an entire mix - with the exception of certain genres like industrial techno IME.

And even where an engineer has decided that a single distortion filter should be applied to the mix as a whole, they have already done that in the production process. They have not said, “I the artist/engineer have applied a certain type/degree of distortion to this recording but it is not enough and/or not the correct type and therefore you as the listener should apply more.”

OTOH, there is some evidence - sparse and not properly investigated IMO - that many listeners prefer to listen to many recordings with some additional distortion. It would take me a while to track down the studies I have in mind, but they exist.

IMO this suggests that some people do prefer some music more distorted than the artists/engineers who created it.

I’d be interested to see this investigated directly, but to my knowledge it hasn’t been.

 

[MrGoodbits]

If you hear a difference without peeking, it's real.

Exactly! That's the point. If you undertake a fair DBT and hear differences, you have to conclude that there ARE audible differences. I ran my DBT tests with salespeople at the audio salons (who definitely believed "Conrad-Johnson sounds way better than JVC"). If they had been able to pass the test, I would have said okay there are differences---I just can't hear them, so I have to educate my ears better. But, except in trivial cases, nobody ever passed the tests with statistical significance.

 

[amirm]

There are lots of special microphone preamps (or so called channel strips) just for the purpose of making voices sounding better/more musical/richer/whatever. Many of them praised to have a famous Neve sound (Mr. Neve is an old guy making nice sounding equipment for recording studios). This stuff is really expensive and I don't think that it is not used in studios. Often this equipment uses tubes and/or special made audio transformers to create a specific sound.

No one can tell me that tubes or audio transformers are more transparent then the best solid state chips/transistors. So the only way to achieve this special sound must be distortion of some kind. And the engineers who use it like this sound and think it's better than a transparent channel.

Why would it be distortion and not frequency response? My designer used to record music and has a number of these rare microphones. He say people ask for them because they are the same mics that Sinatra, etc. used so people want the same "sound." Likely they do that to make up for their lack of talent.

 

[sergeauckland]

There are lots of special microphone preamps (or so called channel strips) just for the purpose of making voices sounding better/more musical/richer/whatever. Many of them praised to have a famous Neve sound (Mr. Neve is an old guy making nice sounding equipment for recording studios). This stuff is really expensive and I don't think that it is not used in studios. Often this equipment uses tubes and/or special made audio transformers to create a specific sound.

No one can tell me that tubes or audio transformers are more transparent then the best solid state chips/transistors. So the only way to achieve this special sound must be distortion of some kind. And the engineers who use it like this sound and think it's better than a transparent channel.

That's the difference between creating a sound and reproducing a sound. The former is a creative process, and any amount of distortion is permitted if it achieves the results the musicians and producer require. No recording these days (with the possible exception of purist classical recordings of small ensembles) is a document of a real event. They are all assembled from disparate recordings made at different times and in different studios, so whatever achieves the required results is 'correct'. * Even 'Live' classical recordings can be a composite of several performances of the same work.

Reproducing a recording is where one wants (presumably) to reproduce the sound as intended, so a HiFi system should minimise distortions of all sorts. That's why Amirm's measurements are so important, as they tell us just how much each product deviates from the ideal, and whether there is any concern about possible coloration of the reproduced sound.

Having said that, there is a school of thought that says that even with reproduction, any amount of distortion is acceptable is that's what pleases the listener. It's a point of view, but akin to drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa as it looks better that way.


* Just as an aside, I recently repaired a Marshall guitar amplifier, and struggled to know when it had been repaired as it produced so much distortion when working correctly, that originally I thought it was still broken. The owner was well pleased with the result, as it gave him the sound he wanted.

S.

 

[MattHooper]

Exactly! That's the point. If you undertake a fair DBT and hear differences, you have to conclude that there ARE audible differences. I ran my DBT tests with salespeople at the audio salons (who definitely believed "Conrad-Johnson sounds way better than JVC"). If they had been able to pass the test, I would have said okay there are differences---I just can't hear them, so I have to educate my ears better. But, except in trivial cases, nobody ever passed the tests with statistical significance.

Could you give some more detail on the DBTs you ran involving the Conrad Johnson amps?
(I use CJ tube amps myself, so I'm curious).

