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In Reply to: RE: Dennis Fraker posted by RC Daniel on May 25, 2012 at 16:48:15
It is what I have always reported on Dennis' amps after hearing them multiple times in different venues, public and private. I wish I owned a pair.
And of course RC Daniel, NONE of the nay sayers have ever lived with them, and MOST have never even heard them.
IMHO, NO ONE doing vacuum tube audio comes close to Dennis' amps' performance level, and particularly IMHO, amps Dennis has done the last couple of years.
I am not trying to be disrespectful to my many triode amp building friends. Not at all, lotsa truly great guys I respect fully !! But I am sure of my statement. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Jeff Medwin
Follow Ups:
~!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
I know enough about audio, and THAT amp's design, and the designer, to tell you nothing will come close to it in that power range.
Your "reasoning" is valid, but my vision is very excellent, and that is how I see and hear it.
It is just MY opinion, you are free to have your own.
Jeff Medwin
I never call anything 'best' Jeff.
Am merely more open minded than you. The amplifier surely sounds good, perhaps excellent, in the right room, with the right speaker.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
I came across this thread and I would like to make a comment. I own a pair of Dennis's 2a3 amps using the EML meshplates. I also own a pair of his Altec 604 speakers. I am not an audio engineer but am a long time audiophile who has owned gear from Lamm, Shindo, Wytech etc. The Serious Stereo amps are by far the best sounding amps I have ever had in any system. These very low watt amps along with the Altec 604 provides incredible slam, mid-range magic, and high end extension with volumes that will drive you out of the room if you care to listen that loud. It never sounds stressed but produces music effortlessly. Many people think that this is not possible but those making that claim have never heard these amps. I suggest that any doubters look up Dennis at RMAF if attending to hear what his amps can do.
give me the schematic and I will weigh in myself. I build all my own amps to a level of quality far beyond over 95 percent of high end audio. Using overbuilt power supplies/No electrolytics, choke loaded etc.
The only 'new' circuit I have seen these last couple of years was The late Allen Wright's preamp design.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
No Cleantimestream,I know the schematic. I have been designing and building DHTs since 1982. I believe you would NEVER in a million years be able to judge it from a schematic, or even duplicate the amp. I certainly can't build it, and I've been "inside" multiple examples of Dennis' amps over many years.
Dennis' work and thought goes WAY beyond what you THINK you might know about audio building and design. Dennis' latest amp, in particular, is the best. I don't precisely know who the above poster is who offered such a stellar review, but I "hear" the 2A3 amp at shows and home venues, so my comments are the result of much direct listening experience.
Cheers.
Jeff Medwin
Edits: 06/04/12
To say the schematic has almost nothing to do with how it sounds,
Sounds,
Well,
Rather absurd to me, Jeff.
I would call it in thirds.
1/3 implementation/layout
1/3 Schematic
1/3 Parts {obviously if feedback is used the parts would not carry so much weight}
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
I liked your response, at least the thirds analysis, good thinking.
Jeff Medwin
enjoy the same same aspects of a (live or reproduced) musical performance; not all people like the same type of musical presentation.
Prescribing a One True Path, or single best, or only is about as far from a true path as one can get.
Cheers.
Hello Guys!This question just BEGS for an honest explanation-- so here goes:
(1) Most recording studios strive to "lay down" a track that they enjoy and want you to enjoy. This is the art form of making music-- that's only part of it as the musicians are doing the same thing.
(2) If a person involved in audio playback CHANGES this in some way-- to fit a certain taste, then it is no longer the same recording.... it has been perverted.
(3) In fact, the only audio equipment that has any merit is that which reproduces what the musicians did and what the Studio recorded, keeps musician attitudes, dynamics and musical flows intact, and leaves absolutely nothing out. I'll repeat that: LEAVES NOTHING OUT.
(4) Sometimes, I have been accused of being a one-way guy-- "do it my way", so to speak. Incorrect.
My way-- or your way is not relevant. What the Studio recorded IS relevant.
(5) I apply no personal taste-- so please get over it! I use the best parts and methods that I can find or invent in order to reproduce the STUDIO RECORDING accurately. When I need help, I look for the best there is-- and I listen and learn-- and APPLY.
I never consider the source. The only thing I consider is what is true. Truth-- on any subject-- can and will stand on its own. One DOES have to look for, and recognize it!
I much prefer people who KNOW THAT THEY ARE THE BEST-- and ACT LIKE IT. I'm not interested in my own ego or in any of my own tastes-- or in any other egos or tastes.. I learn from the best primarily because I don't shoot the messenger-- instead, I like him because he is relating valuable information to me.
I want to hear those music recordings reproduced RIGHT... regardless of what they are, with total repeatable, no-fuss/no adjustments, and long term reliability designed in. Period-- that's all I want.
