Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

[Bob from Florida]

Yes, but not frequency response. Distortion and power, sure, but that's not what Matt was describing.

Do you think he could be hearing zero crossing distortion from the lower bias? People think they can plug a different tube in the socket and have this expectation of a magical result without adapting the circuit. Great marketing ploy though. Buy our amp and you can roll all these tubes.

 

[j_j]

Yes, but not frequency response. Distortion and power, sure, but that's not what Matt was describing.

If the small-signal transconductance is substantially different, it is actually possible to have some interesting interactions, but I'd expect mostly gain, except at the edges of the output transformer frequency range.

 

[danadam]

Do you know how they calculate that DR metric? Some time ago I looked to see what those numbers mean. I could not find an answer.

There's the original algorithm (already mentioned a few times) and there's the new MAAT DROffline and even newer version MKII. The tools for the original algorithm are free, for the new ones you have to pay.

 

[Sal1950]

Your point is valid: there is a lot of 'bad compression' being applied that audiophiles would be well advised to avoid.... but please, don't use that site as a guide. Those instances where it is an accurate indicator of sonic problems, and those instances where it is highly misleading, are indistinguishable from simply looking at the site. That's damning.

Ya got to use the tools you have.
Admittedly imperfect but in the main a good indicator of what's going on in industry.
The examples I've put up are pretty undeniable and I avoided the vinyl examples as best I could, I was only interested in
the digital releases.
I'm well aware of the issues with vinyl DR measurements but vinyl is so full of it's own built-in inaccuracies that comparisons based on DR are mostly irrelevant.

So, there has to be not just a line in the sand, but a WALL across the beach, to keep the tidal wave of crap from burying everything.

Amen @j_j , that's the BS we've been wrestling elsewhere for decades now.

we could ask the moderators how many users are registered and have stopped at a certain point. I haven't seen many names intervene for a long time. Banned and stopped trolls aside. Then of course, there is also a physiological number of people who contribute once in a while, or who have simply chosen other "shores" in a completely natural way...

You can lead a horse to water and all that.
If they refuse to learn and would rather follow the mystic gurus into High End hell, let them go.
I for one have listened to that crap well long enough.
It might even be good for the economy. LOL

Do you think he could be hearing zero crossing distortion from the lower bias? People think they can plug a different tube in the socket and have this expectation of a magical result without adapting the circuit. Great marketing ploy though. Buy our amp and you can roll all these tubes.

Just more of the using HiFi gear as toys style Bob.
As I stated somewhere else, I prefer my toys to have wheels and go fast.

 

[MattHooper]

Do you think he could be hearing zero crossing distortion from the lower bias? People think they can plug a different tube in the socket and have this expectation of a magical result without adapting the circuit. Great marketing ploy though. Buy our amp and you can roll all these tubes.

There seemed to be quite a few audiophiles who believe that the power is somehow resides strictly in the tube. And when they read the KT 120 or 150 tube is capable of more power, they think just replacing a 6550 with one of those tubes will result in more powers, stronger bass and all that.
As I believe you are pointing out, to take advantage of a more powerful tube would require an appropriate change in the circuit of of the tube amp (and possibly transformers?)

That’s the extent of my “ knowledge” such as it is. This is why IF the K120 tube was actually altering the sound, I’d guessed it would be most likely a frequency response deviation. Besides that, the difference between 6550s 120s and 150s would be pretty minor in terms of wattage with a typical speaker anyway, even if the amplifier could be properly configured for each.

 

[SIY]

but I'd expect mostly gain

That and distortion and power. A load and operating point suitable for Tube A will generally not be optimal for Tube B. Worse yet, in soi disant Ultralinear circuits, beam power and pentodes will give extremely different performance, and yet those swaps are quite common among the ignorati; Morgan Jones did a nice article about that in AudioXpress a few years ago.

 

[j_j]

That and distortion and power. A load and operating point suitable for Tube A will generally not be optimal for Tube B. Worse yet, in soi disant Ultralinear circuits, beam power and pentodes will give extremely different performance, and yet those swaps are quite common among the ignorati; Morgan Jones did a nice article about that in AudioXpress a few years ago.

All agreed. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised there might be a difference in actual output, at least at limits.

 

[Bob from Florida]

Just more of the using HiFi gear as toys style Bob.
As I stated somewhere else, I prefer my toys to have wheels and go fast.

