Vintage amplifiers that could challenge or approach current state of the art amplifiers

[Radixons]

Traceability in music? What does this even mean?


BTW what I was asking was for you to explain and demonstrate an actual real world cause and effect, not for you to try and deflect it back on to me.

I had no intension to deflect. High frequency interference coming from the grid will lead to an audibly poorer performance of audio equipment while they are pre-power supply. I have installed a parallel noise eater and ferrite clamps on the power cables to less the effect. The result is better imaging and greater tonal balance. Can we agree on this?

 

[Radixons]

Your ears can definitely play a role. You just need to do your best to eliminate your brain and your biases from the equation. Blind A/B/X testing is a good way to go...

Ear over brains. The audiophile motto. 100% with you.

 

[March Audio]

Listening enjoyment without stumbling over tonal imbalance does not qualify as 'the basic experiment'? How else should I determine my success in setting up a system, if my own ears cannot play a role in this?

Your ears play a crucial role. The point you are missing is that your ears are not the only thing in play here. Your perceptions will be influenced by other biasing factors. This is why you need controls in place such as not knowing which psu was being used when comparing the sound.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Ear over brains. The audiophile motto. 100% with you.

Sadly, It seems to me like the classic audiophile motto is something closer to "untested ears over everything including logic and rationality" most of the time...

 

[March Audio]

I had no intension to deflect. High frequency interference coming from the grid will lead to an audibly poorer performance of audio equipment while they are pre-power supply. I have installed a parallel noise eater and ferrite clamps on the power cables to less the effect. The result is better imaging and greater tonal balance. Can we agree on this?

No we absolutely can't because you have no evidence to show these mitigations you have taken have had any real effect on the output signal.

You have read or been told they are a problem, put in place a fix, and without any evidence concluded a problem which you had no actual evidence existed in the first place has gone away.

 

[Radixons]

Your ears play a crucial role. The point you are missing is that your ears are not the only thing in play here. Your perceptions will be influenced by other biasing factors. This is why you need controls in place such as not knowing which psu was being used when comparing the sound.

Yes, I get that. However, A/B comparisons can fall short of the WOW-factor. My biggest indicator of success is listening over time. I stick with the version that gives me greater pleasure over time. Ear fatigue is a good indication that something is not yet right.

 

[kevinh]

Brings back memories... Dick invited me over years ago for some listening to his "wall of sound" system, which included multiple speakers (that he built, as I recall) and a pair of Hartley subwoofers under the sofa for that final kick. His amps? Well over a dozen Phase Linear 400s, intense... Great guy, interesting and fun.

I've seen pictures of the system, did you have a chance to listen to it?
How did it sound?

 

[March Audio]

Yes, I get that. However, A/B comparisons can fall short of the WOW-factor. My biggest indicator of success is listening over time. I stick with the version that gives me greater pleasure over time. Ear fatigue is a good indication that something is not yet right.

These are just audiophile myths. Your hearing echoic memory is extremely short. Listening over a long time just reinforces your biases.

However you can still test this out. Get an assistant to swap back the psu without your knowledge after a long period of time and see if you notice.

 

[Radixons]

Sadly, It seems to me like the classic audiophile motto is something closer to "untested ears over everything including logic and rationality" most of the time...

Our systems cost money, so we might as well enjoy them. Since it is audio equipment, the joy of listening is a substantial part of it?

 

[kevinh]

I think it's actually the inverse, I think you have never heard a proper dsp at work with subwoofer integration. Regardless of your speakers, a subwoofer will add good things. You are probably the victim of your own preconceptions. Unless you have your listening room treated like a studio and your loudspeakers are very good, your tonal balance is most likely a mess.

Worse if you listening to recording there is no guarentee that the system/room that produced the recording is close to what you room/system will reproduce.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Our systems cost money, so we might as well enjoy them. Since it is audio equipment, the joy of listening is a substantial part of it?

I'm not sure of the point of that statement. How does seeking the truth about sound quality not equal increasing enjoyment in listening? A lot of money is wasted in audiophoolery on things that don't make any difference at all.

 

[Radixons]

These are just audiophile myths. Your hearing echoic memory is extremely short. Listening over time just reinforces your biases.

Come on, it happens all the time. The unit that was the big winner in the auditions turns out to be the loser at home. Great sound effects are often a great bore in the long run.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Come on, it happens all the time. The unit that was the big winner in the auditions turns out to be the loser at home. Great sound effects are often a great bore in the long run.

which is of course where dsp and EQ come into the mix (not to mention measurements). I doubt most of us here would ever recommend buying gear based on auditions in dealers shops...

 

[March Audio]

Come on, it happens all the time. The unit that was the big winner in the auditions turns out to be the loser at home. Great sound effects are often a great bore in the long run.

Does it? News to me. Got anything to back that assertion up? However we are not talking about listening to something at a dealer in a different room or situation where the difference to your own system at home could be substantial.

Long term listeng doesn't allow you to hear differences any better. Fast switching is far more effective.

 

[DonH56]

I heard the sonic imbalance (an unpleasant leaning towards the higher spectrum) and thought it was the speakers, the amp, whatever. Some weeks later a friend came over to test for distortion on my dedicated power line and we found that some had remained. Most tellingly there were periodic spikes that my friend said were typical of phase cutting and asked me if I had a switching supply somewhere. I pointed to my Cambridge DAC, and pulling the plug, the spikes were gone. I bought a linear power supply instead. The sonic imbalance was gone. Not sure if it was the switching itself or that the new power supply is simply stronger.

The (a) problem is determining the real root-cause is in your particular case. The SMPS could be the source of the noise (or not), but the cause of audible degradation could be ground leakage, EMI/RFI (radiated noise the component is unable to reject), leakage through the power supply, etc. Including perception bias leading to hearing things that are not there -- that happens way more frequently than most of us realize. I learned that lesson the hard way several decades ago when all the grains of sand I heard in cables and such, were totally unhearable in blind tests, even when I knew what to listen for and was certain it was there.

From the wall the voltage is converted to DC and regulated so isolation from the wall to the audio signal is extremely high. And the noise from the switching supply is much (several decades, factors of ten) higher than the audio band so it could not be the source of the noise directly. It could be interacting with one of the components to change the sound due to poor noise rejection.

Explaining digital signal processing is beyond the scope of a simple forum post; it takes research. Note your components are performing analog signal processing, and DSP has largely replaced ASP in part due to those very concerns you expressed: ASP introduces phase changes, amplitude variations, higher sensitivity to component (processing) and environmental (e.g. temperature, supply voltage, noise) variations, and so forth. DSP can perform signal processing (which is much more than simple filters, for ASP or DSP) much more precisely, with greater stability, and over a much greater range of parameters and such without corrupting the signal. DSP is used to correct amplitude and phase problems due to other components in the chain, including the speakers (typically the greatest contributors to frequency amplitude and phase issues).

IME too many folk, in many fields, reject out of hand things they do not understand. And the worst are those who have a very limited and quite wrong understanding, often driven by marketing, and refuse to perform enough research to determine fact from fiction. They've already made up their minds and arguing is a waste of time for all parties. This happens in all fields, not just audio, natch. And the one certainty I have is that I am not immune to it.

I offer this anecdotal audio exchange: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...all-the-wrong-things.9588/page-12#post-256109

FWIWFM - Don

 

[Radixons]

Does it? News to me. Got anything to back that assertion up?

Long term listen g doesn't allow you to hear differences any more. Fast switching is far more effective.

Some of the world’s most profitable speakers manufacturers design no-linearity into their products to beat the competition in the showroom. Not in HighEnd so much where people will insist on auditioning at home.

 

[March Audio]

Some of the world’s most profitable speakers manufacturers design no-linearity into their products to beat the competition in the showroom. Not in HighEnd so much where people will insist on auditioning at home.

We aren't talking about auditioning kit at a dealer in a different room or situation where the difference to your own system at home could be substantial.

We are talking about the ability to hear a difference of a change in a known system. Long term listening is not effective at doing this.

 

[tmtomh]

Well only partially. We have skipped the first fundamental step.

What I am saying is that whilst Radixions experienced a difference, we have no way of establishing if this experience was due to an actual change in the sound.

No controls we're in place to mitigate the effect of bias. As such the conclusions cannot be trusted.

Once you have confidently established there is a change in sound only then can you start to consider cause and effect.

Well yes, and the reason I framed my comment to him as I did was because I wanted to differentiate between his experience and the cause of it - among the possible causes are factors not located in the equipment, aka confirmation bias, poor human auditory memory, and so on.

 

[Wes]

OK, let's hear it.

start a new thread for these off topic conversations or arguments please

NAD has an xlnt reputation

 

[TomJ]

I've seen pictures of the system, did you have a chance to listen to it?
How did it sound?

Well, it was certainly loud and the bass seemed surreal especially with the sofa effect. Dick kept an SPL meter at his sofa and I remember seeing 115dB peaks on it. He said his listening room was custom built with thick concrete walls, floor and ceiling and the amps were racked in a narrow air conditioned room behind the front wall. As I recall, I counted twenty Phase Linear 400s (!) but to be safe I said over a dozen in my post. It was a lot of fun!