jim williams/audio upgrades

[pucho812]

Black lion still does mods, well at least they advertise they do.  I know a few people who have had their uad apollo converters modded by black lion.  KNowing the UAD and unison technology  that they do on the mic pre's I am wondering how the mod changes that.

 

[JohnRoberts]

He does seem to have a strong combination of real test equipment skills/usage and critical ears/opinions combined with decades of observation.  Hard to fault. 

In the last decade we've swung from a place where his clean approach was still king to a world where that is fully out of fashion.  Fad du jour does not make him wrong.

I was thinking a similar thing but you've articulated it better than I could

How many people out there combine electronic skills with critical audio analysis on a professional basis? It's not a long list, I expect

Probably more than you think... I do not know any working audio product design engineers that did it as their full time job who didn't listen to their work product as part of their design process while some had less skills than others. Years ago my mixer design group used to be upstairs from the guitar amp design group and I recall one bass amp designer who was truly painful to listen to (even through the floor), for his ability to make even a decent bass amp sound bad.  : Luckily for all of us his tenure was cut short and his replacement, a good bass player, is still a friend today.  Most of the senior amp design engineers were working musicians who routinely gigged in local bar bands. It was common to see prototype and pre-production gear in local clubs, and even at my occasional house party.  8)  Peavey's industrial designer won best guitar player in Mississippi one or two years, back when he worked there and was a house party regular.

In my judgement good players can exercise and hear things in guitars and amps that us mere mortals can't.

When I was testing out my Stinger cap protected GFCI power drop, to make sure it didn't step on guitar/ amp tone, I had my old friend who designed the EVH 5150 while at Peavey, and now owns his own company making guitar effects pedals (AMPTWEAKER) to test it out. It passed his critical listening muster.

At Peavey we had one self-described golden ear, who worked in transducer engineering designing speakers and drivers. He was a pleasure to work with for me because he was a real engineer who could articulate what he thought he heard and pursue his goals using physics. We had many spirited discussions where we differed mainly by degree. He is a real engineer and has published one or more AES papers (on multi-tone IMD testing etc).  I did several projects with him and all were well regarded for their sound quality.

Rupert Neve and George Massenburg spring to mind, though I don't know if Rupert was ever a recording engineer. Add Paul Buff, Bob Orban and Ray Dolby?

Nick Froome

Paul Buff (RIP) is the only one on your list I knew personally. Yes he had roots in and around studios, and when he moved to Nashville I suspect the strong studio business there was part of his motivation.  Paul was one of the smartest guys I knew in the audio business, mainly because he left audio to make and sell strobe lights for photography.  ;D ;D ;D

I didn't know Dolby or Orban personally, but their primary products involved dynamics processing involving psychoacoustics, and a great deal of subjective trade-off decisions. To enjoy significant success in such markets mean's their subjective judgements were embraced by the larger market. 

Back in the 70/80's when I was actually designing subjective studio effects products, I spent my share of time in local studio control rooms listening and tweaking. Later as my products became more linear I found objective metrics useful and adequate, while you always listen to confirm that you measured the right stuff.

Designing a reference audio path by ear, is like driving you car with your eyes closed.  8)

JR

PS: I do not appreciate the audio as voodoo, or magic meme that many embrace. The physics is well understood at least by those skilled in the art. Unfortunately you don't have to be skilled in the art to sell audio products, just a good salesman.  The thing I liked most about large scale sound reinforcement is that you can't BS a large audience into believing a crappy sound system sounds good, when it doesn't.

 

[Seeker]

I've tried a few Jim Williams reccomendations from his posts in forums, (never sent gear to him) and I think from what I've seen technically he's spot on and certainly much smarter than me, but I don't share his philosophy....  Cleaner is definitely not always better to my ears... Sometimes I think it works out wonderfully to have some slower op amps, etc. that chop your transients a bit, then you need less compression/limiting later on down the line.... But I have some very clean gear to mix with my fuzzy stuff as well, or to get more 'natural' sounds.

 

[dfuruta]

I fully believe that Jim Williams' stuff sounds great (never had the pleasure, myself), but he pushes some iffy claims (cables, silver solder sounding better, hocus pocus about slew rate, etc.) on other message boards to people who aren't technically inclined enough to question...

 

[Bowie]

I fully believe that Jim Williams' stuff sounds great (never had the pleasure, myself), but he pushes some iffy claims (cables, silver solder sounding better, hocus pocus about slew rate, etc.) on other message boards to people who aren't technically inclined enough to question...

In fairness, there's plenty of people on that forum who poo-poo those same things, many of who don't seem to have ever made an effort to actually compare.  If someone tries something an formulates an opinion, I respect that.  But, for every Jim Williams who says that certain high end components make a difference, I see 4 others mocking the idea. 

Personally, I think the truth usually lies somewhere in between but, above all else, I think people should try to find out if it makes a difference to them.

 

[Rocinante]

Bla had some changes as the founder went off to do his own thing but their mods are pretty much the same and afaic standard fare for older motus and what not.  I got two motus done by them and I gotta say; it was a significant improvement.  I dont know what they do with the apollo but  I see no reason in sending one into them; damn things are awesome and afaic need no mmodification. I do not own one.
I have yet to see a piece of gear that Jim Williams wouldn't modify. That man is never satisfied and in my opinion that seems ridiculous. 
That said; I have used several of his modified pieces and all of them were much better after he did his thing. His mods seem to shine most on lower to mid end, early-mid 90s gear.
Hes also always been very friendly and an open book which means a great deal to me.  Your gonna get exactly what he says your gonna get, which is refreshing in comparison to a few other modders I have dealt with.

 

[dfuruta]

In fairness, there's plenty of people on that forum who poo-poo those same things, many of who don't seem to have ever made an effort to actually compare.  If someone tries something an formulates an opinion, I respect that.  But, for every Jim Williams who says that certain high end components make a difference, I see 4 others mocking the idea. 

Personally, I think the truth usually lies somewhere in between but, above all else, I think people should try to find out if it makes a difference to them.

I hope it would be fair to say that silver solder does not, in fact, sound better than sn/pb due to decreased resistance of the connections;  and that one does not actually need op amps with slew rates in the kv/us range to properly manipulate audio...

Like I said, I'm sure his work sounds good.  But, some of the things he claims are pretty weird, and he doesn't like to back them up when challenged.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I've had several exchanges with him over there, always respectful. I differ with him by degrees, and try not to argue with people on the internet about what they say they hear.

If i was in his business I might take a similar "no corner cut" approach. I had one engineer working for me back at Peavey who bragged "no corner left un-cut" on one extremely deep-value project.  ;D

By training and experience I am pretty value conscious so use less expensive parts when I can, which is often.

JR

 

[thermionic]

PS: I do not appreciate the audio as voodoo, or magic meme that many embrace. The physics is well understood at least by those skilled in the art. Unfortunately you don't have to be skilled in the art to sell audio products, just a good salesman. 

Worth repeating. I couldn't agree more.

I believe that if you can hear it, you can measure it. If you can *reliably* hear it, but you can't measure it, then you're not measuring in the right place. The 'audio as magic' meme exists for one reason and one reason only...

The ears are so easy to deceive. Who hasn't noticed how much sharper the same recording sounds early in the morning than late at night? Who hasn't changed their opinion about an item of hardware over time? In order to really make an accurate statement regarding an item's sound, you need to live with it long-term. Because the latter's rarely an option (unless you have deep pockets) it's better to form an opinion based on an understanding of the device's principles and buy it in the hope that you'll still like it in 6 months time.

 

[john12ax7]

I have yet to see a piece of gear that Jim Williams wouldn't modify. That man is never satisfied and in my opinion that seems ridiculous. 

He has been consistent in liking the Bricasti, essentially saying there is nothing to fix in it, they did it right from the start.

So there is at least one piece of gear 

 

[tonycamp]

PS: I do not appreciate the audio as voodoo, or magic meme that many embrace. The physics is well understood at least by those skilled in the art. Unfortunately you don't have to be skilled in the art to sell audio products, just a good salesman. 

Worth repeating. I couldn't agree more.

I believe that if you can hear it, you can measure it. If you can *reliably* hear it, but you can't measure it, then you're not measuring in the right place. The 'audio as magic' meme exists for one reason and one reason only...

The ears are so easy to deceive. Who hasn't noticed how much sharper the same recording sounds early in the morning than late at night? Who hasn't changed their opinion about an item of hardware over time? In order to really make an accurate statement regarding an item's sound, you need to live with it long-term. Because the latter's rarely an option (unless you have deep pockets) it's better to form an opinion based on an understanding of the device's principles and buy it in the hope that you'll still like it in 6 months time.

