Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog 425
Ant writes This Wired News article says there is aural magic in the combination of the very old with the very new: iPod through an old radio or tube-driven amplifier gives it a special warmth and atmosphere. '50-year-old Takeyuki Ishii insists the antique equipment creates an atmosphere that has been forgotten. The softer tones ease listeners and make them feel warm and relaxed.'"
Comfort tubes. (Score:4, Funny)
Considering the heat put out. That's not an unexpected result. Throw in a big meal.
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, audiophiles do quite a bit of blind testing. Or at least scientist audiophiles do. I was totally blown away when i tested different power supplies, power cords, interconnect cables, and speaker cables on the same system. I basically figured most of the hype was total nonsense. I mean, why the heck would you have to burn in a *cable*? Turns out that you can easily tell the difference in a blind test even though such a test is difficult to arrange - you basically have to have one guy rewiring stuff and one guy blindfolded listening. We were shocked that the differences predicted by the audiophile crowd were mostly pretty damn obvious. I still dont *understand* why some of these differences exist, though others do make some sense.
Actually, I have been messing about with audiophile quality mp3 systems for some time now. I know, I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, but despite popular opinion it is possible to get really impressive sound with high quality variable bit rate mp3s.
It turns out that the secret is in the quality of the sound card you use and the quality of the D to A converter. Using a studio quality soundcard with digital audio output and a nice D to A (I am quite pleased with Theta, but there are other excellent manufacturers) together make high quality variable bit rate mp3s sound quite good on an audiophile quality system.
To give you some idea of how good, I have a very nice transport (CD player for the uninitiated), and direct comparison of CD, SACD, and high quality mp3s reveals only minor flaws. The most significant is that the mp3s sound slightly 'cleaner' than the CD or SACD versions. This is not a good thing for the purist who desires to hear the sound *exactly* as it was recorded, but many less discriminating listeners actually prefer the mp3 versions.
Somewhat off topic, of course, but it is interesting to me that you can indeed build near audiophile quality sound systems based around mp3s. Not something there is much discussion about in audiophile communities as yet, but as digital encoding gets better i suspect more and more audiophiles will cross the 'digital divide' that currently exists. For instance, the same sort of thing happened with the transition from vinyl to CD and SACD- even though some diehard purists still sing the praises of vinyl, most audiophile folks now agree that SACD is the 'best' sound currently available.
Another selling point is that truly digital recordings stored on random access media do not degrade over time, while the CDs and SACDs in your collection do so demonstrably. Interesting stuff.
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:3, Informative)
With storage as cheap as it is today using lossless encoding seems like a no-brainer if you are into sound quality.
As an added benefit you can reencode for portables at an appropriate bit rate ( small flash player for running gets ~128, iPod gets ~200) and you are future proof as you can reencode to new formats if/when they catch on.
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can really tell the difference in a double blind test, you could probably win a million dollars from the Randi Foundation [randi.org]. Their mission is partly to debunk unscientific claims, which I'm pretty sure includes (for them) being able to distinguish sound differences from different "power supplies, power cords, interconnect cables, and speaker cables". One interesting take on 'sound improvement' is here [randi.org]. An interesting followup directly related to supposed cable differences is here [randi.org].)
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that interconnect performance is an asymptotic curve, and it rises pretty steeply at the low end.
Ever heard of a Tice Clock? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess I'm an anomaly; I was born in 1975, and grew up hearing audio as presented by American vinyl. Don't believe the hype; engineers did horrible things to audio to make LPs sound good; if you think it's terrible that MP3s use filters to cut down on artifacts, you should hate vinyl. On top of that most the time I heard said records through a tube amp. It sounds warm, yes, but you're not getting the full range of human-hearing-range audio. I can make a transistor amp sound warm, dang it, with the right level of signal degradation.
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah. I thought so too until I heard the difference -- in my own house with my stereo.
Just because it is an electric current does not mean that there are not physical and chemical changes taking place.
Also not everyone is capable of hearing the difference. Can you hear falling snow when it lands on your shoulder? I can. Sometimes I wish I couldn't hear it. It would save me a lot of money on sound equipment.......
Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, you don't have to accept my conclusions.
Let us know how your double blind test works out.
Audio: science plus magic (Score:5, Insightful)
- Turn the amplifier on and let it warm up for a good 30 to 60 minutes (especially if you're using a tube amp).
- Turn amp off and plug in cable A. (The amp doesn't cool down much during the 30 seconds it takes to change cables.)
- Listen to cable A
- Turn amp off and plug in cable B.
- Listen to cable B
- Go back to cable A (which you always do, to confirm whether you heard a real difference).
- Repeat 10,000 times.
- ????
- Profit!
Blind testing works the same way, except that each cycle involves a random choice between cables A and B.You control for the "thermal characteristics of the AMPLIFIER" by designing the test carefully. No problem.
And, yes, you can hear the difference between cables in blind tests. And it is very easy to do... if the cables are sufficiently different. I went from plugging in my speakers with lamp cord (don't ask) to some whiz-bang audiophile speaker cable and I fell out of my chair.
I won't get into the "scientific basis" here... except to say that, if you were to watch an apple fall from a tree, you might well conclude that there's no "scientific basis" for quantum mechanics. After all, doesn't Newtonian mechanics explain apples perfectly?
