VAC 452 iQ review in Stereophile

[Carlos269]

He'll be treated fine. It wasn't what you said, it was your "ad verecundiam" line of discourse.

Sometimes the truth hurts Bossman. The takeaway is, how many “Audiophiles” and participants here on the forum are astute to the fact that they are buying & getting this “controlled distortion”, when the manufacturers and reviewers are not openly stating it or acknowledging it????

 

[the sound of Tao]

Sometimes the truth hurts Bossman. The takeaway is how many “Audiophiles” and participants here on the forum are astute to the fact that they are buying & getting this “controlled distortion”, when the manufacturers and reviewers are not openly stating it or acknowledging it????

Disgraceful and ridiculous at the same time.

 

[tima]

ad verecundiam

Thanks Jack. I gotta remember that.

 

[Carlos269]

Disgraceful and ridiculous at the same time.

Care to elaborate or did you get lost along the way? While the practice of voicing products in a manner that results in “controlled distortion” may sound disgraceful, it’s existence is most definitely not ridiculous. Michael Fremer just provided anecdotal evidence of design choices made.

 

[cjfrbw]

He'll be treated fine. It wasn't what you said, it was your "ad verecundiam" line of discourse.

Having had a parochial school education, I prefer "ex cathedra".

 

[the sound of Tao]

Having had a parochial school education, I prefer "ex cathedra".

Now I’m going to have to look that one up! Are you sure you don’t mean ex-catheter?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Carpe Diem in audiophile-ese is "seize the chance to stress"

 

[awsmone]

I am enjoying reading this thread, believe it or not. First of all, people reading things into what I wrote that are not there are amusing. No, I did not name the darTzeel 468 amps but it was not some sort of nefarious plot! Most readers know they are my reference and it's mentioned in the associated equipment. Hervé is a clever engineer and he explains in his comment why the power measurement was what it was. Of course I'm sure people here know that Stereophile reviewers do not see the measurements before we write our reviews. I found interesting the comments about designers "cooking the books" and distortion measurements. There's art and science here. If you go 100% science guess what happens? You end up with a product that measures best and sounds a-musical. Please consider how recordings are made. For a time tube preamp-based microphones were out of favor because of noise and distortion figures. Try buying a vintage Neumann U-47 today. Very costly. What happened? Engineers heard the lifeless sonics digital recordings produced and needed something to "warm up" the sound with added noise and distortion! Surely we don't want high distortion non-linear products in our system, right? Yet vinyl playback to my ears sounds far more like live music than does even the best digital today. For whatever reasons. And no doubt cartridges and phono preamps add to a system non-linearity and higher distortion. So, choose what pleases your ears or what looks better in charts and graphs. For me it's an easy choice...the young P.S. Audio designer Darren Myer produced P.S.'s Stellar phono preamp using measurements and listening. He was willing to back off the measurements somewhat to achieve a certain sound and people love it. Not that doesn't measure well because it does, but it could have measured 'better' and not sounded as good....I think both Hervé and Kevin Hayes have designed great amplifiers. One's SS and one's tubed yet they don't sound radically different. That's why visitors who are "tube guys" hear the darTzeels and say "That's a solid state amp I could live with", and vice-versa for the VAC amps that are still here and probably will be until we allow people in our home....(virus related)....

I have to agree it is a strange juggling act between neutrality and musicality

if some degree of euphonic distortion wasn’t necessary you would not see the plethora of equipment in recording mixing and mastering which add colour and interesting distortions to recorded music

i ask anyone to go and look at the vast arsenal of distortion adding devices that recording engineers utilise in the attempts to make recordings saleable to people

a purest approach to reproduction of recorded music may give some such as those on ASR feeling of superiority from a measurable technical level, whether their choice of ultimate amplifiers we should all own benchmark AHB2 but funnily life is not so simple .... I wish

 

[sujay]

For being a man of few (written) words, I simply can’t resist saying that this thread is right up there in terms of entertainment value! This is one free for all, virtual slugfest - unadulterated treat in lockdown conditions..........and somehow I have lost track of the title of the thread!

Keep going at it......

 

[awsmone]

Mike, I've ended up w likely very neutral analog source (revealing and even handed LT arm and LPSd Straingauge cart), and added a bit of sizzle and sauce w my triodes and 101dB eff quasi-full range driver spkrs. I know full well I can't go the dark side 105dB volumes on iron grip D'Agostinos on YG towers. But I can absolutely get in the zone w triodes into spkrs well suited to my very large room, and w zero fatigue and max immersion.

I very nearly went down the more ruler flat linear sound w the ATC 100 actives pro studio monitors, or the Rockport Antares/Boulder amps I was quite close to getting.

I think I dodged the bullets of "great on paper, less so on the ears" w those two systems.

I love vinyl and have five turntables but to say you have a neutral analog source is surely an oxymoron ?

 

[morricab]

Sometimes the truth hurts Bossman. The takeaway is, how many “Audiophiles” and participants here on the forum are astute to the fact that they are buying & getting this “controlled distortion”, when the manufacturers and reviewers are not openly stating it or acknowledging it????

