Transparency and the sound of a system

[microstrip]

First of all, as we have addressed numerous times, you cannot know if the Devialet has absolute "fidelity to the recording". It shows a lot of details but how much of that is a natural portrayl of the recording and how much is "highlighting" of details that makes them standout unnaturally? I would argue that a lot of the latter is happening... Therefore, IMO, just saying something has a lot of details is not the same as saying it has fidelity to the recording.

You stated clearly that the Devialet is the most transparent equipment that you have knowledge of...you did not state which generation and now you state the first gen was not so good but the latest one is great. I have heard the latest ones and the first one and none of them have fidelity to the sound of real music in real space and so to my ears, while they do indeed have a lot of detail they are not particularly transparent because they do not accurately capture soundstage and imaging and other indicators of true low level resolution. They image relatively flat compared to good SETs we have compared them against and this is an indication of exaggerated highs or high frequency distortion that will also give a sensation of more detail.

As I told David, I am telling that other amplifiers hide detail, not that Devialet invents or creates detail. You can rise the volume and the information is not there, it becomes lost.

And fidelity to your (or mine ) vision of real music is not an absolute indicator of transparency.

 

[Lagonda]

I do not expect people who cannot hear Lamm underdrive such big speakers, who cannot hear the muddiness of bass by VTL with the XLF, who think analog and digital are equal, and who like dCS to not like them.

ps: My non Lampi digital favorites are Neodio, MSB, Totaldac, and Aries Cerat.

No visit to Portugal in the future i guess!

 

[bonzo75]

No visit to Portugal in the future i guess!

If he puts back the soundlabs and invites me to listen without devialet and on EMT

 

[microstrip]

I do not expect people who cannot hear Lamm underdrive such big speakers, who cannot hear the muddiness of bass by VTL with the XLF, who think analog and digital are equal, and who like dCS to not like them.

ps: My non Lampi digital favorites are Neodio, MSB, Totaldac, and Aries Cerat.

I knew about it ...

I try to keep an open positive view on all media and techniques and debate them, not obscuring them with my strict personal preferences or ownerships.

 

[ddk]

I find moving air and decent bass extension needed to my music enjoyment.
.

Me too !

david

 

[Kcin]

I would agree that freedom from distortion allows for transparency. Distortion when it exists can manifest in the hyper accentuation or perception of detail or the absence of it.

Frequency related aberrations may obscure transparency.

I think the concept of natural is more difficult to define.

I have had the Berning ZOTLs for some time and still have original Futtermans and I have heard extensively the Tenor OTL. Any transformer coupled amp is going to have a challenge with relative transparency against any OTL because of design choices. That said, there are many very pleasing transformer coupled amps.

I amp not amp agnostic, I have Big (211) and small(2A3) SETs , OTLs and PP transformer coupled on hand .. each has their application.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . Any transformer coupled amp is going to have a challenge with relative transparency against any OTL because of design choices. That said, there are many very pleasing transformer coupled amps.

. . .

+1

 

[Tango]

Devialet are the worst amps of many that I have heard on Martin Logans, Avalon, and Anima. Luckily I have not heard them on other speakers. They don't sound flat compared to good SETs. They sound flat compared to everything I have compared them with, lacking decay and tone.

You are so cruel.

Tang

 

[tima]

Where it gets even more interesting is the pairing of an OTL/OCL amp with an OTL/OCL preamp. I ran Atma-Sphere amps with Ralph's MP-1 preamp and also tried the MP-1 with Berning. Of the former I found: "A clarity of musical reproduction that, on first hearing, is so limpid, so penetrating, that it is difficult to convey in words." - my 2007 coverage. From admittedly limited experiene, here, for me at that time, was the epitome of transparency.

The MP-1 uses the same basic architecture as the A-S amps. There I speculated: "MP-1 Mk III simply inserts less second-order harmonic distortion (that near silent octave above the fundamental) that typically lends a psycho-acoustic sense of warmth or fullness. Lack of added warmth does not mean washed out or lean." As read in a few posts in this thread, there can be an the association of OTL's with "lean". We think we know what that means sonically, though its rarely defined (no threads devoted to 'lean' such as transparency gets.)

