On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:29:42 +0100, "MrBitsy"
wrote:


"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Julian Fowler" wrote in message


* the LPs of 40 years ago were made on using technology that can only
be considered crude by today's standards, and they were made to be
played using equipment that, in most cases, would be put to shame by a
contemporary no-name mini system (I still recall my father's delight
at having his Decca record player retrofitted w/ a stereo cartridge,
one channel of which went through the original amp and (built-in)
speaker, the other to a matching box w/ a second amp and speaker). If
40 year old recordings sound poor on modern equipment, maybe that's
because the latter does all too good a job of revealing the
inadequacies of the former.

(I should have added to my original note that modern reproduction
equipment can also reveal how appallingly some recordings have been
mastered for CD!)

Amen, brother.


Rubbish.

What specifically is "rubbish"?

I have a 25 year old deck going through a Roksan Kandy Mk3 amp and
Quad 11L speakers. On certain recording its sounds better to me than my CD
player. Of course, certain CD recording sound better to me than the vinyl.

I think that we're actually agreeing he firstly that there's no
point in generalizing, secondly that recordings from the pre-digital
era may well sound better on analogue equipment. After all, n
original 7" of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas "Dancin' In The
Streets" sounds better on a mid-60s Dansette cranked to the limit :-)

Julian

--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk

"MrBitsy" wrote


Rubbish. I have a 25 year old deck going through a Roksan Kandy Mk3 amp
and
Quad 11L speakers. On certain recording its sounds better to me than my CD
player. Of course, certain CD recording sound better to me than the vinyl.



For the record Ray, your '25 year old deck' was *twice* the price of a Linn
Sondek at the time......

;-)

On 22 Jul 2003 13:05:13 GMT, ohawker (Andy
Evans) wrote:

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.

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.

See Jim's post for a good debunk of the above.

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?

Who says that they do?

The differences between mass-fi and
true high fidelity are as plain as day to an (open-minded) listener.

Very true, but luckily true high fidelity can now be had for
mass-market money - if you avoid valves, of course.......

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.

What 'merits'?

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.

Er no, the Dyna keeps sounding warm and mushy, like it always did. You
can't just jump from 'true high fidelity' to the classic rose-tinted
sound of the Strereo 70 without comment.

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.

Yes, and so do small Class A SS amps like the Sugdens.

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?

Very true, and they will continue to expose the technical deficiencies
of valve amps.......

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

Even better, use SS amps which often have distortion products well
below their (very low) noise floor...............

I'll happily put up my trusty old Audiolab 8000P against *any* valve
amp at *any* price.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

A certain Andy Evans, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

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?

At one fell swoop, the author totally destroys his own credibility.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
Read the whole article at
http://www.aloha-audio.com/library/FindingCG.html

If I get a chance I'll have a look. :-)

excerpt - "try and find a transistor circuit that can deliver 50V rms at
less than 1% distortion with no feedback!"

If they mean "into a loudspeaker load with an impedance between 4 and 8
Ohms" when considering domestic audio power amps, then I suspect you could
match this with:

"try to find a *valve* circuit that can deliver 50V rms at less than 1%
distortion and no feedback.!"

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

On 22 Jul 2003 12:07:09 GMT, ohawker (Andy
Evans) wrote:

Read the whole article at http://www.aloha-audio.com/library/FindingCG.html

excerpt - "try and find a transistor circuit that can deliver 50V rms at less
than 1% distortion with no feedback!"

Try and find any valve circuit that can do this - into a speaker
load......

*All* amps use feedback, but some don't use *global* feedback, leading
to a common claim about 'zero feedback' valve amps.

BTW, the answer to your question is any Krell FPB series amp from the
FPB300 up. They don't use global feedback. Also, there are damn few
valve amps capable of delivering 300 watts to an 8 ohm load, which
requires 49 volts rms. There are however many such SS amps - and they
can maintain their output voltage much better into real-world speaker
loads which dip to 3 ohms or less.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

*All* amps use feedback, but some don't use *global* feedback, leading
to a common claim about 'zero feedback' valve amps.

Been thinking about this, where is the feedback in a triode, with a
NiCad between its cathode and ground ?

I use this in my phono stage, and I can't for the life of me, see any
feedback.

--
Nick

In message , Nick Gorham
writes
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

*All* amps use feedback, but some don't use *global* feedback, leading
to a common claim about 'zero feedback' valve amps.

Been thinking about this, where is the feedback in a triode, with a
NiCad between its cathode and ground ?

I use this in my phono stage, and I can't for the life of me, see any
feedback.

--
Nick


The low internal impedance in a triode is because of the internal
feedback between the anode and the grid. Although the feedback
mechanism is obvious at high frequencies (Miller effect) the varying
voltage on the anode couples to the grid as an NFB mechanism even at LF.

Thinking of directly heated triodes, I see the pair of DA100s that I'm
selling on Ebay are up to 186 pounds.
--
Chris Morriss

Chris Morriss wrote:

In message , Nick Gorham
writes

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

*All* amps use feedback, but some don't use *global* feedback, leading
to a common claim about 'zero feedback' valve amps.


Been thinking about this, where is the feedback in a triode, with a
NiCad between its cathode and ground ?

I use this in my phono stage, and I can't for the life of me, see any
feedback.

--
Nick


The low internal impedance in a triode is because of the internal
feedback between the anode and the grid. Although the feedback
mechanism is obvious at high frequencies (Miller effect) the varying
voltage on the anode couples to the grid as an NFB mechanism even at LF.

Yes I can see that, didn't think of it a feedback, but you are right.
Don't quite see how that leads to Miller, but thats probably my lack of
understanding. Should be able to fix that given time :-)

--
Nick

In message , Nick Gorham
writes
Chris Morriss wrote:

In message , Nick
Gorham writes

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

*All* amps use feedback, but some don't use *global* feedback, leading
to a common claim about 'zero feedback' valve amps.


Been thinking about this, where is the feedback in a triode, with a
NiCad between its cathode and ground ?

I use this in my phono stage, and I can't for the life of me, see
any feedback.

-- Nick

The low internal impedance in a triode is because of the internal
feedback between the anode and the grid. Although the feedback
mechanism is obvious at high frequencies (Miller effect) the varying
voltage on the anode couples to the grid as an NFB mechanism even at LF.

Yes I can see that, didn't think of it a feedback, but you are right.
Don't quite see how that leads to Miller, but thats probably my lack of
understanding. Should be able to fix that given time :-)


The A-G capacitance, together with the source impedance of the signal
feeding the grid create a Miller (or Blumlein) integrator.

--
Chris Morriss