- - - -
As for the idea of selling "special" cool-looking plastic parts and claiming they improve the sound... that business already exists, and it's called "Bose". :)
Actually, that's not fair. Audiophiles love making Bose jokes (bitter jealousy, you know) but I believe that Bose has a quality product. The product is composed of (a) a box that audiophiles laugh at, but which can produce better sound then any random boom box, and (b) amazingly great marketing, such that the customers truly believe that they are hearing great sound. And so, therefore, they are.
Audio is psychology, and reproducing audio is as much magic as it is science. I've heard it said that the customers who brought the first hand-cranked record players were amazed by the realistic quality of the sound, and were often unable to tell the difference between a live band and a Victrola in blind tests.
Re:Audio: science plus magic (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that's a retarded comparison to make. Of course lamp cord isn't going to produce a quality sound -- there's nothing in their design conducive to carrying an audio signal.
A comparison between $20-a-spool speaker wire from Radio Shack and $20-an-inch audiophile speaker wire would be more informative, and less noticeable.
Re:Audio: science plus magic (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you can get really good sound from lamp cord, it all depends on what kind.
As an EE these type of nonsense comparisons always piss me off.
For the most part, copper is copper and you're better off with 12 AWG "lamp cord" than 16 AWG "monster cable".
It may not be as pretty, and won't be as impressive to all your friends, but it sounds just as good, really.
vinyl will last longer than your ipod (Score:3, Interesting)
i have records here that still play fine from the 1930's -- that's
about 70 years, and the quality hasn't significantly changed for
that amount of time -- i would like to see an ipod hard drive
that is still spining in 70 years.
you will say that you should transfer your data
from the one hard drive to another before that --
but then we were talking about the record lasting longer
than your ipod...
btw -- i did play some stereolab through the old
Kuba Tube FM Stereo console using an iPod and
a small FM transmitter -- works great!
it was a wonderful moment of nostalgia for me,
since i remember listening to that radio when i was
four years old (back in 1971), and it was already
an antique then. this brought the old and the new together!
best regards,
j [earthlink.net]
Re:caviar (Score:3, Informative)
That was a few years ago and I have heard that since then WD has got their act together and that current WD drives don't have the same problems, but I haven't bought a WD drive to check that out.
I purchased a new 250GB Maxtor DiamondMax drive this weekend to supplement the Maxtor 80GB in my primary system that has run pretty much 24/7 without a drive failure for 2+ years (knock on wood)...
What a coincidence... (Score:4, Funny)
Movie's tagline: If you're bored with the rear, try it in the ear.
Warmth? (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's dual channel mono."
He didn't believe me until I showed him the encoder unit, and showed the same audio with stereo Vu meters.
I like the sound of old radios. They're not real great to blast or anything....don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my 6" sub for anything, but there is something fun about listening to a distant AM signal at night on a glowing tube radio.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nono, it was a friendly conversation. I wasn't trying to show him up or anything. Just correcting a mistake he'd made.
But he's a great example of know-it-alls who try hard to justify overspending on home and car stereo equipment.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a group of 100 people listen to something played on tubes then on modern equipment. Over and over. See if they can tell the difference, and which they think is best.
Has this been done?
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a difference in the guitar world, especially when the the amp is in distortion. A much lesser effect exists on old tube amplifiers, radios, etc and if you have the money and ears to appreciate it, then more power to you.
I dont see why people have to get all up in arms defending digital audio when someone prefers something else. It gets a bit ridiculous when you consider all the variations that exist within the realms of analog and digital recording, producing, reproduction, etc.
The "audiophile" debate is fairly ridiculous because the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty hard once you go past typical consumer equipment. Can't we instead bitch about things we all notice like how certain sounds come out sounding like crap at any mp3 bitrate (think distortion heavy wall-of-guitar sounds like Yo La Tengo). Or how shitty near-black colors look with MPEG-2 video encoding? Or how I can't hear the damn dialogue on any Matrix DVD because of silly mastering? Or how Directv sometimes decides to encode stuff like crap two days out of the week? Is that better encoding equipment on strike? Or how about just Greedo shoots first.
Wouldn't be hard at all (Score:3, Interesting)
There is actually a DIY design for SoundBlaster Audigys (or maybe Audigy 2s, can't remember) to do a tube output stage. It is said (I've never heard it) to help smooth out harsh sound and mask some unplesantness like MP3 artifacts. Doesn't mean it makes teh sound objictevly more accurate, just subjectively more plesant.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:3, Funny)
Yea...that doesn't even make sense. They ought to be doing earplug tests.
Eh? Eh? Am I right or what people?
Eh?
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Young people tend to like modern equipment better, older people (30years and older) want tube amplifiers. So why is that? It's because of the things the people grew up with. You are accustomed to the sound of your childhood, and that's the sound that is comfy to you. It has nothing to do with the naturality of the sound or anything else, it's pure conditioning.
I remember an experiment done by the c't magazine, where they tried to find out what compression format sounds better. The only one who was pretty good in finding out if the sound was coming from a compressed source even at higher bit rates was one with a slight ear damage, because he had a different listening curve than the others.
And if you would make an experiment where the sound is played live vs. played from a digitized or an analog source, you will notice a similar thing: The live sound will be the least pleasing to the people who want tube amplifiers. But if you put a low pass filter on the digitized source they won't be able to tell the difference.
