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Music Media Businesses Apple

Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog 425

Posted by timothy from the fixation-is-more-like-it dept.
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.'"
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Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog More

Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog

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  • Comfort tubes. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:44AM (#10253842)
    "The softer tones ease listeners and make them feel warm and relaxed."

    Considering the heat put out. That's not an unexpected result. Throw in a big meal.

    • Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Negatyfus ( 602326 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:30AM (#10254052) Journal
      Yeah, when I put on Butchered at Birth by Cannibal Corpse I get this warm and fluffy feeling, it's great. These old amps make it sound so much more relaxing.

    • Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:4, Informative)

      by zuzulo ( 136299 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:01AM (#10254341) Homepage
      I posted this in a totally unrelated article some time ago, but it is very much on topic now. ;-)

      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.
      • Have you tried lossles codecs like Monkey's Audio or FLAC? I originally tried playing mp3's on my home setup and was not pleased with the results. I have a decent receiver (not total garbage but nothing high end) and was running digital from a soundblaster audigy (which I realize is not anywhere near a great card). Moving to lossless (Monkey's for no particular reason)did make a tremendous difference.

        With storage as cheap as it is today using lossless encoding seems like a no-brainer if you are into soun

      • Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @08:51AM (#10255706)
        And yes, audiophiles do quite a bit of blind testing. Or at least scientist audiophiles do.

        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].)

      • Ever heard of a Tice Clock? (Score:5, Informative)

        by downward dog ( 634625 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:57AM (#10256250) Homepage
        And yes, audiophiles do quite a bit of blind testing. Or at least scientist audiophiles do. Unfortunately, this is not true. Far too few people do blind testing, and when they do, they are often unable to tell the difference between electronics. There is a guy named Richard Clark who will give anyone $10,000 if they can tell the difference between two car audio amplifiers that have their levels and distortion matched exactly. I think you have to guess correctly 9 out of 10 times, and you can compare anything -- tube vs. solid state, $8,000 McIntosh vs. $29 WalMart, etc. Thousands have tried, and no one has succeeded yet. Stereophile magazine did a similar study several years ago, and their participants could only tell the difference between two amps 52% of the time, well within a margin of error. The Tice Clock (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&i e=UTF-8&q=%22tice+clock%22) is a $10 Radio Shack wall clock that was sold for $500 because it was modified to control the quantum behavior of electricity and thereby improve sound. Seriously. Plug it into the room with your stereo, and your music instantly becomes more open and your soundstage gains depth. Of course, the inventors have no scientific explanation of how they control the quantum behavior of electrons. Nonetheless, thousands of listeners and professionals heard a difference. Psychoacoustics are a powerful force. This is not to say that source units (like an iPod) and amplifiers make no difference. Tube amps provide a degree of euphonic distortion that give them their "warmth". But cables, power cords, etc -- I'd appreciate it if you could link to one blind test that shows a noticable difference between these.

      • Re:Comfort tubes. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Enahs ( 1606 )
        The thing is, if audiophiles wanted to hear damn-near-prefect signals, they wouldn't be playing records on their tube-amp setups.

        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, b

  • What a coincidence... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:44AM (#10253846)
    ... I just finished watching a _movie_ entitled Aural Heaven.

    Movie's tagline: If you're bored with the rear, try it in the ear.

  • Warmth? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cyclone_TBW ( 812384 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:44AM (#10253847) Homepage
    I thought that was my Powerbook? :-)

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:45AM (#10253851)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by idiotnot ( 302133 ) <sean@757.org> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:59AM (#10253920) Homepage Journal
      Self-proclaimed audiophiles also tend to be asshats. I work in radio. We had a remote studio for awhile that was connected via an ISDN link. There was an advertiser who was touring the studios....he starts going off about how he loves audio gear and that he has a good ear and can pick things out that many people miss. He commented that the remote studio link had very nice stereo. To which I replied,

      "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:5, Insightful)

      by Gherald ( 682277 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:00AM (#10253925) Journal
      I would like to see a "blindfold" test.

