I can relate to that; just finished recording a classical trio in a large venue here at the European Triode Festival.
Jan
No, not literally, agreed. But reading these pages (and many others here at diyaudio) the overwhelming thing is that people who have some kind of personal preference for whatever manner and means of reproducing their music try to press the rest of us into accepting their gospel as the universal TRVTH (tm).
Why do you (not you personally) feel that need? Why can't you (not you personally) just be happy with your system and the enjoyment of your music, knowing that it may or may not be as transparent and accurate as possible?
Transparancy, accurate reprodution, the original meaning of HiFi is something that can be established by measurements. Enjoyment of reproduced music is personal and varies enormously over the population. Some like vinyl, others swear by streamers, die for SE 5W tube or will not listen to anything less than a 200W solid state. Etc, etc.
Why trying to force your particular way of enjying music onto the rest of us? Don't we have enough politicians in our world yet?
Jan
This is a very reasonable stand, but I believe it can only be reached to a very limited extend. Our memory for those details of the music that would be required to judge whether, say, which one of a pair of amps does a better job at reproducing the recording, is just not up to it. The evidence is so overwhelming, many decades of studies, reports, it's just stupid to repeat it all again.
The only way to find out is by measurement, and if 'the best measured' amp is not the one who's sound you like best, buy the one you like best. Whats the problem?
Jan
Ok, but before you said this;
So should the "Better" mean easier on your T&M ego so you don't have cognitive dissonance?
The concept that I have been trying for, which I stated or at least thought I made pretty clear back in post 2507, the middle paragraph is that the goal of hi-fi is to recreate the illusion of sound being "natural sounding" and for stereo (which I truly wish had been supplanted by now with multi channel sources in "hi-fi"). And, therefore the main criterion for this is that the more readily the brain recognizes the sound as being "natural" the better. Just that and no more.
Beyond that, one peels the proverbial onion back and the brain NOT being forced to do lots of "CPU intensive" deciphering has "extra cycles" to note and identify subtleties.
One issue about listening tests revolves around this very point. The more processing required to "hear" the less time (literally) is available to find subtle aspects.
So, on one hand one could in theory create a system that sounds "natural" but lacks these more subtle aspects. By the same token one could create a very "accurate" system that lacks the "natural" aspect, but does have the raw ability to reproduce subtle details (assuming they are there in the source). The problem is that according to this flaky concept the source itself and/or the playback chain might be introducing or reproducing sonic elements that serve to "denature" the basic sound leaving the benefits of the details in a layer of "undesirable artifacts". And in most cases, unless the "undesirable artifacts" are too great, yes you can hear the subtleties, but the PRICE PAID is that your brain has to WORK extra hard to decipher them.
Speaking to the idea that there are different "sounds" of a live performance that vary in the room... yes, quite so, but those sounds are not confused with something that is not natural and is being artificially reproduced (like from a "PA" or "hifi"). Why is that? Is it because you can SEE the performer? Bias? Doubtful.
So relating this back to the opamp issue, Simon 7000 nailed it. How come even SY could hear something being "different" between 5 and 6 buffers? It's not the same as a wire apparently.
How many buffers are there in a good modern (non digital) recording console??
They are in cascade ultimately...
-----------------
And Scott, a very good horn system with a low power SET would be very very surprising to you. Not ANY low power SET or ANY horn. I think you quoted the power too low, but you know that.
Consider the attached unvarnished freq response graph?
note the +/-dB??
Are you listening on a speaker that measures this flat??
Keep in mind that with nothing done to it, it is flat from ~250Hz to 7kHz!!
Almost 5 octaves! And with very little EQ, how far??
And it does 109dB/1w/1m
Are you really certain you know anything about horns?
Beyond that, one peels the proverbial onion back and the brain NOT being forced to do lots of "CPU intensive" deciphering has "extra cycles" to note and identify subtleties.
One issue about listening tests revolves around this very point. The more processing required to "hear" the less time (literally) is available to find subtle aspects.
So, on one hand one could in theory create a system that sounds "natural" but lacks these more subtle aspects. By the same token one could create a very "accurate" system that lacks the "natural" aspect, but does have the raw ability to reproduce subtle details (assuming they are there in the source). The problem is that according to this flaky concept the source itself and/or the playback chain might be introducing or reproducing sonic elements that serve to "denature" the basic sound leaving the benefits of the details in a layer of "undesirable artifacts". And in most cases, unless the "undesirable artifacts" are too great, yes you can hear the subtleties, but the PRICE PAID is that your brain has to WORK extra hard to decipher them.
Speaking to the idea that there are different "sounds" of a live performance that vary in the room... yes, quite so, but those sounds are not confused with something that is not natural and is being artificially reproduced (like from a "PA" or "hifi"). Why is that? Is it because you can SEE the performer? Bias? Doubtful.
So relating this back to the opamp issue, Simon 7000 nailed it. How come even SY could hear something being "different" between 5 and 6 buffers? It's not the same as a wire apparently.
How many buffers are there in a good modern (non digital) recording console??
They are in cascade ultimately...
-----------------
And Scott, a very good horn system with a low power SET would be very very surprising to you. Not ANY low power SET or ANY horn. I think you quoted the power too low, but you know that.
Consider the attached unvarnished freq response graph?
note the +/-dB??
Are you listening on a speaker that measures this flat??
Keep in mind that with nothing done to it, it is flat from ~250Hz to 7kHz!!
Almost 5 octaves! And with very little EQ, how far??
And it does 109dB/1w/1m
Are you really certain you know anything about horns?
Parse this thread again or have a look at the whole "purist" industry selling their wares by the numbers. BW, THD, N etc.
Exactly my friend. It's all done by ear and by one single person. There's no numbers, if it could have been done just by the numbers the poor sound engineers would had been replaced by computers long time ago. And there's no committee doing endless ABX sessions on various settings either. Which is the way that the numerologists would like you to believe to be "the proper way" of assessing sound.
Let's not get lost in the recording chain/good-bad source issue?
Bottom line for this thread is what if any effect (good/bad) or other issues come out with opamps vs. not opamps. And then what and why?
One camp says "no way, the specs say it's not audible no matter what".
The other camp says "maybe, but I hear something, and maybe the wrong things are being measured anyhow".
_-_-
At present the balance point is with SY's 5 or 6 buffers... 😀
Bottom line for this thread is what if any effect (good/bad) or other issues come out with opamps vs. not opamps. And then what and why?
One camp says "no way, the specs say it's not audible no matter what".
The other camp says "maybe, but I hear something, and maybe the wrong things are being measured anyhow".
_-_-
At present the balance point is with SY's 5 or 6 buffers... 😀
Only from another room. Been there with open mind even at Burning Amp too, I stay polite it's not my thing to make an issue of it. My kind of test, you sit down together and listen to the same thing at the same time and do the Norman coordinate. In these cases no need for DBT it's a matter of preference.
There actually is/was a cult of 750mW amps in Japan.
Scott, whatever... 750mW is a bit silly, since you're likely to clip them on peaks with most material unless you really keep the average level rather low, then it is possible.
I can't say what people were doing.
While it doesn't make me personally particularly popular in some situations where I voice my opinion and tell people truthfully what I hear, I'll say this here. Most systems that I have heard, I would not want to own, or listen to for very long... regardless of price. That's not to say that my own stuff is so bloody wonderful all the time, since I do change things around and "mess with it". Sometimes I don't like my own system!
I will say that an awful lot of horns that I have heard are not very good. Price being irrelevant.
In fact my entire viewpoint on horns - that they were all fatally flawed - got changed in an instant when a friend brought a driver over and we put it on a horn (one that I had given up on...) and I was frankly amazed. (baffled, confounded too...) I would have been as adamant as some here are about their viewpoints about horns, up to that moment. FYI.