If you look at the current electronic music scene, you will find that it has adapted to this already. You can put "analog" filters to make the sound more seventies, you can add "vinyl crack" to improve on that. Basicly the "back to the analog naturality" movement is nothing else than a "back to the limitations of 60ies technology". Eventually it will die out when the people used to those limitations die out.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Informative)
30? Dude, I'm almost 38, and when I was really little (6-8 years old), I had a Winnie-The-Pooh transistor radio that took an ordinary 9-volt battery. You need to go back a little further to find people who feel all comfy from their tube-filled childhood.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for that. Glad I'm not the only "older" person who didn't own any tube-based products. Though my parents had a few. Our old RCA console TV with a giant real wood cabinet (no particle board crap) was loaded with 'em. I remember bringing the tubes down to the local drug store to test them on their tube tester.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:3, Informative)
We also had a reel-to-reel tape recorder with tubes in it. (I've still got that, it still worked last time I tried it.) We would rock out to "Godspell" and Elton John and stuff like that. My dad had built two mono amps (for stereo) from kits and you could see the tubes pulsate when you really cranked it up.
I remember talking about "a tube being out" and going to the drug store to use the tube tester [radiohistory.org] to check them out. (The tube testers rocked - they had a whole bunch of knobs on them, and looked very cool to me at 5 years old...) Eventually my dad got his own tube tester so he could check stuff out himself. By about 1980 or so I don't think we had anything in active use that had tubes in it.
I guess the moral of the story is that it was probably the early to mid 70s when solid state started making a big appearence. By 1980 I imagine that tubes were hard to find.
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you're MAKING music, you don't want an accurate sound, you want a good sound (actually, an accurate sound straight from the pickups of the guitar sounds like crap). When you're listening to it, you should in theory want a more accurate reproduction of what you're playing, since the musicians already worked around the warm tone that they're trying to convey.
Adding to this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Further to getting that sound quality (based around colouration and distortion characteristics, guitar players choose speakers that colour the sound and depending on the music or the nature of guitar tone they seek will choose a speaker that breaks up earlier. The whole guitar rig is chosen with the intent of a desirable sound. You're not after a hi-fi reproduction of what comes from the amp. It's not pretty.
I choose different tubes for my guitar amp depending on the EQ and break up characteristics that I want. A change in tubes changes my sound. An EL-34 has a different sound than a 6CA7 or a 6550 or a 6L6. One step further, there's a variance between the manufacturers of the "same" tube. Many guitar players (some referred to as "cork sniffers") seek out NOS (New Old Stock) tubes for the specific sounds they are after.
Through the guitar, effects, amp and speaker cabinet combination, I seek a desirable tone. Each element a piece that impacts my sound in a way that is desirable to me. Once I have that, I depend on the PA system (solid state) for an accurate reproduction of that tone
Re:Adding to this... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Funny)
And always keep your files on prime number tracks of your hard disk (i.e. track 2, track 3, track 5, track 7 etc.) to get the best sound!
Re:And since he believes it... (Score:3, Funny)
old tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:old tech? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:old tech? (Score:2)
All in what's trying to be achieved.
Re:old tech? (Score:3, Insightful)
The amplifier for an electgric guitar is part of the insturment.. it's there for sound production, not sound re-production.
Tubes have a warmer sound, they distory differently, and produce differnet harmonics than solid state gear, and people tend to like this better.
In terms of accuracy though, they are not more accurate than solid state gear. Often, it's the lack of accuracy and the coloration that people really like (and miss)
Re:old tech? (Score:2)
It's what you like (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really a matter of personal preference. I am an artist (vocal and trumpet) and feel that music should be a representation of your emotion, feelings, etc. I personally do not like music that is created digitally. (Think drum machine, synthesizer, etc.) I don't mind digital recording as long as conservative compression or no compression is used.
I like tube amps because I feel that they add a certain imperfection that gives music character. The best way I can describe the difference is to compare a tube amp and a solid state amp with this example.
A tube amp is a concert hall. The seats closer to the stage hear a different sound when compared to people sitting in the back. The sound isn't perfect but you are hearing the music directly from the source.
A solid state amp is a concert hall where you are sitting in the "perfect" seat. The instruments/people blend perfectly. There is no emotion since the blending is perfect. You do not think about the music, you just listen.
Of course equipment made today can replicate sound almost exactly but for me that's not what always matters, IMHO.
Re:It's what you like (Score:3, Insightful)
so.. the sound that pumps out of the speakers doesn't matter? but isn't that the _only_ thing that matters on a sound reproducing device?that tube will win EVERY TIME in a comparision even if it's made to sound _exactly_ the same and you can't even tell the difference in any way? I fail to see the logic in that. they're just technical devices and if they produce the same sound then they do that.
some just prefer the smoothing(or whatever you'd like to call it, or then they just prefer running them at the limit when it doesn't distort so harshly with a tube as with transistors...
you know, like some people prefer to 'pump up the bass' on any equ they get their hands on or how "21" subwoofer is totally needed for listening music in a tight car" and all crap like that.
tube is cool and all(I got a tube amped tape recorder in some closet I fiddled to have audio in and work as an active speaker)... but it's not like it's some magical device.
but then again some people really believe that a piece of copper will turn into something better if you just paid 10 times the money as you would have for a cheaper product.
