Quality Audiophoolery - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 08:18:46 am
content: High quality audiophoolery here. Demagnetize those LP's and CD's!!!http://www.furutech.com/news/FURUTECHdeMagNews2006.htm

author: ciccio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 08:55:22 am
content: They write:Testing at the Tokyo Nanotechnology center with a IHI Gauss meter showed that after an LP was treated with the deMag the magnetic field of the LP was lowered from 620~630 nT to 572~582 nTFor a demagnetizer, id does not work very well (a reduction of about 8%)Best regards

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 10:09:16 am
content: For comparison, the Earth's magnetic field is between 25,000nT and 65,000nT.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 10:21:06 am
content: Don't forget to demagnetize all those audio tapes as well, we don't want distortion on those do we.

author: david77
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 11:20:45 pm
content: Ah! That's what I've been doing wrong all those years, I've only demagnetized the tape heads on my machine. I'm such a silly boy.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 11:23:28 pm
content: Is this some kind of long-running joke by audiophiles on engineers?

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 11:42:11 pm
content: I've heard that if you demagnetise your willie with one of these machines before going camping in the outback, you can then use your member to divine water holes, should you get lost.

author: mickpah
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 12:12:29 am
content: What happens if an Audiophool has an MRI ?After sticking their head in a 3 tesla magnet for half an hour do they demagnetize their own head ?Shit ! blown it now. given away an idea I should have patented.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 12:15:03 am
content: Fools will be fools, I have given up on trying to convince people that it is a load of nonsense. If they are willing to buy into it, then who's to stop them. Let them enjoy their fantasy. (It is much the same as religion. It can make people happy even though it has generally detrimental effects.)

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 12:17:15 am
content: Surely those much-lauded magnetic leviations devices for audiophool equipment will cause 'cross-induced magnetisation' (I just made that one up) and vast amounts of 'magnetic distortion' in the equipment and cables!!!

author: McMonster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:13:37 am
content: I think audiophooles should join navy... they demagnetize entire warships routinely!

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:29:03 am
content: That's almost as good as thishttp://www.ebay.com.au/itm/200807704603!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:48:11 am
content: Quote from: peter.mitchell on November 12, 2012, 09:29:03 amLooking at that I am left wondering where the HT is also what stops the HT output going straight through you brain as there is no output transformer. And since when did valve filaments glow blue. Also looks like an audio chip in there.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:59:39 am
content: I don't see anything at all wrong with the last one. If you've never listened to MP3s through a tube amp then you cannot know why someone would want to, and you're just being an idiot by dissing on those who do. Tubes can impart a good bit of second harmonic distortion which juices up the sound and can make the swooshy crap that is MP3 sound tolerable.So far as how to keep HT out of the output with no transformer, it's called a capacitor. The tube drives the input of an opamp follower through a cap. Its a well known headphone amp circuit.There's also a version that uses a single transistor follower.The filament doesn't glow blue, but the LED under it does. I'd rather have the filament, but to each his own.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 11:20:31 am
content: Quote from: poptones on November 12, 2012, 09:59:39 amI think he's wondering where the plate voltage comes from, as the advert says it runs off a 12V adapter but I don't see anything in there to step up the voltage to the 100V+ that tubes usually need.Here is the bare PCB, you can just make out the traces so maybe someone can say if the tube is actually doing something electrical in the circuit.http://www.ebay.com/itm/12AU7-TUBE-CMOY-Hi-Fi-Headphone-Earphone-amplifier-diy-printed-circuit-board-/200781630746

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 02:16:10 pm
content: Indeed, i was wondering where the plate voltage came from, this made me quite sceptical, and the blue/red LED implies to me that it is mostly for looks, however, I do not have enough time/tube knowledge to see if the pins used are just acting as a bridge or if they actually bring anything to the circuit, I am highly doubtful they do though.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 02:35:39 pm
content: If you want the second harmonic distortion, just use a 4069 as an inverting amplifier. It works very well and provides nearly the same distortion. Plus, it's cheap. Really cheap. Or, if you really want to go to town, a JFET has many of the same properties as a tube. No need to use outdated, obsolete technology.This datasheet:http://www.wooaudio.com/docs/tube_data/12AU7.pdfsuggests for a class-A amplifier (sounds right for a tube?) you need a +100-250V supply and a -8.5V supply to utilise it.Maybe they've found a way to use it simply as a low-current distortion amp, and then buffer it with an op-amp.