Given that humans listen to hifi and not computers, if "controlled distortion" is sonically more pleasing to a listener, then what's the problem? One should ignore psychoacoustics at their audio peril. Besides, this is a hobby for fun...no electrons were hurt in the production of that "controlled distortion".

 

[morricab]

Carpe Diem in audiophile-ese is "seize the chance to stress"

Only to those pre-disposed to Neurotica!

 

[spiritofmusic]

I love vinyl and have five turntables but to say you have a neutral analog source is surely an oxymoron ?

If you'd heard my wallowy Michell Orbe/SME V/Lyra Parnassus in comparison, you'd understand my comment.
Self effacing LT arm and uncoloured Straingauge cart pushes way more twds neutrality than many other pricier rigs I've heard.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Of course you could say the oxymoron of such a moronic comment as my tt being neutral needs less oxygen Lol.

 

[awsmone]

If you'd heard my wallowy Michell Orbe/SME V/Lyra Parnassus in comparison, you'd understand my comment.
Self effacing LT arm and uncoloured Straingauge cart pushes way more twds neutrality than many other pricier rigs I've heard.

In your humble opinion only

and oxymoron and moron have no relationship in meaning only in spelling

maybe take more than a second to think about the discussions on colorations in reproduction of audio replay

and that analog vinyl source are anything but “neutral” in that respect

because you can cite a version worse than your current source doesnt make it “neutral” just different

 

[Carlos269]

I have to agree it is a strange juggling act between neutrality and musicality

if some degree of euphonic distortion wasn’t necessary you would not see the plethora of equipment in recording mixing and mastering which add colour and interesting distortions to recorded music

i ask anyone to go and look at the vast arsenal of distortion adding devices that recording engineers utilise in the attempts to make recordings saleable to people

a purest approach to reproduction of recorded music may give some such as those on ASR feeling of superiority from a measurable technical level, whether their choice of ultimate amplifiers we should all own benchmark AHB2 but funnily life is not so simple .... I wish

Agree. The “come to Jesus moment” is that since the advent of the “Audiophile pursuit”, the goal as it has related to amplification has been the concept or philosophy of a “straight wire with gain”. The irony is that today many of the “purists” in this hobby, one of which I am not, still preach about faithful “what goes in is what comes out” while reveling in euphonic coloration. My question above was, how many actually know and acknowledge that what they are enjoying and effervescently spouting about is a result of “dreaded” spectral distortions.

For the record, I stopped being a purist in this hobby around 20 years ago, when my explorations into the mastering world exposed me to methods and techniques, to enrich recordings and playback enjoyment, which broke the purist Audiophile’s cardinal rules.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Sure Awsmone. For me, I spent 15 yrs of analog rigs w varying levels of coloured. I now have my benchmark for what's less coloured, often informed from digital (and I really don't care if people think that's poor logic, it works for me), and I've evolved in that direction to what I consider to be hugely more neutral from my analog source. For me, start-stop extended bass, lifelike speed, tonal discrimination and timbral accuracy are my benchmarks. My LT air arm and LPSd Straingauge has been critical to achieving these parameters. Indeed as I discovered I was getting them, the true joy of musical enjoyment from analog came thru loud and clear. And converging w my stellar digital was the icing on the cake.

 

[awsmone]

For the record, I stopped being a purist in this hobby around 20 years ago, when my explorations into the mastering world exposed me to methods and techniques, to enrich recordings and playback enjoyment, which broke the purist Audiophile’s cardinal rules.

exactly for me it was bringing home a mastering preamplifier and its immense capacity to alter the sound to your personal preference

the whole recording industry is based on tweaking the sound of the original event

i have no idea why some audiophile think it needs to be treated with “neutrality” since there is no way of knowing what that exactly ever was ?

 

[andromedaaudio]

This is Charles Hansen's post from AA

https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=critics&n=37715

Lol , i never took his " reviews " very serious anyway .

Ked i just bought a fully revised ML 360 s dac , what does that make me .. deaf ?? lol

 

[awsmone]

Sure Awsmone. For me, I spent 15 yrs of analog rigs w varying levels of coloured. I now have my benchmark for what's less coloured, often informed from digital (and I really don't care if people think that's poor logic, it works for me), and I've evolved in that direction to what I consider to be hugely more neutral from my analog source. For me, start-stop extended bass, lifelike speed, tonal discrimination and timbral accuracy are my benchmarks. My LT air arm and LPSd Straingauge has been critical to achieving these parameters. Indeed as I discovered I was getting them, the true joy of musical enjoyment from analog came thru loud and clear. And converging w my stellar digital was the icing on the cake.

sure I am sure your enjoying it, and good luck to you
my analog experience is even longer but I don’t speak “ex cathedra” about neutrality

I have five turntables and more than a dozen cartridges and they all sound different, so to me the contruct of “neutrality “ is quite simply an oxymoron suggest you look up what it means if your don’t understand the inference

I can agree with your assumption that your current system is the best you have heard, “ but neutral” I am sorry but what is that ?

the only definition I can conceive scientifically is you went and got the master tapes and performed a null test with your rig and they compared favourable to some known db level