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In Reply to: RE: And Your Amp Is Better, How? posted by Tre' on September 22, 2015 at 20:54:08
nt
try it! you know you want to!
Follow Ups:
Have you been paying any attention at all?
The measured level of low ordered harmonic distortion, unless very very high, doesn't matter much at all but even just a tiny bit of measured upper ordered distortion matters a lot.
So, of course measurements matter.
It's THD that doesn't really matter. THD, by itself, is not enough information to have any real meaning.
To place things in proper perspective, in terms of audibility, the measured distortion needs to be multiplied by the square of the order.
1% of 2nd would be 4%
.5% of 5th would be 12.5%
.05% of 21st would be 22.05%
.05% of 31st would be 48.05%
.005% of 81st would be 32.805%
Unless the amplifying devices themselves are perfectly linear (and none are) a conventional push pull amplifier that uses GNF produces harmonic distortion all the way out to the 81st order.
My 300b SET amplifier, at the power levels that I use it, produces harmonic distortion out to the 3rd order.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
... a rubbish postulation about the relative negativity of orders of HD.
If you prefer your SET over robust amplifiers it is because of its low-order HD, not its lack of high-order HD.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
"a rubbish postulation"Do you even know who you are accusing of delivering rubbish?
You are free so say what even you want but you are showing your ignorance.
"...it is well agreed that orders higher than third are more audible and less musical."
Can you guess who said that?
Edit; It was Nelson Pass.
I found this quote from you "One thing discovered by Pythagoras 2500 years ago was that high-order harmonics sounded bad -- harsh, discordant. Nobody is really arguing with Morricab and his ilk that high-order sounds good , only that there is some level where it's inaudible. "
OK, at what point is 81st inaudible?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 09/25/15
\Or maybe at what point is it produced at all?Nelson Pass himself seems to have suggested an answer of sorts. Consider this chart from his 'Audio Distortion and Feedback' treatise ...
This seems to imply that 81st order distortion won't happen at any conceivable level of feedback; apparently not at 40dB or .0001% distortion (which is as far as the graph goes).
Visually extrapolating, (red line added), Pass's chart it pretty much looks like all practical levels of high-order HD will emerge before 20dB of feedback -- higher than the 6th order illustrated to be sure, but at a steeply diminishing level.
Something that Pass didn't dwell on in his article is that fact that more feedback lowers ALL orders of distortion.
BTW, I own Pass Labs amp and like it a lot.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
Edits: 09/26/15 09/26/15 09/26/15
Don't you realize the reason that this chart stops with 6th order harmonics...it was too difficult before powerful computers to continue out the computation. You want to see examples of distortion going out at least to 20th order then all you have to do is look at stereophile measurements or soundstage measurements.
Here is an example...and it is a highly touted SS amp.
http://www.soundstage.com/measurements/dartzeel_nhb108_model_one/
I'm not sure that darTZeel is a typical SS amp. It's THD+N is actually rather high for a high-end amp at 0.2 % into 8 Ohms.
But yes, it's highly touted; are its proponents crazy?
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
Just picked a more obvious one, there are many more that measure similarly. Nothing special in this day and age for the Soundstage measuring gear...Stereophile gets similar results with many amps.
Just wanted to illustrate to you that it most certainly doesn't stop with the 6th harmonic and that is just simple harmonics with a single frequency!! Once you add intermodulation effects it is as Nelson says, "The elephant on the dance floor".
What you see with the darTZeel is interesting because it further murks up the waters.
You called Manny ..?
Do you own FM Acoustics amps? When I was a reviewer I almost reviewed their products but got side tracked into a bunch of preamp reviews. I see nothing in their literature or design briefs to suggest a special magic there though. Probably very low measured distortion and a lot of negative feedback and of course push/pull and Class AB...basically nearly all that is conceptually wrong.
Only fooling around his Phono Stage Currently, preferring instead to get a used GT3 or a new Boat . :)I met Manny through other associates for years ,First in the 90's when he was the only one at CES at the time demoing with analog,(mid 90's) etc. His stuff was always highly regarding both for domestic usage and in studios around Europe, many toobites went over to SS because of Manny especially in ASIA.
we have different requirements IMO no tooby matches top notch SS for realism and drive, maybe on 100+ db hugemongous Horns, Alchemist do prefer them thou, for that magic. Anyway just to make sure I'm not mistaken after 40 years involvement, back and forth, I'm going to start fooling with them again, less see if my memory fails me.Condemnation without investigation is prejudicial ..... :)
Edits: 09/30/15 09/30/15
" IMO no tooby matches top notch SS for realism and drive"
Not sure what you mean by realism here because that is absolutely NOT what I hear...tone is all wrong, microdynamics wrong, 3d imaging wrong...just wrong. Drive? I guess if your speakers use bat poop for drivers (pretty close to 0db/watt sensitivity I would guess) and need 50 amps of current then ok but for dynamics a good tube amps SOUNDS much more open and free dynamically...on suitable speaker of course...;-).
