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In Reply to: RE: POWER SUPPLY posted by morricab on April 25, 2016 at 07:57:12
Brad;
I couldn't agree more. Brute power supplies with gobs of capacitance are not enough without the proper regulation. Thank you for pointing out my omitting that.
The "walk around" effect you referenced kind of made me go hmmmm. I have a friend with a much modified Hafler DH-500 driving Maggie 3.6's - I swear that I have heard this walking around effect when listening to his system. The singer would be front left and then go rear center. It wasn't terrible sounding by any stretch, but it was weird. Since he and I listen to very different music, I thought it was because the producers of the albums he likes were ham fisted meddlers.
There is one certainty; A stout well regulated power supply is a must if you are to hear everything a speaker is capable of.
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
Follow Ups:
Is is the recording or the power supply that is causing the walking?
My bets are on the recording and not the power supplies in ALL cases. A poor power supply will manifest itself in different ways but certainly not "walking" ..
If you hear this with one amp or preamp but not others then how can it be the recording? That is why you should never rely on just one data point (or even two) for making any kind of conclusion about these kinds of things.
How do you know your head/ears are in the exact same location when listening after moving around and switching in and out different pre-amps and amps? Unless you know accurately within an inch tolerance of your listening position relative to your speakers and the same SPL levels were maintained among the different amps, I would say that all your data points would be next to useless.The other thing I would like to bring up is how would you know if it was the amplification? There are many other variables at play when listening that one may not even be aware of and yet, the amplification process gets the blame.
Edits: 04/28/16
I am struggling to see why any of the things you mentioned would matter. So what if you sit in a slightly different spot? We are talking about the sound drifting around...not just in another fixed position. I am also not talking about drifting from the left to right speaker here...I am talking about subtle shifts that blur image specificity and degrade soundstage accuracy. Also, why would SPL be relevant...nevermind that I would set it probably by ear to within a couple of db. A preamp or amp that doesn't do it, doesn't do it at any level. FWIW, when I am reviewing I set the levels to within 1db for comparisons.
If I keep everything but one item the same and then the sound is wandering a bit, doesn't that strongly suggest that it was the new item? Only if there is an interaction issue might you have a point. But preamps feeding the same amp is unlikely to have such an issue.
My experience is that the amplification most often deserves the blame.
The term "subtle shifts" is vague and I'm not sure what you are referring too. What is your point of reference for soundstage accuracy? If it has something to do with the vocals moving off center from the speaker pair's physical center, then where you sit relative to that physical center will cause a slight shift off center. There is a physical correlation between a speakers ability to produce soundstage relative to the listening position. Its physics.
How quickly can you interchange components for these comparison. Accuracy of auditory memory lasts at best for two minutes.
Its been my experience that frame of mind dictates what is heard. There are days where I sit and listen and find I'm not pleased with the sound and other times where I'm blown away by what I'm hearing using the same recording. The components haven't changed nor the material I was hearing.
Clearly this is a somewhat difficult conditions concept for you to wrap your brain around but I will try again. What you seem to be referring to are fixed spatial changes, which of course can occur when you sit offcenter. I am talking though about a sound imaging that is not sharply defined and "wanders" around the soundstage slightly and is often level dependent.
The point is that with really good electronics image stability and placement... In three dimensions is very well defined and with well defined recordings you will get a strong sense of musician locality. However, lesser gear will dilute or remove it completely to the point where the sound sticks to the speakers.
My brain is quite clear on this and its you that seems to be suffering from an audiophile fetish called subjective listening therefore its like that for everyone. If you want to sling mud, lets start or you can choose to be civil and discuss this as an adult with resorting to BS.
BS? Hardly. Just clear and repeatable observations. You continue not to understand that it has nothing to do with your obvious points about physical positioning. It is very easy to get recordings with well centered vocals or main instrument with which one can hear this effect. Also, get a good string quartet recording and listen to the positioning in the soundfield of each of the musicians. Electronics with very stable voltages will tend to keep the localizations more exact even in busy and loud passages. If voltages are not locked down tight you will get image smearing and some "wandering". I have heard both cases many times... It has NOTHING to do with physical seating or head position etc.
By all means though, give it your best shot. Btw, I have my listening position measured to the nearest mm with a laser distance meter. Explain, if you can, how the sound can "wander" and be imprecise with one preamp and locked in with another if nothing else is changed? If I sit back in the exact same spot etc? Back and forth switching confirms, other listeners confirm too.
The equipment I had and own now has never exhibited this smear you are talking about. I've also auditioned many a amp/speaker combos with material I know extremely well from piano concertos to acoustic blues sessions and I've never experienced this.
I've heard amp/receivers go into clipping while trying to fill a room with sound with inefficient speakers but even at that point, imaging was solid. The mids and highs became shrill and compressed and it was physically painful to my ears to hear the sound.
Chalk it up to coincidence I guess.
Are you famiiliar with the Dead Can Dance album "Into the Labyrinth"?
There is a song entitled "How fortunate the man with none".
Here are some snippets of some verses and their punchline at the end of each verse:
"You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him"
...
"It's wisdom that had brought him to this state
How fortunate the man with none"
"You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same"
...
"It's courage that had brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none"
"You heard of honest Socrates
The man who never lied They weren't so grateful as you'd think
Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried"
...
"It's honesty that brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none"
So, Yes! How fortunate are you!
I have no idea why my friends system seems to do this (Soundstage wandering around), but it does.
Amplification, source, cables, power....Dunno - don't care......
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
Sure a good ps makes all the difference but this isspeaker asylum and he wasnt asking about electronics.
ET
I think that's a little unfair.
He said, "A well built robust power supply has a lot to do with a speaker having a open and easy sound."
Not a hijack IMO.
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