Quality Audiophoolery

[ampdoctor]

You can paint 3 stripes on a turd but that don't make it Gucci!  Poor designs are poor designs, whether it has a tube in there or not.  However, an average design can sound great, and a good design can be unrivaled.  You'd have to be tone deaf not to hear the difference, or have a paradigm so firmly set into your mind that you can't admit the fact to yourself that 100 year old dinosaur technology is outperforming the latest and greatest wonder-chip of the week.  Having said that, I'm not sure what exactly makes tubes uniquely special but if I could figure out what exactly it is I'd be a very rich man!

In so far as digitally recorded music goes, you should google the loudness wars.  Its all in the way the thing's been eq'd and post processed. A lousy mastering engineer can destroy an otherwise outstanding recording.  Couple that with the fact that most of the music you're listening to is recorded with a bit depth of 16 bit.  If you listen to the same track in 24 bit as opposed to 16 bit you'll hear a marked improvement in audio quality, all other factors remaining the same.

[M. András]

I think audiophooles should join navy... they demagnetize entire warships routinely!

philadelphia experiment was their idea?

[DrGeoff]

In so far as digitally recorded music goes, you should google the loudness wars. 

There's never been any 'war' over loudness.
Since the removal of some of the constraints of LP and cassette mastering, producers have been able to make use of the delivery medium in a different way than was pervioulsy possible. I'm not a big fan of excessive use of maximizers and final limiters to squish the dynamic range to a couple of dB and ligt the console up like a christmas tree, however certain music genres make use of this in a creative way that would not have been possible on vinyl or tape. Massive bass, crunched mids and smashed cymbals are a part of the musical creation itself in these genres, and loud is necessary for the dance-floor producer.

Its all in the way the thing's been eq'd and post processed. A lousy mastering engineer can destroy an otherwise outstanding recording. 

It's usually the maximiser and final limiter that is used to make it loud. However it is the producer, not the mastering engineer that calls the shots. I know several mastering engineers that take exception at being blamed for what the client has demanded.
The recording process also contributes as much to this as the mastering process. Slamming drums through a range of compressors to create distortion and artifacts is often used in the mix process to achieve certain effects.

[poptones]

You're a very naive person if you believe there has never been any "war" over loudness. Why do you think stations didn't use Dolby in the 80s? Why do you think pop stations use Spatializers and OptiMods? You think that's just about S/N ratio?

[McMonster]

I think audiophooles should join navy... they demagnetize entire warships routinely!

philadelphia experiment was their idea?

I don't think so. There were some actual scientific theories for Philadelphia. The only scientists interested in audiophoolery are psychologists.

[DrGeoff]

You're a very naive person if you believe there has never been any "war" over loudness. Why do you think stations didn't use Dolby in the 80s? Why do you think pop stations use Spatializers and OptiMods? You think that's just about S/N ratio?

There's competition for loudness and objections to the result. That's not 'war'. To call it a war is misguided. The use of compressors in radio stations is for an entirely different reason. Don't confuse the issue.

[Sionyn]

these  audiofools and vinyl,  vinyl have a poor frequency response  is there any real evidence of  vinyl superiority (none that i know of).
is it  psychological ?

in fact it would be interesting if dave did a rant about audio media

[poptones]

The use of compressors in radio stations is for an entirely different reason.

Sorry, but you're wrong. I worked in radio more than a decade, I can tell you exactly what it's about: it's about BEING HEARD. It's about keeping that modulation meter as close to pegged as possible. It's about being more noticeable than the next guy, about overloading cheap receivers so badly they cannot help but hear you.

[smugtronix]

You're a very naive person if you believe there has never been any "war" over loudness. Why do you think stations didn't use Dolby in the 80s? Why do you think pop stations use Spatializers and OptiMods? You think that's just about S/N ratio?

There's competition for loudness and objections to the result. That's not 'war'. To call it a war is misguided. The use of compressors in radio stations is for an entirely different reason. Don't confuse the issue.

From a business end, I think the "loudness war" is real. Things such as Optimod settings were, and I believe still are extremely well-kept trade secrets, so each station could have its own sonic signature, in an attempt to be louder and punchier than the rest.

