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I think @Frank Dernie was probably talking about decent and adequately powerful solid state amplifiers. Changing valves in a valve amp can of course have an audible effect.
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I think @Frank Dernie was probably talking about decent and adequately powerful solid state amplifiers. Changing valves in a valve amp can of course have an audible effect.
Ah, valve amplifiers can sound different to each other, but valves shouldn’t make that much difference in a well designed circuit. Tube rolling was something that started on guitar amps which are deliberately driven out of their linear range such that different valves with different overload characteristics sound quite different. In a Hi-Fi amplifier, where things are supposed to be kept linear, there shouldn’t be much, if any, effect of changing equivalent valves if the circuit is good. Better valves will probably last longer but if the sound quality changes a lot either the original valves were poor on tolerance of the amp circuit is non-optimum.
In a well designed tube amp, nope, unless you're changing out some defective tubes.
I love the wife invocation- nothing like the classics.
@Moriarty Once you've done some level-matched ears-only comparisons, you might have a bit of a shock. I sure as hell did the first time I seriously attempted blind tests of preamps and discovered that things I knew sounded different couldn't be distinguished by ear alone. The mind is a powerful thing, and that helps magicians make a living (hint: that coin didn't really disappear).
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This is news to me - thanks.
The OP is talking about "NOS counterparts produced in the last century" i.e. vintage tubes here. Would you say even then there couldn't possibly be a difference?
If an amp is designed properly AND either the old or replacement tubes aren't shot, nope. Voice of experience here.
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My typing skills are noth the bist.
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- #28
So, it looks like my valve amplifier is not "well designed" since I hear a significant difference with new valves, my wife probably doesn't exist at all and I live in a parallel world with imagined sounds... Oh, OK.
It's getting late and it's time to go to bed, I think. Goodnight.
It's getting late and it's time to go to bed, I think. Goodnight.
Possible. It's also possible that you have the same biases and foibles as every other human being on the planet, and if you controlled the listening test properly, the audible differences might prove to be illusory.
That's the problem with science- experiments may not give you the answer you believed or hoped for.
Hello
To my view
- no recording studio can record at so low thd values than dac are measured (except maybe digital music i don't know)
- so the so low noise obtained from dac is completely artificial as it's lower as the record gear can have
- then it doesn't mean anything to have such low thd dac and great sinad as recording equipment cannot do that
- i believe tube gear add some more hear friendy harmonics that hide this artificial very low noise
- also tube can add harmonics that are not in the record. It s kind of reconstructing harmonics that are limited by the cd format. They re not the same as original instruments but can make it sound more enjoyable
- i believe also tube can smoothed over processed masters by adding Harmonics.
- it's true that tube change sound but what ? Better have a less good measuring gear stuff that sounds enjoyable that a top notch measuring gear that sounds boring.
- i bought a 20$ ak4490 dac connected to a 12v linear psu i got and could easily ear differences by switching op amps and choose a muse 8920 (better than lm4690 who is better than stock ne5532)
- i enjoy far more the sound when i connect a tube buffer between dac and amp
- without tube buffer sound is boring
- i prefer the sound over nos r2r tda1543*4 but for some style the nos dac sounds more natural. The ak4490 is less fatiguing maybe because of less imd.
So please stop saying that only specs matter. Tube gears and r2r dac are not made to have top notch specs that is not a secret. But that doesn't mean they make a sound that isn't better enjoyable.
- to peaople talking about bias and placebo affect i believe that you re also prone to placebo and when you see good measurements you think you dac sound good and then your mind don't want to believe that lesser measuring dacs could be more enjoyable to listen to
- bye the way if someone want to measure my dac board https://www.amazon.com/Decoder-Board-AK4490-AK4118-Channel/dp/B07784YK8S
I believe it has the short delay slow roll.off filter has i tested th pins on the dac. I think that there is a high freq roll off but i don't care has the sound is very good
@Moriarty i had a marrantz cd5001 that i didn't like at all then a teac cd p800nt with pcm1795 a lot better but i prefer my 20$ ak4490 board so i can advise to find a ak dac with good psu and where you can switch op amps.
Cheers
If i wad biased i think i would have prefered the pcm1795 of my cd player over a cheap 20€ board that has more high freq roll off
To my view
- no recording studio can record at so low thd values than dac are measured (except maybe digital music i don't know)
- so the so low noise obtained from dac is completely artificial as it's lower as the record gear can have
- then it doesn't mean anything to have such low thd dac and great sinad as recording equipment cannot do that
- i believe tube gear add some more hear friendy harmonics that hide this artificial very low noise
- also tube can add harmonics that are not in the record. It s kind of reconstructing harmonics that are limited by the cd format. They re not the same as original instruments but can make it sound more enjoyable
- i believe also tube can smoothed over processed masters by adding Harmonics.
- it's true that tube change sound but what ? Better have a less good measuring gear stuff that sounds enjoyable that a top notch measuring gear that sounds boring.
- i bought a 20$ ak4490 dac connected to a 12v linear psu i got and could easily ear differences by switching op amps and choose a muse 8920 (better than lm4690 who is better than stock ne5532)
- i enjoy far more the sound when i connect a tube buffer between dac and amp
- without tube buffer sound is boring
- i prefer the sound over nos r2r tda1543*4 but for some style the nos dac sounds more natural. The ak4490 is less fatiguing maybe because of less imd.
