Speed Kills

[fas42]

If I am understanding what I think you are talking about Mark, thats time alignement of frequencies as they pass from the source to finally the speaker pushing some air....eh....right?

If so, there is a measurement for that BTW, phase or sometimes called group delay.

No magic there for the not believing in measurements crowd. If you are talking about something else, hopefully someone can enlighten me just a wee wee bit.

A very important idea to bring up.

Tom

The trouble with this, Tom, is that this behaviour appears to be so difficult, at the moment, to measure or correlate. I'm quite sure that if you hooked up a paraphenalia of measuring gear to Mark's system, before and after the improvement in sound there would be differencies in readings, but you would be scratching your head to work out which were relevant, if any. These are quite subtle behaviours we are trying to measure, but the ear/brain is very clever at detecting them and they make all the difference between an ordinary system and an exceptional one ...

Frank

 

[mep]

The *cheap* ARC LS2 had a sophisticated regulated power supply, FET buffers and inverters ... You can see the diagrams at:

http://www.arcdb.ws/LS2/LS2.html

As always, we are referring to preferences and I have an high expectation bias, I still have my LS2 hidden in my hifi vault .

ARC has built a fair amount of preamps that have a cult following such as the SP-8, SP-10, SP-11, SP-15, LS-25, LS-27, and the REF series. I have never heard anyone yammering about how good the LS-2 or LS-2B is which is why I'm surprised. ARC has always been known for having sophisticated power supplies. I doubt the power supply built into the case of the LS-2 is any match for the outboard power supply of the KBL. The KBL has two power transformers so I'm assuming it is a dual mono power supply.

 

[fas42]

In reality, if we are talking group delay, it is so effed-up through the recording process and editing process that anyway I wonder how relevant we can be with it.

Tom

You put it perfectly, Tom, it has nothing to do with group delay and all that lot: the ear/brain has no trouble sorting that sort of thing out and making sense of things. Where it does have trouble is fighting its way through various types of low level distortion, these get in the way to a much greater extent and leads to classic listener fatigue; it registers as over detailed, in your face sound, as having something intrinsically "wrong" with it. The standard solution is to add your "tone" controls, as you call them, to the system which to some degree dumb down the sound. But the real solution is get rid of, exterminate the issues which cause the low level distortion.

It's like the ads for room deodorants: do you just want to just mask or overlay with another smell, or get rid of the true source of the odour?

Frank

 

[fas42]

The thing you are always talking about is mysterious to me...you can't seem to explain it after a gazillion posts now....so, perhaps, and IMO, what you talk about is more about your mood and your mind at the time you are listening....if it is a super cool song, and you are in a super cool mood, then the tabletop radio can rock you and satisfy you IMO (OK, me). Group delay can manifest itself in say the hi-hatt appearing to be struck well before/after it should be because the mids have been slowed down/speeded-up (the drum whack) due to group delay...blah blah.

Tom

Sorry, Tom, that does not compute: electronically that doesn't make sense, and I've have read many pieces stating that this group delay concept doesn't fly. You can fiddle with such things with ease using DSP technology and it won't fix the sound in the ways we're talking about. Again, the ear/brain is incredibly sensitive and if the sound is distorted in certain ways the mind registers it as being "slow", the beat is dragging.

So,

1) perfect group delay but distorted: dreary, behind the 8 ball sound
2) lousy group delay characteristics, but minimal distortion: brilliant, toe tapping, in the groove sound

Make sense?

Frank

 

[RogerD]

I'm a little surprised that a *cheap* ARC LS2 with a single 6922 would sound better than the KBL preamp that cost twice as much when new. There is one on Audiogon right now for $1K.

Mark,

OT,but it looks like the KBL has a tape monitor switch,if so you can use your Ampex 350's as a tube preamp. Most monitor switches bypass the preamp circuit and are pretty much straight thru. My hot rodded 350's sound wonderful,but even the stock circuit is one of the best tube circuits ever designed. Have fun and enjoy.

 

[fas42]

but, but, what is this distortion you are talking about? Exactly? if you can not define it you can repeat it forever and I still am not going to get it. I wish I knew what you are talking about.

