where is the mojo?

Had an interesting discussion last night with  fellow audio engineers about why some gear has mojo and why some does not. Why is it some is seen as must have and equally as good gear seen as stuff fit for a dumpster.  It's amazing to hear people  say what are must haves until you mention something that is not in the must have category.  For example was mentioned how great something like a focusrite isa110 is but then the opinion changed when it was pointed out, it was designed with IC's.  Is the modern consumer of audio gear caught on buzz words without knowing that you can achieve same results doing things differently?  Does it matter how the design achieves the end result if the end result is considered great?
So what gives gear mojo?  Lets discuss because all the other discussions tire me out.

I like to think of certain instruments/ tools that have ways beyond the designers intent to force the machine to do something cool and exploitable.  maybe like the 1176 all-in. Or, overdriving a tweed deluxe which has a thick, pleasing distortion. Or, doing weird stuff with drum machines or samplers. Or, turning an analog delay pedal into the oscillation wacky zone etc.

Also, I think gear or instruments acquire mojo status when somebody does something really popular with it.

*I get $0.07 for every usage of the word "or"*

pucho812 said:

Had an interesting discussion last night with  fellow audio engineers about why some gear has mojo and why some does not. Why is it some is seen as must have and equally as good gear seen as stuff fit for a dumpster.  It's amazing to hear people  say what are must haves until you mention something that is not in the must have category.  For example was mentioned how great something like a focusrite isa110 is but then the opinion changed when it was pointed out, it was designed with IC's.  Is the modern consumer of audio gear caught on buzz words without knowing that you can achieve same results doing things differently?  Does it matter how the design achieves the end result if the end result is considered great?
So what gives gear mojo?  Lets discuss because all the other discussions tire me out.

Click to expand...

So you rather be depressed than tired?

I spent most of my career trying to overcome negative preconceptions (try selling a big split console made by Peavey).  Before that I sold audio kits that were surely too cheap to be considered good. 

Customers often hear with something other than their ears.  : The one thing I liked about large scale sound reinforcement is you can't BS an auditorium full of people as easily as a small group with a good line of BS, while some line array products are close.

JR

PS: FWIW I put gold plated phono jacks on my last preamp.  Not because I thought they would work better, but because the customers thought they would.  :

I rather just be.  ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I can tell you for certain that in guitar pedals at least, mojo is the use of components that are too large, inefficient, or inconsistent to be considered for use in modern design. For instance, if you use 630V axial caps for a 9V pedal. Even if they're new components, they're clearly not chosen for their appropriateness to the form factor or circuit needs.

I can actually give a serious answer using this idea, though whether it applies to this forum's interests is another matter.

Most electronic components are for far more "serious" uses than guitar pedals. I usually refer to guitar pedals as "stupid" electronics, because we typically try to exploit all the flaws that are engineered out of stuff. Like on this forum, we're all concerned about flat frequency response, low distortion, etc., but a fuzz pedal? The nastier the better, up to a point.

This also means that components in the aggregate probably aren't going to be used in dinky little 9V devices with negligible current draw.

So waay back, when guitar pedals were first starting out, people were grabbing amplifier parts, maybe rack gear parts, radio parts (it's amazing how many old fuzz circuits have bits of transistor radio circuits in them), etc. The parts don't really fit, they're overrated for the voltages and currents involved, and it can sort of look like a hodge podge, but then it ends up sounding really good.

Sometimes.

And the "sometimes" is important. All those lousy component tolerances build up and you get some fuzzes where the transistors were just magically the right match, or maybe a cap or two was out of spec in just the right way ...

And that's at least one form of mojo. It's the confluence of errors into something better than intended.

So why don't ICs have mojo usually? They're a single packaged thing that we have no control over. We can't claim to cook up just the right combination of discrete transistors to get the right sound. It doesn't matter if that statement *is* true, what matters is that if it were true, it would be true!

Funny enough, old metal can ICs DO have mojo to some people. Why? Well, because most of the time when you see them,  they're a really old IC, and thus not "good" (e.g. 741).

Give it time and all through-hole components will be mojo. In some far-flung future, 12-atom-thick printed computer chips will be considered quaint and people will be nostalgic for non-quantum computers. Heck, I'm slightly nostalgic for the C64.

I dunno, it seems to me (and here I get mystical about gear) that certain pieces of gear respect the sound stage better than others...I do not think it matter if it is IC or Tubified, because I've heard stellar and strident in both categories...what seems to make a difference to me is if the ger in question treats the audio with a degree of sanctity...

For instance I just recapped and tweaked a Soundcraft 200B...now mind you it is not as "crisp" and perhaps detailed as some of my newer gear (the Bear-ringer U-Phoria UMC404HD really blew my socks off, its quiet, has enough gain and DOES convey the Midas pre-amp mojo for about $100)...but there still seems to be an element of magic on the stuff I put into it the Soundcraft (And Gareth who designed the EQ's was incredibly helpful)...and its all IC older chips...

It's hard to describe "mojo" but every piece of gear is going to affect the signal chain to some degree, the gear we like seems to step into that path with a degree of respect regardless of design...