So please stop saying that only specs matter. Tube gears and r2r dac are not made to have top notch specs that is not a secret. But that doesn't mean they make a sound that isn't better enjoyable.
- to peaople talking about bias and placebo affect i believe that you re also prone to placebo and when you see good measurements you think you dac sound good and then your mind don't want to believe that lesser measuring dacs could be more enjoyable to listen to
- bye the way if someone want to measure my dac board https://www.amazon.com/Decoder-Board-AK4490-AK4118-Channel/dp/B07784YK8S
I believe it has the short delay slow roll.off filter has i tested th pins on the dac. I think that there is a high freq roll off but i don't care has the sound is very good
@Moriarty i had a marrantz cd5001 that i didn't like at all then a teac cd p800nt with pcm1795 a lot better but i prefer my 20$ ak4490 board so i can advise to find a ak dac with good psu and where you can switch op amps.
Cheers
If i wad biased i think i would have prefered the pcm1795 of my cd player over a cheap 20€ board that has more high freq roll off
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Ah, the Gish Gallop!
But shooting at two points amongst the mess:
When it comes to boxes of gain and DACs, measurements in fact do totally characterize them. There's absolutely ZERO instances of demonstrated audible differences that aren't easily measurable.
Some people like distortion, especially people who don't care for (or are unfamiliar with) the sound of live, unamplified acoustic music. You're certainly welcome to add it to your system, but I'd think you'd want the ability to turn it off. And there's cheaper and easier ways of accomplishing the goal of distorting the music than buying expensive and badly engineered components.
But shooting at two points amongst the mess:
When it comes to boxes of gain and DACs, measurements in fact do totally characterize them. There's absolutely ZERO instances of demonstrated audible differences that aren't easily measurable.
Some people like distortion, especially people who don't care for (or are unfamiliar with) the sound of live, unamplified acoustic music. You're certainly welcome to add it to your system, but I'd think you'd want the ability to turn it off. And there's cheaper and easier ways of accomplishing the goal of distorting the music than buying expensive and badly engineered components.
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It doesn't matter if you are biased or not biased to get subjectively wrong listening test results. You could think something is terrible, pay attention to its sound and walk away thinking it has more detail, air, microdynamics, etc. It is just how our hearing works.
Then why do i hear obvious differences between op amps? It's like tube. Even on good engineered dac you can hear differences by aop rolling and no measurements can explains it. Then all people that believes on measurements believe that all aop sound the same. People that are not biased by measurements will find easy to find differences between op amps.
Then to be exhaustif one should consider both points of view and not limit itself by theory.
In medicine studies are done with people to test the theory.
It would be interesting to make a test like in medicine with thousand of people to see whether they prefer a dac with a little third harmonic or a dac with better specs.
No science prooves that a better measuring dac activate more pleasure in the human brain.
Some science explain that brain is sensitive to frequency you don't hear when played alone.
Maybe brain is sensitive to the sup 20khz not heared and prefer the one generated by tube than the one generated by the filter of the dac.
It could also affect nervous system like the blinking led screens that you cannot see blinking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10848570/
Then to be exhaustif one should consider both points of view and not limit itself by theory.
In medicine studies are done with people to test the theory.
It would be interesting to make a test like in medicine with thousand of people to see whether they prefer a dac with a little third harmonic or a dac with better specs.
No science prooves that a better measuring dac activate more pleasure in the human brain.
Some science explain that brain is sensitive to frequency you don't hear when played alone.
Maybe brain is sensitive to the sup 20khz not heared and prefer the one generated by tube than the one generated by the filter of the dac.
It could also affect nervous system like the blinking led screens that you cannot see blinking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10848570/
Extract of the study
Psychological evaluation indicated that the subjects felt the sound containing an HFC to be more pleasant than the same sound lacking an HFC.
So sound with frequency upper 20khz was more pleasant.
Then filter hfc or tube dac hfc more pleasant is a good question. Tube harmonics could hide the filter noise of a dac and explain the more pleasant sound.
Psychological evaluation indicated that the subjects felt the sound containing an HFC to be more pleasant than the same sound lacking an HFC.
So sound with frequency upper 20khz was more pleasant.
Then filter hfc or tube dac hfc more pleasant is a good question. Tube harmonics could hide the filter noise of a dac and explain the more pleasant sound.
Because content with frequencies upper than 20khz is more enjoyable from this study other studies could explain why high frequencies generated by tube harmonics are more or less enjoyable depending on the tube.
Science is here to explain what we can feel not the opposite.
Science is here to explain what we can feel not the opposite.
Opposite is trust the theory present a a time.
Theory is only an approximation of what is known at a certain time. Maybe in future very high frequencies (like this study suggest) will be more considered. And some parameters that are prooved enjoyable by brain will be considered more important than thd and sinad.
Theory is only an approximation of what is known at a certain time. Maybe in future very high frequencies (like this study suggest) will be more considered. And some parameters that are prooved enjoyable by brain will be considered more important than thd and sinad.
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Sure. Where experimental data falsify a hypothesis, a theory will need to be changed or replaced.
What experimental data and which aspect of the current theory specifically though?