That's the minimum required!
(6) Of course, there are methods to do this, and there are methods that don't get it right-- or worse, some very popular methods that many people use and like (for want of better equipment, ideas and execution)--that will please some people-- but will leave out very important parts of the recorded experience-- or the equipment will change-- or need an---ahem!!-- er, uh--- ah--- adjustment! WHY!!!!! JUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"What they don't know won't hurt them"-- or something like that--"Never had it, so therefore it doesn't exist"? "Never had any, so don't want any"?
"Each guy to his own tastes"? BULLSHIT. Each guy should try to reproduce it RIGHT-- or get someone who CAN!
This shouldn't be about your tastes or my tastes-- it's about accurate musical reproduction. All of it, please!
(7) Merely pointing out which methods do what-- does not constitute a personal verbatim or personal taste any more than observing that gravity pulls downward does.
(8) One can observe what is in a musical product-- and then, if he is honest, should cast his personal prejudices aside, and adopt only those electronic methods that result in accurately reproducing that music!
---Dennis---
Edits: 06/01/12
"This shouldn't be about your tastes or my tastes-- it's about accurate musical reproduction . . ."
Fully agree, that is what "Hi-Fi" means. It used to be the avowed intention of most audio manufacturers (who also provided tone conrols to add a bit of flavor to cater for individual tastes and/or to correct for deficiencies in the source).
When listening to live music, people will be unaware of their personal preferences, which will lead them to experience music differently to the person sitting beside them. By extension - and in my experience - this extends to the types of systems people use to play back music.
In a group of people, each having the same audio ideal, each will have a different personal understanding of a practical definition and methods for achieving said ideal.
Cheers.
“As long as we have any intention to be right… we should be wary. So long as words have the slightest ego attachment, they are dishonest.” Charlotte Joko Beck
I think you're right. There's no doubt that personal tastes do exist-- they do.
Should the designer of good audio equipment, then, build equipment that is inaccurate in order to sell to a certain group of personal tastes?
One could venture to say that most equipment IS built that way-- and quite a bit of it also sells.
The problem arises when you play recording "A"-- and the piece of equipment embellishes it-- "sounds good", you say.
Then, you play recording "B" and that same piece of equipment trashes it! Well, now what? Play only "A" recordings and learn to hate recordings like "B"?
Isn't that kind of stupid? You COULD HAVE had a GOOD piece of equipment, and then you would know what each recording really sounds like. Isn't that better than not knowing what ANY recording really sounds like because your equipment is always changing it on you?
---Dennis---
Hi Dennis,I am glad you interpreted my comments as I intended - sometimes I am less than clear. Sometimes in my efforts to tell people what I don't like I fail to let them know what I do like.
I agree with much you say, applaud the path you have taken and thank you for your willingness to question and share, even if I don't agree with everything you claim. I agree with much of your post, though I don't think someone is stupid for choosing equipment – consciously or not – different or inferior to what you have described.
It is understandable for someone who likes a certain type of music, to try to maximise their enjoyment of it, possibly to the detriment of other genres (often without realising it). When they listen to those other genres they might think them uninteresting, overly bombastic, crude, poorly recorded... indeed, it could be the fault of their system. And/or they may just not like that type of music. So they miss out, in a way. Or not. But, is it really missing out if they are enjoying their preferred music more? Their experiences would be limited, but I would not judge their choice as stupid. All of us are limited in our experiences. All of us make decisions that we feel are based on sound reasoning that are apparently daft to others. We all have blind spots. We are all at the mercy of our own BS.
There is much more I could say. But I will end here because I now wonder whether anything I say is relevant. My relationship with music and its reproduction seems different to most here. It is likely based in Zen practice (though I am not an active practitioner) and seems more about simply experiencing music, in 'most any form, via 'most any system... anything else is an addition that disconnects one from reality, including concepts of more perfect or enhanced reproduction. I also recognise that such is a vague ideal, that I am attached to certain presentations, and that certain systems that help bring me closer to simple experience or enjoyment. One such system would likely be the type you have described.
I would very much like to hear one of your systems one day.
Cheers.
“As long as we have any intention to be right… we should be wary. So long as words have the slightest ego attachment, they are dishonest.” Charlotte Joko Beck
Edits: 06/06/12
"The perception of sound is a highly personal experience. It is neither an art nor science, but our own private view through one of the windows of the senses." -Richard C. Heyser
Richard has ALSO just stated there is no such thing as objective.
