"Andy Evans" wrote in message

Excerpt - Lynn Olsen

This brief discussion of amplifiers is intended to point out how
traditional measurements result in unwise decisions for amplifier
design. The lower harmonics are nearly inaudible compared to the
upper harmonics, yet they dominate almost any THD measurement! The
meter is steering the designer, the reviewer, the dealer, and the
consumer away from good sound.

Again, so far, so good.

It's the classic tale of a drunk looking for his car keys under the
street-light, even though he suspects he lost them in a completely
different place. "The light is better here!" say the mainstream
engineers, mass-marketers, and magazine reviewers - but the key to
good sound sure isn't where the audio industry has been looking.

If it were, why do stereo LP's made 40 years ago, amplified with
65-year-old direct-heated triodes, sound so much better than today's
digital sound played through 0.001% THD mass-fi rack stereos? The
differences between mass-fi and true high fidelity are as plain as
day to an (open-minded) listener.

Absolute bunkum.

We are in the odd position of discovering that as speakers get better
and better, the true merits of vacuum-tube circuits become more and
more evident. After all, even J. Gordon Holt gave the Crown DC-300
transistor amplifier a Class "A" rating in 1971. At the time, the
modestly-priced Dyna Stereo 70 received a lower rating - yet with
modern speakers, the DC-300 is unlistenable, and the Dyna just keeps
sounding better. The entry-level EL84 amps of the early Sixties
(Scott 299, Eico, and Dyna SCA-35) sound remarkably natural and
realistic with today's more efficient, and much more transparent,
speakers.

Absolute bunkum.

There is no reason to believe speakers will stop getting better,
since all kinds of new innovations in materials science are on the
horizon, and there are major advances in computer modelling
techniques every year. Synthetic diamond cones, anyone?

True, although there's no evidence that diamond cones would provide audible
advantages.

It's time to debunk the myth of "euphonic distortion" once and for
all and discover the genuine and subtle sources of amplifier
distortion that people are actually hearing.


Via DBTs we know that most "amplifier distortion" exists only in people's
heads.

Once we find
measurements that can actually help, rather than hinder, it'll be
easier to build electronics that are friendly to the listener

Electronics aren't the problem - speakers and microphones are. We don't even
know what an ideal speaker and microphone should do, let alone make one.