Perhaps an aspect of transparency is a lack of distortion as speculated in #71. But maybe there are distortions we like, or miss when not present. <TC Voice> You want Transparency? You can't handle Transparency. </TC Voice>

;-)

 

[cjfrbw]

I don't understand what transparency is, but I know it when I don't see it.

 

[parkcaka]

If you are a music lover, you can not tolerate absolute transparency (in theory) in a system. I am a tour manager. I am on stage all the time. You simply can't listen to real trumpet or any other high register brass instruments more than an hour. My favorite musicians are playing brass don't get me wrong but the real sound from these instruments are powerful enough to wear you down.

So if you are music lover and like to listen to music for hours through the weekend or the night, your system better color the sound in the most pleasing way. That's why I always look out for equipments that make my FAVOURITE music play the most PLEASING way.

But that's just an opinion. Cheers.

 

[Ron Resnick]

If you are a music lover, you can not tolerate absolute transparency (in theory) in a system. I am a tour manager. I am on stage all the time. You simply can't listen to real trumpet or any other high register brass instruments more than an hour. My favorite musicians are playing brass don't get me wrong but the real sound from these instruments are powerful enough to wear you down.

So if you are music lover and like to listen to music for hours through the weekend or the night, your system better color the sound in the most pleasing way. That's why I always look out for equipments that make my FAVOURITE music play the most PLEASING way.

But that's just an opinion. Cheers.

I promise I’m not trying to start an argument; this is an honest question: I noticed that your system is digital only. If you presently find music playback fatiguing have you considered putting together an analog playback system?

 

[parkcaka]

I promise I’m not trying to start an argument; this is an honest question: I noticed that your system is digital only. If you presently find music playback fatiguing have you considered putting together an analog playback system?

I wish I had a nice analog playback system. Due to space restrictions and practicality I am now on only digital side. I have a dilemma. Sound-wise, I can only reach my holy grail in this hobby on an analog system. But on the other hand I am a music lover. I can hardly listen to an album 2 or 3 times. I rarely listen to reference recordings. It's all about the art for me. I always look out for the new music. I listen to more than 15 albums on a single weekend.

My utopia is a high-end analog setup with unlimited supply of LPs.

So I had to choose. I said "I can live with a little less in SQ but I can not live with only a few thousand LPs".

I hope I can have the means to do both in the future.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Tim,

As much as I love OTL/OCL in concept, and OTL transparency in practice, I am one of those people who finds OTL to be “lean-sounding.” But I agree with and totally respect Ralph Karsten’s view that, strictly speaking, OTL is not lean-sounding — OTL is neutral-sounding; it is the transformer in a transformer-coupled tube amplifier which adds warmth and haziness.

 

[bonzo75]

I promise I’m not trying to start an argument; this is an honest question: I noticed that your system is digital only. If you presently find music playback fatiguing have you considered putting together an analog playback system?

I think he is talking about real brass instruments for more than an hour... Not digital or analog

it is easy to make digital non fatiguing that is hardly the issue between analog and digital except when digital is poorly set up

 

[parkcaka]

I think he is talking about real brass instruments for more than an hour... Not digital or analog

it is easy to make digital non fatiguing that is hardly the issue between analog and digital except when digital is poorly set up

Thanks bonzo. I meant that. If our system played brass exactly as it is live, we would hardly listen to music as much as we are doing now.

 

[tima]

Tim,

As much as I love OTL/OCL in concept, and OTL transparency in practice, I am one of those people who finds OTL to be “lean-sounding.” But I agree with and totally respect Ralph Karsten’s view that, strictly speaking, OTL is not lean-sounding — OTL is neutral-sounding; it is the transformer in a transformer-coupled tube amplifier which adds warmth and haziness.

Yes, I think you're right. Would you characterize warmth and haziness as distortion?

I would probably say 'more neutral.' My notion that there is no neutral - no objective or absolute neutral - partially comes from the fact that between, say, the cartridge and speakers there are a whole lot of physical parts whose physicality can't help but shape a signal. Take away two of the most common, namely transformers and capacitors on the output side, and the result would seem to be obvious - and that obviousness pretty much demonstrates the distortive impact those parts can have on sound.

Then you have gear such as Lamm - it has caps and transformers yet its circuit topology yields a sound that is so beguiling; it is so very easy to listen to music through Lamm gear. In direct side by side comparisons both the Atma-Sphere OTL and Lamm M1.2 don't lose that much to each other - imo. The OTL is more articulate, digs deeper into both lows and highs, may actually be a tad harmonically richer - all for the lack of parts, or put differently all from the removal of distortion. Of course none of that changes the compelling character of the Lamm sound.

