Objectivist or Subjectivist? Give Me a Break

[microstrip]

You appear to accept that higher levels of distortion, reduced top end, lack of bass etc. that are inherent in tube amplifiers, actually improves the sound. I don't!

Please come back to the 21st century. Most modern tube amplifiers have low levels of distortion, extended highs and good bass response.

And no one wanting to analyze the sound of tubes seriously should say that people state that higher levels of distortion, reduced top end, lack of bass etc. that are inherent in some tube amplifiers, actually improves the sound. What some of them wisely say is that, in spite of these bad characteristics they sound great, and in some aspects better than the better measuring units!

 

[microstrip]

I don't want my amplifier to have "a sound" at all.

All of them have. Why should yours be different?

More seriously, why should not an amplifier sound better than a wire with gain? I can easily accept that some people say that the small differences are not relevant and at some point all of them sound similar, but why should we accept that an wire with gain sounds better?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It depends on your level of scepticism I guess.

You're new around here. You probably don't understand I am one of the resident skeptics.

Mine goes right up to not believing in the actual existence of true "golden ears", so any story that unquestioningly accepts them should be examined carefully, in my opinion.

Agreed. I don't think the Carver Challenge article does accept them; I think it challenges them.

The article was written by the Stereophile people, so their account may not be entirely accurate technically. And if I was writing such an article, I too would apparently magnanimously suggest that Bob had 'got one over on me' while also making sure that my own credentials were not called into doubt - I've been listening to politicians for too long I think!

You seriously think their credentials were not called into doubt? The audiophile community was incredulous in the wake of this article. The authors believed they had been proven wrong, as far as I can tell. It's the audience that believed Carver had pulled a fast one and the authors had fallen for it. I can only think of one other article that hurt Stereophile's audiophile cred more than this one. It had to do with all solid state amps sounding the same.

So I'm sceptical both that it's possible to modify a solid state amp to exactly duplicate the shortcomings of the tube amplifier using a few pots (if that's what he did),

I'm sceptical of all of that as well, but the Carver Challenge doesn't make the claim that a solid state amp perfectly duplicated a tube amp, only that it came close enough with those two amps and those two listeners on those two days. Do some people take it to mean more than it says? Sure. Always. Same as it ever was. And Carver didn't do it using a few pots. They were the very last step, mush up the performance of the solid state amp a bit. Evidently whatever he was doing prior to that (which he understandably hasn't made public) that got a $700 SS amp to do all the good things the SOTA tube amp was doing, wasn't creating the appropriate distortions. And in that challenge, matching the reference, not beating it, was the objective.

You appear to accept that higher levels of distortion, reduced top end, lack of bass etc. that are inherent in tube amplifiers, actually improves the sound. I don't!

[/QUOTE]

Nope. Can't say I'm even a big fan of the "liquid midrange." I like my systems not only SS, but active, and as clean, controlled and precise as I can afford them. I don't like my reverb tails extended, my midrange liquified, my room pressurized by anything but SPLs or my music made more musical than what's on the recording. YMMV. Some call it clinical. I call it a bit closer to what I hear in a roomful of musicians.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

You don't get a +1 for that one. You get an AMEN.

Complete agreement here.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

More seriously, why should not an amplifier sound better than a wire with gain?

Because it is an amplifier. It's job is to amplify, to add gain to, the source signal. The theoretical "wire with gain" is the perfect amplifier that neither adds nor subracts anything from the source's signal, but gain. Are you allowed to prefer an amplifier that adds or subracts? Sure. And in that sense then I suppose it is better - but only for you and those who agree with you opinion. Better, in any sense beyond your personal tastes, than the device fullfilling its purpose perfectly?

That goes beyond theoretical and into the abstract. We're in a philosophy class at that point.

Tim

 

[andromedaaudio]

Tim do you agree that the way of amplifying by a tube amp differs fundamentically from a SS design , if yes the balance could tilt towards tube amps in the way they handle the signal because of their intrinsic amplifying speed and superiour low level detail, they are better in some regards , ss designs " might " be better in others .

