Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
I've moved this from the thread "Newbie question on amplifers (sorry!)"
which at present centres on the different matter of the double
standards of the "engineers" who claim all amps sound the same (when
appropriately applied) or should sound the same, but who every now and
again tell us how this amp or that sounds "better". I don't see much
joy in discussing their hypocrisy with a bunch of stumblebum
soundbiters, though I delight in discussing it with more articulate
foils. This article is about how the engineers, and the "engineers" too
(because we seem to have more of them), are right at least half the
time, and possibly on both counts, so if you're squeamish, or a SETtie,
or open-minded, do yourself a favour and spare your blood pressure by
not reading further.


I'm most definitely a SeTtie (worked my way up to it) but the *absence* of
the usual crossposting encourages me to read further...



The key is the phrase which names our hobby: "high fidelity
reproduction of recorded music at home", usually just rendered as "high
fidelity" or "hi-fi". Consider the words, which are a precise
description and have been a precise description since roundabout WW2.


Yes, about the time 'sound reproduction' moved out of the 'acoustic' domain
into the 'electronic'...


We should ask two questions:

1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window on the
concert hall.


In my book, any point at which a pair of bagpipes, say, *doesn't* sound like
Laurie Anderson mimicking a pair of bagpipes. (Which she does extremely
well....)


2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally agreed to be
negative, so that we talk about the closest approach to the concert
hall, and invariably speak only of qualified fidelity, as in "high"
fidelity.


I think we have. The minute you can *recognise* someone's voice over a sound
system a degree of 'fidelity' has been achieved, IMO...


The sort of "engineers" who are lost once one proceeds beyond the
easiest element of the audio chain (by a magnitude or several), the
amplifier, say they are not responsible for the failure to achieve
unqualified fidelity. Their responsibility ends when they faithfully
reproduce the master tape in the home. Their concept of faithful
reproduction of the mastertape is defined by them as noiselessness and
measured as very low harmonic distortion, which today is trivial to
achieve in silicon amps. Even distortion many tens decibels below
audibility is today trivial to achieve in push-pull tube amps, and
merely expensive rather than difficult to achieve even in single-ended
triode amps. The more reasonable of this lowest, least imaginative
level of "engineers" therefore have an irrefutable point (if one
accepts their presumptions): once success has been achieved in lowering
THD to almost vanishing point, all amplfiers, including valve
amplifiers should sound the same. The cheapest possible amplifier with
reasonable THD, capable of driving any reasonably conceivable speaker,
should therefore do everyone. By the laws of economics, eventually the
cheapest, inevitably silicon, amplifier will have a monopoly. In an
ideal world this will, on current showing, probably be a Class D
digital amp, because nothing else can be built cheaper for more power
with lower distortion. Some of the "engineers" prove that they are at
least nominally human by displaying an irrational hatred of tube amps
well beyond the rational (if one agrees with the assumptions so far)
objection to them on grounds of cost. All of this works well, but also
only works *if* the listener is willing to separate matters of culture
from technology.


Agreed.

For me, the prime requirement of a music system is that it fully engages the
emotions. I am not interested in 'sonic information flow'...



There is another view. It proceeds empirically. It might be called the
"cultural" view. To it belongs those who regularly attend concerts, who
are unimpressed by the technological fads of the anoraks, who have
cultivated and educated tastes, who have the confidence not to be
fashion victims, and the intelligence and will to stand up against what
they see as a tide of technoligical barbarism even in the arts. Though
these audiophiles may not know much about the tricky technicalities of
loudspeakers, they instinctively chooses the loudspeakers first, if not
at first certainly by the second or third hi-fi setup bought. This
group soon becomes dissatisfied with the mantra "all amplifiers sound
the same", and the excuse, "we reproduce the master tape with inaudible
noise--what more do you want?" They can hear for themselves that what
is produced is a long way from what they heard in the concert hall.
They soon discover that not all amplifiers are equal because they do
not all sound the same. On investigation they soon discover that all
these amplifiers which do not sound the same for practical purposes
measure the same. How can it be that some amplifiers cast a cold chill
over music while measuring the same as the ones which come closer to
the experience in the concert hall? It is not a big step to conclude
that the wrong thing is being measured. Next they discover that the
worst-measuring amps sound the most like the music in the concert hall,
and by then their faith in the "engineers" is totally destroyed.


In my case not *totally* destroyed but, as always, I place the opinions of
*experts* in a wider perspective. The expert view is only part of the
picture, very often I have found the remarks made by innocents to be the
most illuminating - I have got a lot of time for the kid who pointed out
that you could, in fact, clearly see The Emperor's meat and two veg....



So, the "engineers" are right, all amps that are properly designed and
made should sound the same. Unfortunately, since the "engineers" have
measured success by the wrong yardstick, there are no amps that are
properly designed and made because no amp perfectly reproduces the
concert hall in the home. The two that come closest, in the opinion of
cultured concert goers, are the ones considered most wretched according
to their preferred "standards" by the "engineers" in hi-fi: The Yamaha
digital signal processor with its soundshaping, and the wasteful and
expensive Class A tube amp. (The SET fashion is merely a distraction; I
haven proven again and again in blind tests that what professional
musicians prefer is Class A zero (or very low) negative feedback sound,
not necessarily single-ended or triode sound.)


