Question regarding technical parameters of LPs.

[watchnerd]

Having smuggled this past my wife on Christmas Eve, I have just finished setting everything up, TT is a Sony Biotracer from 1979, cartridge is a modern Dynavector XX2, phon stage is also Dynavector, preamp is Benchmark HPA playing through the AES input ( set to analogue) of the Kii THREE/BXT.


Keith

How do you hook it up to the Kii?

 

[Purité Audio]

Phono leads, ( the Kiis don’t have RIAA at the moment at least) to the AES inputs of the Kiis, the inputs are selectable digital or analogue.
Keith

 

[anmpr1]

How do you hook it up to the Kii?

Do you have a resonance test LP such as the Shure? I would be interested in knowing how the electronic damping affects resonance.

FWIW, I've used the JVC QLY-55 and 66F tables which had similar electronic damping at the pivot (unlike your Sony, both had interchangeable wands, straight and S) however I never had a chance to test them before selling.

The problem with the large JVC decks was the base: a veneer laminate over particle board. Very light and resonant. Sony tables often used a molded inert resin compound, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Prep74]

If that's all he dumped on you, consider yourself lucky. This character is one of the most obnoxious individuals ever to take up pen. Other reviewers may be naive, ignorant, hackneyed, or misinformed. But most are not downright petulant and petty. Check out the guy's interactions with Arthur Salvatore, at the latter's blog. Totally out of control.

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RR-FREMER-A.html
http://www.high-endaudio.com/RR-FREMER.html

The funniest (or most pathetic, depending upon one's view) was his flipping out in public on Peter Aczel (I think it was a CES trade show, or some such). Fremer loudly accused Aczel of ad hominem attacks in his magazine. Peter quipped back, something to the effect of "who is the homo?"--playing off the Latin prefix, ad. Fremer thought Aczel was calling him queer, not understanding the meaning of the Latin words.

As far as ad hominem goes, it is not always an argumentative fallacy, when the issue is indeed the person. In Fremer's case, that is a likely possibility--at least if one is expecting civil interactions with the man.

Yes, details of that exchange in Aczel's reply to Fremer's letter on page 6 below (a good read!).

https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/mags/The_Audio_Critic_21_r.pdf

 

[anmpr1]

Yes, details of that exchange in Aczel's reply to Fremer's letter on page 6 below (a good read!).

The moral to the episode, if there is one, is that you never want to send out a letter (now, it's email) unless you are sober or have taken your medication. Wait until the next day, until you've slept it off or the hallucinations have stopped. Then consider carefully whether you really want to hit <SEND>.

For your daily dose of Fremer, just in case you don't know where the guy is coming from, check out his recent on-line Stereophile review of something called a VAC Statement IQ amp. Evidently someone stuck some tubes in a PC case and decided to charge one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it. It's not a bad looking case for a PC, but not as nice as the old ones from Silicon Graphics IMO. I'd prefer an Iris Indigo for my tube amp. But that's just me.

 

[Robin L]

The moral to the episode, if there is one, is that you never want to send out a letter (now, it's email) unless you are sober or have taken your medication. Wait until the next day, until you've slept it off or the hallucinations have stopped. Then consider carefully whether you really want to hit <SEND>.

For your daily dose of Fremer, just in case you don't know where the guy is coming from, check out his recent on-line Stereophile review of something called a VAC Statement IQ amp. Evidently someone stuck some tubes in a PC case and decided to charge one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it. It's not a bad looking case for a PC, but not as nice as the old ones from Silicon Graphics IMO. I'd prefer an Iris Indigo for my tube amp. But that's just me.

If I take my medication, then I won't be sober anyway.
But in any case, sending a rational correspondence to Mikey, well, you might as well postmark it to Desolation Row.
"Yes, I read your letter yesterday", and posted elsewhere on this forum concerning that Vac statement. Why would anyone want to stack tubes on top of tubes like that? Isn't the point, with heat generating active devices, to have those devices maintain equal cooling throughout?

