More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t
Discussion
TonyRPH said:
Globs said:
Perhaps I was thinking of the DM58 as that draws 350W while delivering up to 200W - that's a Class B ratio.
The DM88 is the same with a few tweaks by Candy.
What do you mean by "Class B ratio"?The DM88 is the same with a few tweaks by Candy.
Globs said:
The DM88 inside
It looks nice enough but not exactly hand wired point to point. I'm sure it's very good but if it's affected by a mains conditioner I suspect you are hearing things that are not there or the PSU is not adequate for the price.
I see what looks like a choke in the PSU there - if so, even less reason for it's sound to be influenced by a power conditioner.It looks nice enough but not exactly hand wired point to point. I'm sure it's very good but if it's affected by a mains conditioner I suspect you are hearing things that are not there or the PSU is not adequate for the price.
TonyRPH said:
Globs said:
Perhaps I was thinking of the DM58 as that draws 350W while delivering up to 200W - that's a Class B ratio.
The DM88 is the same with a few tweaks by Candy.
What do you mean by "Class B ratio"?The DM88 is the same with a few tweaks by Candy.
Globs said:
The DM88 inside
It looks nice enough but not exactly hand wired point to point. I'm sure it's very good but if it's affected by a mains conditioner I suspect you are hearing things that are not there or the PSU is not adequate for the price.
I see what looks like a choke in the PSU there - if so, even less reason for it's sound to be influenced by a power conditioner.It looks nice enough but not exactly hand wired point to point. I'm sure it's very good but if it's affected by a mains conditioner I suspect you are hearing things that are not there or the PSU is not adequate for the price.
So a 200W amp in class B should consume about 285W +, a class A about 800W +. The fact it consumes 350W tells me it's not a pure class A.
It's the reason that Single Ended tube amps rarely exceed 20W in output - because that HAS to remain in class A or clip, there is no AB option with that one
. Mine is (about) 12wpc, haven't managed to clip it yet.You mean the grey choke/transformer in the middle section on the left? A choke will always help yes, although Halcro claims to recreate the mains inside - although looking at that it seems doubtful. It's also rather unnecessary. I'd be surprised if it was an inadequate supply TBH but it wouldn't be the first time expensive kit has been found wanting.
This is my Usher R1.5, an amp I used before I built up the tube SE:
That is also a class AB, most of the time it will be in class A, but as it's 150wpc and consumes about 500W you can tell it isn't true Class A. It's a modern take on the Threshold amp IIRC, and costs about the same as the mains conditioner the thread is about
An audio amplifier is a voltage controlled power supply, a decent one will not be influenced by power line quality.
Adrian W said:
Please can you point out the choke for me, if you mean the wound component in the power supply, how did you count the number of windings? I make this stuff for a living and that thing looks cheap, I could write a list, but I'll start with the 1.6 mm pth boards, hardly high end!
I'm referring to the ferrite looking device at the bottom. in between the large caps.It actually reminds me of a commutation coil out of an old 1980's TV set.
Of course I could never guess the mount of windings on that - if there was a prize, I would have a go!
TonyRPH said:
Adrian W said:
Please can you point out the choke for me, if you mean the wound component in the power supply, how did you count the number of windings? I make this stuff for a living and that thing looks cheap, I could write a list, but I'll start with the 1.6 mm pth boards, hardly high end!
I'm referring to the ferrite looking device at the bottom. in between the large caps.It actually reminds me of a commutation coil out of an old 1980's TV set.
Of course I could never guess the mount of windings on that - if there was a prize, I would have a go!
Not sure why the giant caps with a switcher though.
Certainly the benefit of a power conditioner feeding into a switch mode supply would approximate zero quite closely.
OK I'll bite
I heard Custodian's system a few years ago when he still had the Pass Labs X1000's (I bought a Meridian processor off him). Although I'll agree that the law of diminishing returns usually applies, his system was absolutely superb, producing a very 3d (holographic) sound. You know that exhibit at the science museum where you can shake hands with yourself, I liken it to that but in audio terms, with the soundstage presented, you felt that you were shaking hands whilst being among the artists.
One of the best systems that I've ever heard, and I've heard a few!
So he needs no custard!
I heard Custodian's system a few years ago when he still had the Pass Labs X1000's (I bought a Meridian processor off him). Although I'll agree that the law of diminishing returns usually applies, his system was absolutely superb, producing a very 3d (holographic) sound. You know that exhibit at the science museum where you can shake hands with yourself, I liken it to that but in audio terms, with the soundstage presented, you felt that you were shaking hands whilst being among the artists.
One of the best systems that I've ever heard, and I've heard a few!
So he needs no custard!
While you all have valid points there is an unbelievable amount of bulls
t and hype in the hifi world, and a great deal of crap peddled by charlatans for a huge amount of money. Hi end hifi attracts snake oil salesmen like a magnet does iron filings.The OP was and is right, a 'liquid air' module is total s
te.I'm sure a sycophantic hi fi mag of delusion, lies and marketing/advert spend might be less intrusive on your sensitivities but on PH some people like to call a spade a spade and a choke a choke, not a liquid air module. Be careful though - you might actually learn something.
StuH said:
that DACs make no difference, or that a £12 CD player is a perfectly good transport for a £3k DAC then I know that the poster has no experience or knowledge of what they're talking about.
isn't the job of a transport to simply get the bits off the physical media with 100% accuracy in order to send to the DAC? In which case if a £12 player can do that then why wouldn't it be suitable? Surely the zeros and ones are just as good as a more expensive transport?