What's next? (Score:4, Funny)
Tubes seem to be coming back into "fashion" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tubes seem to be coming back into "fashion" (Score:2)
Re:Tubes seem to be coming back into "fashion" (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice But.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice But.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The 50-15000Hz thing clips off the ultra highs and ultra lows in the exact same way as happened to all audio transmissions back in this man's heyday. It's like he's being transported back in time, only better - now he's the DJ.
Besides, I bet it's not just the tubes that are providing the warmth in the sound. The resonance of the radio case and limited frequency response of the gear surely have a part to play as well. He's listeneing to the radio, not reproducing every last wave in the origional recording. Context is everything, remember.
Besides, it's a quick and dirty way to hook the iPod up - no schematics or soldering required.
Soko
Re:Nice But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps because he uses old tube equipment without line inputs. Old tube radios are often driven by rectified mains voltage (so you get some hundred volts inside the radio on nearly all components), without an insulating transformer (so this voltage is "available" against earth and can kill you). Adding a line input to such a (simple and cheap) design requires an insulating transformer either for the power supply or for the line input, which would have caused additional costs.
It is possible to retrofit a line input to most old tube radios, but not without dramatic changes to the device. You need at least an additional switch and a hole in the backside. Most people who love old tube radios would rather like several root canal treatments without anesthesia than that.
Some "newer" and expensive old tube radios have inputs for a record player and/or a tape, both could be used to connect modern audio devices like the iPod, but not necessarily without mechanical and electrical adapters.
So the most easiest way to "connect" an iPod to old tube radios is an FM transmitter. As a nice side effect, you can "connect" several radios to the same iPod, all without fiddling with cables.
And by the way, frequencies below 50 Hz and above 15 kHz can only be heard by very young people. The older you get, the narrower the bandwith of your ears becomes.
Tux2000
Photoshop your favourite mix of old and new... (Score:5, Funny)
- Mac G5 embedded in an IBM S/36 case (to give that authentic Computer feel)
- email, delivered by the postman
- the LowCost cruise liner ($25 across the Atlantic)
- not rose-coloured glasses, but B&W glasses... gives you that good ol' monochrome feeling
- the e-Quill, looks like a quill, writes like a quill, drops ink like a quill, but runs Windows XP for Quills
- the iQuill (similar, but stores 150 hours of music)
- ye old Coffee Shoppe: double espresso machiatto served in antique copper cups, by surly wenches
Re:Photoshop your favourite mix of old and new... (Score:2, Funny)
Like this original iPod? (Score:2)
Years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
This test has nothing to do with tubes vs. silicon. There are differences, and I had to study the behavior of vacuum tubes (for radio broadcasting; hundreds of kW is typical, get that with transistors!) There are differences everywhere, though, not just in tubes. Even the power supply for vacuum tubes (+300V) has different parameters from +24V one and causes different type of distortion.
So these tests have nothing to do with tubes, and everything to do with the amplifier itself. For example, vacuum tubes have high output impedance, and a transformer is usually used - which has its own frequency response, what a surprise! But a transistor based amplifier has no such need, and a transformer is pretty much unheard of. Difference right here.
Re:Years ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously.. this is part nostalgia, part fact. Tubes were used for a long time for audio reproduction. Tubes color the sound.
Tubes color the sound more than most solid state gear does, and they do it in a nicer way at that.
So it's no Wonder that Mr. Wonder liked the sound of tube gear better... the lack of coloration would sound kind of crisp if you are used to the tube sound.
That "crisp" sound could also be called "accurate" sound.
Not supprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Even now I could see someone wanting to do this. Tubes just kind of warm sound up and take the edge off. This means they are less objectively accurate and add more distorion, but that's not necessiarly a bad thing, so do equalisers. If you are listening for pleasure you are concerned about pleasing sound, not accurate sound.
Sure. (Score:5, Funny)
Neo-nostalgia? (Score:2, Interesting)
They take old, nostalgic objects, and combine them with new technology to make the ULTIMATE ANTIQUE!
Look out IBM! (Score:3, Funny)
At the rate IBM is currently (not) making PowerPC 970 processors, Apple may just have to switch to tubes to power their machines.
(Don't think it'll be a good quarter for us shareholders, though the sharemarket yet doesn't seem to have noticed Apple can't supply a G5 Dual 2.5 / iMac / XServe for love or money.)
I know this website that specializes (Score:2, Funny)
oh, _aural_ heaven. Nope, don't know anything about that.
Except that CDs sound better when coated with a green highlighter.
Do you really need real tubes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do you really need real tubes? (Score:5, Funny)
This isn't new... (Score:4, Informative)
Some people don't like tube amps for the reason that they "color" the audio too much and it's not a perfect reproduction (fidelity)... but lots of people have a soft spot for the "warmer" sound... lots of people even like the sound of old vinyl records (even though vinyl records have horrible fidelity, the studios have to mix the audio specially for vinyl records different from how they do for CDs, because there are certain audio ranges that vinyl is horrible at reproducing -- I think it's the high end).