In any case, it's overpriced, underperforming and looks actively weird, so Mikey likes it.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/vac-statement-452-iq-musicbloc-monostereo-power-amplifier

 

[Hiten]

I wonder if that tube amp design is ok from heat generation point of view, considering valves are horizontal and one above another.

 

[Robin L]

I wonder if that tube amp design is ok from heat generation point of view, considering valves are horizontal and one above another.

My point exactly.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I wonder if that tube amp design is ok from heat generation point of view, considering valves are horizontal and one above another.

Well they rely on natural convection, so drawing cool air from underneath and letting the hot air rise.
It makes little sense, from a cooling pov, for the valves to be directly one over another and how well cool air gets to the row of valves just above a solid wall.
My valve amp has the normal ring of holes around the valve base to allow cool air to flow up the glass envelope but there have to be holes in the case elsewhere for the cool air to be drawn into the casing for the flow to exist.
Excuse the ramble, one of my jobs was engineering the car cooling system. I had to dissipate 750 kW and fans were banned so I always look at cooling of electronics and often go

 

[anmpr1]

It makes little sense, from a cooling pov, for the valves to be directly one over another and how well cool air gets to the row of valves just above a solid wall.

But in any case, sending a rational correspondence to Mikey, well, you might as well postmark it to Desolation Row.

The thermal 'engineering' on this is simply bizarre and idiotic. But how else were they going to fit it inside a PC case? Obviously it is that way for cosmetic purposes. However, for the asking price of a heavily optioned 911 Carrera GTS you'd think they could have engineered some liquid cooling into the stack since they are using what is essentially a PC case (this last point is sarcasm in case anyone thinks I might be serious).

Fremer presents an interesting psychological case. Why anyone would go ballistic over how music is recorded and reproduced is beyond me. I have a tube amp in one of my systems. An AHB2 in another. I enjoy both. But I would never say that my tubes are technically better than the Benchmark. I like records and have a lot of them. I own four turntables. Yet I'd never think that records or analog tape is technically better than digits.

And even if I did think that tubes and records were better, I wouldn't be upset if someone thought different than me. I certainly wouldn't make a public scene, or call them names in print in an effort to ridicule them. I'd just move on.

 

[Robin L]

FWIW, here is a lab report on a turntable from a well establish manufacturer, giving an idea of what level of performance one can expect from a sanely priced turntable.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/pro-ject-classic-evo-turntable-lab-report

 

[Prep74]

The moral to the episode, if there is one, is that you never want to send out a letter (now, it's email) unless you are sober or have taken your medication. Wait until the next day, until you've slept it off or the hallucinations have stopped. Then consider carefully whether you really want to hit <SEND>.

For your daily dose of Fremer, just in case you don't know where the guy is coming from, check out his recent on-line Stereophile review of something called a VAC Statement IQ amp. Evidently someone stuck some tubes in a PC case and decided to charge one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it. It's not a bad looking case for a PC, but not as nice as the old ones from Silicon Graphics IMO. I'd prefer an Iris Indigo for my tube amp. But that's just me.

The first time I've come across him was a comment I made on one of his youtube videos comparing an early RCA David Bowie Hunky Dory LP with a remaster Ryko CD. I commented that all he proved is the transparency of digital as even with a lossy codec you can clearly hear the difference in the masterings. I mentioned that a fairer comparison would be that LP against the early Japan for Europe RCA CD as that is the version sought after by audiophiles. His reply to my comment was potty rude and way over the top. He later deleted his reply as it made him look like a real dick.