I suspect you are right about the 'Class A' thing and am hoping to grab a
Class A SS amp for reasonable money in a couple of says time to check it out
for myself and compare it with the Class A valve amps I already have.



There is yet another view. This is held by those who claim that they
have a right to reproduce music in their homes in a form that pleases
them best, without reference to the concert hall. They are in the vast
majority and include the growing AV movement. They are not discussed
here; thi discussion is between a couple of elites in miniscule niche
markets all sitting on a single pinhead. That is also, ironically, the
problem for the "engineers", that they have talked themselves into a
corner of lowest common denominator, cheapest possible machinery, yet
wish to present themselves as an elite who have better ears or better
taste or simply more money than anyone else. Delicious!


These interesting observations do not much cater for the 'iPod tsunami' that
is/will be shaping 'mass market music' over the next few years....


snip Quad stuff - I am the one person in this group who 'doesn't give a sod
about Quad'...


It seems to me that, in the face of the "allampssoundthesame" logic,
new amps are continually being developed because the real engineers
(not the ones we get, who require pejorative quotation marks) have
quietly given up on the mantra and are voicing amps by ear... Their
attitudes are filtering down to the "engineers", which accounts for
their schizoprhenically strained remarks, followed by confused
denials, about this amp or that amp "sounding better". I wouldn't trust
their ears, not after the years of abuse they have given them by
playing their music at levels high enough to hide the artifacts of the
very high levels of NFB required for the vanishing THD. Their sneers
that anything less than deafening volume is "easy listening" will now
rebound on them. Justice!


This is interesting - I have a little theory that 'engineers' are, if
anything, more prone than most to 'mass hysteria' and exhibit a greater
tendancy to herd together, follow 'current thinking' trends, indulge in
'group reasurances' than idiots like me who are prepared to buck the trends,
stand alone and take the crap for what we genuinely think/feel/hear. (The
clue is in the paranoid hostility in some of the remarks routinely thrown
out by a number, though not all, of them in this ng....)

I recently had a visit from 'one here', whose technical and technological
expertise/experience I suspect are *second to none* in this group, who made
the effort to re-investigate the SET phenomenon for himself.

Casually, I observed a tendancy in him toward choosing the 'safest', tidiest
and 'best presented' (lower noise, presumably less distortion &c.) sound out
of the various bits of kit we cut into the equation at various times.
Unsurprisingly, it more or less went SET to PP, valve to SS - the very
reverse of my own progress in the last couple of years and more towards what
I would describe as a 'rubbery', tidy, planar and ultimately less
interesting/engaging sound...!! :-)

Asitappens, it was a very difficult day for me, I was aware that my partner
was handling a crisis at work and was taking a number of very awkward phone
calls. (She had offered to go into the Cambridge office but I said no - she
is working over 100 hours a week atm and hasn't been here in daylight for
weeks now - unfortunately the phone calls which were to have been occasional
turned out to be pretty much continuous!)

This is a pity as it cramped my style somewhat and I *suspect* my visitor
was starting to warm (OK very slightly) to the triode/horn offerings he had
come to hear - which is no more or less than I might have expected to
happen. The 'shock' of triodes/horns is too great for some to accomodate at
a stroke and horns can/will sound strange (****e, if you like) 'til you get
used to them. It's when you *are* used to them, you can't make the
sacrifices in clarity and detail to go back to the 'softer option' of a
multiway box system!!

Interestingly, I repeated the comparisons myself the next morning and fairly
quickly evolved myself right back to Square 1 - using the same 'dodgy'
Chinese 300B SET I had started out with!! :-)

Funny ole world, innit.....???

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

1) I have no evidence to support my views beyond similar experiences
described by others.

This doesn't necessarily mean the measurements are wrong, or that your

listening experience is wrong. It could be simply that the appropriate
measurements have not yet been made. Rod.

We've just spent 520 posts going from Ulan Batur to the Falkland
Islands for something you've said in two sentences. Thanks! Andy

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

In article . com,
Andy Evans wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean the measurements are wrong, or that your
listening experience is wrong. It could be simply that the appropriate
measurements have not yet been made. Rod.

We've just spent 520 posts going from Ulan Batur to the Falkland
Islands for something you've said in two sentences. Thanks! Andy

What it implies is that there are laws of physics as applied to sound
reproduction that haven't yet been discovered.

*Exactly* the premise that sells snake oil products.

--
*Women like silent men; they think they're listening.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean the measurements are wrong, or that your
listening experience is wrong. It could be simply that the appropriate
measurements have not yet been made. Rod.

We've just spent 520 posts going from Ulan Batur to the Falkland
Islands for something you've said in two sentences. Thanks! Andy

What it implies is that there are laws of physics as applied to sound
reproduction that haven't yet been discovered.