So, your vinyl rig of choice would be an idler wheel turntable playing '78's.
LOL -

 

[Newman]

Do you know how they calculate that DR metric? Some time ago I looked to see what those numbers mean. I could not find an answer.

I think it is this. (An old note that I cannot source)

• Split signal into L and R channels.
• Segment the album/track into 3 second intervals
• Calculate the RMS amplitude (using a double sum) within each segment.
• Notice and save the largest peak value in the segment.
• Choose the loudest 20% of the segments and discard the rest.
• Calculate the RMS average of the RMS average and subtract that from the second largest peak.
• Convert the ratio to dB.
• Average L and R channel values.

Hope this helps. But I am not well enough informed to discuss it with any authority.

The thing the persuades me of its ineffectiveness is how easily it is 'fooled' into changing without changes to the perceived 'dynamics'. Plus, the several ways that measuring it on vinyl turns out to be dependent on things other than dynamics adjustments.

 

[MatrixS2000]

There's the original algorithm (already mentioned a few times) and there's the new MAAT DROffline and even newer version MKII. The tools for the original algorithm are free, for the new ones you have to pay.

The original version measured PLR, the newer MKII version measures PSR which is based on ITU BS.1770. The ITU link is a good and brief read. You can read more about PLR and PSR here. However, both those tools give a single number to represent the entire song. I prefer this tool that will output a graph showing how the dynamics are changing over the entire length of the song. See the example below. Note the red line is the target PSR that you can select. It is used to calculate the % of the song that stays above that target PSR as shown in the blue box on the right.

 

[danadam]

I prefer this tool that will output a graph showing how the dynamics are changing over the entire length of the song.

Offline Loudness (LUFS) plotting

Looks like the bash version from https://github.com/ElizabethHarmon/ebu-norm is no longer there (404). Here's my version: https://github.com/danadam/plot_loudness (there are a few more examples there). From Interstellar

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[MatrixS2000]

Excellent!

 

[Sal1950]

View attachment 411960

You lost me Count, what is the point your trying to make?

Edit,
Oh maybe your saying the MC501 is a tube amp?
Don't know where you got that info but that Mc amp is a 500 watt monoblock Solid State amp, not a single tube in it anywhere.
"The output transistors "have matched uniform current gain, high current bandwidth product and large active region safe operating area." According to the manual, "an automatic tracking bias system completely eliminates any trace of crossover distortion," and "precision metal-film resistors and low-dielectric absorption film capacitors are used in all critical circuit locations "

McIntosh MC501 monoblock power amplifier

It's true—you never forget your first love. And no, I'm not talking about little Jackie Lynn Neeck in my second-grade class when I was seven years old. I still remember her, almost as vividly as I remember my first encounter with a fantastic stereo system, and therein hangs a tale.

www.stereophile.com

 

[j_j]

You lost me Count, what is the point your trying to make?

Edit,
Oh maybe your saying the MC501 is a tube amp?
Don't know where you got that info but that Mc amp is a 500 watt monoblock Solid State amp, not a single tube in it anywhere.
"The output transistors "have matched uniform current gain, high current bandwidth product and large active region safe operating area." According to the manual, "an automatic tracking bias system completely eliminates any trace of crossover distortion," and "precision metal-film resistors and low-dielectric absorption film capacitors are used in all critical circuit locations "

McIntosh MC501 monoblock power amplifier

It's true—you never forget your first love. And no, I'm not talking about little Jackie Lynn Neeck in my second-grade class when I was seven years old. I still remember her, almost as vividly as I remember my first encounter with a fantastic stereo system, and therein hangs a tale.

www.stereophile.com

Interesting, it's a set of output transistors that don't obey the power law? I can believe "not much crossover distortion" but no, not NONE.

I've built these puppies. Mathematics works.

Furthermore, (he says grumpily) a switching amp has not the problem.

 

[Sal1950]

Interesting, it's a set of output transistors that don't obey the power law? I can believe "not much crossover distortion" but no, not NONE.

j_j: You have to believe in magic don't ya know?

 

[j_j]

j_j: You have to believe in magic don't ya know?

HAR!

 

[Count Dacula]

Not to make a specific point, but people might like to hear Daft Punk's call to end the Loudness War

Recording Random Access Memories | Daft Punk

Daft Punk spent four years and over a million dollars on their quest to revisit the golden age of record production. Mick Guzauski and Peter Franco were with them all the way.

www.soundonsound.com

Daft Punk spent four years and over a million dollars on their quest to revisit the golden age of record production. Mick Guzauski and Peter Franco were with them all the way.