Just as Chaos theory shows there is no such thing as 'objective':
Everything is subject to time and space with all coherent variables, known and UN-known. Your observations of the recording venue are turned inside out by WHAT room said recreated music is played, always an unknown variable that exerts by far the most influence, the speaker, second {2nd} in direct proportion to the room. I accept and respect any one whom likes what is reproduced for their enjoyment. I could say Criterion speakers sound exactly like my Quad ESL 63's. Others can rightly say, "To YOU, Ken they may sound the same but everyone else in the cosmos can hear a difference"
And yet from a scientific point of view I am Correct
Because,
Any scientific test must be free from all interfering variables, and it is incontrovertible that the test procedure itself can be a serious interfering variable when it comes to listening tests.
Acceptance is the answer to ALL my problems, regardless of topic.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
I'd like to commend you on arguing your points well.
I certainly agree that the listening room makes a difference-- that's huge-- as you imply.
I would state that if we do the best we can-- up to keeping all of the music intact as it's coming out of the amplifier-- then we can apply a speaker system that is also accurate musically and, by having remained honest so far-- we can reap the benefits of having not left something out of our music in order to get it to sound "good"..
Now, as you're saying, the room becomes what's left. I wouldn't want to recommend that anyone use the source components, the amplifier, the speaker or any wiring in order to get a given system to work in a given room.
Rather, I'd approach that by keeping all of it as close to reality as possible-- right up to the room-- and then try to change that room and bring it into musical reality also.
I don't mean to imply that all rooms can be easily changed to accommodate an otherwise excellent system. Some rooms just have built-in limitations, and certainly challenge the best of us..
What to do? I would still use the most accurate amplifiers, speakers and wiring. If the room could not go beyond a certain point, I would be forced to use something at the source components-- maybe I would HAVE to make some source curve changes-- that's what people had tone controls for, and is why we now have digital room E.Q.
But please understand what's up here-- you need to get it as good as you can, keeping all of it honest and neutral, and work on the room seriously before you make that final decision to alter something in the electronic mix..
If you'll try to follow these guidelines, the end result-- even if it's not perfect-- will be better than if you had chosen an amp, speaker, or wire in order to compensate for a fault in a room-- by being in itself pleasantly inaccurate.
All I'm saying is you'll get better results by staying with an honest system overall.
---Dennis---
"If a person involved in audio playback CHANGES this in some way-- to fit a certain taste, then it is no longer the same recording.... it has been perverted."
I agree. I also agree with much of what you say in this post like, "reproduce the STUDIO RECORDING accurately", etc.
So why do you use a driver tube that can't fully drive the Miller, causing high frequency roll off?
Why do you use a power supply filter that causes instability of the B+ voltage?
Why are your cathode bypass caps (both driver stage and output stage) undersized to the point of changing the frequency response?
I think you are the one who is building to "to fit a certain taste".
If you can't (or won't) explain this in a normal, technical way I will go on believing that you are the one building to suit a certain perverted taste.
I tried to ask you about this on the phone but you got weird about it and wouldn't talk sense with me.
You talk a lot about truth. Truth does not fear examination but every time I try to examine your claims you start with the mumbo jumbo instead of talking sense in a normal technical way.
It's a shame.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
OH! My Gosh! DARN it!
I've gone and done it again! Designed a totally new Linear Power Supply for Music Servers.
Terrible! Horrible! THREE (3) of them in ONE BOX! It looks nice and professional too!
AND it hasn't failed in over 1200 hours of testing, and neither have its cousins. It runs cool.
It's much worse than that! It makes Music Servers sound MUCH more honest, dynamic and real than the same computers run on ANY other Power Supply!
As you can see, I don't know what I'm doing! Not only that, I can't even handle telephone calls from telemarketers, crackpots, intimidators, and fools! After about 1/2 hour, I hang up on them!
Sometimes even sooner!
Gosh! Maybe I better invent something else real quick! Oh, No! I forgot! I don't know what I'm doing and it's much worse than that! I can't explain it to TRE either!
Oh well! At least the music seems real around here....
---Dennis---
I was talking about your 2a3 amplifier and you go off with mombo jumbo talking about your PS for digital.In light of your statements,
"I use the best parts and methods that I can find or invent in order to reproduce the STUDIO RECORDING accurately"
"I would state that if we do the best we can-- up to keeping all of the music intact as it's coming out of the amplifier"
"What to do? I would still use the most accurate amplifiers"
Defend you use of undersized cathode bypass caps.
Defend your use of a driver with high output impedance.
Defend your use of a PS filter that is unstable.
Why won't you do this? What are you afraid of?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 06/02/12 06/02/12 06/02/12
One should be able to understand the following:
(1) Conventional tube amplifier technique chooses cathode bypass caps by their Micro-Farad values. I choose them according to measured and listened performance under actual musically driven conditions.
(2) A high impedance driver is not a problem in this design because the HI-MU driver chosen is far more than capable of driving any good 2A3 vacuum tube way beyond the levels that this design requires.