By the way a rolled of top end and bottom end of lets say 0,5 db at 20 khz or 1 db at 5 or 10 hz will not be noticable by a listener , the feeling of difference residese elsewhere

If one listens to speakers that cannot be properly driven by a (low watt )tube amp than yes you get a weak " rolled of " sound

 

[NorthStar]

It would really be cool if Bob Carver would come on this forum and tell us his side of the story and what he did or didn’t accomplish and what it all really meant (and why he is strictly designing with tubes now) and put all of those old Carver trick bones to rest once and for all.

---- Must be for the ears of a group of people from a certain age range.
... For the aural pleasure of these people, including himself.

That would be my best guess I guess.

 

[NorthStar]

---Tim, can you make a small effort and always quote the name of the poster?

And if you don't that's fine and if you do that's even better. :b

* It's just that it demands more work from our part, to get the proper context.
...Not always but few times for sure.

** I will start doing that and you'll see clearly what I mean.

*** I ain't thinking just about myself here, but also for the benefit of few others.

 

[Ethan Winer]

That is actually a pretty funny claim, I must agree. Is there any evidence for it?

Sure, there have been lots of times I was proven wrong and immediately changed my opinion. I used to think that pink noise was unsuitable for testing rooms believing that it takes a finite amount of time for the random low frequencies to "stabilize" in a room and form peaks and nulls. My EE friend Bill Eppler explained why that was wrong, and he showed me how even a very brief pulse that comes and goes once is sufficient. Related to pulses, I used to think that the low frequency content of a pulse was dictated by its duration. So I believed that a 1 millisecond pulse has no energy below 1 KHz, and I mentioned that in an audio forum. Again Bill explained how this really works, and I immediately posted that I was wrong in the forum.

--Ethan

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim do you agree that the way of amplifying by a tube amp differs fundamentically from a SS design

Yes

the balance could tilt towards tube amps in the way they handle the signal because of their intrinsic amplifying speed and superiour low level detail, they are better in some regards , ss designs " might " be better in others .

I'd put "mights" on both ends of that sentence until I'd seen clear objective evidence of superior low level detail. I don't hear it.

By the way a rolled of top end and bottom end of lets say 0,5 db at 20 khz or 1 db at 5 or 10 hz will not be noticable by a listener , the feeling of difference residese elsewhere

Yes. I agree. It lies elsewhere. Though while "roll-off" at the extremes is not a very audible problem, lack of solid bass control, common in many tube amps, can be very audible.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

---Tim, can you make a small effort and always quote the name of the poster?

I am actually making a small effort. Evidently it's still too small.

Tim

 

[Gregadd]

I think a lot of people need to reread the entire account of the Carver challenge. The improtant thing is Carver has long since moved on. He never took it as seriously as others did and continue to.
For instance he never said anyhting about making his amp sound "as bad as the CJ."
The golden ears were not tricked. As far as they knew what Carver claimed was impossible. No one had done it before. They had identified the characteristics of the CJ, sans bass, and were able to use thier golden ears to identify that those qualities were present in the Carver mod. It was proven that amps do sound different, The only question was why do they sound different?
Certainly if Carver could make a solid state amp sound identical to a tube amp, in the mids and highs, that caused quite a stir. As I posted in another thread, the transistor is nothing but an evolution of a tube. It is not surprising they could be made to sound similar.
Substantial progress has been made to remedy the shortcomings of the tube and the transistor. There are tubes amps with vanishingly low ditortion and tremendous output power. Finite filamant life and heat remain a problem. Transsitors have many problems to deal with.
I hope like Carver we can move on.

 

[microstrip]

Because it is an amplifier. It's job is to amplify, to add gain to, the source signal. The theoretical "wire with gain" is the perfect amplifier that neither adds nor subracts anything from the source's signal, but gain. Are you allowed to prefer an amplifier that adds or subracts? Sure. And in that sense then I suppose it is better - but only for you and those who agree with you opinion. Better, in any sense beyond your personal tastes, than the device fullfilling its purpose perfectly?

That goes beyond theoretical and into the abstract. We're in a philosophy class at that point.