I couldn't disagree with this part more, a measuring device can't begin to be as sophisticated as the human ear, it's about understanding what it is you're listening for. Serious question, can you measure a difference between a Wima polypropylene cap and Reliable Capacitor polypropylene cap of the same value? because the difference in sound to my lying ears is not small, and I could pickem blind all day long,  i'd love to see those diffs on a piece of measuring equipment.
    I'm very lucky because I live exactly a 1/2 mile from Jim Williams, I've had many pieces modded by Jim, he has a great combination of EE chops and AE EARS, great big dumbo ears, really quite amazing IMdirectE, he listens to the mods he makes, if he doesn't like them, he changes them till he likes them. I agree with others here that Jim is not the guy to send your color piece to, he's all about fast and clean, his theory is "it's easy to make clean dirty, but it's really hard to make dirty clean", i cotton to this philosophy as it's just common sense to me, i have a lot of colored gear that i love, and the colors that gear makes is much more dramatic when presented on a super clean canvas that a guy like Jim can help you create. I have modded dbx's, aphex's, lexicons, mics, etc.., they are all top shelve first choice pieces, but my crown jewel is a modded Soundcraft Delta 8, it's got extensive JW modifications, and it's the best sounding console ive ever laid my hands and ears on, from a sonics perspective, i wouldn't trade it for anything, it's just beautiful, the eq's are to die for! If any of you live in the San diego/La area and you want to give it a listen, drop me a pm and you can come by and check it out.

IME, Jim is a badass

 

[Phrazemaster]

Yeah I'm sorry I have to agree with Tonycamp; measuring does not do what the human ear can do. Period.

As the saying goes, "if it measures good, but it sounds bad, it's bad. If it measures bad, but it sounds good, it's good."

Some will argue "then you are not measuring the right things."

Fine. But all the scopes and analyzers in the world can't measure "music." They measure "sound" but the ear and human mind/heart can tell when there is music. And some gear that measures badly makes euphemistic sounds that we like and incorporate into music.

Actually funnily enough, Jim would disagree with me although I love what he does. He's got crazy analyzers up the wazoo.

Chacun a son gout.

 

[thermionic]

With all due respect, it's really easy to make a claim that you can hear cap brands because the truth is, you'll never have to back this up double-blind. If you could hear such the cap manufacturers would sponsor blind studies proving this. They haven't, nor has any cable OEM shown their products (when chosen correctly for the task at hand) have a sound.

You only have to move your head an inch and FR will change. A passage might have been through tens of transformers and miles of wire, and whether it's coupled at one point by Vishay or Wima is going to swamp the other artifacts? 

Can you imagine the commercial potential for a component manufacturer in having an award-winning mastering engineer tell their products double-blind?  Why haven't they done it? Smart-phones need passives, and that's how most people listen these days (sadly). If a respected engineer or musician could blindly tell whose cap he or she were hearing, that would be commercial dynamite!!!

For the record, my personal taste is for tape and vinyl - both of which are rich in harmonic distortion. I work in audio and my analyser cost more than my car. Once the analyser proves something 'works' I hand a design over to a listening panel, and they might throw up something. Not because they can 'hear' something the analyser didn't, but because their ears have picked up something I didn't find when trawling the analyser's net. I've never seen someone reliably observe something that I couldn't trace to something that could be measured if looked for in the right place. 

Because of neuroplasticity 'faith' is a huge component in audio. If you believe that brand 'a' of cap sounds shrill, it will. If you have bias against something, it won't sound good. There are so many mechanisms within the auditory system that can impede sound depending on mood / attitude (the 2 smallest tendons in the human body are in the ear).

As audio engineers we need to focus on the elephant in the room (particularly at this point in history), not a flea on the back of the mouse. 

 

[Matt Nolan]

Serious question, can you measure a difference between a Wima polypropylene cap and Reliable Capacitor polypropylene cap of the same value? because the difference in sound to my lying ears is not small, and I could pickem blind all day long,  i'd love to see those diffs on a piece of measuring equipment.

I'm as sure as you are that you can hear a difference blind that it can be measured. Whether it is ESR or ESL or some dynamic variation with voltage or something else, if it is a real effect then it can be measured. We'd probably need a much wider selection than just your 2 cap example in order to isolate what factor or combination of factors it is that you can hear as being the difference between those 2 brands but, if someone really wanted to figure it out, it could be done.

 

[Speedskater]

Isn't it interesting that the people who make the 'I can hear things that can't be measured' clam, never challenge the measurement group to a demonstration?

