A good article about the human ear and tubes (1 Viewer)

[Lee Scoggins]

Well I like my new CJ gear as it makes every recording pleasant without any listener fatigue and without sounding inaccurate.

Yogi,

Check out the new Stereophile for October! Sam Tellig has a nice rave with details on the Premiere 140 amps from C-J. I would love to hear these amps. Sam also liked the MV60 amps...

Which ones do you have again?

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Chu Gai:

I don't deny preferences gentlemen. And while many may look at tubes as providing a warm, encompassing, romantic sound, my read on this is we're dealing with some FR abberations coupled with some audible harmonic distortion with maybe a little tiny bit of microphonics tossed in. The former is what you'll read in TAS or other audio publication. The latter is what's happening. Magic it ain't.

From another point of view, all those abberations may or not be there (depeding on which tube equipment you use) but that is not important. What matters here is that the recording itself is the worst possible thing that could happen to the original event. Anything else is relatively unimportant.

 

[Yogi]

Lee I have the earlier version of the MV60, the MV55 which I incidentally like better than the new MV60 as it sounds more tubey than the replacement.

Manuel, very well said. I don't understand the fuss about what-the-engineer-intended-for-us-to-hear. Who knows what the engineer intended for us to hear? Who can get in his mind. Was he stoned when he was recording or was he mad that his wife was sleeping with the musician he was recording for, who the hell cares. All I am certain is, what the musician intended for us to hear and what the engineer intented for us to hear could be two very different goals and since many musicians prefer the way tubes sound I would go with them as they are the ones that make the music not some technoweenie engineer who knows everything about FR, THD, GNFB, LNFB, DF, IMD, SWR blah blah but knows nothing about music.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Yogi]

double post

 

[Scott_N]

Lee

I've heard the Premier 140 and it sounds huge and the bass is deep and with great control.

Yogi

I know some Premier 11 owners who think the MV60 sounds better than their amp. There will be a article in Soundstage coming up in which one of the writers compares the MV60 the MV60SE and the Premier 11 in a shootout.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

There will be a article in Soundstage coming up in which one of the writers compares the MV60 the MV60SE and the Premier 11 in a shootout.

Thanks Scott, I will look for that. Sounds very interesting.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Lee

We try to record, as faithfully as possible, what the acoustic performance was like.

Good to know! I do find that the so called "audiophile recordings" are way better than the comercial ones, specially because, like you said, they want to capture the acoustic performance, not individual instruments in an "ideal" zero noise chamber, to mix and edit later.

There are also good old recordings like "Mercury Living Presence" done in a time where limiting, compressing and post edition was not the common thing to do.

By the way, care to tell which records have you worked on?

 

[RichardHOS]

The sound that comes out of any amp is due to a combination of the device's properties and the design topology. One without the other has no meaning.

Actually, I'm of the camp that believes the design topology has vastly more influence over the sound than the components used. Witness the fact that you can create a single ended solid state design that sounds like many "valve" amplifiers, and the fact that you can create a push-pull high global feedback tube design that sounds like many "SS" amplifiers. My point is that the sound commonly attributed to tubes isn't due to the tubes at all, but rather the amplifiers's design, and that design could have been implemented nearly the same with solid state devices.

I hope I made myself clearer this time.

 

[Yogi]

Yes Richard you have made yourself clearer now. What you have said is partially true but what you have missed is it is easier to design the typical tube topology designs with tubes in them than with solid state devices. So what I am saying is for example the $700 ASL 1003DT 30W Class A tube amp sounds very musical but to get to the same level of musicality with a SS design you would have to spend about 10 times that amount and buy the Mark Levinson 335 amp. So tubes make it much easier to implement certain topologies that are simple to execute and sound fantastic while the transistors make it economically unfeasible to execute the same topologies unless you are willing to spend maga bucks and acheive the same level of sound with much more complex topologies. So this design simplicity is an attribute of tubes and not transistors, IMHO.

I hope I have made myself clearer this time.

