Tube DIY Asylum

RE: I'm only talking about power amps.

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: I'm only talking about power amps. posted by cpotl on July 09, 2017 at 09:52:11

Today most work is done on digital workstations. The large mixing consoles with multiple flat screens are just control surfaces talking to a bunch of commodity PC's over Ethernet. The audio processing is all via AES in and out - so much for all the SPDIF jiter scares! AES and SPDIF are virtually identical - especially in terms of jitter performance.
Now the microphone preamp before the ADC is analog of course and mostly an OPAMP design. There are some studios that use discrete transistor mic preamps and some even tube preamps. But beyond the ADC, the audio remain digital, in fact a computer file. Tape is long gone except again for tiny esoteric operations. All storage is via hard disk and that data is shipped and modified around a lot including between facilities over the public internet - encrypted of course.
In the 1980s, large mixing consoles were all OPAMP. Hundreds of them in a 128 input board. Anywhere from two to ten stages per module. I once cared for a Neeve console that had 128 inputs and the internal bussing was wide standard ribbon cable. They ran balanced +/-/G across a 50 wire cable with no twists either. No crosstalk and no noise. It just shows what is possible with god engineering as Neeve is well known for. So much for esoteric audiophile cables! If any of that hype was true, Neeve would have used them. Cost was no object on his products.
The 1970 was the rein of discrete transistor OPAMPS. And they were not as good to spite what some audio magazines want you to believe.
Audio material today is largely file based and is routed as computer data. Beyond that it is in AES format using commodity pro audio cable at about 35cents per foot. recording and mastering facilities do not worry about jitter and all these other horrors because they simple aren't a problem in modern digital gear. And that includes most reasonable Best Buy grade consumer gear as well these days.

Edits: 07/10/17

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