[
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2009, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]
12.73.205.200
In Reply to: RE: Dolby was the beginning of the end posted by Tony Lauck on January 13, 2009 at 11:39:27
I graduated from high school in 1966. My band made a LP record that year and invited a professional recording studio (CENTURY) to record it. The guy showed up in a Ford Econoline van totally equipped with Ampex tube (351-2) and a MX35 mixer and three Sony C37 condenser microphones with miles of cable on two garden hose winches. The experience made quite an impression on all the guys interested in hi-fi in the band. Those students whose parents could afford it went out and bought Roberts 770 or 720s (the poor man's Ampex) and two microphones and many of us got very serious about recording our own stuff. Mostly choirs and a buddy and me actually made a record of an aspiring folk group who wrote a song that THE KINGSTON TRIO picked up and recorded. My listening amplifier was a KNIGHT KIT twin 25 watt power amp with a KNIGHT KIT preamp that I assembled myself with the watchful eye of my cousin who worked for AT&T long lines. I also built my speakers from JENSEN components. I greatly enjoyed listening but as an avid hi-fi enthusiast was engrossed in the literature, AUDIO MAGAZINE and Edward Tatnal Canby's reviews.
The audio world was converting to solid state and this conversion was the first "bad moon on the rise" . Listening was FUN! I listening joyfully to this KNIGHT KIT tube system all through college. but was intent on converting to solid state. Why, the reviews in these magazines were all touting it. It must be better. A company in Texas was selling a solid state amplifier called the SUPER TIGER featured in POPULAR ELECTRONICS magazine that bragged about almost un-measurable distortion. So I sold my KNIGHT KIT system and bought two SUPER TIGERS that I assembled. BAD MISTAKE! These things could not stop oscillating at some super sonic frequency. A PhD in Electrical Engineering could not stop them from oscillating. This same PhD also had purchased the same brand of amplifiers and was intent on making them work which wound up being a ten year quest. They eventually worked but something was missing. Listening was no longer fun but fatiguing after about the playing of one album. You wanted to turn it off and do what needed to be done. Something was going on in this solid state un-measurable distortion amplifier that obviously could not be measured.
At the time I collected pre-recorded tapes and played them on my Roberts 770. Then suddenly all tapes converted over to 3 3/4 ips and suddenly that joy was gone. Hi-frequencies became attenuated and I never bought another tape. Back to the LP, now everything was going QUAD. Two more speakers and amplifiers were added and a SQ matrix converter and a Dolby B noise reduction system. But the joy didn't return. Sound quality to my ears was getting worse not better.
Technology stirs the pot and seems to be never satisfied with a calm standard. Someone is always trying to sell something new and it seems to me IMHO that this rush to make a profit supersedes everything else in our society.
So I went back to electron tube amplifiers and the joy returned. My PhD friend concluded that " you must like to listen to distortion." No I don't think that is true. I think engineers have not served us very well. I'm not an engineer, my degree is in Journalism. I'm a music lover and I want my listening experience to be enjoyable not fatiguing. In short, I don't think you can cut the frequency spectrum up into zones a la Class B or Class AB class C or Class D or anti-aliasing filters with digital and then re-constitute it back together without injecting some artificial artifacts into the music. I think engineers are a little too practical and are enamored with themselves that they can do this. The rest of us have to live with it and may times it is not very pleasant.
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture." Frank Lloyd Wright
Follow Ups:
Post a Followup:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2009, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]