author: N2IXK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 04:07:44 pm
content: A quick look at the board layout seems to show that the tube is actually "doing something", but is being operated at very low plate voltage.A 12AU7 will "work" with only 12 V on the plates, but it isn't going to be particularly linear working down at that end of the plate curve. There is at least one guitar effects pedal I have seen that runs one like that, but in that case all the funky distortion is the whole idea of the circuit.A much better choice of tube for such a design would have been the 12U7, a similar dual triode designed for use in hybrid auto radios, with a 30V max plate rating. But of course such an "oddball" tube doesn't have the requisite audiophool "street cred", and there aren't gold-plated, cryo treated, magic mojo versions available to separate the twits from their money more efficiently...

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 04:28:29 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on November 12, 2012, 02:35:39 pmOr you can just use a tube, not only it sounds good, but looks cool too.By the way, JFET has about the same properties as a pentode, audiophiles usually use triodes in their amps (at least for line stages). I do not think there is any semiconductor device that has the properties of a triode (voltage controlled voltage source)

author: SLJ
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 05:00:05 pm
content: I really have got to get busy and build the web site audiophoolery.com and start listing some of this crap. The list is endless.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 07:31:27 pm
content: A fet and a bjt are both nonlinear in a completely different fashion than a triode. Both impart more odd order harmonic (like a pentode), which imparts a completely different, less musical type distortion. This is not "conjecture" or audiophoolery, this is the result of measured and empirical testing.Honjestly, the way some of you react to virtually anything that contains a vaccum tube or mentions sound quality is absolutely ridiculous, I wonder if you even listen to music. What I find most ridiculous is how this small circle jerk seems to think even music producers, who do this for a living and who do not advertise how a project is engineered, also use vacuum tube chains in the studio because that chain provides a SOUND they cannot reproduce any other way. I know a fellow, in fact, who manufactures mic preamps used by folks like Madonna and Sinead O'Connor... and guess what, his preamps use tubes. Oh, but of course these people must be "fools" too. Well, when one of you manages to make 100 Million dollars producing a record,be sure to let us all know.I told y'all before: this is a well known circuit. There is no need for CONJECTURE on this, simply google the design. CMOY or Chu Moy, the "designer" (although there is not much to "design" in a very conventional op amp circuit). You can also find a very simple tube based mic preamp at PAIA.com, a manufacturer of musical instrument kits since the '70s. (If any of you have heard of Craig Anderton, he's done a good bit of work for them.)There's even a full circuit description and theory of operation including how the tubes are biased in "starved mode."edit - Here's a great example:Note beginning at 1:16 where she begins playing odd, almost dissonant harmonics to duplicate Clare Torry's voice breaking up. It's not louder, but it's richer. Vacuum tube circuits can give you this effect when the musical signal becomes complex - it's not just "louder" that makes more distortion, it's harmonically complex passages. But it's not simply IMD, it's more like harmonically controlled distortion. It's a complex model that all the spice in the world cannot give you, and you either like it or you don't - but it is completely "audible" else one would not be able to identify it in (for example) Elvis Costello's first great album, or just about any Lenny Kravitz or Madonna album.

