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Having spent some more time with my new Quickie (which is sitting in an unfinished, taped together wooden base and accompanied by a hastily-soldered headphone jack hanging from some scrap wires), I keep going back and comparing it to my SEX amp. There are things I really like about the Quickie, but the soundstage and imaging is definitely a bit different compared to the SEX, even using the same headphones and DAC. My SEX amp has a cavernous, HUGE soundstage that makes me forget I am wearing headphones. The Quickie doesn't. More "intimate" is a way of describing it - the image is much more forward and closer to the headphones compared with the SEX (which is C4S'ed, but otherwise stock). I'm aiming to get the same imaging from the Quickie, since it's now my headphone amp for my iMac (the SEX is with my main setup in the living room).Which makes me wonder - what, electrically speaking, accounts for the difference between amps in terms of imaging, spaciousness, separation between instruments, etc? I used to think that noisefloor and harmonics were the key, but that obviously can't explain everything, as most sold-state amps I've owned or have heard seem to have a flat, lifeless "image" compared to the almost holographic "sound picture" I get with tubes - and solid-state usually has a very low noise floor and few added harmonics to obscure any micro details like positioning cues. I'm trying to get that same imaging from the Quickie, starting with some plate chokes in place of the 4k resistors. C4S boards really opened up the sound on my SEX, so I'm hoping the chokes do the same for the Quickie. Any other ideas?
Also, do coupling caps really make a difference in terms of sound quality, and especially imaging, separation, soundstage, etc? Or does the circuit not "care" and simply needs to see a certain capacitance to electrically couple the tubes to whatever they are hooked up to (in my case, autoformers)? Half of what I read says boutique caps are snake oil, and the other half is comments from people claiming to hear differences between things like Solens, Auricaps, Jupiters, and so forth. Any thoughts?
Edits: 10/12/09Follow Ups:
I have always thought that soundstage was the preamp getting out of the way of the recorded music. A couple of things that I have thought played a big part was amplifying devices that didn't have too much lead or lag between the current and voltage waveforms. Also that the two channels treated the signal equally.
But that constitutes a SWAG.
Remember, YOU are the only one who needs to be happy with the sound of your system
Grainger Morrison
There Is Only One (Grainger Morrison, it seems)
Solens are pretty cheap. You could try them out and listen for yourself.
Currently I've been using Erse caps in my sex amp and found them to sound somewhat better than the stock Solen/polystyrene caps. I've also tried Sonicaps (my new favorite but more expensive) and V-Caps (REALLY expensive!) and have found them all to have good qualities.
Keep checking the forum. I'm sure others will find ways to bump up the sound quality with some tweaks.
Rob CThe world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness
From my admittedly limited experience, I've found soundstage to be very dependent upon the line stage and preamp. I learned that from Subwatt and Sector-7G. My old Paramours had a huge soundstage with the right line stages.
Just as a WAG, I have been thinking that the linestage needs to have enough drive to push the whole signal evenly, or what some people call effortlessly. Therefore lots of extra current and a CCS helps, which has been my experience again. A choke should get most of the way there, and some people (IIRC Phil Sieg is one) prefer iron to a CCS.
All that said, one mod I am looking forward to is doubling the 9V battery bank (longer screws and putting the second bank directly under the first) and running the Quickie at about 72V. I haven't looked at the tube curves yet, but more voltage and current, combined with a choke, should have a positive effect on fidelity. But now we're starting to play with real voltage, and somebody has to tell me there is little chance a 9V will blow up in my face.
I would be interested in other people's opinions, too.
Triamp... Take a load off!
my theory is there's a lot we don't yet know about electrical waveforms of energy transmission at some deep level that might explain some of this. There's a ton of inter-related factors that we do know about involved in your questions, such as the quality of psu filtering, the respective load lines and other characteristics of tubes, operating points of the tubes, and topology of circuit. I think different caps sound different, others don't. People's hearing is different. There are various theories even about caps- someone posted a study recently about vibration being the big thing; others have different opinions. this is what makes it all interestin! keep experimenting...
"My theory is there's a lot we don't yet know about electrical waveforms of energy transmission at some deep level that might explain some of this."
My thoughts exactly. There is alot of (audio) voodoo out there, but at some point new discoveries will be made to explain the differences we hear. Remember when neutrons, protons etc... were the smallest particles in existence... ? That wasn't so long ago, was it?
Who knows how many undiscovered parameters an analog audio signal contains? I was watching NOVA on PBS awhile back. It was the show about fractal geometry. It got me to imagining tiny micro-textures hiding in a seemingly fluid sine wave and... Oops, I spilled the bong.
I hope these discoveries come soon. Trial and error can get expensive.
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