Preamp difference : if it's not the frequency, not the slew rate, and not the harmonics, what is it ?

[RoadrunnerOZ]

Not likely that "not the same at all" would be attributable just to different tubes.

My point entirely but a good way to eliminate the possibility of a dud tube. More likely the difference lies in the transformer(s)

 

[rh001]

I do not exactly get the point you are making with your post. So, my apologies if above is not what you actually mean.
However, this is a false notion. I have listened to so many gear with selectable transformer output and there was not a significant change in sound characteristics on the transformer output let alone being better. I am not advocating against transformers as I also use them on custom designs, but in general there is a lot of transformer fetish going on because of this very false notion that transformer (or indeed discrete) sounds better.

I've probably make more pro audio repairs than anyone living and probably anyone that ever lived, I also design and build stuff from scratch. Output transformer is almost always a noticeable improvement to my ears and I have confirmed this in person with others sometimes when for instance they would come by my repair shop when I was in the middle of A-B ing.

I have even ABCDEFG'd different transformers....almost all sound a little different from each other and I can usually rank them from best to least best and some are chud. Many musicians can actually hear the diff between steel only laminations and steel with nickle.

Not everyone will hear the differences and not everyone will even care to try, for instance women. It is sometimes hard to hear the diff between 2 violins but experienced violinist will hear the diff and that's why some violins sell for millions of dollars. The meat and fish sold at boutique grocery stores catering to the rich really does taste better.

When I first saw Yuzuru Hanyu skate I did not perceive why they say he is G.O.A.T., probably or partly because I have no interest in figure skating. But curious, I A-B'd between vids of his skates and other top skaters and eventually I could see the differences... he really does smoke the competition, and as one might expect, he makes the most money from skating, by far. The market is very reliable at picking winners. Just look at the pooh rain! (Search YT on "Yuzuru" and "pooh rain" )



Musicians may be interested in this conversation between Yuzuru Hanyu and Kiyozuka Shinya about making customizations to classical piano compositions to work better for figure skating....there are a couple examples towards the middle and end. Hanyu used several of these recorded customizations in competions. How does a mere figure skater get a world class pianist to do this? (for English subtitles, go to YT and turn on CC and set for English translation)

 

[sahib]

I've probably make more pro audio repairs than anyone living and probably anyone that ever lived,

Quite a claim to make. Did you run a worldwide questionnaire?

I also design and build stuff from scratch.

So do I and so many others here.

Output transformer is almost always a noticeable improvement to my ears

To your ears. Not to mine or so many others.

and I have confirmed this in person with others...

So have I.
In fact the last one was with the person who paid nearly five grand for an equipment that he could not hear the difference either.

I have even ABCDEFG'd different transformers....almost all sound a little different from each other and I can usually rank them from best to least best and some are chud. Many musicians can actually hear the diff between steel only laminations and steel with nickle.

Sounding little different is different than claiming that transformer always sounds better.

Not everyone will hear the differences.

How about the ones who can hear?

 

[s wave]

So true rh001 - the little tweaking and key components end up be a massive difference. Excellence lies in all areas. Wild blueberry pancakes vs store bought blueberries! It is interesting to see how Segovia improved by even his incredible finger nail care for playing classical guitar!

 

[Paul W]

Not everyone will hear the differences and not everyone will even care to try, for instance women. It is sometimes hard to hear the diff between 2 violins but experienced violinist will hear the diff and that's why some violins sell for millions of dollars.

https://www.science.org/content/art...-distinguish-legendary-violins-modern-fiddles

https://www.science.org/content/article/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check

People commonly pay a lot of money for differences that turn out to be undetectable or not preferable in blind tests, based on gossip about what's (supposedly) better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting

 

[JohnRoberts]

It is not very productive to argue with people on the internets about what they say that they hear.

Definitive proof requires rigorous well controlled double blind tests carried out to realize statistical significance. Caveat this is too difficult (expensive and time consuming) to use in practice.

Audio design is a fairly mature technology. Psycho acoustics/audio perception is also well studied and successful designers need to understand how perception can be altered by external influences. I used to design companding NR and there are numerous perceptual tricks useful to exploit in dynamics design.

JR

 

[sahib]

.....

Not everyone will hear the differences and not everyone will even care to try,

for instance women.

By the way, I missed to respond to this.

Be very careful. May be it is an accepted view in your surroundings but not here.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

I've probably make more pro audio repairs than anyone living and probably anyone that ever lived

You must be in your seventies then as there are only so many repairs you can do in a day?? And you must have obtained documented figures of all other pro-audio service techs for comparison to your own service records to be able to make this claim.