Sorry it's difficult to nail, but that's the nature of the beast! This distortion is the same distortion that every designer of audio gear worries about, that is, the output of the component doesn't match exactly what's on the source media. So in that sense it is just like the THD and IMD that's very easy to measure, and if you had the right sort of measuring gear you would be able to measure it, there would be a real number you could attach to the behaviour to say how well it's working.

But such equipment out there that can do it is very expensive, not used in the right way or the people who own it aren't interested in measuring these sorts of things.

So: normal THD and IMD is very easy to measure; hook up the test gear and out pops a number. But that is not telling you any of the fine detail in the distortion behaviour, nor telling you how it behaves over time, in different circumstances, when pushed in various ways.

Back to the car analogy: vehicle in perfect tune, perfectly smooth, straight test road, correct temperature and humidity, test driver at the wheel, hook up the measurement stuff: do acceleration tests, braking, swerving at speed, etc. Ah, we now know exactly how this vehicle behaves in all situations.

So if it is raining on a muddy, bumpy road, with the tyres a bit flat, at night, driver's a bit tired and inexperienced, and the brakes not checked for 20,000 miles, and a deer suddenly jumps in front of the car and the driver reacts, we now know exactly what will happen, whether the car will miss or hit the animal?

Yeeeeaaah, right!!

Frank

 

[RogerD]

Sorry it's difficult to nail, but that's the nature of the beast! This distortion is the same distortion that every designer of audio gear worries about, that is, the output of the component doesn't match exactly what's on the source media. So in that sense it is just like the THD and IMD that's very easy to measure, and if you had the right sort of measuring gear you would be able to measure it, there would be a real number you could attach to the behaviour to say how well it's working.

But such equipment out there that can do it is very expensive, not used in the right way or the people who own it aren't interested in measuring these sorts of things.

So: normal THD and IMD is very easy to measure; hook up the test gear and out pops a number. But that is not telling you any of the fine detail in the distortion behaviour, nor telling you how it behaves over time, in different circumstances, when pushed in various ways.

Back to the car analogy: vehicle in perfect tune, perfectly smooth, straight test road, correct temperature and humidity, test driver at the wheel, hook up the measurement stuff: do acceleration tests, braking, swerving at speed, etc. Ah, we now know exactly how this vehicle behaves in all situations.

So if is it raining on a muddy, bumpy road, with the tyres a bit flat, at night, driver's a bit tired and inexperienced, and the brakes not checked for 20,000 miles, and a deer suddenly jumps in front of the car and the driver reacts, we now know exactly what will happen, whether the car will miss or hit the animal?

Yeeeeaaah, right!!

Frank

I think most large and lesser circuit designers use computer software to design circuits. It must be common place now because my present SS amplifiers were designed that way back in 1990. We can talk about this and that distortion,but it all boils down to the circuit and the quality of components used. There is no magic formula to bypass expertise and quality.

 

[fas42]

I think most large and lesser circuit designers use computer software to design circuits. It must be common place now because my present SS amplifiers were designed that way back in 1990. We can talk about this and that distortion,but it all boils down to the circuit and the quality of components used. There is no magic formula to bypass expertise and quality.

Yes, I swear by LTspice: it helped me sort out the issues with the IP stuff I've mentioned a few times. Once I knew where I was going in an overall sense it provided the technical answers and then I just assembled the bits, and it worked, without playing around with values of things after the initial construction. I'm using the same process on the 2.4kW amp ...

The biggest headache is that you can't assume perfect parts, as some people do. You have to add in the real characteristics of real electronic components: there are no pure capacitors or inductors, they are a bundle of all sorts of extra messy things that definitely play a part in the real behaviour of audio components.

The beloved audiophile capacitors, for example, are a mess of extra behaviours which would be very hard to absolutely correctly model or simulate, to truly understand why they behave the way they do. Hence they will all sound different, depending on where they are used, etc, etc ...

Frank

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mark,

yes, i mentioned that the only way to know we have distortion is by it's absense. i've experienced that process so many times i've lost count. it's humbling to realize one's reference is flawed. but the path to truth demands the effort to reduce distortion. of course; the efforts are not always linear. i've taken a few backward steps thinking i'm moving forward.