 

[bruno2000]

Hmmmmmm o.k. I have experienced different in conversations with people.  I have heard mixed reviews mostly nothing good concerning a post modded sound.  I would suspect it's because most people  expect color vs no color. I have seen a some mods where chips were replaced  and installed in the circuit was pdip to sonic converter pcb with a socic chip installed. Then a heat sink on the chip for heat that by all accounts is glued on. I know of no glue that is good for heat dissipation so I dunno...

Somewhat off topic, but I've had really good luck with ResinLab epoxy as "thermal glue".  I used it to glue some 5W resistors to mic bodies, and it's done quite well for 5 years.  YMMV.
Best,
Bruno2000

 

[critterkllr]

Kind of weird seeing a discussion go the gearslutz route on groupdiy. There will never be a universal agreement on the two separate groups of opinions here. I think everybody should keep two things in mind regardless of where you sit.

1) Science hasn't been able to explain everything yet. Keep your mind open to any possibility and understand that even an inaccurate belief can have positive benefits.
2) Your ears are biased, salesmen need to feed their families, and the entire audio industry is filled with a lot of bullshit.

As for Jim Williams mods; His mods are great for taking low to mid level gear and making them sound more hi-fi. If that's what you'd like to do, I wouldn't hesitate to trust his judgement. He does post a lot of info, but keep in mind that his mods always change and he usually doesn't give every detail of what he does.

 

[jensenmann]

Your last sentence incorporates what disturbs me in his posts over at GS. It sounds so easy to beginners to just swap chips, throw electrolytics out and have much better gear. There is often the necessary information missing how to make everything work stable. What he means with his posts is clear to everyone with decent knowledge. But it´s very misleading to electronic noobs.

Besides that he shares a lot of knowledge which I consider to be very positive. It may attract his fututre clients and can be seen as advertising but it gives others a lot of ideas to experiment with. I did learn a lot from the input he gave me through his posts.

 

[pucho812]

I heard his work that he did on a toft master(stereo buss) for starters his mods changed how it behaved in terms of gain staging. Then it sounded much different. I won't say better or worse as that is opinion, but there was a difference between a stock and non stock master(stereo buss). Now for  the opinion part,    having heard both I lean towards the stock stereo buss, the way it gain stages, the  noise, all of it just works better for me.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Kind of weird seeing a discussion go the gearslutz route on groupdiy. There will never be a universal agreement on the two separate groups of opinions here. I think everybody should keep two things in mind regardless of where you sit.

The meter reader vs. golden ear debate probably pre-dates Gearslutz and internet forums. I recall writing about it in the early '80s)

1) Science hasn't been able to explain everything yet. Keep your mind open to any possibility and understand that even an inaccurate belief can have positive benefits.

Huh? The mechanical aspects of sound is very mature technology and well understood by those skilled in the art (physics, acoustics, etc). 

The only somewhat fuzzy area (IMO) is how humans post process the audio data stream.  The brain routinely takes in massive amounts of data that it filters while discarding the vast majority. Different people have different personal filters based on experience and training, but even this has been studied for decades.

I used some basic psycho-acoustic relationships when designing noise reductions back in the '70/80s (masking, change perception time constants, etc) . Not widely discussed science, but science nonetheless. 

2) Your ears are biased, salesmen need to feed their families, and the entire audio industry is filled with a lot of bullsh*t.

I try not to argue with people about what they say they hear.  It is a waste of my time, and irritates them.

The gold standard for scientific listening tests is double-blind with statistically significant results.  These are painfully difficult to execute properly and even difficult to participate in, but a number of popular myths have been disproved by those willing to invest the time and effort.

As for Jim Williams mods; His mods are great for taking low to mid level gear and making them sound more hi-fi. If that's what you'd like to do, I wouldn't hesitate to trust his judgement. He does post a lot of info, but keep in mind that his mods always change and he usually doesn't give every detail of what he does.

Jim provides a useful service that enough people value for him to do it commercially.  I grate at suggestions that a modern op amp/capacitor/resistor upgrade can turn some old value console (sow's ear) into a  world class audio path (silk purse).  While better is always better.  There is more to product design than just selecting parts. When cooking ingredients matter to any recipe, how you use those ingredients matters a bunch too.

I have had a number of exchanges with Jim over the years and he is definitely not lunatic fringe, but he is far less price sensitive than I am (like many are). Which is fine if it makes his customers happy. Perception bias (like an audio placebo effect) has it's place in marketing esoteric gear, or hot rodding mods. "Expensive parts must sound better, right?"

JR