I also design and build stuff from scratch. Output transformer is almost always a noticeable improvement to my ears and I have confirmed this in person with others sometimes when for instance they would come by my repair shop when I was in the middle of A-B ing

To achieve a service throughput total of more than any person living or dead it’s surprising you have the time to design, build and do ABCDEFG equipment comparisons. Do you have a list of equipment comparisons, transformer vs no transformer I/O etc. and your findings tabled?
Your repair shop must be incredibly busy. What is the name of your repair enterprise? Are your designs and builds available for purchase? Brand name/web identity?

Not everyone will hear the differences and not everyone will even care to try, for instance women.

I wonder what the basis is for this statement given that male and female auditory systems are anatomically the same, notwithstanding that there are differences in auditory processing between male and female with women showing faster response times to auditory stimuli amongst other things. There are women who are audio engineers, producers, musicians, equipment designers and working in all facets of the pro audio industry who would likely disagree with you on your statements.

Extract from study researching sex differences between male and female auditory systems:
“Sex differences that exist in the auditory system may interact with peripheral and hemispheric asymmetry for processing slow and fast elements of sound. Regardless of sex, right ears are more sensitive than left to auditory stimuli and females have, on average, greater hearing sensitivity than males (see McFadden, 1998 for review). Moreover, across both sexes, spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) are more prevalent in right ears than left ears but females have larger and more numerous SOAEs than males (Bilger et al., 1990, Lamprecht-Dinnesen et al., 2000). OAEs evoked by transient, rapidly presented stimuli such as clicks or tone bursts (TEOAEs) are also larger in females than males and are generally larger in right than left ears (Ismail and Thornton, 2003, McFadden et al., 2009). Across both sexes, infants demonstrate larger TEOAEs in the right ear while OAEs evoked by continuous tone pairs (DPOAEs) are larger in the left ear (Sininger and Cone-Wesson, 2004). Although adults demonstrate a weak sex difference in the amplitude of DPOAEs, with females having a larger amplitude response, they do not show an ear asymmetry (McFadden, Martin, 2009).”

Full abstract of the study (involved young adults of both sexes and no language impairment)>
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3226913/

 

[rh001]

You must be in your seventies then as there are only so many repairs you can do in a day?? And you must have obtained documented figures of all other pro-audio service techs for comparison to your own service records to be able to make this claim.

To achieve a service throughput total of more than any person living or dead it’s surprising you have the time to design, build and do ABCDEFG equipment comparisons. Do you have a list of equipment comparisons, transformer vs no transformer I/O etc. and your findings tabled?
Your repair shop must be incredibly busy. What is the name of your repair enterprise? Are your designs and builds available for purchase? Brand name/web identity?

I wonder what the basis is for this statement given that male and female auditory systems are anatomically the same, notwithstanding that there are differences in auditory processing between male and female with women showing faster response times to auditory stimuli amongst other things. There are women who are audio engineers, producers, musicians, equipment designers and working in all facets of the pro audio industry who would likely disagree with you on your statements.

Extract from study researching sex differences between male and female auditory systems:
“Sex differences that exist in the auditory system may interact with peripheral and hemispheric asymmetry for processing slow and fast elements of sound. Regardless of sex, right ears are more sensitive than left to auditory stimuli and females have, on average, greater hearing sensitivity than males (see McFadden, 1998 for review). Moreover, across both sexes, spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) are more prevalent in right ears than left ears but females have larger and more numerous SOAEs than males (Bilger et al., 1990, Lamprecht-Dinnesen et al., 2000). OAEs evoked by transient, rapidly presented stimuli such as clicks or tone bursts (TEOAEs) are also larger in females than males and are generally larger in right than left ears (Ismail and Thornton, 2003, McFadden et al., 2009). Across both sexes, infants demonstrate larger TEOAEs in the right ear while OAEs evoked by continuous tone pairs (DPOAEs) are larger in the left ear (Sininger and Cone-Wesson, 2004). Although adults demonstrate a weak sex difference in the amplitude of DPOAEs, with females having a larger amplitude response, they do not show an ear asymmetry (McFadden, Martin, 2009).”

Full abstract of the study (involved young adults of both sexes and no language impairment)>
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3226913/

Oh gawd.

 

[rh001]

By the way, I missed to respond to this.

Be very careful. May be it is an accepted view in your surroundings but not here.

go police someone else's speech. If you persist in harassing me I will make a formal complaint.

 

[sahib]

go police someone else's speech. If you persist in harassing me I will make a formal complaint.

Harrasment?

What are you talking about?

 

[rh001]

https://www.science.org/content/art...-distinguish-legendary-violins-modern-fiddles

https://www.science.org/content/article/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check

People commonly pay a lot of money for differences that turn out to be undetectable or not preferable in blind tests, based on gossip about what's (supposedly) better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting

Hard to be sure a study for this or that is really valid cuz variables often can't be controlled tightly enough. And a test is not exactly real world. The market is usual the best indicator of quality and the subset of value for price, since not everyone can afford the best. First time I heard a $4 mil violin in person it was astonishing ( I had previously heard many violins played by Hollywood movie score orchestras and those players are considered triple scale.)