*Exactly* the premise that sells snake oil products.

It says nothing at all about the laws of physics, except to those who *know*
nothing about the laws of physics, (though such people don't seem to be in
short supply).

Rod.

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 16:08:20 -0800, Andre Jute burbled:

snip

The key is the phrase which names our hobby: "high fidelity reproduction
of recorded music at home", usually just rendered as "high fidelity" or
"hi-fi". Consider the words, which are a precise description and have been
a precise description since roundabout WW2. We should ask two questions:

1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window on the concert
hall.


Oh, what a question! Fidelity: 15th century. Directly or via French
Latin fidelitas "faithfulness" fides "faith". It *could* be taken to
mean "a window on the concert hall" or it could mean "true to life". The
two arn't necessarily equal.

2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally agreed to be
negative, so that we talk about the closest approach to the concert hall,
and invariably speak only of qualified fidelity, as in "high" fidelity.


If it sounds "lifelike" to you then you have achieved "fidelity"! The term
"high fidelity" is, of course, an invention of the marketing bods to sell
more equipment and is meaningless. ;-)

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

mick wrote:

Oh, what a question! Fidelity: 15th century. Directly or via French
Latin fidelitas "faithfulness" fides "faith". It *could* be taken to
mean "a window on the concert hall" or it could mean "true to life".
The two arn't necessarily equal.

I would say that they are, but that it's rather hard to pin down what 'real'
actually is, insofar as there is variation in sound of the particular
instrument, the acoustics of the environments in which it's played, and the
position of the listener.


--
Wally
www.wally.myby.co.uk
http://iott.melodolic.com

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com

We should ask two questions:

1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window
on the concert hall.

Not a bad question.

Ironically, almost none of the audiofools who rant and rave about concert
hall realism were in the concert hall when the recording in question was
made. Most of them have never been in that particular concert hall in their
lives. Not that many of them have even heard that particular orchestra play
live.

Krueger's argument above is ludicrous. I, or anyone else, or Krueger
for that matter, would be ridiculed for arguing that every amplifier
that comes off the line should be individually tested for several
different kinds of distortion, and that every owner of each unit of the
amp should have a distortion meter and use it every time before he
plays the amp. That is precisely the level of iterative test Krueger
demands above, for each and every recording, as a prerequisite to
adding to his preferred predictive measurement another means of
predicting good amplifiers. It is patently crap as logic, and would be
howled down as offensively childish in any kindergarten debate.

The present position is that we take someone's word for the THD and IMD
numbers, we take it once for the entire design and many manufacturing
runs of that particular amp, we make a few spotchecks (sometimes, more
often not), most people don't know how to take the measurements. Thus
this discredited system which predicts nothing hangs on the word of
engineers, often a single engineer. It is equally valid when addingg
another system of predictive judgement, this one based on culture, to
have qualified persons of cultivated taste who have heard the
orchestras, who have been in the halls, who have heard the musicians
play the music in the venue, make the judgement once on behalf of
everyone else. The method is the same; all that differs is that a
different class of person, one of culture rather than a technician, now
makes the call.

Oh, I get it - "All concert halls sound the same"

Those quotation marks are intended to imply that I said the words. The
words are stupid. i didn't say them. The attempted implication that I
did, or would agree, is a lie.

and "All orchestras sound the same".

And again. Those quotation marks are intended to imply that I said the
words. The words are stupid. i didn't say them. The attempted
implication that I did, or would agree, is another lie.

;-)

A grimace doesn't change a dumb argument into a good one, or a foolish
lie into a truth.

2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally
agreed to be negative, so that we talk about the closest
approach to the concert hall, and invariably speak only
of qualified fidelity, as in "high" fidelity.

See above.

Where have you dealt with the qualifications to "fidelity", Krueger?
There is nothing of yours in this thread to justify "see above".

Furthermore, fidelity is not only about amplifiers; in fact, in parts
of my text which you snipped, I carefully make the point that the
amplifier is the least difficult part of the entire audio chain, which
is why the least competent of the "engineers", like you, are so keen to
control our perception of it. (Interestingly, when I tried to involve
the wretched Graham "Poopie" Stevenson in discussion of loudspeakers,
he instantly made a runner. Here on UKRA people will remember that when
Pinkerton ventured into expressing an opinion on electrostatic speakers
Phil Allison and I tripped him up so that in a single exchange of posts
Pinkostinko fell flat on his face.) Where, oh where, Krueger, since you
appear to believe that fidelity is a solved problem, have you dealt
with the inequalities of loudspeakers? Until you do, don't try to
patronize us with these dumb debating tricks like "see above".

Snip the usual Luddite propaganda

Really? A luddite, eh? Calling me a Luddite is a lie -- and you know it
is a lie, Krueger. I have spent a good deal of my life in or around
mechanical engineering (I even published a book about automobile design
and construction to share what I learned), computers (another book and
dozens of articles), reprographics (the science behind printing as done
with large industrial machines, more books, years of lectures and
articles), and of course electronics these last fifteen years. A
luddite is a machine-smasher. How does my known history make me a
machine-smasher? Either you don't know what the word means, in which
case you're a pretentious ignoramus, or you're deliberately lying, in
which case you're scum. Now, which is it, and which are you:
pretentious ignoramus or lying scum?

