Thank you very much. Sadly my Blu2 dont allow for an LPS.
If you still spin CDs, this may be the best option.
- Thread starter thomask
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I agree and have also not found that R2R can invariably be artifice free as well. Artifice and synthetics is the bane of dig. It steals the poetry out of performance making everything sound kind of banal, unfeeling and generic.
BTW Kassandra would be on my short list for dacs worth auditioning for sure. But as Thomas mentioned not sure though if you have great tubes in pre and also you have SET amps that the same is then necessarily also required upstream in the source as well. A life without appropriate valve would be an unhappy world for many of us for sure... your strategy is sound but some latitude in where and how the valves appear and which ones they are would surely also still fit the basic principle.
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Another option is to get top quality music server.Thank you very much. Sadly my Blu2 dont allow for an LPS.
When I heard SGM Extreme with either Trinity and Aqua Formular XhD, it sound full and organic.
Esotar( the Korean dealer of SGM Extreme) mentioned that even 500$ Dac sounds natural with SGM Extreme.
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You have expensive tastes Thomas... I like it!Another option is to get top quality music server.
When I heard SGM Extreme with either Trinity and Aqua Formular XhD, it sound full and organic.
Esotar( the Korean dealer of SGM Extreme) mentioned that even 500$ Dac sounds natural with SGM Extreme.
The gear you tend to specifically like I also tend to like Brad... I could well imagine liking the Aries Cerat electronics based on my experiences of other similar types of electronics... however I might not so much like the Aries Cerat speakers based upon experiences I have had with similar types of horns and the approach of blending of driver types having been (for me) absolutely not successful. But you can see that my experiences of other speakers not being successful might not then fairly apply to all the breed and it would be unreasonable to dismiss the AC Symphonias as being absolutely unsuccessful based on my experiences of other speakers using its approaches.
We are both valve loving dudes but there is no real reason why implementing them in different parts of the line level can’t be utterly successful in truth. To say otherwise kind of misses the whole idea of seeing a system as a system with developing synergistic relationships throughout. Compartmentalising in a way that says there is only one absolutely specific way to design at each and every component point isn’t necessarily a logical or flexible approach to process or generally reflective of the way components integrate within systems in general.
Given how subjective a word like successful is it really really really comes back to only being just another personal preference. I’d have thought here we are just then talking about a simple honest preference based upon some experiences and a resulting personal preference and not so much what is actually universally successful or otherwise.
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Indeed we have much more in common than differences (except for your Harbeth speakers that is...heard them again in Munich...can't see the appeal
). Not sure what you mean though regarding the Symphonia speaker...it is horn from top to bottom (unless you mean using different driver types to load each horn). In this respect it is less a hybrid than your PAP speakers. With speakers, IMO, it is much tougher to be dogmatic because none of them really sound completely right. Also, there is not something fundamentally different between the distortion made by one kind of speaker or another, just degrees of the issue, dispersion and other linear distortions etc. This concept of having open baffle woofers though with a horn mid/high has a lot of merit and the Diesis speakers at Munich impressed me mightily (the PAPs did not but they were using a squawky sounding fullrange driver and not the horn like yours). I could consider this as an alternative to a full-horn system as it kind of blends my love of planar openness with horn impact.
With electronics, which we did not evolve to make sense of these distortions (mechanical distortions, like from speakers, we are very familiar with from our ancestory...probably why in many ways it is easier to judge speakers) and it takes very little to be "off" for it to also be unnatural sounding. The problem, as I see it from a psychoacoustical perspective, is that our brains are extremely sensitive to the pattern of the sound reaching our ears and if that pattern is somehow not fitting a natural progression then it gets picked out and focused on. The ear/brain makes a pattern itself (self-distortion) and as long as the external distortion follows this progression, then the distortion can "hide" in our ear/brain blindspots. This is SPL dependent. As it gets louder we get less sensitive because our ears are distorting more and more and there is more masking occurring. How does this apply in the real world? Well, amplification has to happen with real devices and these are all non-linear. Some are less linear than others. There was thinking that application of negative feedback, which seemed to magically make distortion vanish, would lead to perfect reproduction...enough time and examples of this philosophy have passed to know that it is not really the panacea that it was thought to be as it introduces many artifacts (like emphasis on reducing primarily low order harmonics and creating new, higher order ones) that turn out to be quite sonically detrimental.
My experience is that you cannot take separately designed gear with one kind of harmonic signature (let's say somewhat analytical, which to me means simply unnatural or synthetic) and another one with an opposite signature and get the perfect balance. What you usually get is something overly warm that still sounds synthetic. A good designer can take different active elements (transistors and tubes) and skillfully tune them to give an overall output that has a signature that he/she finds to sound natural (some designers with good ears I hope). Mixing/matching components of different technologies is really a grab bag...even more so than trying tubes or transistors from different designers.
Both tube and transistor gear have audible signatures...the tubes often get much of their signature from their output transformers (talking mainly about amps) and/or feedback. Transistors mainly from feedback and their inherently lower linearity (compared to triodes at least). The latter seems to be less natural to a growing number of audiophiles...this would fit with what is known from the distortion they produce and studies on perception of distortions. Tubes don't have to sound "soft" and transistors, if very carefully handled, don't have to sound analytical but more often than not that is how they sound and thus the stereotypes. I have gone one step further and banished push/pull, which also alters the distortion pattern, IMO for the worse. I would be more inclined to have a single ended transistor amp (like a Pass SIT) than I would a push/pull anything. I go back from time to time...just to be sure. The last three PP amps were the Einstein "The Absolute Tune", VAC 30/30 MKIII and the PureSound A30. The last big SS I owned was a while ago (Moon W5). I had one really nice sounding PP hybrid (Sphinx Project 14 MKIII) and OTLs (Silvaweld reference monos), which were shocking in clarity but still somewhat sharp and ultimately less natural sounding. I still want an OTL SET to complete the survey
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What planet do you live on?????????????????????? Distortion is the opposite of linearity and triodes exhibit more distortion than anything else commonly found in amplifiers today. They look like a variable resistor in a circuit (especially without feedback). They may sound amazing, but "linear" is not the word for them.