 

[Hiten]

Well they rely on natural convection, so drawing cool air from underneath and letting the hot air rise.
It makes little sense, from a cooling pov, for the valves to be directly one over another and how well cool air gets to the row of valves just above a solid wall.
My valve amp has the normal ring of holes around the valve base to allow cool air to flow up the glass envelope but there have to be holes in the case elsewhere for the cool air to be drawn into the casing for the flow to exist.
Excuse the ramble, one of my jobs was engineering the car cooling system. I had to dissipate 750 kW and fans were banned so I always look at cooling of electronics and often go

A simple alternate placement of valves and more open spaced grill on all sides probably could have been good . The one side glass can be put for aesthetic purpose if absolutely necessary.
Am fan of British designs. Aesthetics comes later. 'form follows function' is what I think they follow first. Quad 405 example is a good different approach to design. Heatsinks on front. Input sockets close to PCBs. etc. A novel approach to amplification too.

pardon for being offtopic.

ontopic : in my limited understanding vinyl medium is not good medium from fidelity point of view. But I do listen to them occassionaly. Lots of good recorded music content not availble on digital format. And learning mechanical bits of sound reproduction from them I find interesting. Noise, IGD, Tonearm Resonances, Tracking, Tracing, Cartridge response. Groove/stylus wear, Equlisation, tracking Bias, Acoustic feedback, Speed stability, record warps, offcenters. Problems too many. It is pleasant surprise that it produces listenable music at all. All thanks to work of scientists and engineers of that era.
Regards

 

[Frank Dernie]

All thanks to work of scientists and engineers of that era.

I am one of them. There were some clever engineers even older than me I learned lots from, much of which has been lost in modern times in the fashion in LP players and the non-technical approach to reviewing.
Today reviewers don't measure anything but apply an, often completely absurd, religious approach to certain technologies and or brands/designers which are spectacularly more useless at judgiing a product than measuring it. It is, of course, much, much less expensive and requiring zero knowledge or understanding though

The sort of thing I mean is having a strong opinion about valves, class-A, class-D when the detail engineering makes more difference than the base technology.

Fremer is one of the worst here since he has very strong views based on a very weak grasp of the engineering. I actually gave up reading his column (I am a Stereophile subscriber) after one of his more ridiculous techical non-sequiturs left me exasperated for his disciples who seem to hang on his every word which, in the case of record players, isn't worth the paper it is written on.

 

[anmpr1]

Am fan of British designs. Aesthetics comes later. 'form follows function' is what I think they follow first. Quad 405 example is a good different approach to design.

405 was, IMO, a design masterpiece. Sure, I'm biased because I owned one, and wish I'd kept it. Of course (at least in the US) it was not very ergonomic apart from the Quad way of doing things. For American audiences it was a bit too quirky--input sensitivity didn't match typical US and Japanese preamps; DIN connectors; small fuses that were difficult to source. Perfect for its matching 33, though.

Fremer is one of the worst here since he has very strong views based on a very weak grasp of the engineering. I actually gave up reading his column (I am a Stereophile subscriber).

His problem, or at least one his problems, is that he learned his journalism skills from Harry Pearson. Michael took all he 'learned' from Harry to the next level... kicked it up a notch, as that famous chef used to say. Gordon, on the other hand, was usually soft spoken and a gentleman. At least as I remember the scene. Aczel, for his part, just didn't tolerate fools and idiots. And he was smart enough and had enough self-insight to recognize when he was a fool, and subsequently change his thinking as required.

One thing I've noticed about the style (or lack thereof) of most audio-related journalism is that the writers spend more time talking about themselves than the gear itself. This is understandable inasmuch as most of them probably don't have the technical background to critique a product's engineering.

On the other hand it is undesirable because this sort of 'gonzo' journalism should have died with Hunter Thompson, who was legitimately funny and could write about himself that way. Inject himself into the story in a way that explained his story--in fact he was the story. Let's face it, audio journalists are not very interesting. Nor their wives who with exquisite hearing can decide preamp differences all the way from the kitchen.

 

[Sal1950]

Fremer is one of the worst here since he has very strong views based on a very weak grasp of the engineering. I actually gave up reading his column (I am a Stereophile subscriber) after one of his more ridiculous techical non-sequiturs left me exasperated for his disciples who seem to hang on his every word which, in the case of record players, isn't worth the paper it is written on.