 

[Chu Gai]

what makes you think that one needs to spend upwards of 8K to create a solid state amp with audible distortion and a varying frequency response into a speaker load? hint, it's not class A or B or AB, it's considerations that've already been mentioned. It's a heavy amp but spec wise wouldn't have the characteristics of the ASL. Hell, I've got light bulbs with more power than that

 

[Steve Crowley]

Pardon the interruption. I have much experience in live music and have found CD's and phono to not be played back at perfect pitch. As a trumpet player I can tell when harmonics are canceling each other out and when they are actually in tune. As a musicfile and stereo enthusiast I have tubes and solid state and basically cannot hear the difference. Maybe setting in front of the tympani has made me half deaf but I still have perfect pitch. On the other hand tubes have a great sound with CD and solid state sounds great with vinyl. It is sort of an oxymoron that I still like vinyl as it seems to have a better bass impact as compared to CD. CD does have better extension on the lower octaves much like an organ. In other words it matters what sounds good to you. Personal taste is a matter of opinion and I believe that is what matters most. Until they can come up with an ear that hears what we hear no one will know what the perfect sound is. Just found out about this forum and it is a great place to debate on the absolute sound everyone is trying to achieve. I just remember the first time I heard AR-3a speakers back in the early 70's and was blown away by the bass these things reproduced. Of course when I heard Klipschorns and the way they produced a trumpet I had to have them. Sound just like my Yamaha trumpet I had made in 72. Maynard Ferguson was my idol along with Doc Severinson and Skitch Henderson with the Tonight Show Orchestra. Clark Terry had the darkest sound I had ever heard and wanted to play just like that. Finally found the LP of him and am in nirvana since then. Just enjoy the music my friends and keep searching for the ultimate sound.

 

[Yogi]

create a solid state amp with audible distortion and a varying frequency response into a speaker load?

Dated thinking again. Still living in the 60's or watching too many Austin Power's movies?

 

[Chu Gai]

Funny things seem to impress you Yogi. Facts and measurements aren't one of them. You might've looked up some of the measurements on both of those amps.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Chu

Care to answer some of my views about measurements and their validity?

 

[Chu Gai]

itemize the list and i'll take a stab Manuel.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Thanks Chu...

Look above! I posted some comments to you a couple of days ago! :b

 

[Chu Gai]

Maybe I'm missing it Manuel, but the only thing that remotely looks like what you're asking refers to post #62 of this thread and there aren't any specific questions that are asked. I could debate your point of view but that could be better done over a few beers. If that's what you perceive as an interpretation, then the best I can say is my interpretation is different. I mean, which part of the concert do you want to recreate? 10 rows back, up in the balcony, the sensation you got after you had the best sex of your life, or the one where you got to the concert late, found someone sitting where you like to be, and realized you left your money at home? The one performed in Carnegie Hall or somewhere else? Is a tube based system best for that or is it better to equalize and maybe process the signal somehow? Or maybe who cares?

As far as measurements go, you'll need to be more specific. If you're asking do I agree that in-depth reviews do a lousy job with conveying to the reader the behavior of an amplifier into real-life speaker loads for example...hell yes. However, it's silly to mind to overlook general behavioral characteristics of devices that have a fairly high output impedance going into speakers with impedances that're frequency dependant. There's a reason why many vintage tube type amps of days gone by can be reasonably successfully modeled with solid state devices in pro music.

OK, so you know what an orchestra sounds like. So do a lot of people. Hell I've got a useless POS 1/2 brother who's a pianist and even competed in Russia a number of years back. So? I'm sure he's got his own POV. People can listen to the same musical piece and get a myriad of emotional responses. But again, if there's something in particular that you're looking to recreate, then go about it as you see fit.

I disagree with your last statement. In part because it does nothing to answer what I think(?) Yogi's post was about. That was to look into the aspect of tubes and how they function when reproducing music into speaker loads. Your statement extends the question or the argument if you will past it's confines.

Now if I missed the post you're thinking about, like i said, itemize it for me please.

 

[Yogi]

Funny things seem to impress you Yogi. Facts and measurements aren't one of them.

Fact is just a perspective. Your fact is my fiction and as far as measurements go I don't place much weight on them because like Manuel pointed out in an earlier post measurements don't tell you everything. For example my Proceed amp with its 0.1% THD sounds much cleaner and detailed than my Technics receiver with its point ooh ooh 5% THD. I don't fall into the trap of specmanship, thank you.

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Nevermind. I didn't have questions, I think that the point if view in which measurements are all is incomplete, now, as you give the impression to be an objectivist, I expected that you would like to address my objections in to why the "pure objective" point of view on the reviews is not really important.

 

[Yogi]

Can we all agree to disagree and have some beer?