On another rabbit trail I think oft times we are chasing unicorn piss in trying to hear stuff that matters not...the whole debate on 192 kHz is proof of this...blind testing demonstrates we all have listening bias...what one guy calls mojo I might call moblow...and vice versa...as Fletcher used to say "Your mileage may vary"

And I think as an after thought that the bias against IC chips and simple package is not really considering all the "great" albums we think have staying power that were recorded through consoles that ONLY had that stuff in the signal chain...if you're talking live I gotta say that even live the listening experience is almost ALWAYS colored by an IC chip in the chain be it the soundboard or some other amplification digglewhop...so the whole IC=bad is not really accurate because the things we DO like have that sonic fingerprint on them somewhere...

midwayfair said:

I can tell you for certain that in guitar pedals at least, mojo is the use of components that are too large, inefficient, or inconsistent to be considered for use in modern design. For instance, if you use 630V axial caps for a 9V pedal. Even if they're new components, they're clearly not chosen for their appropriateness to the form factor or circuit needs.

I can actually give a serious answer using this idea, though whether it applies to this forum's interests is another matter.

Most electronic components are for far more "serious" uses than guitar pedals. I usually refer to guitar pedals as "stupid" electronics, because we typically try to exploit all the flaws that are engineered out of stuff. Like on this forum, we're all concerned about flat frequency response, low distortion, etc., but a fuzz pedal? The nastier the better, up to a point.

This also means that components in the aggregate probably aren't going to be used in dinky little 9V devices with negligible current draw.

So waay back, when guitar pedals were first starting out, people were grabbing amplifier parts, maybe rack gear parts, radio parts (it's amazing how many old fuzz circuits have bits of transistor radio circuits in them), etc. The parts don't really fit, they're overrated for the voltages and currents involved, and it can sort of look like a hodge podge, but then it ends up sounding really good.

Sometimes.

And the "sometimes" is important. All those lousy component tolerances build up and you get some fuzzes where the transistors were just magically the right match, or maybe a cap or two was out of spec in just the right way ...

And that's at least one form of mojo. It's the confluence of errors into something better than intended.

So why don't ICs have mojo usually? They're a single packaged thing that we have no control over. We can't claim to cook up just the right combination of discrete transistors to get the right sound. It doesn't matter if that statement *is* true, what matters is that if it were true, it would be true!

Funny enough, old metal can ICs DO have mojo to some people. Why? Well, because most of the time when you see them,  they're a really old IC, and thus not "good" (e.g. 741).

Give it time and all through-hole components will be mojo. In some far-flung future, 12-atom-thick printed computer chips will be considered quaint and people will be nostalgic for non-quantum computers. Heck, I'm slightly nostalgic for the C64.

Click to expand...

A friend of mine started a business designing and making guitar pedals several years ago and is quite successful. http://www.amptweaker.com/
I'm not sure where he gets his mojo, i think he makes his own.    :

JR

It's really several different topics; rumor, consensus, herd mentality, the pseudo mysticism and sentimentality that drives some gear desire and preference (I say that without value judgment as I more or less embrace the idea of using the same stuff that made the records you like the best and lean toward original nearly all the time given the choice), consistency/variation between different examples of the same make and model of a piece of equipment, and design and build characteristics.

Personally a lot of the music I like and make is weird, so it goes without saying that I don't want to use whatever is popular or consensus choice among people making modern pop music.  I also like stuff with a story and that has what I suspect are design choices that I will like the sound of, but have good bang for the buck.

I can definitely see how popular choices like an 1176 for almost anything and a Beyer M160 for guitar are popular for a reason. It's a joy to use something that just works. But I strongly believe that if you do a lot of listening and experimentation, there are lots of other things that have the same kind of strengths. They may not have the versatility of a popular, standard issue classic, but if you do go by your own ears and invest the time I think you end up with distinctive results that reflect the way you hear music.

It does involve some risk taking and some wasted time and frustration when things don't pan out. And that's not for everybody.

As one example, years ago I got a very cheap pair of Chinese made mics that sounded interesting when I read about them, KEL HM1 which are kind of dark, low sensitivity condenser mics. I tracked a great drummer playing in a friends' practice space in an old building, and I didn't know much at the time. The kit was in the corner and I had the HM1 as an overhead, too high, angled so that the kit was off axis and it was getting a lot of room. I only had an Apogee Duet, with the other mic being an AT 4047 in front of the whole kit, so it wasn't like I had a lot of options to mix with. But it sounded awesome, better than lots of other recordings I had been involved with or knew of.

Now I use 1 HM1 on the other side and an AKG D24 over the hi hat, both getting plenty of reflection off the wall behind the drums, as overheads and I'm using cooler preamps but that KEL mic, on a kit that I keep putting in the corner in untreated big rooms with high ceilings, keeps beating other more expensive choices by a wide margin.  It doesn't seem to make much sense on paper. I could call that mojo.

Here is something interesting.

