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RE: What an astonishingly insightful (and iconoclastic) assessment of some formerly revered designs....

Posted by tube wrangler on March 23, 2017 at 20:44:32:
This makes sense. A good transformer or choke will
out-couple even the best capacitors, and one can hear
that-- the reproduced sound is closer to the recorded
sound.

Transformers roll-off both highest and lowest
frequencies.

I think this "rolloff" concern is mainly a theory
that is technically correct, but has less practical
application in home audio.

I like an amplifier to sound true to the characteristics
of what is being played through it. In practical
terms, if you can get some decent output INTO THE ROOM
going down to 60HZ or so,. and can get highs to SATURATE THE
ROOM up to about 11.5KHZ, you're in business-- VERY good
business, sound quality wise.

The best approach to wiring and component construction
is to build for a wider practical bandwidth for both, then
worry about the parts and the circuit..

The actual parts in the circuit-- and the circuit itself
can exhibit rolloffs at both ends as long as we have that
60HZ-11.5KHZ range actually saturating the listening area.
Component quality easily trumps measured frequency
response here.

This is very hard to explain properly, but it works well.

In my view, highs aren't propagated properly into a listening
room by MOST of today's home audio speakers. Dispersion is
OK on some models, but if you want highs THAT WORK, then you
need large H.F. transducer surface area-- very large-- to
load your highs into the room properly and WITH ENOUGH ENERGY
for the room.

Enter the large panels, large ribbon tweeters, and horn-loaded
theatre-style units. Small domes may measure OK, but they aren't
the real deal.

Most people can't believe what an old S.E. amp with severe
rolloff after about 3800HZ can do with highs in a theatre--
The highs are there.. Clear, powerful and WAY above the amp's
rolloff. Why? The speakers are GOOD speakers... solidly
built transducers with large surface areas.

People theorize all the time about all of this-- to little
avail most of the time. If you're after real true-to-life
audio performance, then you have to go after the ideas and
components that actually deliver an honest performance.

The only thing that can out-couple a good transformer
is a good piece of wire-- that would be Direct-Coupling.

-Dennis-