[NEDM64]

Talking about valves and audiphoolery.

Yes, audiphoolery is... audiophoolery.




But there are things that can't be measured and I don't talk about sound, of course.


Just the fact that most of people can understand how vinyls work (and not CD's) is enough, it is understandable.

Just the fact that you need to wait to valves turn on, the fact that they produce heat and even GLOW when working, is also good, puts a "soul" into a product.

It's about the final product, not the technical layer under it.


Of course selling snake oil is bad, but that's the way the world is...

[free_electron]

The big question is how do classify an audiophool from a person genuinely interested in creating the purest sound reproduction.
The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal. the only allowed factor would be that of gain.
pretty hard to do pure with tubes as they add harmonics and ' color' the sound

[poptones]

The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal.

A) Impossible.

B) Signal sources are never ideal.

C) It's my fucking stereo.

[DrGeoff]

The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal.

A) Impossible.

B) Signal sources are never ideal.

C) It's my fucking stereo.

Agreed. There will never be an 'original signal' since the room itself colours the sound eminating from an instrument or ensemble. You will get different sounds depending on where you place the microphones and what type they are, some good and some terrible.

Add to that the dynamic range from many sources is completely unusable in a normal listening environment. Often a dynamic range in excess of 50dB can exist for an orchestra, depending on the piece. Without some form of compression the recording is unusable in the average listening environment. Sounds great in a soundproof studio, but too loud/too quiet in the average living room.

Just as images are airbrushed to improve them, and video is enhanced for viewing so too audio needs to be modified and tweaked to get the sounds to work together.

[Pentium100]

pretty hard to do pure with tubes as they add harmonics and ' color' the sound

Or, instead of trying to get the most "original" sound from a system, how about a system that makes the recording sound "good" to you? Be it turning up the bass (and big subwoofers) or adding some 2nd order harmonics with tubes.

If I have an old mono recording, I will listen to it trough one of my tube radios (or a tube tape deck). The recording sounds better to me with the limited frequency response of the radio (maybe because the recording engineers at the time were targeting such playback devices as my radio or tape deck?). It also makes a crappy mp3 encode sounds not as awful. No, it does not make it sound better than a CD (or record) played on a good system, but sometimes that crappy mp3 is all I have.

On the other hand, tubes can be made to sound good (for modern standards) with good frequency response and relatively low distortion. Tubes add more distortion (as in THD), but it is low order, while most of the transistor amps add less, but higher order, distortion. The low order distortion is not as noticeable, unless there's too much of it.

[amyk]

A quick look at the board layout seems to show that the tube is actually "doing something", but is being operated at very low plate voltage.

A 12AU7 will "work" with only 12 V on the plates, but it isn't going to be particularly linear working down at that end of the plate curve.

All the better to give a more "tubey" sound...  I didn't know tubes would actually do something at such low voltages.

[GK]

The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal.

A) Impossible.

B) Signal sources are never ideal.

C) It's my fucking stereo.

Agreed. There will never be an 'original signal' since the room itself colours the sound eminating from an instrument or ensemble. You will get different sounds depending on where you place the microphones and what type they are, some good and some terrible.

Add to that the dynamic range from many sources is completely unusable in a normal listening environment. Often a dynamic range in excess of 50dB can exist for an orchestra, depending on the piece. Without some form of compression the recording is unusable in the average listening environment. Sounds great in a soundproof studio, but too loud/too quiet in the average living room.

Just as images are airbrushed to improve them, and video is enhanced for viewing so too audio needs to be modified and tweaked to get the sounds to work together.

Yawn. And not a single issue you mention is made better by a horribly distorting amplifier at the reproduction end.

[peter.mitchell]

The entire thread.

I should have not said anything, look at what I started, sorry guys.

[T4P]

At 12V you are starving the plates, they can operate by all they do is just distort 

[free_electron]

Or, instead of trying to get the most "original" sound from a system, how about a system that makes the recording sound "good" to you?

ah no, you don;t want to adap tthe sgnal. a true audio purist should pursue the accurate reproduction of a signal.

if you capture a complex ignal with a scope and send it to an ARb for playback you are not going to send it through a tube amplifier first to 'color' it are you ?
the same should be with people pusuing hi-fidelity. : only amplitude is allowed to be changed. nothing else. that would be true science as opposed to audiophoolery

[poptones]

It's idiocy. It's impossible and any competent engineer will admit it. The only way to get exactly what happened in the studio is to be in the fucking studio. Once you move beyond that it's all subjective.