SET, the alchemist choice ..... :)In case you missed the current trend , most Horn speakers are now being demoed with SS, including the mega buck Magico.
Edits: 09/30/15
Only here and there...tubes dominate horn demos...
Alon Wolf seems to be a tube denier so no surprise there. Most concluded that the room didn't sound so great (could have just been WAY too loud). For sure the speaker has serious potential...as it should for mega bucks.
As for Avantgarde, they like their own, homegrown SS but I have never heard them sound very good with their own amps. They sounded GREAT this year in Munich with a Lampizator DAC and AudioPAX monos. Really truly Great.
Tune Audio Anima used a Modwright SS amp (the rest behind was tube though) and it was significantly worse than the year before where it was all tubes.
The rest of the big horns at Munich used tubes.
The Line Magnetic WE replica horns sounded amazing with huge LM amps at a show in 2013 in Switzerland.
The REAL WE horns with Silbatone was utterly beguiling and literally brought tears to my wifes eyes when a Russian opera singer came on.
The big daddy Living Voice was its usual unbeatable self running a full Kondo rig this year.
Acapella always demos with Einstein in Europe
So, I am not sure beyond the one Magico and Avantgarde who is running SS regularly on horns. That said, I would think the First Watt SIT-1 would have serious potential on horns...as I said I am not opposed to transistors per se...just how they are typically used.
"The REAL WE horns with Silbatone was utterly beguiling and literally brought tears to my wifes eyes when a Russian opera singer came on."
-Morricab
Was this a mono or stereo demonstration ... ?
Not sure the Guy smelt a rat and wouldn't let Morricab near one ... :)
Mike Lavigne uses one and rates them highly, Mike is a serious player at the pointy end of hi-fi , so i would have to say there is something there, even thou it fails my technical punch card.
nt
try it! you know you want to!
Pass says, " Negative loop feedback creates higher order distortion harmonics, and there seems to be an implication that you might want to use lots of feedback if you plan on using any at all. Some designers look at it this way, others to use feedback sparingly, and some refuse to use it at all. "
He fits indo the "use feedback sparingly" school, in support of which he shows this graph based on his own experimentation ...
I don't see how this supports "sparingly" vs. not at all, but it is worth noting that he only tried 15dB of feedback, not 40dB.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
but indeed he never says he tried it...Putseys, on the other hand, does go there, and he, as well many others, seem quite pleased with the results.
All of this talk about the superiority of certain types of distortion over others, the superiority of certain distortion profiles over others, and then the claim that what is really "best" is no distortion (what a surprise!) all the while putting down an amp with inaudible IM distortion products and THD below the noise floor makes no logical sense. Since it is indeed all subjective, that is par for the course...
try it! you know you want to!
That is that the zero feedback crew LIKE 2nd order distortion; it is this that they like, not the lack of minute amounts of high-order.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich
Again with this myth...Sigh...
nt
try it! you know you want to!
Sorry, had you confused with someone else....
How's the SNR and the frequency response with load on the 300b? Max power output? How does it work with planar or electrostatic speakers at decent volumes in average or better sized rooms? At what level does it start clipping?
How does the IMD compare to:
try it! you know you want to!
nt
try it! you know you want to!
Lets pretend you were asking me this question.
"How's the SNR and the frequency response with load on the 300b?" (2A3)
-I don't know.
"Max power output?"
-One watt.
"How does it work with planar or electrostatic speakers"
-Irrelevant, since it is not practical to power those pigs with a top-shelf amp.
"in average or better sized rooms?"
-Excellent.
"At what level does it start clipping?"
-These amps don't clip baby!
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
I believe Tre was using the weightings that were originally developed by D.E.L. Shorter in the early 1950s. He felt that his rather simple weighting scheme was superior to unweighted harmonics...Cheever later found that it didn't go far enough and that level dependence should also be included in the calculation of impact from high order harmonics.
What this also means then is that the sensitivity of your speaker is relevant when talking about what distortion pattern your amp should be generating as it will effect the output power drawn and the harmonics generated vs. what is audible.
Agree , speaker to amp relationship , ur finally admitting to this importance ....
What the obvious implication is that an inefficient speaker in a big room at high volume can never sound optimally as it will be hindered by the quality of the amps that are required to get the desired volume levels. Sorry if you missed that point.
So, unless you have a sensitive, relatively easy to drive big speaker that is not a horn, like the original Wilson X1 Grand SLAMM (95db/watt and an easy load) then your screwed with regard to ultimate sound quality...sorry...
A line source is a possible exception that will work with moderate power because they project the sound into the room as a cylinder rather than a sphere.
"How does it work with planar or electrostatic speakers"
-Irrelevant, since it is not practical to power those pigs with a top-shelf amp.- Garyoyle
Hey Now ,
So planers and ESL are pigs because your desktop radio has only one watt
:)
"Hey Now ,
So planers and ESL are pigs because your desktop radio has only one watt"
Pretty much lol. Only a dump truck needs dump truck tires!