 

[Blumlein 88]

Could you give some more detail on the DBTs you ran involving the Conrad Johnson amps?
(I use CJ tube amps myself, so I'm curious).

I'm not the person who posted about the DBTs with C-J amps, but I've owned a few of the C-J amps.

I don't know which you have. C-J's tubed products typically quoted FR at 1 watt 20hz-20khz. Then power bandwidth would be quoted from 30hz-15 khz at something like 1 % THD. At lower and upper frequencies distortion and/or response wasn't as good at higher power. I always assumed it was the transformers limiting that. It wasn't uncommon for them to have a resonant peak near 20 khz or just above depending on the speaker in use. The output impedance of them is also usually enough to alter the FR of the speaker, which again was a bit variable depending upon the speaker load.

With some speakers I'd expect them to be audibly different. I've used them mostly with ESL's where they would slightly elevate the bass, slightly reduce the top couple octaves and generally sound pretty nice. I in time moved onto VTL's. The VTL's seemed to have two advantages. Firstly, they had better transformers. They'd maintain response lower and higher without adding to the measured distortion as much at higher power. And they had a beefier power supply than C-J's in general.

Both C-J and VTL seemed to do other nice things versus SS amps. I tested them once by inserting them between source and another power amp. I loaded the output with power resistors and listened. Both had an identifiable sound. Doing the same with a Spectral amp (the SS amp I had at the time) resulted in on change vs a pair of interconnects.

 

[MattHooper]

Blulein88,

I was curious about sergeaucklund's post which implied, if I read it correctly, that in the DBTs he carried out, no one could tell a CJ amp from a JVC amp. So I'm curious about the details.

I have never carried out a blind test between any tube amps and solid state. Which is why I wouldn't make any objective claims that carry any weight about them. I don't find it improbable that, level matched, the sound would be closer than I find via sighted comparisons. It would be fascinating if they were indistinguishable. On the other hand, many people who are knowledgeable about electronics (engineers etc) have explained how tube amps can and often do audibly alter signals, some of which you have pointed out. So I allow myself the idea that there is at least a reasonable plausibility that my CJ amps sound different than, say, the Harmon Kardon and Bryston amps I've also owned and against which I compared them. Without strict blind testing I can't be sure of course, but I'm not super motivated to blind test them because: 1. I just like tube amps - the idea of them, the aesthetics. 2. The effect I strongly *seem* to perceive when I use them is so pleasing I almost don't want to mess with it. If it's an illusion...I'm enjoying the hell out of it ;-)

I own the CJ Premier 12 140w/side tube monoblocks. And a CJ premier 16LS2 tube pre-amp.

And on this subject: while I pointed out how John Atkinson's statements about blind testing amps begged the question (just presumed his subjective impressions were reliable in order to reject negative results in blind tests), I do empathize in some ways with his experience.
He talked about having the intellectual results in hand that a Quad solid state amp was indistinguishable from a tubed Michaelson & Austin amp in blind tests. Yet when he abandoned tubes to replace them with the Quad solid state amp, he found his musical satisfaction with his system reduced. Went back to tubes, and the satisfaction came back.

I've had some similar experiences, for instance once or twice when my CJ amps were "down" - for instance needing tubes replaced, or one time when I actually thought it would be easier to sell them than fix them at one point. I replaced them with at one point a Bryston and also a Harmon Kardon amp I also owned. I had hope that was all I needed, and life would be simpler anyway. For whatever reason, with the SS amps doing duty after a whileI found myself just not all that interested in sitting in front of my system. It sounded really "good," but...not bewitchingly "believable" or seductive in the way I'd been used to. I actually attributed this to a declining interest in 2 channel audio in my part, as I was also having designs of turning that room in to a home theater. I mean, I could certainly still enjoy music...but on in the background. I wasn't compelled to sit, spell-bound, in front of my system anymore. I figured "well, looks like I'm just not that in to listening to music, or high end audio anymore, time to sell my CJ amps."

So I had them fixed to sell. Once I got them back I put them in the system only to ensure they worked properly before putting them up for sale.
And...bam! ...that SOUND was back! Where, in the past months with the SS amps I could just take or leave the listening experience and had no compulsion to sit and listen, with the CJ amps I was glued to my seat. I listened in to the night. Listened day after day, and was back in love with my 2 channel system.