Also, harmonics are not artifacts. They look like it on a graph showing different distortions, but they are the music abberated, and you're hearing it. They are not a foreign thing injected, that is wholly different. And your information about them having higher order harmonics is so 1970's. A modern amplifier has vanishing distortion above the 2nd harmonic (which in itself is way lower than SET's 2nd harmonic, which may explain partly why you like SET).
One big benefit to an SET is that they don't really respond to cause crossover distortion. But I'd also argue the sloppy phase in higher frequencies might be one of the biggest reasons people like them, since psycho-acoustically we seem to enjoy speakers with butchered phase in the tweeter region for several reasons. Many, but not all, amps with higher linearity in the higher frequencies may come across sterile, etched, etc. It might be "right" but isn't correct psycho-acoustically, on a great many amplifiers designs.
The SS alone cannot add any benefit upstream of valve components that valves can't, and vice versa. It all has to do with the quality of the component... Upstream or downstream. If it's going to be theory I could counter argue that you are choking the purity of the single ended triode by adding transistors upstream
I really was just saying that realistically along a digital based system pathway there are a series of stages where both SS and valve can happen. There are many possibilities for any combination of either or both throughout. I’d challenge anyone to be easily be able to realistically identify when actually just sitting in the room enjoying the music playing the kinds of differences between say a 300B doing what a tends to 300B do at the output stage of the dac versus if it’s just slightly later in the line stage in a pre or even if it’s then either the driver or the output tube within the amp. Even just changing the specific 300B valve used is possibly going to easier to identify than where exactly that 300B is sitting within the chain. None of this is exact.
I’m definitely not suggesting a lesser component at any point is going to be completely fixed by what’s going upstream rather just that it’s not linear but more synergistic, so say if something is putting out RFI at any point then the other components capacity within the system to shield themselves from this RFI comes to play... and even how that interplay then plays out in the experience of the overall quality of the sound. All the system distortions impact synergistically with each other and the final mix of distortions is actually part of the signal that we have to listen to.
I do get that the theory is that every component has to be at its absolute best all the way along but does that even always buy the best outcome? A purer SET amp might not fair so well driving a pair of Apogees. So the SS might sound better. At this stage given my circumstances I’d probably choose for amp over speaker so even that’s just kind of moot for me.
So do we have to have a valve in every stage... I might go that way but surely a valve free MSB Select 2 as source might be a very fine choice for a source regardless, some might say the best. I’d certainly have a total system improvement with it as my digital source and I’d rather have it than say than an Ayon tube dac even with the Ayon having valves at the source output stage. Especially as I’d already be running valves at pre and amp stage.
I’m also fairly confident that I’d realistically be able to put a destination system together for myself with either a Lampi or a AC Kassandra dac as well so this isn’t a fixed or absolute theory for me at all just I think there is more latitude in how we can successfully put a system together than just a series of fixed absolute distinctions.
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What kind of horrible SS gear do you guys use where you have to worry about silly stuff like that? Choking... hahaha. WOW.
What kind of horrible SS gear do you guys use where you have to worry about silly stuff like that? Choking... hahaha. WOW.
I was quoting theory for theory. If a guy is using SETs downstream, he is avoiding SS for a reason. If a guy is using SS downstream, he is avoiding SETs for a reason
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People avoid SET when they have inefficient speakers, with low sensitivity. And SET sounds better with a lot of speaker designs that are the opposite. But that doesn't explain the mixing comments. I wouldn't want to discourage people from enjoying tube phono pre's because they need SS power for speakers. A good SS amp should carry the character of the phono really well. The same should be said for using say an SS buffer in an otherwise pure tube gear setup.
You missed my point. Put on the hat of a guy using SETs. Why has he chosen sets and not an SS amp? Because he is a believer in the single ended purity concept (doesn't matter what you are). If people have such a philosophy it makes sense to stick through it all through.
This may not work in practice, but up there we were discussing theory
This may not work in practice, but up there we were discussing theory
My hats don't include philosophy. Theory and philosophy are very different. To propose theory you'd have to understand the mechanics involved.
I've already started to touch on the actual parameters that make SET work with certain speakers. It's not like you'd buy some Apogee's and then an SET amp because you like the sound of SET.
I've already started to touch on the actual parameters that make SET work with certain speakers. It's not like you'd buy some Apogee's and then an SET amp because you like the sound of SET.
I didn't say I would. In fact I have been quite vehement in such discussions that I wouldn't and I would use SS then. But that has nothing to do with the discussion, you are having your own discussion separate from my point
Easy, you listen and you like it more.
If you think measurements are the only answer for sound preference, you'd be in for a rude awakening. We certainly wouldn't be seeing grounding boxes, exotic LAN cables, single order crossovers, or like half or more of the stuff we like.
I agree on measurements vs. listening experience. But I'd still like my gear to measure reasonably well.
I would assert most of it does (including SET). Believe me, you'd know if you had 50% distortion, but 1% or even 10%? Not so much. You usually only see over 1% when an amp is straining. (any topology)
But if the frame of reference between devices is based on their tech between valve/transistor/classD, well, you can't call a triode linear because by all comparisons it is the least.
But if the frame of reference between devices is based on their tech between valve/transistor/classD, well, you can't call a triode linear because by all comparisons it is the least.