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
Well no sensible person would use a desktop 1 watt radio to drive one ...
"Well no sensible person would use a desktop 1 watt radio to drive one ... "I agree, same as me not using 200w to drive 101 db per watt speakers. lol
Horse for courses.
Like Tre's, my system goes louder then I can comfortably stand to listen to.
I sit around 4' or 5' from the speakers, that location can see 104 db peaks, if I am estimating correctly. That's fackin loud enough for me man! lol.
The volume slider rarely goes over 1/2 way.
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
Edits: 09/23/15
I actually don't have enough gain in my system to clip my tubes.
In fact, full output of my CD player would cause my 300b to produce 2 watts.
And I run my AVC about 6 to 10 clicks down (2db per click).
So I'm no where near clipping.............ever.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
2 watts max, what! you listening at the level of inaudibility, you have Morricab beat by 28 watts ..
:)
Edits: 09/23/15
"...you have Morricab beat by 28 watts"I don't understand.....
"2 watts max, what! you listening at the level of inaudibility...."
No. My speakers are 97db per watt. I have two of them in the room and 2 watts to drive each with.
That would give me 103db peak.
If the music I listen to has 16db peak to average then I can listen at 87db average. If 20db peak to average then 83db.
85db for 8 hours straight will do permanent hearing damage.
I don't think I ever listen that loud.
BTW I don't use tubes amps for bass for a couple of good reasons.
Edited to correct math errors.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 09/23/15
Tre,2 watts wont give you 106db from 97db ... not to mention listening distance ..
Edits: 09/23/15 09/23/15
To start with listening distance only enters the equation when your speakers are outdoors.When inside a room the reverberate field takes over at just about one meter in most rooms. (just look it up or ask Paul Joppa)
But yes, I misspoke. 2 97db speakers drive by 2 watts each would give 103db. 100db from each, so added together that's 103db. My mistake. Sorry!
BTW You didn't say what you meant by "you have Morricab beat by 28 watts "
OK I got it.
His Pure Sound A30 doesn't even belong in the same room as his SET.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 09/23/15 09/23/15
in fact its not! tv duty only... the SETs are upstairs in the big rig
Smart man.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
In case you missed it, from PC audio forum:
"Gargoyle, you need to refrain from stepping into threads with the intention of trolling, or just adding nothing of substance.
You've been officially warned."
try it! you know you want to!
In case you missed it from THIS forum:
"TO: kuribo and E-Stat
- Cease responding to one anothers' posts.
- If you disagree with each others' response to a post, whether a matter of fact or opinion, direct your alternative perspective to the original poster (so long as it was neither of you). When doing so, do not refer to, obliquely or otherwise, or in any way comment in a manner that impugns, the other; The Bored will be the sole judge of whether or not this has happened and will act accordingly.
- Failure on either of your part to hold up this directive will result in a ban.
- Don't use the Asylum Emailer services to communicate with each other.
Thank you for your immediate cooperation.
BTW kuribo, your non-communication orders with morricab, Jim-whatever-he's-calling-himself-these-days, and jackman stand."
lol.
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
nt
try it! you know you want to!
Flying a little to close to the sun in Morricabs thread? lol
Anyhow, I really do want to see your setup, it would help us have some context.
Is it because you are running 85db bookshelf speakers? That is OK, we are not here to judge.
I'm assuming you have the pucks in a chassis by now?
I can share my info if you want, I got build threads, pictures, WinISD, and SPice! Nothing to hide here!
Cheers
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
... we really do want to see your setup, too. It would help us have some context. Unless, of course, you're just trolling, again; something for which we are rapidly losing patience.
Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera...
Memo bis punitor delicatum! It's all there, black and white,
clear as crystal! Blah, blah, and so on and so forth ...
"Unless, of course, you're just trolling, again; something for which we are rapidly losing patience."How is this possibly considered trolling, are you having a bad day?
"... we really do want to see your setup, too. It would help us have some context."
Sure, go nuts, there are pages of information already on here!
△ᴉʇɐuᴉɯnllI oᴉpn∀△
Edits: 09/24/15
> > ... are you having a bad day?
Nope. Just taking into consideration your posting history here and elsewhere on the Asylum. It speaks for itself.
Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera...
Memo bis punitor delicatum! It's all there, black and white,
clear as crystal! Blah, blah, and so on and so forth ...
If I might jump in here for a moment...
I haven't posted my equipment largely for two reasons: People use the info to judge another person's "audiophile credentials", and, I don't like to broadcast what's in my house. Know what I mean?
:)
nt
try it! you know you want to!
"I don't like to broadcast what's in my house. Know what I mean?"
That's the other reason I like my "not so pretty" DIY stuff.
Who would want it? Most audiophiles aren't thieves.
On the other hand, that pretty, shiny, sparkly store bought stuff........
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Yeow Gary , Why not post yours while you are at it ......
Regards
Look at the 1-2K range , see anything ....
nt
try it! you know you want to!
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