Sometimes our words create starker contrasts than actual perceptions or 'psychoacoustically enhanced' perceptions. Pin a 'lean' label on a piece of audio equipment and most (not all) will say, "oh no, I don't want that." If someone gives such a characterization, I always ask: what is the antonym? In the case of 'lean', would you rather have 'fat'? When people say Lamm gear is 'dark' , is the contrast 'light'? No, the proper contrast (imo) is 'thin' - dark is the wrong word, though for many it comes first to mind.

That's why I'm thinking more and more in terms of relative amounts of distortion and less of common characterizing terminology. Many of us audiophiles will reflexively shrink back when asked what sort of distortions do we prefer. But maybe that's what is happening, a preference for this or that distortion - a happy distortion.

That sort of approach can get in trouble though when it bumps up against the word 'natural.' Maybe the antonym of natural is 'reproduced.'

 

[DaveC]

That's why I'm thinking more and more in terms of relative amounts of distortion and less of common characterizing terminology. Many of us audiophiles will reflexively shrink back when asked what sort of distortions do we prefer. But maybe that's what is happening, a preference for this or that distortion - a happy distortion.

That sort of approach can get in trouble though when it bumps up against the word 'natural.' Maybe the antonym of natural is 'reproduced.'

I believe that the difference in system preference... and the perception of "transparency"... often comes down to what added distortions, artifacts, noise etc. are added by the system. The system, including the room's acoustics, is an electro-mechanical feedback device.

The acoustic energy from the speakers is being fed back through the electronics and transduced back into electrical signal, with various frequencies attenuated and/or delayed in time more or less vs others, then transduced back to acoustic energy by the speakers. You are also hearing room acoustics, which by definition is the energy generated by the speakers delayed in time and non-linearly attenuated.

You'd think all this would create a muddy mess and result in a hazy, dark, thick, warm sound. That's a possibility, for sure. But I'd also argue it can have the opposite effect. It can make the sound seem clearer, with vocals easier to understand. It can make the soundstage seem more defined with imaging clearer and more separation between images. It can affect spatial perception in terms of depth as well.

So, we assume that the the more "transparent" the sound is, the closer to hearing exactly what's on the recording we get. This is certainly incorrect... transparency is enhanced by certain additions to the sound... possibly combined with the absence of other additions.

 

[microstrip]

Where it gets even more interesting is the pairing of an OTL/OCL amp with an OTL/OCL preamp. (...)

The Atmasphere's are not DC coupled internally - they have coupling capacitors between stages - one of the options is using VCap teflon capacitors. Part of the sonic signature of the Atmasphere's is due to the balanced design - as explained by Ralph Karsten some time ago in WBF. One of the reasons for partnering Atamasphere pre and amplifier is using the 600 ohm balanced mode, again according to Ralph it neutralizes the cable between the units. Surely their sonic signatures match - IMHO most SS amplifiers make Atamasphere OTL amplifiers sound lean.

 

[microstrip]

Tim,

As much as I love OTL/OCL in concept, and OTL transparency in practice, I am one of those people who finds OTL to be “lean-sounding.” But I agree with and totally respect Ralph Karsten’s view that, strictly speaking, OTL is not lean-sounding — OTL is neutral-sounding; it is the transformer in a transformer-coupled tube amplifier which adds warmth and haziness.

Technically the OTLs are not neutral sounding, except with a few speakers that match their typical high output impedance. Although improperly dimensioned transformers can add warmth - second harmonic distortion - I do not see why properly designed transformers add warmth. IMHO these properties are due to design intentions, or sometimes budget constraints of the design, but are not intrinsic to transformers. Sometimes people have a tube amplifier that shows haziness and find that just replacing a few passive components eliminates it.

Stereophile measurements have shown why OTLs can sound lean with most loudspeakers, particularly when they are designed to be used with SS amplifiers. OTLs and Soundlab's were a dream match, at some period Roger West optimized them to SS amplifiers - immediately users start complaining that Soundlab's sounded lean with OTLs. Fortunately he later released a high-impedance "tweak" that solved most of the problem.