Seeker UK said:
DodgeRam Van Man said:
Surely the zeros and ones are just as good as a more expensive transport?
Google "Jitter"Even relatively modest DACs will recover the signal with a high degree of accuracy now.
TonyRPH said:
Seeker UK said:
DodgeRam Van Man said:
Surely the zeros and ones are just as good as a more expensive transport?
Google "Jitter"Even relatively modest DACs will recover the signal with a high degree of accuracy now.
DodgeRam Van Man said:
StuH said:
that DACs make no difference, or that a £12 CD player is a perfectly good transport for a £3k DAC then I know that the poster has no experience or knowledge of what they're talking about.
isn't the job of a transport to simply get the bits off the physical media with 100% accuracy in order to send to the DAC? In which case if a £12 player can do that then why wouldn't it be suitable? Surely the zeros and ones are just as good as a more expensive transport?
For a modern pop CD this makes less difference than you'd think - people get hung up on a 'bit perfect' copy, this is because they have never ripped a raw WAV file from the CD and looked at it with a waveform editor. I doubt any reviewers have either, some discs you just wouldn't use as a test for HiFi, more a test of DAC overload handling.
DACs are a different story because linearity counts, but also speed and the algorithm used to de-compress the CD data.
But hey you say, CD data isn't compressed! Well, it is in a -join-the-dots- type of way, and joining the dots correctly requires more than a simple DAC.
IMO it requires up-sampling with a digital filter to correctly guess the missing values, and then fed through a DAC at 88.2kHz or even higher - which allows the (required) analogue filtering to work properly, something that IMO it cannot do at 44.1k. There is some very good pro-audio stuff that does this extremely well for much less than hyped up hifi gear.
If you just want a single box CD player some of the top Meridian ones do a very good job.
Can i go back a few pages and ask again, what do you guys with serious high end kit listen to?
If i find the majority of recent CDs painfully bad on £2k ish worth of hi-fi how on earth do you tolerate it? Or do you just stick to recording from 20+ years ago when they made an effort?
Some great stuff on here, i particularly like the media server with the high end graphics card which improves the sound and 96Gb of RAM! £55k for a PC. Madness. Especially when you think the amount of processing power involved in a CD player.
If i find the majority of recent CDs painfully bad on £2k ish worth of hi-fi how on earth do you tolerate it? Or do you just stick to recording from 20+ years ago when they made an effort?
Some great stuff on here, i particularly like the media server with the high end graphics card which improves the sound and 96Gb of RAM! £55k for a PC. Madness. Especially when you think the amount of processing power involved in a CD player.
custodian said:
Why does adding an external clock make such a difference?
Why does then adding a Rubidium source make a further difference?
Don't feed the trolls! Why does then adding a Rubidium source make a further difference?
I've already wasted several minutes of my life reading globs misinformed ramblings on amp design and all things digital. I'm not sure we really need worry about the fact that we hear with our own ears the quality of our digital sources - I'm sure the experts on this bb know a lot more about these topics than those misguided fools at DcS , Aurender, halcro and krell
Custodian - my advice is enjoy your system and your ongoing quest for audio perfection, and enjoy the snow
- sadly I'm not hitting the slopes until March this year.StuH said:
I've already wasted several minutes of my life reading globs misinformed ramblings on amp design and all things digital.
It's easy to criticise rather than explain but frankly it's extremely rude, although I can see the attraction of implying that you know more than I do.Perhaps instead you tell us what you disagree with if you can? Maybe then we'll all learn something.
The_Burg said:
Can i go back a few pages and ask again, what do you guys with serious high end kit listen to?
If i find the majority of recent CDs painfully bad on £2k ish worth of hi-fi how on earth do you tolerate it? Or do you just stick to recording from 20+ years ago when they made an effort?
.
I agree it's a massive problem, and as you rightly point out the more revealing the system the more apparent the poor recordings. This is actually one of the reasons I now have several systems in the house because my main system whilst superb with quality recordings is too ruthless for lots of my library so I have a much more forgiving system for these. However good recordings are still being made, and I buy a lot stuff on SACD and in HD format from HD tracks and similar. In terms of redbook I think Agnes obel's 'philharmonic' is probably the best recording of late.If i find the majority of recent CDs painfully bad on £2k ish worth of hi-fi how on earth do you tolerate it? Or do you just stick to recording from 20+ years ago when they made an effort?
.
Globs said:
It's easy to criticise rather than explain but frankly it's extremely rude, although I can see the attraction of implying that you know more than I do.
Perhaps instead you tell us what you disagree with if you can? Maybe then we'll all learn something.
Apologies globs - I just read my post back and it came across a little more disparaging than intended. It's just that until today I've found your posts very good but today you seem to have come over a little holier than though on the high-end bashing front. Anyhow, I'm not going to get into a debate on the whole digital transport/dac/jitter/clocking subject as its apparent we have differing views. If the guys that work at the very cutting edge of digital audio like those at DcS don't have all the answers then I respectfully suggest that no one on this forum does either. I just go with what my ears tell me Perhaps instead you tell us what you disagree with if you can? Maybe then we'll all learn something.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
kewl 
To me there are two distinct areas which I find confusing/suspect/"snake-oil territory; the use of components to change sound and setting up a sound system/acoustic environment which improves the listening experience.
Re. the use of any components such as Liquid Air filters; Surely if this (or any other component) really alters sound output then the difference MUST be measurable and demonstrable? Would the panel agree that where a component does not measurably alter sound output then it's a bit of a con?
I appreciate that somebody might percieve the sound to be better but if the soundwaves haven't changed how can that be??
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