'speed' to me can relate to a number of issues in music reproduction.....the performance, the recording, the mix, and even and especailly the mastering. then the media, source gear, pre, amp, crossover, and drivers. and finally the room. the speaker set-up, cables, power grid, and reasonance control all are varaibles and can effect speed accuracy.

sometimes speed issues relate to coherence of frequency to frequency balance, sometimes smearing of timing clues, sometimes jitter or wow and flutter. sometimes a matter of agility to stop and start without overhang with a natural edge and no roughness.

speed is a critical component of every step. and further.....when i say speed, what i mean is precision with speed. everything revealed in time. and with the microdynamics matching the speed.

as far as solid state compared to tubes......and speed.....well.....i consider my darTZeel solid state amplifier to be as low noise and as 'fast' microdynamically as any amplifier i have ever heard......until.....i heard the 45 tube SET my friend Scott Schaefer (Found Music) built on my system. no; it could not exercise an iron fist grip on the bass. but.....it had more speed and clarity 'inside' the note than anything i've ever heard. it revealed detail i had never before heard.

how can 1 watt be so 'fast' and without distortion?

i don't know. but right after RMAF when i get my 2a3 monoblocks from Scott, i'll be able to enjoy that musical perspective.

my opinion is that tubes have the most potential for speed within their operating envelope when ideally designed and used in the proper context. no doubt that a signal can travel thru a vaccuum tube easier (faster) than a transistor. however, solid state gets closer to being optimal easier than tubes. and i've not heard any other tube amps do anything like i heard from the 45 tube.

 

[fas42]

Mark,

yes, i mentioned that the only way to know we have distortion is by it's absense. i've experienced that process so many times i've lost count. it's humbling to realize one's reference is flawed. but the path to truth demands the effort to reduce distortion. of course; the efforts are not always linear. i've taken a few backward steps thinking i'm moving forward.

+100

how can 1 watt be so 'fast' and without distortion?

Pretty good: you both asked the question and gave the answer in one sentence. In other words, it's "fast" because it lacks distortion, and not just any distortion, but that distortion to which the ear/brain is very sensitive ...

no doubt that a signal can travel thru a vaccuum tube easier (faster) than a transistor

I would put it this way: a tube circuit is often less prone to generating unpleasant distortion.

Frank

 

[jazdoc]

I'll echo Mike L's comments regarding the Found Music 45 amplifiers. It mirrors my experience with Experience Music tube preamplification equipment. A couple additional observations:

1) Attention to the power supply is especially critical for tube gear and where most manufacturers try and save money in order to build to a price point.

2) Tube type matters. The mercury rectifier tubes in my phono pre and forthcoming preamp take things to another level of speed and harmonic density.

3) Circuit design and build is critical.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

my most recent humbling experience regarding distortion is with duplex outlets.

when i built my room 7 years ago i used Jena Labs cryo'd outlets. i'd used them in my previous room and liked them. then 5 years ago a friend told me about the Oyaide R-1 outlets. i tried 5 of them in my room; i still kept 5 of the Jena Labs outlets next to the new R-1's. the R-1's were much better in every way. lower noise, increased vividness, better leading edge precision, more body. i had a number of local friends visit to hear the A/B with the Jena's. easy improvement. i replaced the other 5 with the R-1's....and have enjoyed them for the last 5 years.

a few weeks back i was speaking to this same friend about a Lp disk flattner since my new NVS tt does not have vaccuum hold down. i asked him if he had any other items that had rocked his world lately, and he reluctantly mentioned the Furutech GPX-D Rhodeium duplex outlets. he said it reluctantly since he sold me the R-1's 5 years prior. he said the GPX-D outlets were 100% copper contacts, that the R-1's used an alloy and did grip well, but the pure copper sounded better. the GPZ-D outlets solved the pure copper grip problem with a stainless steel band behind the pure copper to allow a proper grip on the plug. also; on the GPX-D everything was grounded and it was a solid as a rock. he said he was replacing his R-1's with the GPX-D's as he could afford to.