I wish I could share the online war I had with Fremer over at CA/AS a few years back but unfortunately Chris deleted the posts and I won't try to rehash it now without the ASR required evidence to support... Suffice to say he was jumping up and down threatening me with law suites by the current owners lawyers, etc. It really was hilarious. He's a piece of work that guy.

I've also been a subscriber to Stereophile for more years than I care to remember. I've said so many times that "enough is enough, I'm done" but there always were still enough good stuff that I still enjoyed reading it. With the early sad passing of Art Dudley, I'm not so sure now. His claims of the SQ value of vinyl would make me go crazy but I did enjoy his discussions of a lot of very old classic gear, specially speakers. As a septuagenarian audiophile I very much enjoyed the nostalgic trips I took with him.
RIP Art.

 

[MattHooper]

I wish I could share the online war I had with Fremer over at CA/AS a few years back but unfortunately Chris deleted the posts and I won't try to rehash it now without the ASR required evidence to support... Suffice to say he was jumping up and down threatening me with law suites by the current owners lawyers, etc. It really was hilarious. He's a piece of work that guy.

I've also been a subscriber to Stereophile for more years than I care to remember. I've said so many times that "enough is enough, I'm done" but there always were still enough good stuff that I still enjoyed reading it. With the early sad passing of Art Dudley, I'm not so sure now. His claims of the SQ value of vinyl would make me go crazy but I did enjoy his discussions of a lot of very old classic gear, specially speakers. As a septuagenarian audiophile I very much enjoyed the nostalgic trips I took with him.
RIP Art.
View attachment 62342

Agreed.

While there was quite a bit on which Art and I would diverge (e.g. his more subjectivist leanings), I read Art since his Listener days. He is one of my favorite writers. I could read almost any article and be engaged and impressed with his craft. I remember long ago one of his audio columns on the return of horn speakers. It started with the simple sentence: "Consider the Coelacanth." I thought that any writer who can start off with a sentence like that and actually make it pay off (about audio!) has my ear.

 

[anmpr1]

I remember long ago one of his audio columns... started with the simple sentence: "Consider the Coelacanth."

Interesting and unexpected analogies are...well, interesting and unexpected. They tend to catch the reader a bit off guard, pulling them in to the story*. Unfortunately, few writers have that sort of story telling talent. As near as I can tell, the standard audio reviewing template requires the reviewer begin with something completely unrelated to the product, but also completely uninteresting, usually related to an episode in the reviewer's life or his family; an episode such as a summer vacation--something that is mostly just plain boring to readers because the reviewer's personal experiences are not that interesting on any level. On the other hand, if for instance Frank Durnie was reviewing turntables, and inserted an anecdote about his days with the F1 team, that would be interesting. No one works on an F1 team and F1 is cool, but everyone has taken a summer vacation with the wife and kids.

Hi-fi reviewing is mostly low grade 'gonzo' journalism. It worked for a guy like Hunter Thompson because Hunter was legitimately funny, legitimately crazy (who else would ride with Hells Angels to get a story?), and knew how to legitimately construct compelling sentences into a coherant paragraph, and turn that into an overall story. Let's face it, if a guy is writing about a preamp, does anyone really care about his summer vacation, or want to know about his waifu (even if she can hear differences in soundstage and front to back depth from the kitchen)?

*Car and Driver writers used interesting analogies, but lately the magazine was absorbed into a large corporate publishing entity. Important staff either retired or were fired, and it's doubtful it will ever be what is was. The corporate scene tends to homogenize and generally ruin artistic flair, moving things down to an extremely low denominator. You see that in today's post Gordon Holt Stereophile, but I don't want to single them out. They are just the most well known example from hi-fi.