author: rr100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 07:55:42 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on November 12, 2012, 07:31:27 pmMost of us (and I mean including the vast majority of "tube audiophiles") aren't in the business of recording and editing and improving sound. We just need a way to reproduce the sound that was already recorded and processed and improved for us. It doesn't matter if the studio used tangerines and tube preamps to generate that waveform, we have the technology that would bring that waveform (precisely that one, in any measurable way) up to (our) speaker(s). We don't need tangerines and tubes to generate that waveform, it's already there, recorded for us.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 08:05:05 pm
content: You really think that studio recording isn't compressed, clipped and distorted all to hell in the mastering and printing process?Well you most certainly don't speak for me. I'm not pretending there's anything "magic" in any of this except how the sound makes me feel. But I don't need some imagined objectivity in my musical experience - I want it to sound how I like it, not how some neanderthal mastering engineer thinks it should sound for airplay. And I especially don't want to listen to that swooshy crap that is MP3, AAC and other lossy compression methods - which is entirely the point of this little tube based heapdhone amp in the first place. It's not about recreating with utmost accuracy a fantastic recording - it's about making tolerable the nearly infinite number of musical sources that otherwise sound like shit.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 08:22:15 pm
content: IF it's all swooshy and such, why do they exist?By swooshy you probably mean 128kbps.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 08:24:24 pm
content: I mean 192K and even a lot of 256K. Depends on the codec and the signal. Cymbals from hell.

author: ampdoctor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:07:49 pm
content: You can paint 3 stripes on a turd but that don't make it Gucci! Poor designs are poor designs, whether it has a tube in there or not. However, an average design can sound great, and a good design can be unrivaled. You'd have to be tone deaf not to hear the difference, or have a paradigm so firmly set into your mind that you can't admit the fact to yourself that 100 year old dinosaur technology is outperforming the latest and greatest wonder-chip of the week. Having said that, I'm not sure what exactly makes tubes uniquely special but if I could figure out what exactly it is I'd be a very rich man!In so far as digitally recorded music goes, you should google the loudness wars. Its all in the way the thing's been eq'd and post processed. A lousy mastering engineer can destroy an otherwise outstanding recording. Couple that with the fact that most of the music you're listening to is recorded with a bit depth of 16 bit. If you listen to the same track in 24 bit as opposed to 16 bit you'll hear a marked improvement in audio quality, all other factors remaining the same.

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:34:18 pm
content: Quote from: McMonster on November 12, 2012, 09:13:37 amphiladelphia experiment was their idea?

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 09:35:34 pm
content: Quote from: ampdoctor on November 12, 2012, 09:07:49 pmThere's never been any 'war' over loudness.Since the removal of some of the constraints of LP and cassette mastering, producers have been able to make use of the delivery medium in a different way than was pervioulsy possible. I'm not a big fan of excessive use of maximizers and final limiters to squish the dynamic range to a couple of dB and ligt the console up like a christmas tree, however certain music genres make use of this in a creative way that would not have been possible on vinyl or tape. Massive bass, crunched mids and smashed cymbals are a part of the musical creation itself in these genres, and loud is necessary for the dance-floor producer.Quote from: ampdoctor on November 12, 2012, 09:07:49 pmIt's usually the maximiser and final limiter that is used to make it loud. However it is the producer, not the mastering engineer that calls the shots. I know several mastering engineers that take exception at being blamed for what the client has demanded.The recording process also contributes as much to this as the mastering process. Slamming drums through a range of compressors to create distortion and artifacts is often used in the mix process to achieve certain effects.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 10:33:57 pm
content: You're a very naive person if you believe there has never been any "war" over loudness. Why do you think stations didn't use Dolby in the 80s? Why do you think pop stations use Spatializers and OptiMods? You think that's just about S/N ratio?

author: McMonster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 10:47:51 pm
content: Quote from: M. András on November 12, 2012, 09:34:18 pmI don't think so. There were some actual scientific theories for Philadelphia. The only scientists interested in audiophoolery are psychologists.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2012, 11:53:22 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on November 12, 2012, 10:33:57 pmThere's competition for loudness and objections to the result. That's not 'war'. To call it a war is misguided. The use of compressors in radio stations is for an entirely different reason. Don't confuse the issue.

author: Sionyn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 12:08:45 am
content: these audiofools and vinyl, vinyl have a poor frequency response is there any real evidence of vinyl superiority (none that i know of).is it psychological ?in fact it would be interesting if dave did a rant about audio media

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 12:52:00 am
content: The use of compressors in radio stations is for an entirely different reason.Sorry, but you're wrong. I worked in radio more than a decade, I can tell youexactlywhat it's about: it's about BEING HEARD. It's about keeping that modulation meter as close to pegged as possible. It's about being more noticeable than the next guy, about overloading cheap receivers so badly they cannot help but hear you.