But one thing can't be denied and that's that tube amps look damn cool, and are fascinating technology... the tubes are out in the open and you can see inside of them how intricate they are, and they usually glow orange in the middle and some tubes have a blue haze (I've noticed this particularly in Svetlana brand KT88's once they've worn in a bit).
Re:This isn't new... (Score:2)
Tube versus Solid State is not a new debate (Score:2, Informative)
Take what you read in magazines with a grain of salt. Magazines are there to sell adds, so when the new $10,000 amp that was built of unobtanium and blessed by Buddhist Monks sounds very similar to an amp made by a small but quality high end manufacturer in Buffalo (or Toronto, or LA, or London, or
Spend your money your speakers. You can invest a lot of money in source equipment, amplification, and cables, but if you have a $100 pair of speakers from Radio Shack you have a $100 system. There have been no breakthroughs in amplifier technology in about 30 years, but speaker materials and design have changed greatly.
Disclosure: I used to work in the high performance home audio industry (I've been out for about 6 years now). I got a chance to listen to a lot of great gear, and meet a lot on interesting audio engineers (some of which had there heads up the arses). I like tubes, but I agree they are not as accurate as solid state. I have often used a tube type CD player or pre amp, but prefer the better control offered by solid-state amplifiers. In my opinion this combination will get you the open and smooth soul of the tube with the slam and dynamics of a solid-state amp. I own about 1000 CDs, but if I really want to experience music, I listed to Vinyl. Digital music (weather a red book CD, audio stream, or I pod) takes the mechanical action of sound, cuts it up in to lots of little pieces, and puts it back together again. Vinyl is a direct mechanical representation of a mechanical process. Less is lost (even if it is a pain to deal with a record compared to a CD).
Trust your ears. They are the best test equipment money can't buy.
Re:Tube versus Solid State is not a new debate (Score:3, Insightful)
I grew up on vinyl and magnetic tapes. (And I mean tape reels, not cassettes.) And lemme tell you: good riddance. I'm not in the least nostalgic about it.
They were noisy, and they were pretty much a low pass filter. And I mean _noisy_. Soft screeches and clicks as every dust particle or imperfection was also converted into sound, well, those were the name of the analog game.
Yes, vinyl is a direct mechanical representation, and that is it's _problem_. You're talking a mechanical device, with all the mechanical limitations that come from that. Such as erosion (which eventually flattens high tones out), dust particles, non-linear frequency response due to mechanical inertia, wobbly bearings, and different linear speeds at different positions on the disc. (Hence, different frequency responses.)
And analog had another problem: each copy would be worse than the original. No, I don't mean pirated copy, I mean that a lot of copying would happen between what was recorded and what you bought on vinyl or tape.
E.g., the mechanical imprecision of pressing the disc. You are not listening off the master plates, you're listening off a cheaply pressed replica which is _not_ faithful down to the micron. If you think that that process alone does not lose a lot, you haven't given it much thought.
E.g., it was probably recorded on tape and then transferred to that master plate. In the process any imperfection along the amplifier _and_ mechanical chain, got passed along to the copy you bought.
I.e., in the end you got an approximation of an approximation of an approximation. Less is lost? Ha. In practice, _more_ is lost. And you could say more is added: noise.
For all the bullshit about how slicing sound into samples and recombining it is bad, you can instantly tell a digitally recorded sound from old tapes played through tubes. The CD is the one which still has all the high tones, while the tape-and-tubes setup is the one which sounds like it's played through a low pass filter.
Strangely enough, the sliced and recombined version actually lost less. For starters it didn't lose anything when being copied around: the 7th copy of the 7th copy of a digital signal, still is identical to the original. So by the time it gets to you on a CD, it's still an identical copy of the original sample.
What slicing and recombining does is add harmonics. Luckily, though, they're waay out of the range your ears pick.
You want that warm analog FM-and-tubes sensation with solid state and CDs? That's easy. Open WinAmp and set the equalizer so it's tappers after around the middle of the scale and hits zero at the rightmost slider. There you go: all that warm all bass sound you were pining for.
Simulating vinyl might be a more tricky proposition, though. Just adding more white noise (such as a few high speed case fans) doesn't quite reproduce that screechy and clicky experience. I'm sure some kind folks could be persuaded into writing a screech-and-click open-source module
That said, I will aggree with your statement about speakers. Cheap computer speakers, and even some of the non-cheap 7.1 ones, sound like crap. Last ones I tried just for experiment sake, sounded literally like an AM radio at the bottom of a plastic barrel. And the tweeters on some monitors sound like the music is played through a cheap digital watch. So, yeah, a good set of hi fi speakers are a must.
Old news (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously. Listen to some Myles Davis or Gatemouth Brown through an old RCA tabletop being fed a signal from an old single ended AM modulator/exciter stage (ie "three tube transmitter"). It's been so long that AM has been out of favor very few realize nowdays how very good it can sound with "honest" frequency response up into the top octave... if you have a decent AM radio.
audio quality versus fidelity (Score:2, Funny)
special warmth and atmosphere
fuzzy noise, crackles and scratchings
I just had an image of an ipod with built in turntable and mini 3" high resolution records
Yeap, sound does have varying character (Score:2)
Those who are keen can pop over to headfi.org, a community of headphone-philes!
audio terminology and harmonics (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read somewhere (probably on
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Re:audio terminology and harmonics (Score:3, Informative)
Tubes and some FET topologies produce mostly even-order distortion. Poorly designed digital stuff and overdriven transistors (clipping) generate odd-order gak.