 

[Count Dacula]

You lost me Count, what is the point your trying to make?

Edit,
Oh maybe your saying the MC501 is a tube amp?
Don't know where you got that info but that Mc amp is a 500 watt monoblock Solid State amp, not a single tube in it anywhere.
"The output transistors "have matched uniform current gain, high current bandwidth product and large active region safe operating area." According to the manual, "an automatic tracking bias system completely eliminates any trace of crossover distortion," and "precision metal-film resistors and low-dielectric absorption film capacitors are used in all critical circuit locations "

McIntosh MC501 monoblock power amplifier

It's true—you never forget your first love. And no, I'm not talking about little Jackie Lynn Neeck in my second-grade class when I was seven years old. I still remember her, almost as vividly as I remember my first encounter with a fantastic stereo system, and therein hangs a tale.

www.stereophile.com

At 10x the cost, Macintosh is overpriced like you were saying, but wow....big $$$ for a SS amp. I did think it was tubed, and relied on part of an ASR chart. Thanks for clearing this up. Sorry about that. I guess the price and wattage is for two units..? NBD.

 

[HalSF]

Can I be honest?

I think this is perhaps the most negative thread I've read on this beautiful site. I read and reread it every now and then because it jumps to the top of the forum, but I can't find it useful or positive. In fact, I find it negative, offensive, and alienating.
Why worry about other people's tastes and hi-fi journeys enough to make an initial post like this. The result?
My impression is that most new users parrot what they see written by the major contributors in my opinion without having much knowledge of what they are saying. They give up their own taste and ideas too easily and this doesn't help to raise true awareness. They do it out of a sort of awe or fear of seeing the classics written, BS, try it, it's your imagination and so on.
Others run away, missing out on the beauty that can be found in here. This way you don't create a debate, but simply try to catechize with the less good ones.
Being aware of the scientific part of a hobby is not having a t-shirt on, so you are part of the club, but it is a path made of learning, tests, understanding, and free exchange of opinions, even the strangest ones.
Slowly bringing to understanding, this is satisfaction.

Think about it, an old adage says: the good teacher is the one who is able to take you on his shoulders and make you see far away...not the one who wants to impose his personal vision...

I appreciate this post as it describes well some of my reactions as I increasingly gravitate toward and appreciate what I learn and benefit from at this site, while resisting some of the harshness, condescension, and dogmatic rigidity that characterizes aspects of the culture here.

I’ve always been skeptical of the extreme wine-tasting subjective lore and sheer mysticism that pervades a lot of Golden Ear audiophile discourse, and this has pointed me toward the empirical, science-based values that I’ve found here during my slow-motion conversion to this site.

I want to *know* what’s real and important, not *believe* it. (That said, there is a powerful element of motivated reasoning behind what I’m liking here, which is that I’m a cheapskate and I’m repelled by the luxury fever of the audiophile world and its mindless habit of indexing higher audio component performance value to ever more ridiculous higher prices and artisanal packaging. ASR saves me money.)

Along with excellent digital sources, I still listen to and love vinyl. I *know* all about noise and other limitations to vinyl fidelity, but the whole experience is dear to me and I usually feel I’m able to experience the full aesthetic power of the music I’m listening to despite the format’s flaws and antiquarian technology. (Nostalgia and early imprinting are also factors.) But I’ve *never* proselytized or made any claims whatsoever about vinyl superiority or magical “warmth” or how its sound quality is somehow better or truer than great digital playback. It isn’t!

I know what’s wrong with vinyl but I don’t care. The thing that I observe sometimes here is an overtorqued implicit assertion that embracing that wrongness with eyes and ears open is not just embracing technological backwardness or inadequacies, even if I’m owning it, but that it’s a kind of moral or ethical wrongness, that in some sense it’s offensive and morally uncouth and just plain stupid.

What I love to see is evidence and sweet reason, not fanatical, judgmental scientism.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I’ve always been skeptical of the extreme wine-tasting subjective lore and sheer mysticism that pervades a lot of Golden Ear audiophile discourse, and this has pointed me toward the empirical, science-based values that I’ve found here during my slow-motion conversion to this site.

If you’re interested in wine, or just obsessive behavior in general, I enjoyed the book Cork Dork. The author is a (generally) tech writer, who decides to become a sommelier and writes about the process. The parallels with audiophiles are plenty considering the limited nature of our senses.