this person has high cred to me so i figured why not?

so 2 Sunday's ago he came over and installed 10 of them. btw; after he removed the first R-1 he demonstrated the build difference by dropping both outlets on my countertop; the R-1 had a kind of a hollow prang when it hit, the GPX-D a solid 'thud'.

after installation, at first it seemed like they were better but the sound was closed in and the life was missing. then i went around the back of my speakers and turned the tweeters up from -1.8 to -1. the (previously un-noticed) distortion (brightness) of the R-1's had caused me to need to reduce my tweeter output 1.8 notches below 'flat'. now i only needed 1 notch below flat to get the life with the GPX-D's.

my bass was now more linear, with increased dynamic snap and slam. more ambient information. there was a more natural flow and energy. but the biggest benefit was the precision of everything. every recording was now more solid. little things which i thought had been part of the music were now gone and only music remained. this was a big step. the music was more involving and compelling.

my power grid and system noise floor is amazingly low between the Equi=tech, power cords, and all the reasonance control. i cannot say how much difference these duplex outlets would make in every system. but on the path to musical reproduction truth these $240 each outlets really earned their keep.

and until i heard the absense of distortion i would never have thought it was there.

 

[RogerD]

Mark,

yes, i mentioned that the only way to know we have distortion is by it's absense. i've experienced that process so many times i've lost count. it's humbling to realize one's reference is flawed. but the path to truth demands the effort to reduce distortion. of course; the efforts are not always linear. i've taken a few backward steps thinking i'm moving forward.

'speed' to me can relate to a number of issues in music reproduction.....the performance, the recording, the mix, and even and especailly the mastering. then the media, source gear, pre, amp, crossover, and drivers. and finally the room. the speaker set-up, cables, power grid, and reasonance control all are varaibles and can effect speed accuracy.

sometimes speed issues relate to coherence of frequency to frequency balance, sometimes smearing of timing clues, sometimes jitter or wow and flutter. sometimes a matter of agility to stop and start without overhang with a natural edge and no roughness.

speed is a critical component of every step. and further.....when i say speed, what i mean is precision with speed. everything revealed in time. and with the microdynamics matching the speed.

as far as solid state compared to tubes......and speed.....well.....i consider my darTZeel solid state amplifier to be as low noise and as 'fast' microdynamically as any amplifier i have ever heard......until.....i heard the 45 tube SET my friend Scott Schaefer (Found Music) built on my system. no; it could not exercise an iron fist grip on the bass. but.....it had more speed and clarity 'inside' the note than anything i've ever heard. it revealed detail i had never before heard.

how can 1 watt be so 'fast' and without distortion?

i don't know. but right after RMAF when i get my 2a3 monoblocks from Scott, i'll be able to enjoy that musical perspective.

my opinion is that tubes have the most potential for speed within their operating envelope when ideally designed and used in the proper context. no doubt that a signal can travel thru a vaccuum tube easier (faster) than a transistor. however, solid state gets closer to being optimal easier than tubes. and i've not heard any other tube amps do anything like i heard from the 45 tube.

If Frank says +100 I have to say +101

I don't know how many times I have heard glimpses of the effect of ultra low distortion on reproduced music, only to make a change and step backwards. Through hard work and study have I made steady advance. You must have something to compare to,but there are many ques that you do become aware of in the overall process. Increased clarity,dynamics,and speed are the major improvements, with that comes a natural decay,tonal purity,high resolution without any grit or unpleasantness.

As far as distortion in solid state vs tube I think the best of each type can have all of these attributes I talk about. Right now I'm listening to my tubed Ampex 350's and the sound has me mesmerized, but I can switch over to my SS ampex 440 and still be taken a back by it's qualities. It's nice to have so many options.

 

[RogerD]

The biggest improvement of ultra low distortion sound is the elimination of a sweet spot per se, actually the reproduced sound becomes holographic and the limiting factor is the recording itself. The music takes on a larger than life character and aura and natural bloom are very evident. The ambient information surrounds the reproduction and is a integral part of the stereo image,the resulting illusion takes on realism that is very compelling.