'Digital amps' (class D, T or I in this case) use a PWM signal that gets passed through a set of low pass filters to remove the majority of the harmonics. Unfortunately, the use of PWM instead of brute force analog does indeed have a measurable effect on the sound, especially when an amplifier is compromised somehow (by design or implementation) or run near the limit of it's performance envelope. There are some very good switching amps on the market, but to my ears (as a recording engineer, musician, and electrical engineer) there are still advantages to giant linear power supplies and dozens of transistors.
Warm to me generally equates to more abundant lower mids (400Hz-ish, +/- a few hundred), while bright is, as you said, an overabundance of HF content.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
-dave
Oh GREAT! (Score:5, Funny)
The only thing worse than an Apple/Linux vs. MS zealot discussion (a good thing IMHO) is an audiophile thread. They make beligerent Microsoft hating uber-geeks look like mongoloids when they start going at it. I swear, if audiophiles were allowed to talk in person, someone would lose an arm over whether ultra high sample rate digital is better than analog, or whether vacuum tubes should be used in amplifiers or whatever...damn, I have already read too much.
Please...Spare me oh great
Sometimes I think that they throw certain stories up on the site on purpose, just to get a rise out of some people and and to get everyone else to come and watch the train wreck.
This sounds like a great idea! (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks in advance!
Nothing To See Here (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the story should have been when Apple released Apple Lossless Encoder. [aroundcny.com] That's the recent iPod news that makes the iPod better for audiophiles.
thank God I'm not an audiophile! (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, God, for giving me ears of clay :)
This has been complaint of mine (Score:3, Interesting)
Use A Cozy! (Score:3, Funny)
I just bundle my iPod in a little cozy for warmth! Take a look here at 3 seconds of fame for my iPod! [proliphus.com]
A match made in aural heaven: (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Strange... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Strange... (Score:3, Informative)
OK, looking at the JBL 2447 [jblpro.com] for example, I admit that it's frequency response is nowhere near as smooth as the plasma. But in practice it is usually electronically equalized, with great results. That's because frequency response can be fixed in DSP/electronics, but power limitations and distortion cannot. The horn/driver will have a lot more headroom to add punch to music.
Of course the plasma is super-cool.
Oh no, speakers have gotten MUCH better (Score:3, Interesting)
The advances in speakers are really quite striking taken in a 50 year timescale. New speakers sound significantly better than older ones, espically at a give price and size point.
Vinyl sounds noticeably better than CDs, and (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Vinyl sounds noticeably better than CDs, and (Score:3, Interesting)
i simply don't buy that whole vinyl-is-still-superior argument. if it "sounds better" that's completely subjective to the listener. technically speaking, the ability to accurately re-create the original audio is worse and that's a fact.
HOWEVER, i'm somewhat adept at DJ'ing, and i definately think vinyl is superior for that. even with resampling cd players, and all that computer software, it's still a poor replacement for the hands-on fuckwithery you can achieve with wax.
Re:Vinyl sounds noticeably better than CDs, and (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Vinyl sounds noticeably better than CDs, and (Score:3, Interesting)
I love that miss-conception. What is the highest frequency that you an record and play back on a red book CD?
The frequency limited analog Vinly was able to embed a subcarrier and 2 more channels back in the day of quad recordings. Just try putting the same frequecies on a redbook CD and getting it to decode... Good luck. The CD doesn't have the bandwidth.
Here's a clip from a quick Google search on Quadraphonic recordings.
As Fig. 15 shows, the sum signal (1 + 2) and (3 + 4) form the audio frequency signals to the Left and Right cutter inputs respectively. This ensures a high degree of compatability with any ordinary stereo record player, which will simply reproduce (LF + LR) as its Left Channel output and (RF + RR) as its Right. In the same way, a mono player would simply add all four origional signals and so reproduce an acceptable mono signal. The difference signals (1 - 2) and (3 - 4) are first modulated onto a 30kHz carrier an ten added to the cutter Left and Right inputs respectively. This upper modulation is tailored to fit into a frequency bandwith from about 20 to 45 kHz. Ordinary stereo pickups will barely respond to these signals and will therefore simply reproduce the left and right sum signals. For quadraphonic reproduction, a new generation of pickup cartridges is being developed with reasonably consistent response up to about 50 kHz. When this full range is passed from the cartridge to a CD-4 demodulator, the four seperate 1, 2, 3, 4 signals are derived for sending to the inputs of a four-channel amplifier (or two two-channel stereo amplifiers).
Last time I checked, there isn't any way to record and reproduce signals in the 20KHZ to 45KHZ range on a compact disk (Redbook). The poor performance of LP's is a myth.
Re:Tube != distortion, jackass (Score:2)
Cheap opamps [national.com] used in highend amplifiers and by hobbyists [f9.co.uk] have a THD of 0.02%
Jack yourself (Score:5, Informative)
It's comparatively easy to make a low gain stage with decent linearity from either tubes or transistors. It's not so easy to make a stable tube amp with 120db open loop gain as it is a transistor amp, which means a very good tube amp might have an order of magnitude more THD (ie .02% at 1khz vs .002%) - meaningless unless you spend your time listening for sine harmonics. However, where it counts, it's relatively easy to make a tube amp with 20db or so open loop gain that, with just a tiny bit of feedback (maybe even just a db or two) will be very stable and have very good power response... and low THD (as if that was what mattered).