Snip the usual Luddite propaganda

Of course, this is Krueger's transparent little trick to avoid
answering the questions in my article which he snipped. I reproduce my
original unaltered and in full below, so that everyone can see that I
posed the questions already, and that Krueger has no answers for them
except abuse. The questions for which Krueger has no answer include:

1. Why don't THD and IMD measurements, or any other technical
measurements, predict which amplifiers will be preferred by cultivated
listeners?

2. Why are the engineers (not only the "engineers") so unwilling to
discuss the theory that the (probably subliminal) disturbance in the
common type of solid state amp, which causes cultivated listeners to
prefer tubes and Class A (and SET), is created by
a) crossover in Class A/B and push-pull amps
b) the adverse *balance* of higher harmonics in residual distortion
caused in silicon amps (and high-power class A/B PP tube amps) by the
high levels of negative feedback required to make them work.

So, Arny Krueger, you don't even have the excuse that I didn't state
the questions in the preferred, dull, terminology.

Below my signature is my original post in full.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review


My original post in full:

********
I've moved this from the thread "Newbie question on amplifers (sorry!)"

which at present centres on the different matter of the double
standards of the "engineers" who claim all amps sound the same (when
appropriately applied) or should sound the same, but who every now and
again tell us how this amp or that sounds "better". I don't see much
joy in discussing their hypocrisy with a bunch of stumblebum
soundbiters, though I delight in discussing it with more articulate
foils. This article is about how the engineers, and the "engineers" too

(because we seem to have more of them), are right at least half the
time, and possibly on both counts, so if you're squeamish, or a SETtie,

or open-minded, do yourself a favour and spare your blood pressure by
not reading further.


The key is the phrase which names our hobby: "high fidelity
reproduction of recorded music at home", usually just rendered as "high

fidelity" or "hi-fi". Consider the words, which are a precise
description and have been a precise description since roundabout WW2.
We should ask two questions:


1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window on the
concert hall.


2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally agreed to be
negative, so that we talk about the closest approach to the concert
hall, and invariably speak only of qualified fidelity, as in "high"
fidelity.


The sort of "engineers" who are lost once one proceeds beyond the
easiest element of the audio chain (by a magnitude or several), the
amplifier, say they are not responsible for the failure to achieve
unqualified fidelity. Their responsibility ends when they faithfully
reproduce the master tape in the home. Their concept of faithful
reproduction of the mastertape is defined by them as noiselessness and
measured as very low harmonic distortion, which today is trivial to
achieve in silicon amps. Even distortion many tens decibels below
audibility is today trivial to achieve in push-pull tube amps, and
merely expensive rather than difficult to achieve even in single-ended
triode amps. The more reasonable of this lowest, least imaginative
level of "engineers" therefore have an irrefutable point (if one
accepts their presumptions): once success has been achieved in lowering

THD to almost vanishing point, all amplfiers, including valve
amplifiers should sound the same. The cheapest possible amplifier with
reasonable THD, capable of driving any reasonably conceivable speaker,
should therefore do everyone. By the laws of economics, eventually the
cheapest, inevitably silicon, amplifier will have a monopoly. In an
ideal world this will, on current showing, probably be a Class D
digital amp, because nothing else can be built cheaper for more power
with lower distortion. Some of the "engineers" prove that they are at
least nominally human by displaying an irrational hatred of tube amps
well beyond the rational (if one agrees with the assumptions so far)
objection to them on grounds of cost. All of this works well, but also
only works *if* the listener is willing to separate matters of culture
from technology.


There is another view. It proceeds empirically. It might be called the
"cultural" view. To it belongs those who regularly attend concerts, who

are unimpressed by the technological fads of the anoraks, who have
cultivated and educated tastes, who have the confidence not to be
fashion victims, and the intelligence and will to stand up against what

they see as a tide of technoligical barbarism even in the arts. Though
these audiophiles may not know much about the tricky technicalities of
loudspeakers, they instinctively chooses the loudspeakers first, if not

at first certainly by the second or third hi-fi setup bought. This
group soon becomes dissatisfied with the mantra "all amplifiers sound
the same", and the excuse, "we reproduce the master tape with inaudible

noise--what more do you want?" They can hear for themselves that what
is produced is a long way from what they heard in the concert hall.
They soon discover that not all amplifiers are equal because they do
not all sound the same. On investigation they soon discover that all
these amplifiers which do not sound the same for practical purposes
measure the same. How can it be that some amplifiers cast a cold chill
over music while measuring the same as the ones which come closer to
the experience in the concert hall? It is not a big step to conclude
that the wrong thing is being measured. Next they discover that the
worst-measuring amps sound the most like the music in the concert hall,

and by then their faith in the "engineers" is totally destroyed.