 

[fas42]

after installation, at first it seemed like they were better but the sound was closed in and the life was missing. then i went around the back of my speakers and turned the tweeters up from -1.8 to -1. the (previously un-noticed) distortion (brightness) of the R-1's had caused me to need to reduce my tweeter output 1.8 notches below 'flat'. now i only needed 1 notch below flat to get the life with the GPX-D's.

my bass was now more linear, with increased dynamic snap and slam. more ambient information. there was a more natural flow and energy. but the biggest benefit was the precision of everything. every recording was now more solid. little things which i thought had been part of the music were now gone and only music remained. this was a big step. the music was more involving and compelling.

This is very telling: when a system is almost there the treble can be overwhelming, sharp, disconcerting, and the natural tendency will be to attempt to reduce it, mitigate its impact. This unfortunately is the wrong direction, the sharp treble is telling you that you're getting all the musical information but something is not quite right, which needs to be sorted out. As Mike said, once the power delivery had been improved he could restore the the proper level of treble, which in turn meant all the acoustic signals telling you what was going on in the recording were more correctly presented, and the playback became more "right".

This process of improving things can be repeated over and over again, until the sound is deafeningly loud if the amp is up to it, and the sound will still sound right, will still sound real ...

Frank

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

It would come as no surprise that I refuse to be drawn into some of these explanations. My fellow audiophiles of the subjectivist persuasion will have to forgive me.
Let start for example with the notion of elimination of a sweet spot. The speaker, its dispersion characteristics and its position with respect to the listener are what determinet the sweet spot. it is not a mater of reducing the distortions .. I would have preferred that we not go there to explain a sweet spot. An acoustic , physical volume where the speakers perform best .. All speakers/room combination have such, some larger than others. When one is at the sweet spot then holographic references may come to mind .. else.

The same for outlets. I have heard good systems and I have had myself very good to what some would call excellent systems. The last one being anchored by all Burmester electronics and frankly, I have strained hard to hear differences in outlets and found none. Audiophiles friends who have gone to the outlets route were similarly incapable of ascertaining their contribution (or lack of) in any reasonable way but if one is convinced in advnce that the outlet wil make a world of a difference then ...by all means, enjoy.
I have not heard the amplifer you mention Mike but I have heard several interesting designs made by extremely competent designers. Of course many of these were SETs and while they were in some cases seductive, I am not sure they were speaking the truth, rather a colorized version of it. That is not to mean that all SET do so but most do. I have no doubt that the amplifer you mention is good.. I would suggest that its window of "goodness' , its sweet spot if you will is likely small too. You'll tel us ... I find that those low wattage amps unless driving ultra high sensitivity speakers and even then tend for the most part to favor some parts of the spectrum. An effect well known by photogrphers to highlight what they want our eyes to be drawn to ... A good technique in Production of art less so in its reproduction. It may be interesting for a while but in my personal experience not all the time and not entirely. Comes a point in many of such systems where the focus becomes the sound , not the music as the system is consistently editorializing but this could be too broad a statement .. I know for a fact that music requires fidelity to be truly enjoyed and those 1-watter unless driving the >105 dB struggles mightily in more common loudspeakers.. Headroom and all that something I am sure you experienced with he top of the line Dar tzeel ...
Now concerning the ethereal notion of "speed", that that i would have called "coherence" .. To my ears SS get it right . Some tubes do. I prefer the SS presentation these days. and while we are not measuring the coherence factor directly things like high frequency extension, Wide Bandwidth, Fast Rise and settling time, low (measured and measurable) distortion levels, low intrinsic noise may have to do something to it and there the best SS win ...

I hate to paraphrase a person I consider to be a troll on another forum but he's right on this

Music Reproduction is not magic. It is the application of physics. Music is The magic

 

[fas42]

Music Reproduction is not magic. It is the application of physics. Music is The magic

There's one element you left out: psychoacoustics. The ear/brain acts as an interpreter between the physics of the event and the "magic", or intent, of the music, and can perform quite remarkable feats of spanning seemingly large gaps of perception if given sufficient clues. It is the latter that is crucial, enough information has to be presented in a sufficiently clear fashion for the mind to "play tricks" on you, so that the illusion of the playback becomes overwhelming.