author: smugtronix
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 01:06:46 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on November 12, 2012, 11:53:22 pmFrom a business end, I think the "loudness war" is real. Things such as Optimod settings were, and I believe still are extremely well-kept trade secrets, so each station could have its own sonic signature, in an attempt to be louder and punchier than the rest.

author: NEDM64
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 01:55:52 am
content: Talking about valves and audiphoolery.Yes, audiphoolery is... audiophoolery.But there are things that can't be measured and I don't talk about sound, of course.Just the fact that most of people can understand how vinyls work (and not CD's) is enough, it is understandable.Just the fact that you need to wait to valves turn on, the fact that they produce heat and even GLOW when working, is also good, puts a "soul" into a product.It's about the final product, not the technical layer under it.Of course selling snake oil is bad, but that's the way the world is...

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 03:54:26 am
content: The big question is how do classify an audiophool from a person genuinely interested in creating the purest sound reproduction.The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal. the only allowed factor would be that of gain.pretty hard to do pure with tubes as they add harmonics and ' color' the sound

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 03:59:37 am
content: The purest sound reproduction should NOT ADD or SUBTRACT ANYTHING from the original signal.A) Impossible.B) Signal sources are never ideal.C) It's my fucking stereo.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 04:27:29 am
content: Quote from: poptones on November 13, 2012, 03:59:37 amAgreed. There will never be an 'original signal' since the room itself colours the sound eminating from an instrument or ensemble. You will get different sounds depending on where you place the microphones and what type they are, some good and some terrible.Add to that the dynamic range from many sources is completely unusable in a normal listening environment. Often a dynamic range in excess of 50dB can exist for an orchestra, depending on the piece. Without some form of compression the recording is unusable in the average listening environment. Sounds great in a soundproof studio, but too loud/too quiet in the average living room.Just as images are airbrushed to improve them, and video is enhanced for viewing so too audio needs to be modified and tweaked to get the sounds to work together.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 05:20:10 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on November 13, 2012, 03:54:26 amOr, instead of trying to get the most "original" sound from a system, how about a system that makes the recording sound "good" to you? Be it turning up the bass (and big subwoofers) or adding some 2nd order harmonics with tubes.If I have an old mono recording, I will listen to it trough one of my tube radios (or a tube tape deck). The recording sounds better to me with the limited frequency response of the radio (maybe because the recording engineers at the time were targeting such playback devices as my radio or tape deck?). It also makes a crappy mp3 encode sounds not as awful. No, it does not make it sound better than a CD (or record) played on a good system, but sometimes that crappy mp3 is all I have.On the other hand, tubes can be made to sound good (for modern standards) with good frequency response and relatively low distortion. Tubes add more distortion (as in THD), but it is low order, while most of the transistor amps add less, but higher order, distortion. The low order distortion is not as noticeable, unless there's too much of it.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 08:05:25 am
content: Quote from: N2IXK on November 12, 2012, 04:07:44 pmAll the better to give a more "tubey" sound... I didn't know tubes would actually do something at such low voltages.

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 10:19:54 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on November 13, 2012, 04:27:29 amYawn. And not a single issue you mention is made better by a horribly distorting amplifier at the reproduction end.

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 10:41:19 am
content: QuoteI should have not said anything, look at what I started, sorry guys.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 05:04:08 pm
content: At 12V you are starving the plates, they can operate by all they do is just distort

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 05:09:08 pm
content: Quote from: Pentium100 on November 13, 2012, 05:20:10 amah no, you don;t want to adap tthe sgnal. a true audio purist should pursue the accurate reproduction of a signal.if you capture a complex ignal with a scope and send it to an ARb for playback you are not going to send it through a tube amplifier first to 'color' it are you ?the same should be with people pusuing hi-fidelity. : only amplitude is allowed to be changed. nothing else. that would be true science as opposed to audiophoolery

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 05:18:46 pm
content: It's idiocy. It's impossible and any competent engineer will admit it. The only way to getexactlywhat happened in the studio is to be in the fucking studio. Once you move beyond that it'sallsubjective.

