It's not a suggestion it is a reality. Tube dacs do exist. The point is that digtal and solid state have complimentary distorions creating a sort of negative synergy. Digtal and tube have opposite distortions tending to cancel each other out. A positive synergy if you will.
You don't always get what you pay for
- Thread starter Ethan Winer
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It's not a suggestion it is a reality. Tube dacs do exist. The point is that digtal and solid state have complimentary distorions creating a sort of negative synergy. Digtal and tube have opposite distortions tending to cancel each other out. A positive synergy if you will.
They do. And they reduce the efficiency of the amplifiers, the efficiency of the speakers and ability of the amp to control the motion of the driver at every step. And it's not just theoretical. Not to my ears. They tell me it is probably one of the most effective upgrades in audio, but it is either: a) Very expensive -- If you do it the way Rob refers to above, you double, triple, or more, the number of high-end amps and cables required, and add the expense of active crossover units/processors. b) If hifi companies build integrated active speaker systems the way pro audio manufacturers do (and the way they, themselves do with subwoofers), you kill the upgrade path and put an end to tweaking and "synergizing." It's anathema to the high-end business and not supportive of the gear hobby.
But my God it's good for the music.
Oh yeah -- MHO. YMMV.
Tim
You're just making stuff up. In fact, distortions are additive, whether they are similar or not. It's not possible for one type of distortion to negate another, other than perhaps in some special contrived algorithm that involves reversing polarity. If you have any evidence to the contrary I'd love to hear it.
--Ethan
I heard some very nice demo some years back from Meridian in an all-digital-active configuration, sounds was to some extent similar to what Tim describes somewhere above - I also heard some active designs in horn systems down here with positive results - my take is that (as we have a say here) "many routes lead one to Rome" - an active configuration is one of them. (and YES- we changed the topic of the original thread 180 degrees 
)
)Ethan on
--Ethan
If the cd player has a brittle high end distortion and the cd player has a similar problem putting them toghether would have a cumulative effect of an even more brittle high end. If you have the same cd player and paired a euphonic tube amp with it would tend to soften the highs.
Perhaps I stated it inartfully.
Maybe I could suggest some components that would demonstrate this for you.
I do however recall your arguments on things like the Aural Exciter and of late -masking.
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I think inaccurately would be more to the point than inartfully. One distortion does not "cancel out" the other. It covers it up. It masks it. You may end up with a more pleasant tone, but you'll end up with less music as a result, because you're not really taking away any distortion, you're just adding more.
Tim
No one has denied their existence.
I have yet to see any evidence for that nor have I heard an effective demonstration of it. Generally, adding distortions simply sums them unless they are mathematical inverses.
I merely responded to Tims question" Why would any one put6 a tube in a DAC. There seems to me to be ample proof of the existence of CD players and solid state amps with hard brittle highs. As you point out KAl Adding disitorions sums them. Unles your adding zero the sum increases. Yes tubes have distortion. It is well accepted that the distortion produced by tubes is generlly less offensive than those supplied by solid state. By removing the solid state distortions(coming form the ss oputput stage in the dac and frorm the solid state amp)you have yes reduced the distrotion. Now you have added the distrions of tubes . By definition less objectionable.
I can prove that anytime you like, but it should not be necessary.
Whether anyone thinks it's an improvement is another question which I never addressed, because it was not part of the question.
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Personally, i take the approach that all my components are distorted or inaccurate in some form...and therefore, as Kal points out the entire chain is adding/subtracting from the original signal is some form or other...and adding inaccuracy upon inaccuracy...so, as Gregadd points out, i just focus on a pool of equipment that ultimately creates a sound i like. And for me, i have seen components which seem (to my ears) to be compounding a brittle sound....which are ameliorated by adding tubes that end up blending to something i quite like. Was the replacement of one brittle SS amp with a soft tube amp any more or less distorted? possibly not...but the net net sound that emerges works better for me, and that is my personal primary focus.
Indeed, substituting tubes for a SS output stage (or amp) will change the sound and you may find it less objectionable but it does not support the argument offered regarding the cancellation (or replacement) of complementary distortions. Those are speculations which cannot be proven by listening.
I should have used the terminolgy "similar distortions can be eliminated and replaced by less objectionable ones."
But you'd still be wrong. Nothing is eliminated. Nothing is replaced. Both distortions remain. Maybe if you add enough "warm" distortion it will mask the "cold" distortion. But the harshness doesn't get eliminated or replaced, it just get a louder distortion played over it.
Tim
Tim,
It is curious that any one accepts that we need reflections in a room to create the stereo illusion - it would not work without them.
But as soon as someone refers to manipulating the precious signal of the recording electronically in the analogue phase to improve our perception of music some of us (not me) become nervous.
Nervous? If you want to try to bury one set of distortions beneath another instead of addressing the problem, that's fine by me. If you want to believe that you're not building up the grunge, but magically cancelling it out, I may point to your error, but it's not because your erroneous conclusions make me uncomfortable. It could be that I'm trying to help. The bottom line? If, here in 2012, you still have a DAC with a bad case of digititis, you need a new DAC, not a security blanket to throw over the old one.
Tim
Did you mean no one instead of any one? Regardless, the most precise and stable stereo effect and imaging occurs when all reflections are avoided. Now, some people may prefer the seemingly "more spacious" sound of untamed reflections, especially in larger rooms. But the basic "stereo effect" where sounds from both speakers seem to come from a phantom center is strongest with no reflections.
--Ethan
I'm trying to pull all of this together in my head- the original topic was whether objective/subjective should be conjoined by an 'or' as opposed to an 'and'; we then started talking about what measurements were tellling of sound quality, and the most recent turn is whether the sound of one component can compensate for another. So here's my question, and i think it takes us back to the original topic without losing the most recent contributions on adding distortions. Doesn't every piece of equipment, no matter how well engineered or designed, have some sonic character? And if that is true, isn't there something to equipment matching that has to go beyond the specifications or measurements? Here, for example, I'm thinking of cable. To one listener, leaving aside strong preferences for a particular coloration, one brand or type of cable will sound better in his system than others. And i think this is due to compensating for other aspects of the system. Call it a filter, perhaps. I know, staying with this example for the moment, the cable I use to connect stuff has been characterized as a little forgiving, sonically (you could read that as not bright or softer sounding i suppose), but it works well in combination with the horns I am using. Now, I suppose you could say the horns aren't accurate, and that's the problem. But i have to believe that every piece of equipment (even those 200k loudspeakers and comparable amps and sources) have sonic attributes that are identifiable. And that's where the ears, and some level of judgment in system/component matching come in.
Postscript: i realized i just sort of merged two threads, the objective/subjective one, and the you don't get what you pay for one, but they seem to be addressing the same issues, no?
Postscript: i realized i just sort of merged two threads, the objective/subjective one, and the you don't get what you pay for one, but they seem to be addressing the same issues, no?
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