Real world first hand experience is often more valuable than study results. Even medical study results can be off-target. In USA and Europe most medical study test subjects are Caucasian, but in Japan they're Japanese.

"Studies" seek to have a study group chosen at random on the assumption that will help guarantee the study results are widely applicable. "random" studies are often comprised of people who need the payments and are more or less the average chud. That's good for medicine cuz the largest patient group is comprised of chud. But such studies are not actually randomized, they are weighted towards chud.

There can be/often-is a common person bias in studies as the wealthy are generally not included in studies because they're just too busy for that. "Fanfare for the Common Man" was crafted to celebrate the dawning of a new better, democratic history for mankind but it is ironic that it heralded in one of the most violent times in human history and the creation of ghastly weapons of war and prison states like Cuba and N. Korea as well as international drug cartels and all sorts of horrible stuff.....actually all that is in keeping with elevation and celebration of the "common man", aka chud.

There is such a thing as better, it can be seen, heard, smelled, touched by people but probably not all people. Anyone seeking to make better sounding recordings has to put in some effort, read up on some stuff but also try for oneself a lot of different products and techniques.

 

[rh001]

Harrasment?

What are you talking about?

I prefer that you don't comment to any of my posts. Just go away and police someone else's speech.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I prefer that you don't comment to any of my posts. Just go away and police someone else's speech.

We have very specific rules regarding civility, see rule #4 https://groupdiy.com/threads/groupdiy-rules-read-before-posting-in-any-of-the-forums.6650/

We do not have technical editors here so hyperbolic claims generally get pushback from fellow members. This is fine as long as the rules of civility are obeyed. EVERYONE should be treated with respect.

JR

 

[Paul W]

"Studies" seek to have a study group chosen at random on the assumption that will help guarantee the study results are widely applicable. "random" studies are often comprised of people who need the payments and are more or less the average chud. That's good for medicine cuz the largest patient group is comprised of chud. But such studies are not actually randomized, they are weighted towards chud.

There can be/often-is a common person bias in studies as the wealthy are generally not included in studies because they're just too busy for that. [...]

There is such a thing as better, it can be seen, heard, smelled, touched by people but probably not all people.

Yes, busy rich people are often far more appreciative of the subtleties of the emperor's stupendously expensive clothes than those benighted poors.

 

[scott2000]

than those benighted poors

Bach was so much better when he figured out how to be rich....lol

 

[john12ax7]

Somewhat back on topic, not sure why something like transformers having a sound is a contentious topic. Discrete, steel, nickel, all do sound different. Even with the best transformers I've never heard a fully transparent one.

 

[sahib]

I prefer that you don't comment to any of my posts. Just go away and police someone else's speech.

No.

This is a public forum and anybody has the right to comment on any post as long as the forum rules are obeyed.
So, you can't pick and choose. If you do not like the responses you get then you have the freedom of not posting.

You made un-qualified generalisations which extended to women, yet you expect us to go along with it. I have one particular female client who is a very and very high calibre audio engineer and you can not even dream of the amount of audio equipment that she has got under her hands.

So, again a very friendly advice to be careful with your comments.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

First time I heard a $4 mil violin in person it was astonishing ( I had previously heard many violins played by Hollywood movie score orchestras and those players are considered triple scale.)

Real world first hand experience is often more valuable than study results

So presumably since you are talking up about real world first hand experience you left Japan to go to Hollywood and managed to get into the closed recording sessions in the sound stages where movie scores are recorded and personally listen to the players and violins you are quoting.
Not recordings - real world experience means being there.
My brother does orchestration for film, writes scores, often conducts the orchestra he scores for and the likelihood of some random stranger getting entry to the production of a score for a movie on one of his productions as audience is virtually zero.
The recordings are done in special studios designed for sectional orchestral recording, segments of the orchestra recorded separately and solos like violin, cello etc overlaid usually at the end. I have worked in production for TV, at Sydney Opera House for advisory on a closed session for a musical, recording of film clips etc and a friend of mine, whose family owned a film company, built a large scoring stage studio at Fox (now Disney) - he now runs a complex with over 20 studios where I do work a couple of days a week so I speak from real world first hand experience in this case.
No one gets in without a pass through security.
Sessions are closed. Not part of the production = no pass.
There are no random hangers on allowed in as audience likely to interrupt a busy workplace.
Or did your opinion derive from listening to low grade MP3 audio from clips on YouTube on headphones or through your PC speakers? Or listening to movie soundtracks through a home surround system to these instruments after they’ve gone through mixing and post processing. Hardly first hand.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Lets all try to be nice.

JR