I couldn't sell them, never looked back, and I'm still loving listening to my 2 channel system.

Now, I have never done the blind test like JA did, and so maybe the CJ amps alter the sound of my speakers, maybe not. But the *experience,* however it arises, was extremely subjectively compelling. In JA's case, the intellectual case made that the Quad amps were sonically indistinguishable from his tube amps just wasn't enough to actually change his experience in listening. Even if it was just in his head, the fact was he didn't enjoy his system with the SS amps, and did enjoy it with the tube amps, and that in itself can make the decision to go back to tubes rational. (The mistake, as someone pointed out, is his attempt to rationalize without good evidence that the cause was objective changes in sound, not subjective perception). Similarly, though I know that a good SS amp like my Bryston should be completely sufficient, and more accurate....and even though I have not determined for my CJ is measurably or audibly altering the signal, in any case the fact that having them power my speakers seems to result in more connection to the sound is enough for me to not mess with this situation. For now....

 

[sergeauckland]

Blulein88,

I was curious about sergeaucklund's post which implied, if I read it correctly, that in the DBTs he carried out, no one could tell a CJ amp from a JVC amp. So I'm curious about the details.

Sorry, not me either. I've done several DBTs, but never between a CJ and JVC amp.

S

 

[Daverz]

I go back and forth between my Rogue M-180 tube monoblocks and a Bryston 3B-SST. I probably wouldn't worry about it if the tube gear didn't cost me about $400 every couple of years in replacement power tubes. Lately I've been using DRC, which has increased my satisfaction with the Bryston. Also, I've even bypassed my tube pre-amp by going directly from the DAC to the Bryston.

 

[Bliman]

I go back and forth between my Rogue M-180 tube monoblocks and a Bryston 3B-SST. I probably wouldn't worry about it if the tube gear didn't cost me about $400 every couple of years in replacement power tubes. Lately I've been using DRC, which has increased my satisfaction with the Bryston. Also, I've even bypassed my tube pre-amp by going directly from the DAC to the Bryston.

I love Bryston gear. I had the pleasure to test one when I was assembling my system. That is some seriously good stuff.
Sadly it is to expensive for me.

 

[MattHooper]

I go back and forth between my Rogue M-180 tube monoblocks and a Bryston 3B-SST. I probably wouldn't worry about it if the tube gear didn't cost me about $400 every couple of years in replacement power tubes. Lately I've been using DRC, which has increased my satisfaction with the Bryston. Also, I've even bypassed my tube pre-amp by going directly from the DAC to the Bryston.

I owned a Bryston 4B ST. (Don't have it any longer). I bought it new at the time because I was doing some speaker reviewing - from a purely subjectivist/enthusiast stand point - and I wanted to ensure I had an amp on hand with the power/current to drive any speaker I was likely to acquire. So I'd spend much of the time listening with that amp to get an idea of the sound without introducing the possible colorations/problems of a tube amp. Then at one point I'd switch to the tubes. (The CJ monoblocks, at least subjectively, never really seemed to run out of steam of "control" with any speaker I ever had. The bass could thicken a little bit, but it never sounded "loose" or flabby or one-note).

An audio-pal of mine goes back and forth between SS amps and tubes. He favors tubes, but has had fairly bad luck in terms of reliability, so he reaches a point where he's sick of the tube amp hassle, and gets a SS amp for replacement. Each time he's gone back to tubes after a while.
Right now he replaced his tube amps with a new Bryston amp. I'm wondering how long this will last. He is quite happy with how his system sounds. For me, it's lost some of the qualities I had enjoyed when he used the tube amps. But I don't dare tell him that ;-)

 

[watchnerd]

There is nothing more sobering than a well performed blind test.

Unfortunately the majority of people don't really get the 'well performed' and 'blind test' part of it all and have their own ideas of what such is.

Conversely, there is nothing more enlightening on the role of the mind in hearing than listening to the same exact system while sober vs while under the influence.

ROI on good wine / whiskey / weed beats audiophile cables any day.

 

[SIY]

ROI on good wine / whiskey / weed beats audiophile cables any day.

We're drinking some well-matured Rhones today, and I find that you are exactly right.