So, the "engineers" are right, all amps that are properly designed and
made should sound the same. Unfortunately, since the "engineers" have
measured success by the wrong yardstick, there are no amps that are
properly designed and made because no amp perfectly reproduces the
concert hall in the home. The two that come closest, in the opinion of
cultured concert goers, are the ones considered most wretched according

to their preferred "standards" by the "engineers" in hi-fi: The
Yamaha
digital signal processor with its soundshaping, and the wasteful and
expensive Class A tube amp. (The SET fashion is merely a distraction; I

haven proven again and again in blind tests that what professional
musicians prefer is Class A zero (or very low) negative feedback sound,

not necessarily single-ended or triode sound.)


There is yet another view. This is held by those who claim that they
have a right to reproduce music in their homes in a form that pleases
them best, without reference to the concert hall. They are in the vast
majority and include the growing AV movement. They are not discussed
here; thi discussion is between a couple of elites in miniscule niche
markets all sitting on a single pinhead. That is also, ironically, the
problem for the "engineers", that they have talked themselves into a
corner of lowest common denominator, cheapest possible machinery, yet
wish to present themselves as an elite who have better ears or better
taste or simply more money than anyone else. Delicious!


******


Let's flesh out this argument with a specific example:


Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
But surely the most famous of all 'they all sound alike' tests was between
the Quad II valve, 303 and 405 SS amps? Which certainly won't sound like
an SET. And I'd guess the Krell would fit in with the Quads on that test -
which involved running those amps within spec.

Thanks, Dave. I wasn't at the original test but I have owned all these
Quad amps you mention, and currently own two of them, the Quad II tube
and 405 SS. I also have the appropriate speakers, the ESL and ESL63. In

addition I have a wide variety of other SS and tube amps. My tube amps
include single-ended triode (SET) amps from one-third watt to 75W, and
push-pull tube amps from 10W to over 100W, so I can make a direct
comparison at any power I please (though I am thoroughly contemptuous
of the "engineers" claim that you need a gazillion watts and even more
contemptuous of their claim that the only valid listening is at high
volume).


My memory of the 303 is that it definitely sounded different from the
Quad II and from the 405 as well, and that the difference was marked.
But that is memory, so let us leave the 303 there and concentrate on
amps I have sitting on the table right next to me.


I can state categorically that to me the Quad II tube and 405 MkII amps

sound different on any of the speakers available to me right now (Bang
& Olufsen S25, Quad ESL. Quad ESL63, Lowther horns of various types,
various DIY speaks with drivers from Scanspeak to guitar specialties).
It also isn't difficult to determine that the QII and 405 sound
different from several other silicon and tube amps both bought and of
my own design and construction.


In fact, the QII and the 405 are closer to each other and to my
favourites among my other amps than they are to their respective types
(SS or tube). The key is that both these amps lack that offensive
sharpness which after an hour fatigues the listener. My amps are on a
minimum of sixteen hours a day in my study or studio and often for 30
hours straight if I'm on a roll. I require civilized amps. I like
civilized music, civilized arts in general; I don't go to a concert or
to the theatre to be harassed by the egos or political whims of idiots,

so why should I permit my hi-fi to cast a chill over the pleasure of my

day?


Yet that is precisely what the SS amps, and the tube amps, of the
"engineers" do: they cast a chill which wasn't present in the concert
hall. The elements of this chill might consist of a spurious precision
(do you really want to hear the spittle burbling inside a wind
instrument?) or separation either in instruments or in soundstaging. We

can discuss the details of what is wrong with offensive amps (including

the technical one of NFB) but the key is that cultured, experienced
audiophiles prefer the Quad amps because of their high livability
quotient.


Therefore, if Peter Walker wants to claim his amps all sound the same,
let him. I don't think they do. I think they sound like other Quad amps

more than like other amps of the same type or age, true, but they do
not sound precisely the same. If they did, why would the later Quad
amps be necessary?


(Commercial reasons apart, I mean. I once had a long conversation with
Ross Walker on the Quad 66 and 67 CD players, which do sound precisely
the same, as CD players are wont to. He agreed with me on the sound,
then warned me that no editor would want me to say that they sounded
the same. He was right. Now, Walker didn't actually admit that the
purpose of the Q67 was just to jazz up flagging sales--he laughed and
changed the subject--, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was one very

large reason.)


It seems to me that, in the face of the "allampssoundthesame" logic,
new amps are continually being developed because the real engineers
(not the ones we get, who require pejorative quotation marks) have
quietly given up on the mantra and are voicing amps by ear... Their
attitudes are filtering down to the "engineers", which accounts for
their schizoprhenically strained remarks, followed by confused
denials, about this amp or that amp "sounding better". I wouldn't trust

their ears, not after the years of abuse they have given them by
playing their music at levels high enough to hide the artifacts of the
very high levels of NFB required for the vanishing THD. Their sneers
that anything less than deafening volume is "easy listening" will now
rebound on them. Justice!


Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

**********

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

In article ,
Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean the measurements are wrong, or that
your listening experience is wrong. It could be simply that the
appropriate measurements have not yet been made. Rod.