      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?
      • Yes, tubes do make a noticable difference. Take a marshall amp and play a lick. Now take my digital modeling Line6, set it to the same marshall, and play a lick. Listen to a lot of tube amps, then listen to a lot of solid state amps.

        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 ar
      • Tubes don't just sound subjectively differentm we can objectively measure the differences. Tubes distory the sound more than transistors, and in different ways. It gives a sound that is generally described as "warmer" and "smoother" and such. It's not as accurate, as least as compared to good transistor equipment, but that doesn't mean it's unplesant.

        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 he

    • Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Prune ( 557140 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:04AM (#10253943)
      Mod parent up, as this is a great insight. I'm somewhat of an audiophile, but I full well know that psychological bias is half the picture. The equipment I DIY DACs and amps, and I use things such as silver wire, though I'm sure I couldn't hear a difference if my life depended on it.

    • Re:And since he believes it... (Score:5, Funny)

      by clem.dickey ( 102292 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:14AM (#10253988)
      Vacuum tubes do give a warmer sound. As, to a lesser extent, do the pink and gold mini-iPods.
    • It's even better if you draw a line around your iPod with a green marker pen.

  • old tech? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by polecat_redux ( 779887 ) <spamwich@nospaM.gmail.com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:45AM (#10253852)
    I wonder if this desire for that "warm, soothing" sound will die when those that grew up with it do as well. Is the attraction anything more than conditioning and sentimentality? Sure, a lot modern digital music could be called cold and clinical, but as a perfect representation of what the artist intended to create, is there really anything missing?

    • Re:old tech? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Veridium ( 752431 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:50AM (#10253882) Homepage
      I think there will always be people who prefer that sound. I have a digital guitar effects box that does pretty good distortion, but personally, nothing does distortion like a good tube amp. I'm only 32 BTW, so I hardly grew with tubes. But then again, I don't know may people who'd describe electric guitars distorted through tube amps as "warm, soothing".
      • Nothing does *that sort* of distortion like a good tube amp, maybe. But I've never heard a tube amp give me a really satisfying crunch for a noisecore drum track. I like the really fucked up computer plugins for that (Destroyfx does some particularly good, and free, ones).

        All in what's trying to be achieved.

      • Re:old tech? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mindstrm ( 20013 )
        Okay.. but that's totally different.

        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)

    • I'm 23 and I love my tube amp... a friend of mine had an artist housemate who's boyfriend worked at a fancy audio shop... so she had a tube amp and nice speakers. Being a starving artist she sold the tube amp and both speakers with stands to me for $600. I had been wanting them ever since I first had seen them. They just look too cool. You can't be a tech geek and not be fascinated with it when you see it.

    • It's what you like (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vwjeff ( 709903 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:39AM (#10254076)
      ...perfect representation of what the artist intended to create, is there really anything missing?

      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)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )
        **Of course equipment made today can replicate sound almost exactly but for me that's not what always matters, IMHO.**

        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

  • What's next? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scud ( 1607 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:45AM (#10253853)
    iTubes?

  • Tubes seem to be coming back into "fashion" (Score:5, Informative)

    by lxt ( 724570 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:47AM (#10253857) Journal
    Not that tubes ever went away in audio, but more and more manufacturers are putting them into equipment "because it's a tube / for the sake of it". Take the Korg Triton (one of the more popular music workstations), of which an updated model released around January had a tube built in (to add "warmth")...

  • Nice But.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nekdut ( 74793 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:48AM (#10253872) Journal
    Why the heck is he using an FM transmitter to connect the iPod to his nice tube equipment. Its one thing to use nice tube amplifiers to get a warm analog sound from a digital source (even order harmonic distortion and all that jazz), but why limit the frequency responce to FM's 50-15,000 Hz?! Good sources (such as the iPod) and good output equipment (which would presumably be hooked up to quality tube amplifiers) would benefit greatly from a full 20-20,000 KHz frequency responce!!

