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Steve Guttenberg says this R2R DAC sounds like Vinyl

Bix26 said:
Well, I’m certainly not asking for you to write an entire article. It would be nice if you helped me understand at least one piece of misinformation. I’m genuinely trying to understand why tubes sound better to many people, not just me, or gullible audiophiles but the vast majority of audio engineers who seem to prefer tubes when it comes to preampfification, and equalization. Maybe it’s all placebo I really don’t know. I’m not entrenched in any camp so to speak.
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You must be thinking of rock or pop engineers? I do not know a single engineer in the classical world (people that want the highest transparency/greatest fidelity to the instruments) that advocates the use of tubes.

Not counting labels like Tacet that explicitly advertise recorded on tube equipment (with photos of things like 300B on the covers instead of a focus on the musicians or composers) to cater towards audiophiles
 
Bix26 said:
...I’m genuinely trying to understand why tubes sound better to many people, not just me, or gullible audiophiles but the vast majority of audio engineers who seem to prefer tubes when it comes to pre-amplification, and equalization.
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Here's my theory, having spent the best part of 40 years working in studios. The general kind of transfer characteristic exhibited by many tube-based pre-amps is not unlike the published operating curve of an early classic Fairchild limiter

fairchild-curves-graph.jpg


Superficially, you would say that these are typical and you have seen something similar a hundred times before, and so what? These are indeed the typical curves of a tube-based pre-amp. and many tube-based products exhibit broadly similar parameters. More often than not, the user is warned to stay away from the non-linear portion of the curves for here be a dragon and its name is Distortion. All true. But consider what happens if your device has an operating curve resembling 2 in the above chart. Sure, you get some distortion and you live with it or not but suppose you add a time-constant of a few tens of μS to slug the speed at which the gain changes as the signal rises and falls in level. What you get is the effect of reducing the difference between quiet and loud components within the applied signal. Reducing the time-constant will enhance the effect to the point where you have increased the relative level of the quiet detail in the signal in exchange for more distortion. With care, you can make the reverberation in a recording more apparent (and reverb is often where the real stereo width is encountered), increase the level of the piano's resonant 'box', bring out the subtle rasp in quiet dynamics of a singer who smokes too much... etc.

If that last sentence is starting to read like the copy in a dodgy hi-fi advert., you are getting the point that this is what compressors do. Setting them up correctly so that they offer genuine enhancement is a gift that only comes with experience. Like all such devices, they can be the road to ruin if not used skilfully.

Most tube-based pre-amps operate, to some extent, rather like a classic compressor. And it is this broad similarity to the designed operating characteristics of a vintage compressor that creates the audio illusion of greater low-level detail, in addition to all the stuff about more even-ordered harmonics etc. In short, tubes can sound very pleasant. Nice. But not linear, no sir.
 
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Bix26 said:
Well, I’m certainly not asking for you to write an entire article. It would be nice if you helped me understand at least one piece of misinformation. I’m genuinely trying to understand why tubes sound better to many people, not just me, or gullible audiophiles but the vast majority of audio engineers who seem to prefer tubes when it comes to preampfification, and equalization. Maybe it’s all placebo I really don’t know. I’m not entrenched in any camp so to speak.
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No.

Not in this decade, at least.

The vast majority of audio engineers (exceptions for Jack White and Bernie Grundman types) are using DAWs for EQ. Many DAW-compatible interfaces have mic-preamps built-in, usually not tube.

Pardoxically, there are now DSP plugins for DAWs to simulate tubes.
 
This is nothing though compared to the woo and mystique surrounding tube amps in the guitar playing world. I'd like to read some semi serious material about that subject some day.
 
vert said:
This is nothing though compared to the woo and mystique surrounding tube amps in the guitar playing world. I'd like to read some semi serious material about that subject some day.
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But there is a big philosophical difference:

Guitar amps, bass amps, etc, are not simple reproduction devices....they're intended to have a specific sound, i.e they're instruments.