The seventies and eighties saw a home hifi market flooded with crap gear from japan (Manufacturers like Sansui and Sony and Kenwood and Pioneer) that boasted incredibly low THD... and provided its owners incredibly bad sound.
Re:Jack yourself (Score:3, Interesting)
The argument about feedback is also interesting, valves are large and expensive, transistors small and cheap. So valve equipment tends to carefully extract maximum performance from each stage, rather than taking the "op amp" approach. What I think is interesting though is that most equipment used to process audio signals these days is chock full of op-amps, so by the time you hear it, it has been through hundreds of such stages between the musician's instrument and your ears. It's lots of negative feedback all the way. The fact that the last "few yards" is through a valve stage is kind of irrelevant - yes that stage can contribute a change in the sound, but it can't magically improve it except subjectively by inserting MORE distortion of the even kind. It can sound better, because your ear and brain likes the distortion. So ignore THD!
One reason transistors create odd harmonics is because when they hit saturation they clip hard. Valves tend to round out rather than clip hard. However any clipping is a Bad Thing - so don't overdrive your amps so they clip. That's why any decent quality amp (regardless of whether it's tube or tranny) with lots of power and a really decent power supply will sound better even at low volume than a smaller one that's straining. In fact the power supply is extremely important - sadly much commercial domestic equipment is a joke in this area, even though the audio components might be OK. A 50W+50W power amplifier should have more than a 4700 uF capacitor on its power supply rails, which is what you typically see. That'll barely get rid of the ripple let alone hold the rail up when a musical transient needs to be delivered, the resulting lack of delivery at the crucial moment can cause the output stage to clip momentarily and sound bloody apalling. Sine wave measurements might look great though! (Who listens to steady sinewaves?). This also has a bearing on valve sound - many power amps are class A and have enormous power supplies to cope with the inherent inefficiency; where push-pull stages are used the softer characteristics of the crossover and clipping will mask or "ride out" the transient distortion as well.
It's not just that they have distortion... (Score:5, Interesting)
well, it's fashion (Score:5, Insightful)
And the pseudo-science it comes wrapped in, invariably shows massive ignorance of the real science. It invariably boils down to "uh, you can't see it on any osciloscope or signal analyzer, but transistors do this and that evil thing to your signal." Well, guess what? If it's some mystical thing that can't be measured or detected in any way, it's no more than some poor man's religion.
And it's still ignoring that nowadays it's usually paired with transistors nevertheless. E.g., that signal went first through the transistors in the iPod. Whatever evil satanistic marks those transistors put on the signal, it's already there before it even reached the tubes.
And you talk about 8 bit or 16 bit or 24 bit quantization, which is a good topic to bring up, since they're still playing music from an iPod. It's still quantized, and it still has the artefacts from lossy MPEG or AAC encoding.
Or I've seen at least one mobo which paired an el-cheapo crap on-board sound chip with a tube, and suddenly it was audiophile equipment. As if there was some _magic_ in the tube that goes back on the causality line and also stops the sound chip from doing a crappy noisy job.
The whole bullshit is that passing _any_ signal through a tube magically makes it better. Suddenly it no longer matters that it's quantized at 8 bits, _and_ lost a ton of harmonics and gained new ones due to lossy encoding. The magical +5 tube knew what the sound should have been like, and erased all those artefacts. Basically turning lossy compression into lossless compression.
That's high magic, folks. ('Cause science and technology it sure ain't.) Don't try it at home. Only high elves certified by the Mages' Guild can infuse tubes with that kind of arcane power.
Which is all that this is. People wanting real hard to believe in basically magic. Magical tallismans which solve this or that by magic. Just because they're there.
Not entirely (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong. I agree with most of your post. Just running a signal through tubes doesn't make it better.
But...
You go way too far when you ridicule people who say they hear differences that can't be seen on instruments.
It's just wrong to couch this in terms of "If it's some mystical thing that can't be measured or detected in any way, it's no more than some poor man's religion." Fact is, when someone says they hear a difference, the "thing" IS being detected. The difference IS being measured. It's being detected by the listener's ears. It's being measured on a scale defined by that listener.
The problem is that human ears are not calibrated against any objective standard. In the best cases, they are the finest detectors of subtle differences in sound available to us, far surpassing the sensitivity of the best mikes and racks of measuring equipment. They are also, unfortunately, completely non-standard in their reaction to input, subject to variation depending on a host of external and internal factors, and their results are not repeatable from instrument to instrument. That doesn't mean they are insensitive. That doesn't mean they don't actually hear a difference. It just means that the difference may or may not be obvious to another listener and may or may not be meaningful to anyone except the person listening at that moment.
I have no doubt that if you have good hearing and a love of music, you could listen to a particular orchestra play a particular piece in a particular venue many times over the course of years. That piece could then be recorded by that orchestra in that venue. As a fully-qualified judge, then, you could listen to the recordings through tubes and solid-state, planar and box speakers, etc., and be able to tell not only which ones were different and which you prefer, but which recordings and playback setups are more accurate. Just using your ears. And your results may not track in any meaningful way with the measurements produced by that bench full of instruments.