At the local brain trust dinner last month, we had a guy demo power cables.  The setup was,  playback device into small mixer into powered speakers. With the regular provided power cables on the powered monitors it worked well.  With the power cables brought in for demo on those speakers there was a difference. The set up had not changed other then the two power cables. What was even more interesting was how the demo power cables caused a 2dB increase in level as measured with an SPL meter. Mojo? no mojo? In the end was fun to watch the skeptics and nay sayers vs myself and a few others who were more open  to the ideas presented. There was a difference we heard it. Was it better? I'll leave the subjectives to others.

Was the power cable demo a blind comparison?

In my experience, the validity of the term "mojo" depends on who is using it.
No shortage of folks on the net throwing praise and insult around who lack any real experience, and then there are some others who have real track records and experience making wonderful music.
IMHO, a piece of signal processing gear must pass the "it sounds better without doing anything" test (as in a comp w/ the threshold all the way up, an EQ set to flat, and so on...)  to  have any hope of anointing mojo...

pucho812 said:

Here is something interesting.

At the local brain trust dinner last month, we had a guy demo power cables.  The setup was,  playback device into small mixer into powered speakers. With the regular provided power cables on the powered monitors it worked well.  With the power cables brought in for demo on those speakers there was a difference. The set up had not changed other then the two power cables. What was even more interesting was how the demo power cables caused a 2dB increase in level as measured with an SPL meter. Mojo? no mojo? In the end was fun to watch the skeptics and nay sayers vs myself and a few others who were more open  to the ideas presented. There was a difference we heard it. Was it better? I'll leave the subjectives to others.

Click to expand...

If the power cable makes it 2 dB louder, the old power cable is faulty.  :

Even you guys can hear 2dB.....  : 

generally from the old hifi salesman's trick bag, the louder one of two demos sounds better (sells faster) 99% of the time.  8)

either there was a bad power cable or somebody was pulling your leg with their thumb on the proverbial scale.

JR

the power cable was not a blind demo. We all saw the switching of it and heard the drop out when unplugged.
We didn't hear 2dBu so much as it was measured with an SPL meter on an i-phone.

it's possible the original provided power cable is faulty but I doubt it as it was used for another talk and for the rest of the evening without any noticeable problems.

I agree the old snake oil trick of a little louder is better. It has worked so well for so long. However this was measured difference on a spl meter and I am not saying one was better over the other just that there was an audible difference.

pucho812 said:

the power cable was not a blind demo. We all saw the switching of it and heard the drop out when unlogged.
We didn't hear 2dBu so much as it was measured with an SPL meter on an i-phone.

it's possible the original provided power cable is faulty but I doubt it as it was used for another talk and for the rest of the evening without any noticeable problems.

I agree the old snake oil trick of a little louder is better. It has worked so well for so long. However this was measured difference on a spl meter and I am not saying one was better over the other just that there was a difference.

Click to expand...

The whole argument for snake oil power cords is specious (questionable).

A cord  (or the product design) would have to be really really bad to affect the product's audio path.

perhaps your 2dBu (SPL?)  measurement was questionable too.

Sorry  just checking the anecdote for realism, not quite adding up..

JR

John I understand.
I am with you. I wouldn't believe it if I was not there to hear a difference. What's curious was that it was most noticed in the low end content of the audio when switching between power cables. 

Now being a cheap iPhone app SPL meter, yeah I am sure it's far from accurate.  so who knows maybe it was snake oil but it was enough to have me less a skeptic and more wondering how and why. But that is where you would easily win as the demo guy could not explain the science behind it all just that it was "better" :

if a power cord makes an audible difference there is something wrong with the old power cord or the product design.

Perhaps you were hypnotized... 

JR

maybe

I would say the design is a problem .  What I've read is that the power cables snake oil is shielded and prevents RF components from entering the input of a power amp causing  RF overload in circuits that have extended bandwidth.  All of that sound like a bad designed product .  The whole balanced power transformers can help with that kind of design problems.  Might also be related to switching powersupplys in everything these days providing plenty of noise in the air.  Older circuits were usuallly just enough bandwidth.  New great can have 1/2 megahertz bandwidth.  Working on a Sony 3000 board one time on a remote recording and noticed a red overload led constantly on.  It turned out the screen on the mic cable had broken down  and the RF in the facility was overloading the mic pre.  The tech that ran the truck said it was a common problem with the wide bandwidth of the Sony pre's

Maybe the magic power cable was intentionally broken ? I could imagine a current starved amp generating harmonics that would sound like a louder source.

I am British so for me 'mojo' is all about class. 

Class A circuits sound different to class B.

In class A circuits, all distortion products are present and in particular the second harmonic which the ear finds pleasing since it is  an exact octave,

In class B circuits, all the even harmonics cancel and all you get are the third (which is musically a fifth) and above.

In class A circuits with sufficient local decoupling, the power supply current is is virtually constant. This makes very little demand on the power supply itself.

In class B circuits, the power supply is directly proportional to the signal level. This puts much greater demands on the power supply, needs careful routing of clean and dirty supplies and can be a source of crosstalk.

All these differences are measurable.

Cheers

Ian

I'd define mojo as desirable  non linear behavior.