FWIW, this is the bass amp I use:

bass_prodigy_main.jpg


https://www.mesaboogie.com/amplifie...ss-amp-series/bass-prodigy-four-88/index.html

It uses a mix of KT88 and 12AX7 tubes.
 
hvbias said:
classical world (people that want the highest transparency/greatest fidelity to the instruments) that advocates the use of tubes.
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Did you ever listen to a Glen Gould record through a "fuzz" distortion pedal? You don't know what you're missing....
 
headshake said:
Ever wonder why our hearing sucks so bad compared to other land animals?
Water monkey ancestors- maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-25871-1
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But what humans do with the sound once it reaches their brains is apparently unrivaled and qualitatively superior for the purposes of speech and music.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0410-7.epdf?referrer_access_token=eo4ee7uGaYDVSUiSvT6omdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NcnAJEz4AOvsjWoj0zPNTc5bg7oNmNeyO7-NGl6j63jt_ctil0EY9OU2uiQskNA53HBMzCqf5kkMIUSGtSiz6SIchq_BaUVX9aQsYsbn0YtZh23WncX5CaJ6unhLWRUgC_Z1P2gUf7WaqcWIu_g_rFF4RCRcbNyot6i_Au6d8PZ9JQW3Mfl8kyASBos-ryygep2ptD_JYomHsjRJRQYNw1Fj6iKZ0AviGQvygpTlouTcp-QHrP-wZVSFhZIs6g20VVzncxZGPivcQRetRPz4mG3jr2Wpyjf1yRKhP5PWqN5sLK_x_eWtuwwAzNUpnxKzc=&tracking_referrer=www.npr.org

or, for the abridged and popularized version:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...nderstand-language-and-appreciate-tchaikovsky
 
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Pluto, I also have a production studio background, and I always felt a noticeable amount of compression if I listened to a tube amps, especially old ones with weak-soft kenotron power supply***. And now about the vinyl sound, 10 years ago I found some forum's discussion regarding LP vs CD versions difference. Forum members noticed the difference in the same Stevie's Wonder album(probably 1986-87), and they preferred the LP sound. I tried to compensate frequency responses difference, it does help but not too much, next I realized that the most bright difference there in reverbs tails, and I've added compression. After that step, no one could able to recognize where is LP either CD. I asked Bruno Putzeys opinion about that, and he confirmed that a compressor is actually the part of LP production procedure itself. Strange that people in fact like compression but afraid of DSP with it?

*** I listened to SE tube amps with near to perfect power supply etc, such amps have quite high 2nd harmonics but have no typical old school tube magic(i.e. compression) at all. So the magic is rather in compression than in 2nd harmonic domination.
 
IVX said:
...a compressor is actually the part of LP production procedure itself
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It is, insofar as it is a very brave cutting engineer who works without automatic dynamic control of some sort. This was the real art of mastering – creating a vinyl groove that would play well, without the stylus jumping out when the bass got hairy while preserving decent stereo width – mono is easy to cut, in comparison.

The thing they call "mastering" today is girl scout stuff when compared to cutting a vinyl master. Putting the tube/transistor debate to one side for a moment, I do believe it's highly likely that the inevitable use of compression when cutting is a significant factor when comparing the comparatively unmolested sound of early CDs with that of vinyl. It is worth bearing in mind that, obvious as it may seem, the early learning days of CD coincided with the absolute peak of the vinyl-cutting art with such things as the new generation of Neumann lathes, Ortofon cutting heads, Direct Metal Mastering, the availability of tools such as the first generation digital delay lines that enabled a really good job to be made of groove-spacing – all in all, it's hardly surprising that there are examples of early CDs that don't sound as good as their vinyl counterparts.
 
Not all early CD had compression difference yet, for example The Dark Side of the Moon LP/CD had the same compressor applied. I don't remember where is the discussion itself but I prepared Gain matching and EQ matching for it on my youtube channel
I remember that before gain+EQ correction people liked LP so much vs CD, that said that LP simple alive and CD is dead and so on )) You know, when I discuss with somebody the sound aspects, I afraid if he really able to understand my position or rather not? We saying the same words like dynamic, details, punch, bass control etc. Often it looks like we using the same GPS navi but we are on different floors. To be honest, I don't trust magazine or youtube reviewers opinions regarding the sound, I want but I can't.
 