We've just spent 520 posts going from Ulan Batur to the Falkland
Islands for something you've said in two sentences. Thanks! Andy

What it implies is that there are laws of physics as applied to sound
reproduction that haven't yet been discovered.

*Exactly* the premise that sells snake oil products.

It says nothing at all about the laws of physics, except to those who
*know* nothing about the laws of physics, (though such people don't
seem to be in short supply).

Well, the comment was directed at Andy - not you. But I'll not hold my
breath waiting for Andy to explain in clear terms what he means. Because
he doesn't believe in accepted measurements, but some form of 'magic'.

--
*Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

mick wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 16:08:20 -0800, Andre Jute burbled:

snip

The key is the phrase which names our hobby: "high fidelity reproduction
of recorded music at home", usually just rendered as "high fidelity" or
"hi-fi". Consider the words, which are a precise description and have been
a precise description since roundabout WW2. We should ask two questions:

1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window on the concert
hall.


Oh, what a question! Fidelity: 15th century. Directly or via French
Latin fidelitas "faithfulness" fides "faith". It *could* be taken to
mean "a window on the concert hall" or it could mean "true to life". The
two arn't necessarily equal.

I do see them as equal, Mick. I can see where you're coming from.
Keith, for instance, says in a current post in this thread that horns
are an acquired taste, that you become more impressed with them as you
become more used to them. But, in general, what you hear in the concert
hall is true to life because it is life. It is the window on the
concert hall which lives in virtual reality, the CD, etc.

2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally agreed to be
negative, so that we talk about the closest approach to the concert hall,
and invariably speak only of qualified fidelity, as in "high" fidelity.

If it sounds "lifelike" to you then you have achieved "fidelity"!

Set up your best amp and speakers in your listening room and settle in
with handful of discs of Bach organ music. When you finish playing
them, come tell me how good the music, the performer, the amp, the
speakers, even your arrangement of paperback books as baffles are. That
may be lifelike to you because your mind, like everyone's mind, is an
amazingly adaptive elastic band. But unqualified fidelity it will not
be. For a start, your room, unless you live in a church, will not be
big enough accurately to reproduce the lowest bass notes.

I can say confidently, because it is a test i have conducted a few
time, that if I were to bring my horns to your listening room and
change nothing else, you would at the end of a week agree that my
Lowthers sound more lifelike than whatever you use. And another week
later, having borrowed a REM boombox from someone, you will agree that
its deep bass add something on organ music.

Together these cases demonstrate that fidelity is an aspiration, not an
achievement, certaintly not history.

The term
"high fidelity" is, of course, an invention of the marketing bods to sell
more equipment and is meaningless. ;-)

No, no, no. The men who coined the name were smart marketers, true, but
they were also honest Englishmen who didn't require a Trading Standards
Authority to tell them how to be honest and straightdealing. In
addition, you only have to read their books and articles and letters to
know that men like Gilbert Briggs had an abiding respect for the
language, so unlike the "engineers" on the audio conferences now that
the old radio hams have all retired hurt. If they though fidelity was
achieved, or was achievable in the short term, you may be certain they
would not have qualified it and thereby cut into sales. No, they added
the word "high" in front of "fidelity" a) to distinguish higher
fidelity from the lower fidelity which reigned before and b) as an
aspirational cry towards full, unqualified fidelity. Read Gilbert
Briggs on Peter Walker's prototype electrostatic loudspeaker and you
will see his remarks on its greater fidelity also include the
understanding that it in fact did not offer full fidelity, stunning as
it was when first heard; these remarks are right next to remarks on the
commercialized electrostat's likely marketing impact, so these old
guys never separated the two concepts, but nor did they tell any
weaseling lies.

Of course, modern marketing men may tell weaseling lies in order to
sell more soundalike amplifiers. I wouldn't know. I don't deal with
them. My gear is from the factory or the BBC or bought second-hand.

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

Andre Jute

Do amplifiers sound different?uad
 

Keith G wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
I've moved this from the thread "Newbie question on amplifers (sorry!)"
which at present centres on the different matter of the double
standards of the "engineers" who claim all amps sound the same (when
appropriately applied) or should sound the same, but who every now and
again tell us how this amp or that sounds "better". I don't see much
joy in discussing their hypocrisy with a bunch of stumblebum
soundbiters, though I delight in discussing it with more articulate
foils. This article is about how the engineers, and the "engineers" too
(because we seem to have more of them), are right at least half the
time, and possibly on both counts, so if you're squeamish, or a SETtie,
or open-minded, do yourself a favour and spare your blood pressure by
not reading further.

I'm most definitely a SeTtie (worked my way up to it) but the *absence* of
the usual crossposting encourages me to read further...

These are considerations of culture rather than technicalities.

The key is the phrase which names our hobby: "high fidelity
reproduction of recorded music at home", usually just rendered as "high
fidelity" or "hi-fi". Consider the words, which are a precise
description and have been a precise description since roundabout WW2.

Yes, about the time 'sound reproduction' moved out of the 'acoustic' domain
into the 'electronic'...