So in that sense reproduction CAN become magic: it requires the combination of music, physics AND psychoacoustics to explain why ...

Frank

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hi

It would come as no surprise that I refuse to be drawn into some of these explanations. My fellow audiophiles of the subjectivist persuasion will have to forgive me.
Let start for example with the notion of elimination of a sweet spot. The speaker, its dispersion characteristics and its position with respect to the listener are what determinet the sweet spot. it is not a mater of reducing the distortions .. I would have preferred that we not go there to explain a sweet spot. An acoustic , physical volume where the speakers perform best .. All speakers/room combination have such, some larger than others. When one is at the sweet spot then holographic references may come to mind .. else.

The same for outlets. I have heard good systems and I have had myself very good to what some would call excellent systems. The last one being anchored by all Burmester electronics and frankly, I have strained hard to hear differences in outlets and found none. Audiophiles friends who have gone to the outlets route were similarly incapable of ascertaining their contribution (or lack of) in any reasonable way but if one is convinced in advnce that the outlet wil make a world of a difference then ...by all means, enjoy.
I have not heard the amplifer you mention Mike but I have heard several interesting designs made by extremely competent designers. Of course many of these were SETs and while they were in some cases seductive, I am not sure they were speaking the truth, rather a colorized version of it. That is not to mean that all SET do so but most do. I have no doubt that the amplifer you mention is good.. I would suggest that its window of "goodness' , its sweet spot if you will is likely small too. You'll tel us ... I find that those low wattage amps unless driving ultra high sensitivity speakers and even then tend for the most part to favor some parts of the spectrum. An effect well known by photogrphers to highlight what they want our eyes to be drawn to ... A good technique in Production of art less so in its reproduction. It may be interesting for a while but in my personal experience not all the time and not entirely. Comes a point in many of such systems where the focus becomes the sound , not the music as the system is consistently editorializing but this could be too broad a statement .. I know for a fact that music requires fidelity to be truly enjoyed and those 1-watter unless driving the >105 dB struggles mightily in more common loudspeakers.. Headroom and all that something I am sure you experienced with he top of the line Dar tzeel ...
Now concerning the ethereal notion of "speed", that that i would have called "coherence" .. To my ears SS get it right . Some tubes do. I prefer the SS presentation these days. and while we are not measuring the coherence factor directly things like high frequency extension, Wide Bandwidth, Fast Rise and settling time, low (measured and measurable) distortion levels, low intrinsic noise may have to do something to it and there the best SS win ...

I hate to paraphrase a person I consider to be a troll on another forum but he's right on this

Music Reproduction is not magic. It is the application of physics. Music is The magic

there is no magic involved in any of those issues.

the difference in the duplex outlets is simply the application of solid science to optimization of a step in the power grid chain. if you improve the metalurgy with pure copper instead of an alloy that's not magic. then you make the outlet more mechanically sound and reduce the reasonance that's not magic. then you 'ground' all the metal parts properly to eliminate areas of magnetic contamination that's also solid science. the question is not whether it's better but whether you can hear the difference, how much can you hear the difference, and is it worth it? go to the Furutech web site and read about the GTX-D Rhodeium outlet, then tell me where it suggests magic.

as far as the 45 tube based SET and my impressions; i can tell you my expectations were not that it had any sort of chance to have any place in my system. i use to own the Tenor 75 watt OTL's, i've had many tube amplifiers in my system. 6 months ago i had the Lamm ML2.1's. 2 months ago i had the Conrad Johnson LP140M monoblocks. so i've certainly been exposed to lots of high end tube amps and my darTZeel 108 was always faster and lower noise.....less distortion. then i had the big dart 458 monoblocks. wow.

along comes this 1 watt 'thing' and it turns my world upside down with this super low distortion sound. sure; it came at a price of reduced dynamics and reduced soundstage. but my speakers are a super easy load of 93db and 6 ohms and the 1 watt only has to power my mid range and tweeter. the power in my room is very good so the amp is optimized. the power supply in the amp is optimized with the mercury vapor tube regulation.