    • Re:Nice But.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Soko ( 17987 )
      Whoa, dude. Unplug the Monster Cables and loosen that black tam on top of your head a bit.

      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.

    • Re:Nice But.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Basje ( 26968 ) <bas@bloemsaat.org> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:37AM (#10254070) Homepage
      The guy is 50. He probably doesn't even hear frequencies beyond those anymore.

    • Re:Nice But.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tux2000 ( 523259 )

      Why the heck is he using an FM transmitter to connect the iPod to his nice tube equipment.

      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 f

  • Photoshop your favourite mix of old and new... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:51AM (#10253885) Journal
    - Victorian telephone (wireless version)
    - 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

  • Years ago (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:51AM (#10253889) Homepage Journal
    Although I am a fan of the iPod (and Apple Computer) there is nothing new here: Some years ago (about 16) I spent a couple of days at Stevie Wonders studio (Wonderland) and was stunned to see a couple of CD players that had been custom built to have tubes hooked up to them. It was explained to me that this "new fangled CD technology" sounded too "crisp" and that playing the signal back through tubes warmed things up considerably. I never would have been able to tell the difference until they hooked them up to some seriously high end speakers and lo and behold, you really could tell a difference. Unfortunately I do not remember who build these CD players, but I seem to recall a $20k price tag.

    • Re:Years ago (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tftp ( 111690 )
      I am not surprised that you saw a difference between amplifier A and amplifier B which had nothing to do with each other and most likely were built to different specs by different people.

      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 differe

    • Re:Years ago (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mindstrm ( 20013 )
      You can build some yourself cheap enough.

      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)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:42AM (#10254455)
      Tubes DO sound different than transistors. Doesn't mean they are more accurate, the opposite in fact but it isn't an unplesant sound, at least not to most people. Also before the advent of delta-sigma DACs, CD players were pretty harsh. The way the output stage worked, it was a bitch to control accurately so the sound they produced really wasn't as good as it could or should be. Later converters ixed that but I'm not sure if they were around 16 years ago, or in widespread use back then.

      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)

    by sserendipity ( 696118 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:51AM (#10253890)
    So you are saying that an mp3 on an ipod played via FM out of my old dad's radio sounds better than the ipod on it's own. Or maybe you are just trying to sell old radios?

  • Neo-nostalgia? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ircubic ( 813042 )
    Maybe this is the new era of nostalgy fans?
    They take old, nostalgic objects, and combine them with new technology to make the ULTIMATE ANTIQUE!

  • Look out IBM! (Score:3, Funny)

    by michaeldot ( 751590 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @01:56AM (#10253910)

    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.)

  • in oral heaven. It's called....
    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)

    by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:06AM (#10253953) Journal
    I think it should be possible to do the same change to the sound through a digital filter before converting it to analog. Or is there anything I'm missing?

  • This isn't new... (Score:4, Informative)

    by vistic ( 556838 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:09AM (#10253963)
    I've always preferred playing my MP3s through my low-end tube amp (an Antique Sound Labs MG-SI15DT, which has two small 12AX7 preamp tubes and two KT88 power tubes, and my speakers are Mordaunt-Short Music Series)... it sort of smooths out the MP3s, and I don't notice the sampling rate even if it's bad... if I play MP3s through my Sony A/V receiver the sound is either too muddy or too tinny... but through the tube amp it sounds vibrant and lively. Sometimes pure digital audio sounds too sharp and isn't easy on the ears. Analog audio tends to flow.

    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).
    • I forgot to mention it's not new because I've been playing MP3s, from my PC, on my tube amp for years and I know lots of people think to do this who own tube amps. I have an iPod now but haven't tried it yet with my amp. It sounds like crap though in my car with the iTrip FM transmitter, definitely a last resort device.