We should ask two questions:

1. What is fidelity? This is usually taken to be a window on the
concert hall.

In my book, any point at which a pair of bagpipes, say, *doesn't* sound like
Laurie Anderson mimicking a pair of bagpipes. (Which she does extremely
well....)

See my remarks to Mick about how your ear and brain adapts to whatever
equipment you have. See your own remarks below about your horns growing
on you. I would have no difficulty accepting that bagpipes are even
more difficult to reproduce correctly than the organ, which is the
example I used to Mick.

2. Have we achieved fidelity? The answer is generally agreed to be
negative, so that we talk about the closest approach to the concert
hall, and invariably speak only of qualified fidelity, as in "high"
fidelity.

I think we have. The minute you can *recognise* someone's voice over a sound
system a degree of 'fidelity' has been achieved, IMO...

No. "A degree of fidelity" is not unqualified fidelity. "Recognition of
someone's voice" is high fidelity, sure. Unqualified fidelity would be
the possibility of mistaking the replay for the person in the room with
you but out of sight behind the curtain or perhaps behind you.

The sort of "engineers" who are lost once one proceeds beyond the
easiest element of the audio chain (by a magnitude or several), the
amplifier, say they are not responsible for the failure to achieve
unqualified fidelity. Their responsibility ends when they faithfully
reproduce the master tape in the home. Their concept of faithful
reproduction of the mastertape is defined by them as noiselessness and
measured as very low harmonic distortion, which today is trivial to
achieve in silicon amps. Even distortion many tens decibels below
audibility is today trivial to achieve in push-pull tube amps, and
merely expensive rather than difficult to achieve even in single-ended
triode amps. The more reasonable of this lowest, least imaginative
level of "engineers" therefore have an irrefutable point (if one
accepts their presumptions): once success has been achieved in lowering
THD to almost vanishing point, all amplfiers, including valve
amplifiers should sound the same. The cheapest possible amplifier with
reasonable THD, capable of driving any reasonably conceivable speaker,
should therefore do everyone. By the laws of economics, eventually the
cheapest, inevitably silicon, amplifier will have a monopoly. In an
ideal world this will, on current showing, probably be a Class D
digital amp, because nothing else can be built cheaper for more power
with lower distortion. Some of the "engineers" prove that they are at
least nominally human by displaying an irrational hatred of tube amps
well beyond the rational (if one agrees with the assumptions so far)
objection to them on grounds of cost. All of this works well, but also
only works *if* the listener is willing to separate matters of culture
from technology.

Agreed.

For me, the prime requirement of a music system is that it fully engages the
emotions. I am not interested in 'sonic information flow'...

Emotion is of course the difference between art and "engineering":
"Music is Art - Audio is Engineering" tells you everything you need to
know about a whole class of "engineers".
But we should be careful. Emotion isn't in fact absent from
engineering, without the pejorative quotation marks, because good
engineering is always done with passion.

There is another view. It proceeds empirically. It might be called the
"cultural" view. To it belongs those who regularly attend concerts, who
are unimpressed by the technological fads of the anoraks, who have
cultivated and educated tastes, who have the confidence not to be
fashion victims, and the intelligence and will to stand up against what
they see as a tide of technoligical barbarism even in the arts. Though
these audiophiles may not know much about the tricky technicalities of
loudspeakers, they instinctively chooses the loudspeakers first, if not
at first certainly by the second or third hi-fi setup bought. This
group soon becomes dissatisfied with the mantra "all amplifiers sound
the same", and the excuse, "we reproduce the master tape with inaudible
noise--what more do you want?" They can hear for themselves that what
is produced is a long way from what they heard in the concert hall.
They soon discover that not all amplifiers are equal because they do
not all sound the same. On investigation they soon discover that all
these amplifiers which do not sound the same for practical purposes
measure the same. How can it be that some amplifiers cast a cold chill
over music while measuring the same as the ones which come closer to
the experience in the concert hall? It is not a big step to conclude
that the wrong thing is being measured. Next they discover that the
worst-measuring amps sound the most like the music in the concert hall,
and by then their faith in the "engineers" is totally destroyed.

In my case not *totally* destroyed but, as always, I place the opinions of
*experts* in a wider perspective. The expert view is only part of the
picture, very often I have found the remarks made by innocents to be the
most illuminating - I have got a lot of time for the kid who pointed out
that you could, in fact, clearly see The Emperor's meat and two veg....

Foul-mannered little *******, even if right! It is precisely because I
know many engineers with elegant minds that I distinguish the minority
(they just seem like a majority because in audio they predominate and
are so loud and so slow-learning) of "engineers" from the real
engineers.

So, the "engineers" are right, all amps that are properly designed and
made should sound the same. Unfortunately, since the "engineers" have
measured success by the wrong yardstick, there are no amps that are
properly designed and made because no amp perfectly reproduces the
concert hall in the home. The two that come closest, in the opinion of
cultured concert goers, are the ones considered most wretched according
to their preferred "standards" by the "engineers" in hi-fi: The Yamaha
digital signal processor with its soundshaping, and the wasteful and
expensive Class A tube amp. (The SET fashion is merely a distraction; I
haven proven again and again in blind tests that what professional
musicians prefer is Class A zero (or very low) negative feedback sound,
not necessarily single-ended or triode sound.)