Pluto said:
Here's my theory, having spent the best part of 40 years working in studios. The general kind of transfer characteristic exhibited by many tube-based pre-amps is not unlike the published operating curve of an early classic Fairchild limiter

View attachment 28368

Superficially, you would say that these are typical and you have seen something similar a hundred times before, and so what? These are indeed the typical curves of a tube-based pre-amp. and many tube-based products exhibit broadly similar parameters. More often than not, the user is warned to stay away from the non-linear portion of the curves for here be a dragon and its name is Distortion. All true. But consider what happens if your device has an operating curve resembling 2 in the above chart. Sure, you get some distortion and you live with it or not but suppose you add a time-constant of a few tens of μS to slug the speed at which the gain changes as the signal rises and falls in level. What you get is the effect of reducing the difference between quiet and loud components within the applied signal. Reducing the time-constant will enhance the effect to the point where you have increased the relative level of the quiet detail in the signal in exchange for more distortion. With care, you can make the reverberation in a recording more apparent (and reverb is often where the real stereo width is encountered), increase the level of the piano's resonant 'box', bring out the subtle rasp in quiet dynamics of a singer who smokes too much... etc.

If that last sentence is starting to read like the copy in a dodgy hi-fi advert., you are getting the point that this is what compressors do. Setting them up correctly so that they offer genuine enhancement is a gift that only comes with experience. Like all such devices, they can be the road to ruin if not used skilfully.

Most tube-based pre-amps operate, to some extent, rather like a classic compressor. And it is this broad similarity to the designed operating characteristics of a vintage compressor that creates the audio illusion of greater low-level detail, in addition to all the stuff about more even-ordered harmonics etc. In short, tubes can sound very pleasant. Nice. But not linear, no sir.
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Wow! This strikes me as (the) truth, and I like it! I want to believe this. It's consistent with my experience of compromises and trade-offs, at least...
 
Pluto said:
It is, insofar as it is a very brave cutting engineer who works without automatic dynamic control of some sort. This was the real art of mastering – creating a vinyl groove that would play well, without the stylus jumping out when the bass got hairy while preserving decent stereo width – mono is easy to cut, in comparison.

The thing they call "mastering" today is girl scout stuff when compared to cutting a vinyl master. Putting the tube/transistor debate to one side for a moment, I do believe it's highly likely that the inevitable use of compression when cutting is a significant factor when comparing the comparatively unmolested sound of early CDs with that of vinyl. It is worth bearing in mind that, obvious as it may seem, the early learning days of CD coincided with the absolute peak of the vinyl-cutting art with such things as the new generation of Neumann lathes, Ortofon cutting heads, Direct Metal Mastering, the availability of tools such as the first generation digital delay lines that enabled a really good job to be made of groove-spacing – all in all, it's hardly surprising that there are examples of early CDs that don't sound as good as their vinyl counterparts.
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Again awesome!
 
Hah, yesterday I've found some youtube vinyl-honey channel with a good example of compressor applied LP version. With lot's of fans and rhapsodical comments.
Well, I made a close replica from CD version with gain match + EQ match + compressor(1:1.2), check this out
That album really has different compression setting between LP and CD versions. I think a good idea to test any DAC which sounds suspiciously similar to LP for an artificial compressor implementation ;)
 
I settled this question for myself about a decade ago. I don't recall whether it was the "realistic tube sound" effect released in a then-new version of Cubase, or it was a part of a third-party plugins package I bought. It was convincing though. "Yep", I thought, "that's it, just like I remember it".

Such plugins are still quite popular as far as I know, e.g. see recent user reviews here: https://www.uaudio.com/review/thermionic-culture-vulture?p=7. Yet another American-made software replica of a famous British-sound-producing hardware device.
 
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