  • Tube versus Solid State is not a new debate (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For as long as there have been transistors there has been debate between solid-state supporters and tube supporters. The same two camps squared off years later in an analog versus digital debate. If you need to enjoy your music by looking at graphs created by test equipment, then solid state and digital will be the best solution for you. If you want to enjoy your music by looking at the pretty tubes glowing in your stereo rack and esoteric explanations to your friends as to your audio insanity, then tube
    • Hmm. I keep hearing about how vinyl is a more accurate representation, and how I should trust my ears. Well, I do trust my ears. But here's the funny part: so far my ears tell me otherwise. It's not about watching pretty graphs, it's about how it sounds.

      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 c

  • Old news (Score:5, Funny)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @02:37AM (#10254069) Journal
    I been doing this for years. If you REALLY want to do it up right you can't use these cheapass rf modulators, tho. It appears he has yet to discover the wideband beauty that is AM when properly fed from an old tube modulator stage.

    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.

  • both can be subjective.

    special warmth and atmosphere ....translating....
    fuzzy noise, crackles and scratchings

    I just had an image of an ipod with built in turntable and mini 3" high resolution records :-)
  • Being a closet audiophile myself, sound does indeed have qualities like that. In fact, for those of us who (are cheap headphone) audiophiles, when purchasing a headphone amp for our iPods, we can even select an opamp based on the type of sound we want. For some who'd want clear and clean sound, there is the TI opamp to use. For those who'd like the more traditional sounds with more "body" (like me), there is another brand, can't remember ATM.

    Those who are keen can pop over to headfi.org, a community of hea
  • In general with audio, "warm" means stronger low frequencies in the sound and "bright" means stronger highs.

    I've read somewhere (probably on /.) that digital amps tend to reproduce even harmonics and acoustic (tube) tends to reproduce odd harmonics.

    Can anyone confirm or deny this?
    • Close, but you have your harmonics backwards. The human ear finds even order distortion (harmonics) to be euphonic (pleasing) while off order is quite discordant. Clipping is, of course, especially bad, since it's the beginnings of a squarewave, which is the sum of an infinite number of odd harmonics.

      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

  • Oh GREAT! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dread_ed ( 260158 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @03:10AM (#10254162) Homepage
    Cue the audiophile wars.

    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 /. editors.

    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)

    by deft ( 253558 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @03:13AM (#10254170) Homepage
    If someone could play some tunes through their Ipod on an old radio, record it for me, and send over the MP3's, that would be awesome!

    Thanks in advance!

  • Nothing To See Here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:09AM (#10254362)
    This is a silly story. Many people interested in high-end audio have insisted that tubes amps are better than transistor amps all along. (although most admit that transistors are getting closer and closer all the time). So you plug your ipod into a tube amp. You can plug your ipod into any amp. Good amps sound better. If they're trying to get at the combo digital/analog audio angle as being news, why have there been dozens of tube CD players [ebay.com] for sale for years? And many other people have normal CD players hooked up to tube amps. The Headroom [headphone.com] sells headphone transistor & tube amps with special iPod cases. This is nothing new

    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)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @06:56AM (#10254939) Journal

    Thank you, God, for giving me ears of clay :)

    • Factory radios sound great
    • Factory speakers sound great
    • $5 headphones from WalMart sound great
    • mp3s sound great - I don't need wav files four times the size of my first copy of Windows (note to self, rip straight to mp3 next time ...)

  • This has been complaint of mine (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @07:55AM (#10255281) Homepage Journal
    Once the mainstream went to transistors, even with analog sources, something was lost.. Sure its a matter of distortion, but to a human ear its more appealing then the raw accuracy of a transistor... Even went and built a class A tube amp myself years ago just because of this ( and my fisher tuner/amp died ). I have heard several 'simulated tubes', but they never quite sound right, prolly since its an abstract 'feel', that is impossible to completely identify..

  • Use A Cozy! (Score:3, Funny)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @07:56AM (#10255294) Homepage Journal

    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)

    by magefile ( 776388 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @09:03AM (#10255803)
    Something old (tubes), something new (iPod), something "borrowed" (music) ... now we just need something blue.

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