author: Tuomas
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 06:18:20 pm
content: I had a budget of ~100e for new headphones 7 years ago. Sure, I checked some frequency response charts and such when looking for candidates, but I didn't base my decision on them. Instead, I loaded up my iPod (that was my music player of choice back then) with some of my favorite music and went to some stores to try some headphones out. The Grado SR-60s sounded pretty cool. So I bought them. Were they the most neutral and balanced choice? probably not. Do I still have them and enjoy listening to music with them? Yes.Anyone that wants to argue that I should have sacrificed my personal preference for some ridiculous idea of reproducing the music in the most neutral and balanced way is being just silly.On a slightly unrelated note, my university actually held a 2 week intensive course on tube amplifier design. Only found out about it after it had been going on for a week already. Still kicking myself for not finding about it sooner, could have been a fun course.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 06:36:48 pm
content: QuoteIt's not about getting EXACTLY what happened in the studio... it's about getting as close to what happened in the studio as possible!

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 08:50:29 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on November 13, 2012, 05:09:08 pmSo, if the recording sounds awful on a neutral system, am I supposed to just listen to it like that? You really never used tone controls or anything like that on an amp? Not only I use tone controls if I don't like the neutral setting, I also use an expander (dbx 3bx-ds) to slightly expand the dynamic range of severely compressed recordings (or to compress the recording further, reducing encoding artifacts).As for the scope, tell me, do you ever use bandwidth limiting?When I record I want the recording to sound exactly like the source and I usually don't do any intentional changes of the original signal. However, when I play the recording back, I adjust the amp to sound the best to me, be it using the expander, tone controls or an old tube amp.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 09:02:51 pm
content: It takes a combination of science and alchemy todesigna piece of audio gear. Once it's designed, I don't give a shit about the science, I just want to enjoy the music.Whateverthat requires.Go on, I don't take your criticisms personally. I'm quite proud of the fact my views have managed to alienateboththe "audiophools" and the staunch objectivists. I think the only person whomightcompletely agree with me is Harvey Rosenberg, and he's dead....I am a member of the tribe of men who choose to drive only Harley-Davidson motorcycles and consider driving a Honda a form of sacrilege, because Hondas don't produce the kind of stimulus our brain demands. Of course there are hundreds of thousands of members of the Honda tribe who lie awake at night and dream about the totems of their motorcycle tribe and will often write love poetry to them. The intensity of feeling we experience about very specific totems is a mystery, and we are often ready to kill and die for them.From this point of view, one way to look at male tribes/fan groups is as a congregation of men who share the same hormone cocktail response to a stimulus, whether it is a large mouth bass, a religion, or, a sports team, or, a particular rock band…or, brand of car….all tools of male culture.Again, tools are not just "things" for men, they can be powerful totems, because they trigger such deep primal physical responses. The difference between a tool and totem is that when using certain tools something quite magical happens in our brain/body…we are more alive, smarter, faster, braver, more intelligent, we tingle with the thrill of being alive…all of our senses are operating at max…we feel we more powerful, graceful and our genius is fully operational. And again, we can be uplifted to that higher state by our guitar, a flag, or, by our sailboat, and at the foundation of this ecstasy is the struggle we endured so we can be in this euphoric state. Without the struggle, the juices of ecstasy, our hormones, don't flow. No stress, no ecstasy.

author: Tube_Dude
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 10:17:46 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on November 13, 2012, 03:54:26 amI subscribe entirely.We must try to achieve the proverbial "wire with gain"...

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 10:53:52 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on November 13, 2012, 09:02:51 pmLOLAt this point it is entirely clear that arguing is pointless. To be blunt, I think that guy must have been born with two dicks. Could not have grown up to be that stupid pulling just one.

author: eliocor
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 13, 2012, 11:35:15 pm
content: Instead of buying fabulous pre-amplifiers/acoustic diffusors/special cables/... I long prefer to attend and spend my money onLIVEclassical music concerts.BTW, I discovered that many audiophoolers own only 10 or 20referencerecords and listen only to them.Maybe my several thousands CDs collection (bad recorded/with no dynamics/uncrystal clear sound/whatever negative thing you want) will be no par to their records but nonetheless I'm enjoying it!!!