Home Theater United Episode 25 - More on amps with John Rice and John Dirk (1 Viewer)

[Brian Dobbs]

Hi Sam and Bryan I have been enjoying the podcast a lot. Thanks for the efforts. I am not new to home theater but new to the forum. Not sure where to post this but you made reference to the first episode of demo material in your kaleidescape episode. In my google podcasts and pocketcasts player I could not find the episode because I think they have a limit of 5 episodeswith the same date. I found on the web and am able to play it with podbean player but anyways you could change the date on some of those first episodes so pocketcasts and google podcasts can see those episodes. Thanks!

Gotcha. We'll see if we can make adjustments. @Sam Posten, would you like me to do this?

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Gotcha. We'll see if we can make adjustments. @Sam Posten, would you like me to do this?

Hey @Sam Posten, I logged into PodBean to check to see if the publishing dates could be changed manually, but I don't see that option.

 

[Sam Posten]

I’ll take a look tonight but I don’t know if that’s an option. I recommend Overcast to catch up on old episodes then go back to your favorite player!

 

[DaveF]

I recommend Overcast as it will soon become your favorite player (he says as an annual subscriber.)

 

[gregw78]

Doh - no Overcast app for android. But on my ipad the default Apple Podcast player also only shows 5 episodes on January 7th and is missing the demoes episode. I'm using podbean on android to listen to the demoes episode, then will go back. The wider world deserves to see all your podcasts though! not just the overcast and podbean users.

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Doh - no Overcast app for android. But on my ipad the default Apple Podcast player also only shows 5 episodes on January 7th and is missing the demoes episode. I'm using podbean on android to listen to the demoes episode, then will go back. The wider world deserves to see all your podcasts though! not just the overcast and podbean users.

I agree. Right now our Podbean options are limited as far as making retroactive changes. There might be a way to republish while still keeping the same episode order though. I'll revisit this soon.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks @Brian Dobbs

 

[DaveF]

Overcast: only five episodes listed on Jan 7

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Doh - no Overcast app for android. But on my ipad the default Apple Podcast player also only shows 5 episodes on January 7th and is missing the demoes episode. I'm using podbean on android to listen to the demoes episode, then will go back. The wider world deserves to see all your podcasts though! not just the overcast and podbean users.

Yeah sorry about this. I went in again and don't see any way to change the publication date in Podbean using the basic-level account we currently have. Perhaps with the upgraded account we could edit the XML manually or something, but I don't see us upgrading in the near future.

 

[Sam Posten]

I also looked at it and came to the same conclusion. I’ll ask Podbeans tech support about it

 

[Sam Posten]

One other solution: pull up the old feed from the Home Theater Forum Podcast! Those should still be at the original feed!

 

[Citizen87645]

I like analogies when trying to explain concepts, like the gain vs. power topic that John was trying to explain to Brian.

I think the car analogy works to a point. But I wonder if we can say fuel octane for a car is analogous to the amp's watt power output. So we have two identical cars but one has regular octane and the other has high octane. Both cars will reach 100 mph but one will do so "easier" (or with fewer hurdles or complications) than the other because of the fuel octane. There would also be longer term benefits to the car by using high octane fuel .

 

[JohnRice]

I like analogies when trying to explain concepts, like the gain vs. power topic that John was trying to explain to Brian.

I think the car analogy works to a point. But I wonder if we can say fuel octane for a car is analogous to the amp's watt power output. So we have two identical cars but one has regular octane and the other has high octane. Both cars will reach 100 mph but one will do so "easier" (or with fewer hurdles or complications) than the other because of the fuel octane. There would also be longer term benefits to the car by using high octane fuel .

I haven't been able to come up with a good analogy to explain the difference between gain and power. The problem is there is an intrinsic assumption that "loudness" (gain) and "power" are the same thing. Maybe a little more technical explanation would actually do it better. Gain is the amplitude of a signal, and power is the amount of current available to move drivers to reproduce that signal. Increasing the amplitude (gain) of the signal doesn't mean there is more current available to reproduce it. By the same token, having more current available to reproduce a signal doesn't make it "louder", unless the amplitude (gain) of that signal is also increased. Those two aspects are completely separate.

Manufacturers have been suckering consumers for decades by designing excessive gain into components in order to make us believe it means they are powerful.

 

[Citizen87645]

I think I personally grasp the conceptual difference, although I may not have a grasp of all the technical details as to why. I think the basic idea that an amplifier may be able to produce a certain loudness but struggle to do so or do so only for a short amount of time because of insufficient power makes sense to me. Perhaps over basically explained, getting a more powerful amp is to get better quality of sound rather than quantity.

 

[DaveF]

I haven't been able to come up with a good analogy to explain the difference between gain and power. The problem is there is an intrinsic assumption that "loudness" (gain) and "power" are the same thing. Maybe a little more technical explanation would actually do it better. Gain is the amplitude of a signal, and power is the amount of current available to move drivers to reproduce that signal. Increasing the amplitude (gain) of the signal doesn't mean there is more current available to reproduce it. By the same token, having more current available to reproduce a signal doesn't make it "louder", unless the amplitude (gain) of that signal is also increased. Those two aspects are completely separate.

Manufacturers have been suckering consumers for decades by designing excessive gain into components in order to make us believe it means they are powerful.

Gain is the relationship between your foot on the gas pedal and how the cars electronics amplify that (and even apply a non-linear curve to it) to the gas injected.

Power is the engines horsepower capacity.