1 watt is not enough to live with for me. so Scott is designing a similar amp with the 2a3 tube and using 2 mercury vapor tubes for the power supply and 2 special transformers. this should give me the low distortion of the 45 tube with enough spunk to be workable in my system.

i'll have it in mid October.

there is no magic involved. it's simply a very low distortion circuit with lots of science applied to optimize it.....and an appropriately efficent speaker system.

as far as Roger's comments on a holographic soundstage and elimination of a sweet spot; to the degree that i agree with him i've been there for awhile. in my room i have three levels of seating now. there is the near-field sweet spot where i have my chair. then there is the sofa behind my chair, and there is two chairs behind the sofa. as i've finally got my system to work correctly this last year, the area where a listener gets the 'full meal deal' has definitely expanded. mostly visitors like to be on the sofa (depending on their personal listening approach and comfort) and they are usually fine at either end or the middle. the holographic nature of my soundstage offers a good deal of image placement quite a ways off axis compared to previous times. and with every lowering of distortion in the system, the usable off axis seating improves a touch. it's still best on axis, but simply less worse off axis, or even lower or higher, than previously. you can walk around the room and the images stay coherent to a large degree.

lowering distortion has a scientific basis in all these things. no magic involved. although the experience many times seems magical.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Frantz said:

It would come as no surprise that I refuse to be drawn into some of these explanations. My fellow audiophiles of the subjectivist persuasion will have to forgive me.

+1. This one started off as what I thought was a solid report of the experience of listening to a very low-noise, high-transient response system, and fell very rapidly into fairy dust. I lost interest until I saw you here, Frantz, and though you might need some support.

Let start for example with the notion of elimination of a sweet spot. The speaker, its dispersion characteristics and its position with respect to the listener are what determinet the sweet spot. it is not a mater of reducing the distortions .. I would have preferred that we not go there to explain a sweet spot.

Agreed. Systems performing at very low-distortion/noise and at very high resolution can impact imaging, which may improve what you get in the sweet spot, but it can only be moved in the mix or in the placement of speakers. Of course I'm the heretic who believes that "sound stage" is a function of the speakers, their placement, and the room they're placed in, and cannot be effected by electronics unless they introduce noise or distortion that creates the illusion of ambience (low level turntable rumble or surface noise being the most obvious example)

The same for outlets.

I didn't read the post this came from. Are we talking about power outlets? Wall outlets? Utter fairy dust. Changing wall outlets cannot impact the noise or distortion in your system unless one of them is malfunctioning. Unless we're talking about some kind of filtering system? Then it just becomes unlikely to insignificant unless something is malfunctioning.

I find that those low wattage amps unless driving ultra high sensitivity speakers and even then tend for the most part to favor some parts of the spectrum.

I remain unconvinced that very low-wattage SET amps are not clipping peak transients, even in very efficient speakers. I have had one SET amp that did pretty well on 1/2 a watt, but all it had to drive was headphones -- no crossovers to push through and transducers just millimeters from my eardrums. It compared very well to the headphone output of an old HK integrated amp I have, and it seemed to get the mids and highs right with that low challenge, but compared to a modern SS device, the bass was lacking.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

(...)
Agreed. Systems performing at very low-distortion/noise and at very high resolution can impact imaging, which may improve what you get in the sweet spot, but it can only be moved in the mix or in the placement of speakers. Of course I'm the heretic who believes that "sound stage" is a function of the speakers, their placement, and the room they're placed in, and cannot be effected by electronics unless they introduce noise or distortion that creates the illusion of ambience (low level turntable rumble or surface noise being the most obvious example) (...)

Tim,
You are using a bad example to show your point. The low level turntable rumble or surface noise do not add to imaging - on the contrary it destroys the true low frequency information needed for accurate imaging. It one of the thinks you notice when listening to with high performance high-end turntables in adequate systems - the room ambiance appears clearly and noise seems to subjectively disappear, becoming disconnected from music.
Also IMHO electronics do affect imaging and sound stage - if you listen to the Krell KBL and KSA250 combo cold or after two hours warm up you will see large imaging differences in scale and size of image.