View Single Post
  #4 (permalink)  
Old August 13th 04, 09:00 AM posted to uk.rec.audio
Jim Lesurf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,051
Default AmpCableSpeaker interaction

In article , Arny Krueger
wrote:
"Andy Evans" wrote in message


To cut a long story short he proposes that Miller compensation and
series output inductors are responsible in causing what he calls First
Cycle Distortion.


If this purported distortion existed it would be easy to measure. Did he
show any measurements showing that it actually exists?


I am not sure how many articles there are in the series. I have only read
three so far. From a comment I've had from the people at EW I think there
may be five in the series, but there may only be four. Either way, in
fairness we should note that we have not got to the end yet, so that may
justify some of the odd things I've read so far. However...

He has presented some 'modelled' results, but at least some of these are
given in a somewhat out-of-context manner. Thus used to imply things in a
way that looks quite misleading to me.

Let me guess - he wasn't able to mesure it, but instead provided a
lengthy, hand-wavy theory of questionable merit.


Hard for me to criticise anyone else's writing style as I am aware of the
saying about "people in glass houses." :-) However I find the way he has
written the articles to be somewhat long-winded and rambling. Ahem. I
should note that EW pay on a 'per published page' basis. ;-

In at least one place he describes what is in a waveform plot, but what the
plot actually shows seems inconsistent with his (imprecise and ambiguous)
description. However you have to spend time diagnosing this and work out
what the plot *does* show. Do this, and you realise that his inferences are
suspect in practice. However, if you take the article at face value it
would be easy to get the impression that his 'results' support his
arguments in places where I do not think that they do.

He also criticises some aspects of common solid state design without
apparently noticing that equivalent effects also arise in valve designs,
sometimes to a greater extent. :-) Also ignores the possibility that
similar effects elsewhere ( e.g. in speakers) might swamp what he
describing. This leads me to suspect that he may not have thought about any
of the underlaying physics, etc. :-)

The approach taken thoughout seems to be "My feeling is that A sounds
better than B. Therefore I am trying to find 'reasons' to justify this'. In
itself, that is fine. The problem is that he does not seem to consider the
'reasons' he finds with sufficient critical care to ensure they would stand
up as an actual explanation of his preferences.

The editor of EW adds a preface to the first article in the series saying
that some readers might not like the author's conclusions. This seems to me
to miss the real point. I'd say that the problem isn't the conclusions, it
is the muddled arguments employed to reach them. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html