Tim

Tim,

If you want to stick to the dictionary, encyclopedia or philosophy manual, no problem. But my interest is analyzing devices that supply current and voltage to a loudspeaker, reproducing the information in the signal in the best way to achieve the aims of sound reproduction.

My preference, as you say, it is not only mine. It is the opinion of many people and has statistical value. If most of them find that the best sounding amplifier is not the straight wire with gain, it can not be ignored. May be we can carry a poll on WBF to know which of us believes his amplifier is a "straight wire with gain". I think it is an important point - are people prepared to accept that an amplifier that adds or subtracts can improve the sound?

I feel the industry is afraid of this aspect - almost every manufacturer claims his amplifier is more neutral and faithful (without being too specific) than his competitor.

 

[microstrip]

(...) As I posted in another thread, the transistor is nothing but an evolution of a tube. It is not surprising they could be made to sound similar.
Substantial progress has been made to remedy the shortcomings of the tube and the transistor. There are tubes amps with vanishingly low ditortion and tremendous output power. Finite filamant life and heat remain a problem. Transsitors have many problems to deal with.
I hope like Carver we can move on.

Greg,

We can find some interesting views on this subject in this Tim de Paravicini interview to Stereophile.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/tim-de-paravicini-page-3

BTW, filament life is not critical in tubes - the critical one is the cathode lifetime. The great majority of tubes are indirect heated type.

 

[mep]

Greg,

We can find some interesting views on this subject in this Tim de Paravicini interview to Stereophile.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/tim-de-paravicini-page-3

BTW, filament life is not critical in tubes - the critical one is the cathode lifetime. The great majority of tubes are indirect heated type.

I'm going to parse your English here and say that filament life is indeed critical, it's just that filament failures are less common than cathode depletion.

 

[Gregadd]

BTW, filament life is not critical in tubes - the critical one is the cathode lifetime. The great majority of tubes are indirect heated type.

Sorry Micro. I should have just posted the link. http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?7236-The-history-of-transistor-amps

 

[microstrip]

I'm going to parse your English here and say that filament life is indeed critical, it's just that filament failures are less common than cathode depletion.

Thanks. But I was addressing the longevity. Filament failures are extremely rare because the typical lifetime of the filament is much longer than the life of the cathode - almost an order of magnitude at typical cathode currents, and are mainly due to faults in tube assembly. I have never had a tube with a broken filament!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

almost every manufacturer claims his amplifier is more neutral

Of course they do. Drop the "claims," say "almost every manufacturer endeavors to design an amplifier that is more neutral," and you have, in essence, simply said they understand what their objective is and they pursue it with integrity. Many, yes, maybe even most, continue to pursue the goal in spite of the fact that much of the high end no longer believes in. Their integrity is admirable. A few produce deliberately colored products for a niche market of customers who want them. I understand this too, and there's nothing wrong with it. They are creating products people want. But make no mistake. One is engineering in the pursuit of higher fidelity. The other is niche marketing.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

Of course they do. Drop the "claims," say "almost every manufacturer endeavors to design an amplifier that is more neutral," and you have, in essence, simply said they understand what their objective is and they pursue it with integrity. Many, yes, maybe even most, continue to pursue the goal in spite of the fact that much of the high end no longer believes in. Their integrity is admirable. A few produce deliberately colored products for a niche market of customers who want them. I understand this too, and there's nothing wrong with it. They are creating products people want. But make no mistake. One is engineering in the pursuit of higher fidelity. The other is niche marketing.

Tim

Tim,

First it would be nice if you could quote others posts properly. The whole sentence was :

I feel the industry is afraid of this aspect - almost every manufacturer claims his amplifier is more neutral and faithful (without being too specific) than his competitor

and you reduce it to

almost every manufacturer claims his amplifier is more neutral

BTW, WBF is a niche. I know about it. Most of its members pursuit higher sound quality, and enjoy it.

 

[mep]

Thanks. But I was addressing the longevity. Filament failures are extremely rare because the typical lifetime of the filament is much longer than the life of the cathode - almost an order of magnitude at typical cathode currents, and are mainly due to faults in tube assembly. I have never had a tube with a broken filament!

So was I. Filaments are not the problem with tubes failing, but they are still a critical part of the tube.