In that case, I'd consider the conclusions of the qualified listener to be far more authoritative than those of the technician who simply looks at the output of test instruments.
To translate to a more general case: By far, when everything is right, you'll be better guided in your choices of audio gear if you use your ears rather than just look at specs.
Re:Not entirely (Score:3, Interesting)
First, when it comes to double-blind tests, that's a near-infinite mine field. If you'd like to discuss it (a potentially lengthy exchange), just say so and I'll dive in. My short take on double-blind tests for audio reproduction quality is that every one I've ever seen was so poorly structured that the results were meaningless. Deciding if there's a subtle problem in the way an audio system sounds takes a great deal of time that I've never seen anyone invest when using a double-blind method. Most testers want to do a "Listen to this, and this, and this. Any difference?" sort of test that can be wrapped up in an afternoon. That just won't fly when it comes to judging audio.
As for your question "Are you saying science has found no way to build equipment that has superior audio sensitivity compared to the human ear?", you're striking right at the heart of the matter. I'm not saying that, exactly. What I'm saying is that, in general, science builds equipment that has superior audio sensitivity compared to the human ear ONLY AFTER being led to what needs to be measured by people listening with those ears.
Take jitter, for instance. The people who used their ears said "This stuff sounds bad." That wasn't good enough for the scientists who knew it all, knew their measurements were perfect, knew their instruments had superior audio sensitivity compared to the human ear, and had all sorts of charts and graphs to back it up. The people who relied on their ears, who believed their ears were more sensitive to some thus-far unquantified problem that the lab equipment THEN EXTANT did not measure, were dismissed as cranks and romantic fools. But they persisted. They made up all sorts of romantic, foolish language to discuss what they were hearing. They made vague, almost mystical allusions to "time errors" and "soundstaging anomalies." They continued to be dismissed for a long while. A few researchers, though, thought that they just might be hearing something wrong, too. So they started looking for problems that weren't measured by their current instruments. They found jitter and a host of other problems, they found ways to measure them, and, sure enough, when they started designing circuits with the new measurements in mind, the cranks and romantic fools who relied on their ears started to say "Yeah, that's the ticket; that's improved." The new measuring equipment that results from this process is far more sensitive than the human ear but that equipment would never come into existence without people who were first willing to trust their ears.
Yet, despite the lessons of history, whenever someone claims to hear a problem that doesn't show up on a spec sheet they get ignored and belittled. So my answer to your original question is yes and no. Yes, ears are more sensitive than testing equipment when it comes to identifying when *something* is wrong, that being something that the engineers and psychoacouticians are not yet measuring. And no, once a few engineers have taken the time to listen to their ears and figure out what to measure and design equipment to do that measuring, human ears are not more sensitive than that new equipment.
Of course, now that you've solved some problems, ever-more-subtle ones that were previously masked by the more gross errors just corrected will be revealed. Human ears will hear those new problems long before science comes up with equipment to measure them. The people that hear those problems will be dismissed as fools for a while. Finally, scientists will trust their ears and come up with equipment to measure the new phenomena. Corrections will be made and the cycle will start over.
Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.
Re:well, it's fashion (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I don't have much of a problem with that. If someone likes that kind of distortion or frequency response, I'm not going to argue against a question of personal taste.
The thing that gets my goat is when it's basically getting into the kind of pseudoscience that you mention: about how solid state isn't accurate enough, or somehow clips the sound although you can't see that on any osciloscope, etc. And how adding a tube (i.e., more distortion) somehow turns a cheap mobo into high-end hifi equipment.
It's basically like arguing that the old sepia-and-white photos are more accurate than a modern colour photo off a cheap Polaroid camera. I have no problem with them preferring a sepia tinted photo, or sound "coloured" by tubes, for nostalgia sake. I just hate it when it degenerates into some pseudo-science about how the old version is really more accurate.
That said, as was said, nowadays you can get the same kind of frequency response with solid state equipment. You don't have to switch headphones to get more bass, you can just mess with the equalizer. Or write a filter plugin for WinAmp, Foobar, or whichever media player you're using.
Ditto for tubes. You can mangle the signal in software nowadays to simulate any kind of electronic or accoustic circuit or environment. You can have your MP3's sound like they're played through tubes _and_ in a cathedral, if that is what floats your boat.
So IMHO, well, we all might as well stop pretending that having tubes around is anything else than nostalgia.
Re:well, it's fashion (Score:3, Interesting)
Up to a point. As a guitarist, I have not yet seen such a device which converts my 100W, sterile, accurate MOSFET amp into a valve amp. As an engineer, I'm sure it's possible, but it's a LOT harder than just messing with EQ. Even the modelling preamps (which seem to be convolving the sound with the FIR response of whatever they're modelling) don't get the ringing clarity and touch-sensitive response.
You're entitled to your opinion, but the reality is that valves still sound better than solid state to a lot of people.
Jon.
Re:What is "warm" sound? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sound with odd harmonic distortion sounds harsh to our ears, that is 3f,5f,7f etc.
Valves usually produce even harmonic distortion, transistors usually produce odd harmonic distortion.
Cheers
John
Re:all-tube computers are better too. (Score:4, Funny)