I suspect you are right about the 'Class A' thing and am hoping to grab a
Class A SS amp for reasonable money in a couple of says time to check it out
for myself and compare it with the Class A valve amps I already have.

The smaller and lower-powered the better. There is a suspicion held by
more ultrafidelista than just the microwatters that higher power in
itself interferes with desirable delicacy in one's sound.

There is yet another view. This is held by those who claim that they
have a right to reproduce music in their homes in a form that pleases
them best, without reference to the concert hall. They are in the vast
majority and include the growing AV movement. They are not discussed
here; thi discussion is between a couple of elites in miniscule niche
markets all sitting on a single pinhead. That is also, ironically, the
problem for the "engineers", that they have talked themselves into a
corner of lowest common denominator, cheapest possible machinery, yet
wish to present themselves as an elite who have better ears or better
taste or simply more money than anyone else. Delicious!

These interesting observations do not much cater for the 'iPod tsunami' that
is/will be shaping 'mass market music' over the next few years....

It seems to me that the AV/iPod phenomena are contiguous and in fact
sliding over each other. Apple's iMac is already on its second
generation as an entertainment centre complete with remote control, and
the iPod is merely an adjunct to it, even if right now the tail seems
to wag the dog.

snip Quad stuff - I am the one person in this group who 'doesn't give a sod
about Quad'...

Audiophile Wealth Alert: this is a serious mistake you're committing,
Keith. You should take an interest in Quad because Quad gives you
superior sound in exchange for mere money. If you count up the value of
your hours, you hi-fi is already many times the price of a complete
top-drawer Quad setup. Also, you require a reference, and for this
second-hand Quad gear is the cheap option, and also the superior
option.

It seems to me that, in the face of the "allampssoundthesame" logic,
new amps are continually being developed because the real engineers
(not the ones we get, who require pejorative quotation marks) have
quietly given up on the mantra and are voicing amps by ear... Their
attitudes are filtering down to the "engineers", which accounts for
their schizoprhenically strained remarks, followed by confused
denials, about this amp or that amp "sounding better". I wouldn't trust
their ears, not after the years of abuse they have given them by
playing their music at levels high enough to hide the artifacts of the
very high levels of NFB required for the vanishing THD. Their sneers
that anything less than deafening volume is "easy listening" will now
rebound on them. Justice!

This is interesting - I have a little theory that 'engineers' are, if
anything, more prone than most to 'mass hysteria' and exhibit a greater
tendancy to herd together, follow 'current thinking' trends, indulge in
'group reasurances' than idiots like me who are prepared to buck the trends,
stand alone and take the crap for what we genuinely think/feel/hear. (The
clue is in the paranoid hostility in some of the remarks routinely thrown
out by a number, though not all, of them in this ng....)

I explained, probably last year sometime but several times before then
as well, that the hostility of the "engineers" arises from fear and a
consequent tendency to control freakery. They know that they will not
fit in an audiophile environment where cultural judgements have value,
perhaps even primacy.

I recently had a visit from 'one here', whose technical and technological
expertise/experience I suspect are *second to none* in this group, who made
the effort to re-investigate the SET phenomenon for himself.

Casually, I observed a tendancy in him toward choosing the 'safest', tidiest
and 'best presented' (lower noise, presumably less distortion &c.) sound out
of the various bits of kit we cut into the equation at various times.
Unsurprisingly, it more or less went SET to PP, valve to SS - the very
reverse of my own progress in the last couple of years and more towards what
I would describe as a 'rubbery', tidy, planar and ultimately less
interesting/engaging sound...!! :-)

What you're used to is what you will be comfortable with. Nothing wrong
with conservatism!

Asitappens, it was a very difficult day for me, I was aware that my partner
was handling a crisis at work and was taking a number of very awkward phone
calls. (She had offered to go into the Cambridge office but I said no - she
is working over 100 hours a week atm and hasn't been here in daylight for
weeks now - unfortunately the phone calls which were to have been occasional
turned out to be pretty much continuous!)

This is a pity as it cramped my style somewhat and I *suspect* my visitor
was starting to warm (OK very slightly) to the triode/horn offerings he had
come to hear - which is no more or less than I might have expected to
happen. The 'shock' of triodes/horns is too great for some to accomodate at
a stroke and horns can/will sound strange (****e, if you like) 'til you get
used to them. It's when you *are* used to them, you can't make the
sacrifices in clarity and detail to go back to the 'softer option' of a
multiway box system!!

Interestingly, I repeated the comparisons myself the next morning and fairly
quickly evolved myself right back to Square 1 - using the same 'dodgy'
Chinese 300B SET I had started out with!! :-)

Funny ole world, innit.....???

Pay attention now, Keith. Andy and I between us can explain it to you.
Might take us a while though. Put on some nice muzak and...

Andre Jute