[Tuomas]

I had a budget of ~100e for new headphones 7 years ago. Sure, I checked some frequency response charts and such when looking for candidates, but I didn't base my decision on them. Instead, I loaded up my iPod (that was my music player of choice back then) with some of my favorite music and went to some stores to try some headphones out. The Grado SR-60s sounded pretty cool. So I bought them. Were they the most neutral and balanced choice? probably not. Do I still have them and enjoy listening to music with them? Yes.

Anyone that wants to argue that I should have sacrificed my personal preference for some ridiculous idea of reproducing the music in the most neutral and balanced way is being just silly.

On a slightly unrelated note, my university actually held a 2 week intensive course on tube amplifier design. Only found out about it after it had been going on for a week already. Still kicking myself for not finding about it sooner, could have been a fun course.

[olsenn]

It's idiocy. It's impossible and any competent engineer will admit it. The only way to get exactly what happened in the studio is to be in the fucking studio. Once you move beyond that it's all subjective.

It's not about getting EXACTLY what happened in the studio... it's about getting as close to what happened in the studio as possible!

[Pentium100]

if you capture a complex ignal with a scope and send it to an ARb for playback you are not going to send it through a tube amplifier first to 'color' it are you ?
the same should be with people pusuing hi-fidelity. : only amplitude is allowed to be changed. nothing else. that would be true science as opposed to audiophoolery

So, if the recording sounds awful on a neutral system, am I supposed to just listen to it like that? You really never used tone controls or anything like that on an amp? Not only I use tone controls if I don't like the neutral setting, I also use an expander (dbx 3bx-ds) to slightly expand the dynamic range of severely compressed recordings (or to compress the recording further, reducing encoding artifacts).

As for the scope, tell me, do you ever use bandwidth limiting?

When I record I want the recording to sound exactly like the source and I usually don't do any intentional changes of the original signal. However, when I play the recording back, I adjust the amp to sound the best to me, be it using the expander, tone controls or an old tube amp.

[poptones]

It takes a combination of science and alchemy to design a piece of audio gear. Once it's designed, I don't give a shit about the science, I just want to enjoy the music. Whatever that requires.

Go on, I don't take your criticisms personally. I'm quite proud of the fact my views have managed to alienate both the "audiophools" and the staunch objectivists. I think the only person who might completely agree with me is Harvey Rosenberg, and he's dead.

...I am a member of the tribe of men who choose to drive only Harley-Davidson motorcycles and consider driving a Honda a form of sacrilege, because Hondas don't produce the kind of stimulus our brain demands. Of course there are hundreds of thousands of members of the Honda tribe who lie awake at night and dream about the totems of their motorcycle tribe and will often write love poetry to them. The intensity of feeling we experience about very specific totems is a mystery, and we are often ready to kill and die for them.

From this point of view, one way to look at male tribes/fan groups is as a congregation of men who share the same hormone cocktail response to a stimulus, whether it is a large mouth bass, a religion, or, a sports team, or, a particular rock band…or, brand of car….all tools of male culture.

Again, tools are not just "things" for men, they can be powerful totems, because they trigger such deep primal physical responses. The difference between a tool and totem is that when using certain tools something quite magical happens in our brain/body…we are more alive, smarter, faster, braver, more intelligent, we tingle with the thrill of being alive…all of our senses are operating at max…we feel we more powerful, graceful and our genius is fully operational. And again, we can be uplifted to that higher state by our guitar, a flag, or, by our sailboat, and at the foundation of this ecstasy is the struggle we endured so we can be in this euphoric state. Without the struggle, the juices of ecstasy, our hormones, don't flow. No stress, no ecstasy.

[Tube_Dude]

The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal. the only allowed factor would be that of gain.
pretty hard to do pure with tubes as they add harmonics and ' color' the sound

I subscribe entirely.

We must try to achieve the proverbial "wire with gain"...