The high-gain/fast response capability of a good HI-MU driver is exactly what I want-- fast, ultra-dynamic response to signal change. I also want the gain factor designed into TWO amplification stages, not three or more.
The reasons for this are self-evident-- there are too many parts involved in any 3-stage amplifier. The musical information losses in all 3-stage tube amplifiers renders their performance musically boring to me.
If you doubt this, simply compare the best 3-stage tube amp you can find out there to a good Solid-State amp. If you want pace, rhythm, and musical timing to come out correctly, the difference will at once be obvious.
A tube amp CAN be designed to perform with the best Solid-State. It requires a MAXIMUM of TWO amplification stages that are directly connected together, and are powered in such a way so that the two tubes operate as a SINGLE gain device.
Ideally, the "gain architecture"-- that is, overall amplifier gain-- will be in the 18-to-21 db area.
Such a gain figure will ideally match up to industry standard source outputs which ideally range from about 3.3 volts to about 5.6 volts single-ended, or double those figures for balanced.
A Digital source such as a good D/A converter, or a good CD player, etc., will have those output levels, and will prefer to see a constant load across its output of about 10K ohms-- in that range-- allowing proper output loading for the source.
These signal voltage levels (above) allow the inclusion in the system of a
passive preamp of about 10K loading continuously (A Ladder or L-Pad type attenuator), which eliminates the need for any musical-signal losing un-needed preamp amplification stages.
A further advantage of this kind of system is that interconnect cables are DRIVEN at voltages that actually allow such interconnects to work properly.
The amplifier's HI-MU driver stage is a necessary part of this overall "best possible" system approach-- it is very sensitive to interconnect cable output, and picks up musical details that lower-mu stages cannot respond to as well.
(3) The ENTIRE AMPLIFIER is designed as a modulated, distributed audio signal power supply.
To single out SOME OF the individual parts in that system and then claim that only those parts are the "power supply"-- and to further claim that it can't work is an incomplete assessment.
If one can envision an ENTIRE AMPLIFIER as a TOTAL ENTITY-- as I must do in order to get the performance that I require-- then it could be discussed intelligently by people who can see that it is an ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM.
I don't think that one can selectively pull parts out of an operating system, ASSUME that they're the only parts involved, and then make claims as to what one ASSUMES will happen in that SYSTEM.
In any case, it's easy to check out-- simply use the system and observe what it actually IS doing! What could be simpler than that?
---Dennis---
"(1) Conventional tube amplifier technique chooses cathode bypass caps by their Micro-Farad values. I choose them according to measured and listened performance under actual musically driven conditions."
The value necessary to fully bypass the cathode is a matter of math. The value you have chosen does not fully bypass the cathode. This make your amplifier, to use your word, "perverted". Not only will the frequency response be "off", the phase response will be off as well.
(2) A high impedance driver is not a problem in this design because the HI-MU driver chosen is far more than capable of driving any good 2A3 vacuum tube way beyond the levels that this design requires."
The high impedance driver is, by your own admission, a problem. You said it "starts to roll off at 15kHz". This makes your amplifier, to use your own word, "perverted". Not only will the frequency response be "off", the phase response will be off as well.
I didn't say anything about a three stage amplifier. Most of the rest of your post is a good example of you not addressing the questions and going off talking about other things.
You have done it again.
I didn't/don't assume anything. If the driver is not/can not fully drive the Miller that's a problem no matter what the rest of the circuit looks like.
If the cathodes are not fully bypassed that's a problem no matter what the rest of the circuit looks like.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Too many "IFs"!
---Dennis---
Those are not "Ifs".
Your driver can not fully drive the Miller by your own admission.
The cathodes of both the driver tube and the output tube are not fully bypassed.
No IFs.
You are doing the very thing you argue against. Making designing an amplifier that is perverted.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
This message has been moved to a more appropriate venue .
Disagreed.
---Dennis---
Too many bases not covered in your design.Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 06/02/12
I fully and completely disagree.
---Dennis---
You disagree with yourself?
You said that your amp starts rolling off at 15kHz.
The cathodes are not fully bypassed. That's just a fact.
If you disagree, show the numbers, show me wrong.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
All the amps I've owned before my SET have been flat from 20-20K with distortion well below 1%. None sounded nearly as good as the SET which doesn't have "the numbers".
If Dennis just said that his amps sound good I wouldn't say a thing.
But instead look at his response to your post,
"OH! But it DOES have numbers. It's been at University E.E. labs where it astounded their engineers."
With undersized bypass caps and a driver that even Dennis admits does not fully drive the Miller capacitance of the output tube, how can his amp have good numbers?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Dennis,
Very nice answer. Best of all, your ending comment :
" In any case, it's easy to check out-- simply use the system and observe what it actually IS doing! What could be simpler than that? "
Any good listener understands this totally.
Jeff Medwin
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