On Tue, 23 May 2006 13:12:56 +0100, Eiron wrote:

Serge Auckland wrote:

I think the nub of your response is that people "believe" things sound
different. It's the same mental process that have people believing in
God, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. They don't have a shred of
objective evidence that things sound different, just their faith.

I'll accept that pots, capacitors, resistors etc. sound different when I
see objective measurements that indicate that there should be a
difference and the results of properly conducted double-blind tests that
show that there was a difference.

So is it not the case that metal film resistors have lower noise than carbon ones,
and that this gives an audible and measurable difference in phono and microphone
preamps?

Note that this is a question, not a statement. I haven't measured anything recently.

Yes, it's true, but if you can hear that difference, then you are
using *way* too high value resistors in your phono preamp! You won't
hear resistor noise in any other part of your equipment.

BTW, it's also quite hard to find cracked carbon resistors these days,
carbon film seems to be about the cheapest available, and it's got
very little difference from metal film in the noise department. Active
device noise almost always dominates, expect with low-output MC carts,
where excess resistance in the first stage is to be avoided.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering