GRollins said:
Abbey Road is not the "XXX Studio".
The quality of their work and its consistency throughout the years is a testament to their skill and thus when I wrote "they know how to use them" I was refering to facts. Unlike you, that is, since you are unable to provide any real proof that you have more experience than any of the other diyaudio members or that you can hear better than us (which, in fact, if you are over a certain age, is highly unlikely).
GRollins said:
We do agree. It's all about the music.
But you fail to understand (or pretend so) that I never said Classe & B&W are the best combo out there. In fact I would never buy that gear. But that doesn't make it mid-fi. You continue to use the "everything is black or white" logic. Reminds me of the "everyone who is not with us is against us" line of your President... Geez! Is it so hard to understand that between black and white there are a thousand shades of grey?
Moreover your argument about me saying good things about the aforementioned combo because I haven't heard enough live music fails the moment these stuff were picked by a major studio. Surely you can prove that you have heard more live music and can hear better than a guy that works at Abbey Road, but until you bring that proof forward you'll allow me to remain sceptical.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that you seem to think people act and think like you do - which, believe me, is far from true.
I do not try to impress anyone. I have never (n e v e r) said I have more experience than the rest, I have never said I can hear better than the rest, I have never accused you or anyone else of being ignorant or whatever. This is your agenda, not mine. Anyone can go back a few pages, read our whole discussion and see that this is indeed the case... Facts.
GRollins said:
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
I think Class D can actually offer decent Hi-Fi sound.
Hey, at least I won't rot in Hell alone...
You think the Beattles will be there too? They recorded at Abbey Road.
Hi all
I would like to know how you get a sound stage on the music when each instrument/vocal is recorded separately in the one room then the separate track mixed by an sound engineer to get the desired output?
Live music recorded, different matter, but still up to the sound engineers capabilities.
Hmmm
isn't recorded music recorded 24/96.
mixed down to cd 16/44,1.
Where can i find the master recording's 24/96?
allan
ps the price we pay for pops and whistle's
I would like to know how you get a sound stage on the music when each instrument/vocal is recorded separately in the one room then the separate track mixed by an sound engineer to get the desired output?
Live music recorded, different matter, but still up to the sound engineers capabilities.
Hmmm
isn't recorded music recorded 24/96.
mixed down to cd 16/44,1.
Where can i find the master recording's 24/96?
allan
ps the price we pay for pops and whistle's
On the subject of quality of the modern day releases.
http://www.turnmeup.org/
Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it's not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.
Follow the link and you'll find many interesting articles on the subject.
http://www.turnmeup.org/
Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it's not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.
Follow the link and you'll find many interesting articles on the subject.
Re: Re: Re: high quality fi
Hi John,
The Mosque is now the Landmark Theater, which is where the symphony was playing. They have a new home, but as in all things goverment related the remodeling of the Carpenter Center got held up due to a second venue conflicting with it, but it appears to be back ontrack for 2008. I wouldn't say I was blown away by the Landmark, but I was commenting that I would have loved to hear it without the "help" of the house system. It had a nasty resonance in the lower midrange that made voices hard to distinquish and clouded up the total effect. The sound might have gelled more further back in the room. Oh Yeah, the pillars... I was thinking I was glad to be seated in the front.
Luckily there were no clouds on the ceiling. I would have been confused and thought I stumbled into a Pink Floyd concert.
Regards, Mike.
auplater said:
Hi John,
The Mosque is now the Landmark Theater, which is where the symphony was playing. They have a new home, but as in all things goverment related the remodeling of the Carpenter Center got held up due to a second venue conflicting with it, but it appears to be back ontrack for 2008. I wouldn't say I was blown away by the Landmark, but I was commenting that I would have loved to hear it without the "help" of the house system. It had a nasty resonance in the lower midrange that made voices hard to distinquish and clouded up the total effect. The sound might have gelled more further back in the room. Oh Yeah, the pillars... I was thinking I was glad to be seated in the front.
GRollins said:
Luckily there were no clouds on the ceiling. I would have been confused and thought I stumbled into a Pink Floyd concert.
Regards, Mike.
Tubes aren't perfect....
Listen to the back and forth panned guitar on the beginning of The Supreme's "You keep me Hanging on".
You'll clearly hear a noisy tube!
In fact, you can even hear it with a T amp!
We had a performance studio at our radio station. I used to mix bands for broadcast. The choice of microphones and their placement determined the quality of sound FAR MORE the the IC's in the console.
Yes, I believe that the Grateful Dead could hear that first generation IC opamps sounded worse then the best discrete amplifiers available at the time. But that was then and this is now. The current generation of IC's run rings around the older stuff.
We are in what I consider the second generation of digital amps.
I am POSITIVE that the next generation will sound even better then this one does. Yet so many here want to simply trash the whole concept!
To me, this is akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Just look at how BAD first generation digital cameras looked compared to 35 MM SLR's. NOW compare them-and I'll wager that everyone here will concede that today's multi MPixel cameras run rings around those early (read: 8 year old) ones.
Rather then discard a technology out of hand, why not support it and then feel the satisfaction of watching it grow and mature?
Listen to the back and forth panned guitar on the beginning of The Supreme's "You keep me Hanging on".
You'll clearly hear a noisy tube!
In fact, you can even hear it with a T amp!
We had a performance studio at our radio station. I used to mix bands for broadcast. The choice of microphones and their placement determined the quality of sound FAR MORE the the IC's in the console.
Yes, I believe that the Grateful Dead could hear that first generation IC opamps sounded worse then the best discrete amplifiers available at the time. But that was then and this is now. The current generation of IC's run rings around the older stuff.
We are in what I consider the second generation of digital amps.
I am POSITIVE that the next generation will sound even better then this one does. Yet so many here want to simply trash the whole concept!
To me, this is akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Just look at how BAD first generation digital cameras looked compared to 35 MM SLR's. NOW compare them-and I'll wager that everyone here will concede that today's multi MPixel cameras run rings around those early (read: 8 year old) ones.
Rather then discard a technology out of hand, why not support it and then feel the satisfaction of watching it grow and mature?
The IC op amps that were first rejected by the Grateful Dead were NOT first generation cheap devices. They were HA-911 dielectrically isolated +/- 24V, 50 ma output, +5/-2.5V / us devices. These compare favorably with the line amps in my SONY SACD player today. Please do not think that we are NOT aware of the latest IC's. I have at least a hundred of different types in my lab, going back more than 40 years.
Actually, some of the older types had an advantage, because they had higher output quiescent current, compared to new types that are always trying to save current.
Actually, some of the older types had an advantage, because they had higher output quiescent current, compared to new types that are always trying to save current.
Sounds like
Sounds like the specs of an RC4560, a 49 cent vanilla dual opamp that I would never consider even mid fi.
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/rc4560.html
Now, if you said JE990 I might agree with you about a hi fi opamp for that time.
http://www.10000cows.com/JE990.pdf
Sounds like the specs of an RC4560, a 49 cent vanilla dual opamp that I would never consider even mid fi.
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/rc4560.html
Now, if you said JE990 I might agree with you about a hi fi opamp for that time.
http://www.10000cows.com/JE990.pdf
Bob Cordell said:
You're right...I never even considered the assymetry. If I recall, the LF356 also had this kind of aysemmetric behavior. It was because of a transfer function problem. Even though they had a great gain/bandwidth product and a very high slew rate, their problems made them sound awful. I wonder if this Harris chip had the same problem.
At the time, John you would have probably been best off with a simple LM301 run in feedforward mode, and/or an LM318 for line stages.
Oh Bob, they were the strong recommendation of, and used by one of the founders of Analog Devices, Dick Burwen, who first designed your basic topology into a hybrid amp in 1966, I'll have you know, even 3-4 years after I started using them. They were an almost ideal design for the time. I also experimented with making the slew rate symmetrical and improving its open loop bandwidth. I think that it helped a little, but discrete was still better, according to the Grateful Dead and others.
John Curl, I bowed out of this thread a long time ago because the only people participating have no idea what they are talking about.
One guy says, "Of course any op-amp with asymmetrical slew rates sounds terrible!" As if this idea had any merit whatsoever. Go ahead and measure the slew rates on a single-ended tube preamp like the latest Conrad-Johnson designs. You can bet it's going to have asymmetrical slew rates. But guess what? It sounds better than any op-amp ever made. It's a shame that nobody bothers to listen before making ridiculous assertions that have no basis in reality.
Then another poster who has no accomplishments, no ideas, and is obviously deaf as a stone tries to build himself up the only way he can -- by trying to cut you down. Don't even bother to respond to him John. Your designs and accomplishments over 4 decades of audio design stand on their own and speak for themselves. The number of true peers you have could be counted on the fingers of one hand of a T. Rex. These people are completely unworthy of one minute of your time composing a reply.
One guy says, "Of course any op-amp with asymmetrical slew rates sounds terrible!" As if this idea had any merit whatsoever. Go ahead and measure the slew rates on a single-ended tube preamp like the latest Conrad-Johnson designs. You can bet it's going to have asymmetrical slew rates. But guess what? It sounds better than any op-amp ever made. It's a shame that nobody bothers to listen before making ridiculous assertions that have no basis in reality.
Then another poster who has no accomplishments, no ideas, and is obviously deaf as a stone tries to build himself up the only way he can -- by trying to cut you down. Don't even bother to respond to him John. Your designs and accomplishments over 4 decades of audio design stand on their own and speak for themselves. The number of true peers you have could be counted on the fingers of one hand of a T. Rex. These people are completely unworthy of one minute of your time composing a reply.
GRollins said:
This is just a rehash of audio mythology with scant grounding in reality. What matters is the bandwidth at the desired closed loop gain. There are plenty of audio opamps with bandwidths well in excess of 500kHz at a closed loop gains of 25-30dB.
An opamp with a DC gain of only 25-30dB would be next to useless. You comments with regards to the internal compensation capacitors are mostly nonsense.
High DC gain is generally achieved by presenting gain stages with high impedance collector/drain loads and this automatically decreases the open loop frequency response in proportion for a fixed value of compensation capacitance.
It is a myth that high DC gain amplifiers necessarily require bigger (or more) compensation capacitors than low DC gain amplifiers. This is true for both opamp design and discrete power amplifier design.
“Phase problems” are not necessarily exacerbated and there is no such thing as “less need to compensate” – all negative feedback circuits must be compensated on way or the other.
PMA said:
I agree. I given up going through the trouble of presenting any of my designs here. It's a waste of time.
Cheers,
Glen
I would like to point out something to the 'silent majority' about this discussion.
First, assymetrical slew rate is not a 'good' thing, but it is not the worst possible factor in an IC design. Making it out to be an obvious, audible artifact has not been shown to me, and Charles pointed this when he mentioned tube amps.
For its time, the HA-911 was one of the most sophisticated IC designs on the planet. It was made for the military, because it resisted nuclear radiation breakdown due to use of dielectric isolation, rather than diode isolation. It was new and expensive then.
The circuit was not super sophisticated, but was close to what many amateurs on this website put forth as a pretty good preamp, even today.
I did experiment with this unit a great deal over a few years. I did find that you could SELECT these IC's and get better performance. That is what Dick Burwen did for Mark Levinson for his early LMP-2 preamp and studio boards.
In 1974, I had a test set-up designed by Tektronix that would graph the OPEN LOOP TRANSFER FUNCTION of a given op amp. You should see this, sometime.
All IC's were pretty bad, some worse than others. However, you could 'cherry pick' 911's in order to have minimum crossover distortion. It was very obvious on the view screen.
741's had even bigger problems, such as thermal feedback.
Still, in close listening, even with the best IC's, discrete designs sounded better, and they generally still do today.
My discrete designs, at the time, could not be measured with this test, because they were so linear from the start, that you could not see any deviation.
This is why many audio designers today like to make the most linear design possible and then only add global negative feedback sparingly, if at all.
First, assymetrical slew rate is not a 'good' thing, but it is not the worst possible factor in an IC design. Making it out to be an obvious, audible artifact has not been shown to me, and Charles pointed this when he mentioned tube amps.
For its time, the HA-911 was one of the most sophisticated IC designs on the planet. It was made for the military, because it resisted nuclear radiation breakdown due to use of dielectric isolation, rather than diode isolation. It was new and expensive then.
The circuit was not super sophisticated, but was close to what many amateurs on this website put forth as a pretty good preamp, even today.
I did experiment with this unit a great deal over a few years. I did find that you could SELECT these IC's and get better performance. That is what Dick Burwen did for Mark Levinson for his early LMP-2 preamp and studio boards.
In 1974, I had a test set-up designed by Tektronix that would graph the OPEN LOOP TRANSFER FUNCTION of a given op amp. You should see this, sometime.
All IC's were pretty bad, some worse than others. However, you could 'cherry pick' 911's in order to have minimum crossover distortion. It was very obvious on the view screen.
741's had even bigger problems, such as thermal feedback.
Still, in close listening, even with the best IC's, discrete designs sounded better, and they generally still do today.
My discrete designs, at the time, could not be measured with this test, because they were so linear from the start, that you could not see any deviation.
This is why many audio designers today like to make the most linear design possible and then only add global negative feedback sparingly, if at all.
Pavel, on my bench right now is a dual tube, zero GNFB SE headphone amp capable of driving K701s to ~110dB with 0.1% 2nd, 0.01% 3rd and all higher harmonics >100db down. At normal levels no harmonic component exceeds ~0.02%. Zout is under 1 ohm and response essentially flat from below 10 Hz to past 50 kHz. It holds this performance across the audible spectrum.
I can perfectly accept you might hear something not to like on the basis of its amplification devices, topology or passive component selection. However it would be a hell of a stretch to rest that assessment on the basis on known psychoacoustic principles. Both the ear and the phones have much higher distortion at those levels. Judging from Stereophile's measurements of one Ayre amp, unless driving an inappropriate load there's nothing to fault on the basis of core scientific metrics there either. If you're willing to maintain a dislike for SE tube or Ayre without scientific psychoacoustic support (that I’m aware, corrections welcome), then faulting someone for saying the same about chips doesn’t make sense.
I can perfectly accept you might hear something not to like on the basis of its amplification devices, topology or passive component selection. However it would be a hell of a stretch to rest that assessment on the basis on known psychoacoustic principles. Both the ear and the phones have much higher distortion at those levels. Judging from Stereophile's measurements of one Ayre amp, unless driving an inappropriate load there's nothing to fault on the basis of core scientific metrics there either. If you're willing to maintain a dislike for SE tube or Ayre without scientific psychoacoustic support (that I’m aware, corrections welcome), then faulting someone for saying the same about chips doesn’t make sense.
Charles Hansen said:
I chose this post, not to criticise, but to encourage
My comments will be taken as unknowing, ignorant, even stupid. But so be it...here goes.
Many of the people in this discussion simply cannot hear the difference.
It's not a function of the hearing system, but of the mind.
They are simply not consciously able to tell the difference.
It's how we work.
There are differences among us.
It's almost like arguing colour nuances with the colourblind.
Almost because in this case it's not the hearing, but the mind's conscious awareness. More like arguing with someone who is tone deaf.
I do enjoy this discussion.
Just keep in mind the others are being honest.
To them, there is no difference.
No, I do not have evidence that there are such things as "Golden Ears," however in the last couple of years it has been proved that there is such a thing as a Super Taster. There are at least two mechanisms involved. One is that Super Tasters literally have more taste buds. The other mechanism, separate and distinct as I understand it, is that Super Tasters produce more saliva. The more saliva, the more mobile the ions are in the mouth, and more flavor molecules make it to the tongue. It seems odd to me that no one had noticed these factors before, but that's the way things go.
In this light, it is not so difficult to conceive of people who might, for instance, have more hairs (is cilia that the correct term?) in their inner ears, giving them superior hearing.
Given that the tongue is observable from outside the human body, and that saliva is likewise readily measurable, it's not so difficult to determine these things in a living human. Unfortunately, an autopsy is the only way to examine the inner mechanisms of the ear, and assuming that the subject dies of old age, I'm not sure how much can be learned by attempting to extrapolate backwards from a 90 year-old cochlea.
You can ridicule someone who tastes things you can't taste, but the joke may be on you in the long run. The same just might be true for hearing.
Grey
In this light, it is not so difficult to conceive of people who might, for instance, have more hairs (is cilia that the correct term?) in their inner ears, giving them superior hearing.
Given that the tongue is observable from outside the human body, and that saliva is likewise readily measurable, it's not so difficult to determine these things in a living human. Unfortunately, an autopsy is the only way to examine the inner mechanisms of the ear, and assuming that the subject dies of old age, I'm not sure how much can be learned by attempting to extrapolate backwards from a 90 year-old cochlea.
You can ridicule someone who tastes things you can't taste, but the joke may be on you in the long run. The same just might be true for hearing.
Grey
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