 

[sergeauckland]

I am one of them. There were some clever engineers even older than me I learned lots from, much of which has been lost in modern times in the fashion in LP players and the non-technical approach to reviewing.
Today reviewers don't measure anything but apply an, often completely absurd, religious approach to certain technologies and or brands/designers which are spectacularly more useless at judgiing a product than measuring it. It is, of course, much, much less expensive and requiring zero knowledge or understanding though

The sort of thing I mean is having a strong opinion about valves, class-A, class-D when the detail engineering makes more difference than the base technology.

Fremer is one of the worst here since he has very strong views based on a very weak grasp of the engineering. I actually gave up reading his column (I am a Stereophile subscriber) after one of his more ridiculous technical non-sequiturs left me exasperated for his disciples who seem to hang on his every word which, in the case of record players, isn't worth the paper it is written on.

Very much this!!

When I started my career as an audio engineer, I was immensely lucky to have older and wiser engineers to disabuse me of any 'audiophile' tendencies I had picked up from the magazines before starting work. In particular, how to listen and what different forms of distortion sound like, and what matters and what doesn't. My first job involved a lot of tape, so got very comfortable with tape and its limitations. One of my first jobs was to design replay electronics for high speed tape duplication. 32x speed involved recording frequencies up to 500kHz or above, which was challenging in itself, but not as much as the mechanical issue . Running a duplicator faster than 32x involved to tape handling difficulties, resonances causing flutter (I wish I'd had Frank's vibrational analysis experience) and just sheer wear on mumetal heads (glass and ferrite heads weren't available at the time). As the tape would end up in endless loop cartridges, it had to be lubricated, so the graphite lubricant would clog up the heads and tape guides, increasing the maintenance difficulties.

Moving jobs to a broadcasting environment gave me the most insight into what is audible, and what's just specmanship. Most orders were given by customers as a tender, with a specification to meet. That's what mattered, meeting a detailed specification, not what somebody might thing something sounded like.

Subjective reviews, especially the more outre reviewers like Fremer or Ken Kessler, just got ridiculed for being completely unbelievable if not just plain wrong. I've kept to that ever since. If it isn't backed up by measurements, then it's not worth considering.

S.

 

[MattHooper]

Subjective reviews, especially the more outre reviewers like Fremer or Ken Kessler, just got ridiculed for being completely unbelievable if not just plain wrong. I've kept to that ever since. If it isn't backed up by measurements, then it's not worth considering.
S.

I completely understand your viewpoint and wouldn't for a moment challenge your own criteria for what is worthless to you or not.

I happen to like subjective reviewing....well, some of it....along with the measurements. Fremer is so well known, and opinionated and can be obnoxious PLUS he's ascribed to any number of woo-woo ideas as a subjectivist. So the fact he comes up most often as a subject of derision isn't surprising.



However, even someone like that can be perceptive (when there is something to perceive) and I actually like Fremer's speaker reviews. He manages to put in to words quite well the sonic characteristics I've heard from the speakers he reviews. I've owned a few of the speakers he's reviewed and it's like he took the sound I was hearing and put it very well in to words.

Just to expand on that a bit: There is a tendency to think "well, if this guy is hearing differences between power cables then I can't trust anything he claims to hear." But that would actually be something of a fallacy: it would mean he is prone to sighted bias, just as anyone is including us. Which is why blind controls are particularly necessary for dubious audio claims. But the fact anyone is susceptible to sighted bias doesn't mean they don't hear real differences that exist. I'd reliably identify my mom's voice over the phone, where you would not. In the realm of speakers sonic differences are known to exist, so someone reporting a difference between speaker A and B is plausible in a way reporting a difference between cable A and B is not. And a perceptive person with good writing skills can put those differences in to words.

I certainly get why many here don't care for subjective descriptions and just want numbers, but I do enjoy trading experiences, talking with my audio friends about "what X system or speakers sounded like" and reading subjective reviews is an extension of that. Nowhere near scientific, but not *necessarily* of no practical use at all IMO.

(Defending Fremer, even a bit on a site like this leads me to say "just show me where the tar and feathers are...I'll do it myself ;-))