So, I've learned that things may not always be as one might expect - and as in the case of the horn + driver that the problem may not be anywhere near where it is expected or believed to be.
Did you look at the pdf with the graphs??
Best look.
I can't say what people were doing.
While it doesn't make me personally particularly popular in some situations where I voice my opinion and tell people truthfully what I hear, I'll say this here. Most systems that I have heard, I would not want to own, or listen to for very long... regardless of price. That's not to say that my own stuff is so bloody wonderful all the time, since I do change things around and "mess with it". Sometimes I don't like my own system!
I will say that an awful lot of horns that I have heard are not very good. Price being irrelevant.
In fact my entire viewpoint on horns - that they were all fatally flawed - got changed in an instant when a friend brought a driver over and we put it on a horn (one that I had given up on...) and I was frankly amazed. (baffled, confounded too...) I would have been as adamant as some here are about their viewpoints about horns, up to that moment. FYI.
So, I've learned that things may not always be as one might expect - and as in the case of the horn + driver that the problem may not be anywhere near where it is expected or believed to be.
Did you look at the pdf with the graphs??
Best look.
Nothing to do with ego. 'Preference' and 'better' are two completely different things.
AND they change with time. When i was young more bass was my quest, it could boom like crazy and i didn't mind one bit. Can't stand loose bass nowadays though.
It all goes down from there when someone tries to suggest that, based on his numbers / measurements, you have poor taste. It is such a moronic thing to do that it baffles everyone subjected to it. "If you can't win them with a good argument, baffle them with BS". Works so well..... And once the discussion is brought down to the idiot level, it also baffles the bystanders - at that point they can't tell who is who.
I only care what audio products sound like, not necessarily the measurements, especially 1KHz or less Thd distortion. I get 'feedback' from listener's impressions of a particular design, not only mine, but of my competitors as well. Most here simply don't have the breadth of experience with listening to quality audio equipment or else the intrinsic sensitivity to make any difference with me. I go along with Bear on most things.
Looks good, I would be interested in the amount non-minimum phase behavior there is like Dick Heyser's measurements showed with horns, well some horns. At least you agree odds are any given random horn won't sound too good.
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I don't see evidence of that, EXCEPT when someone says something is 'better' despite the measurements showing otherwise. Take SY for example. He prefers tube amps, but does not claim they are 'better' than solid state. He does however avoid any obvious sonic signature so you will not get the 'tubey sound' some seek.
Blah, "if I don't see it it doesn't exist". I'm not going to play game and parse again the whole thread to provide quotes. I'll just point you to the previous page where post 2525 has a relevant quote. Which is nothing but another side of the "baffling discussion", where we start discussing "which is better" without first defining what "better" means and whether, according to the agreed definition, it is actually relevant to the discussion on musical enjoyment.
I have a different page size to you, so its on this page. My page size selection is better than yours 😛
#2525 has nothing to support your premise.
#2525 has nothing to support your premise.
Lol. Maybe one of the numerologists could determine and scientifically prove which is "the best" page size?
No comments on pros, trying to differentiate from competitors and increase sales by putting together a good story.
The enthusiast opamp roller is driven by the Maslow hierarchy, esteem and self actualization levels. Lacking solid engineering knowledge (which is not a sin by itself) some are trying to replace this in communication with a meta language that (they hope) may promote them among audio experts. The toxic audio reports on the internet and what's left of the printed glossy magazines are ultimately to be blamed for this. The question "why can't I be a second Einstein" has a rather clear answer, the question "why can't I be a second Fremer" not so much, and leaves room for hope and an easy path to recognition and status. A path without those pesky logic and analytic reasoning pitfalls, that some people (I suppose "by design") are not comfortable dealing with.
Add to this that likely most (but not all) audio enthusiasts opamp rollers are doing it without rationalizing their behaviour, kind of trolling without knowing it, and you got my 2p.
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