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Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog
Ant writes This Wired News article says there is aural magic in the combination of the very old with the very new: iPod through an old radio or tube-driven amplifier gives it a special warmth and atmosphere. '50-year-old Takeyuki Ishii insists the antique equipment creates an atmosphere that has been forgotten. The softer tones ease listeners and make them feel warm and relaxed.'"
..then it's true for him. Nothing is more subjective than audio quality.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I wonder if this desire for that "warm, soothing" sound will die when those that grew up with it do as well. Is the attraction anything more than conditioning and sentimentality? Sure, a lot modern digital music could be called cold and clinical, but as a perfect representation of what the artist intended to create, is there really anything missing?
The guy is 50. He probably doesn't even hear frequencies beyond those anymore.
the pun is mightier than the sword
...perfect representation of what the artist intended to create, is there really anything missing?
This is really a matter of personal preference. I am an artist (vocal and trumpet) and feel that music should be a representation of your emotion, feelings, etc. I personally do not like music that is created digitally. (Think drum machine, synthesizer, etc.) I don't mind digital recording as long as conservative compression or no compression is used.
I like tube amps because I feel that they add a certain imperfection that gives music character. The best way I can describe the difference is to compare a tube amp and a solid state amp with this example.
A tube amp is a concert hall. The seats closer to the stage hear a different sound when compared to people sitting in the back. The sound isn't perfect but you are hearing the music directly from the source.
A solid state amp is a concert hall where you are sitting in the "perfect" seat. The instruments/people blend perfectly. There is no emotion since the blending is perfect. You do not think about the music, you just listen.
Of course equipment made today can replicate sound almost exactly but for me that's not what always matters, IMHO.
It is SFV (stupid fashion victim) syndrome wrapped in pseudo-science language. No more, no less.
And the pseudo-science it comes wrapped in, invariably shows massive ignorance of the real science. It invariably boils down to "uh, you can't see it on any osciloscope or signal analyzer, but transistors do this and that evil thing to your signal." Well, guess what? If it's some mystical thing that can't be measured or detected in any way, it's no more than some poor man's religion.
And it's still ignoring that nowadays it's usually paired with transistors nevertheless. E.g., that signal went first through the transistors in the iPod. Whatever evil satanistic marks those transistors put on the signal, it's already there before it even reached the tubes.
And you talk about 8 bit or 16 bit or 24 bit quantization, which is a good topic to bring up, since they're still playing music from an iPod. It's still quantized, and it still has the artefacts from lossy MPEG or AAC encoding.
Or I've seen at least one mobo which paired an el-cheapo crap on-board sound chip with a tube, and suddenly it was audiophile equipment. As if there was some _magic_ in the tube that goes back on the causality line and also stops the sound chip from doing a crappy noisy job.
The whole bullshit is that passing _any_ signal through a tube magically makes it better. Suddenly it no longer matters that it's quantized at 8 bits, _and_ lost a ton of harmonics and gained new ones due to lossy encoding. The magical +5 tube knew what the sound should have been like, and erased all those artefacts. Basically turning lossy compression into lossless compression.
That's high magic, folks. ('Cause science and technology it sure ain't.) Don't try it at home. Only high elves certified by the Mages' Guild can infuse tubes with that kind of arcane power.
Which is all that this is. People wanting real hard to believe in basically magic. Magical tallismans which solve this or that by magic. Just because they're there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You can build some yourself cheap enough.
Seriously.. this is part nostalgia, part fact. Tubes were used for a long time for audio reproduction. Tubes color the sound.
Tubes color the sound more than most solid state gear does, and they do it in a nicer way at that.
So it's no Wonder that Mr. Wonder liked the sound of tube gear better... the lack of coloration would sound kind of crisp if you are used to the tube sound.
That "crisp" sound could also be called "accurate" sound.
Perhaps because he uses old tube equipment without line inputs. Old tube radios are often driven by rectified mains voltage (so you get some hundred volts inside the radio on nearly all components), without an insulating transformer (so this voltage is "available" against earth and can kill you). Adding a line input to such a (simple and cheap) design requires an insulating transformer either for the power supply or for the line input, which would have caused additional costs.
It is possible to retrofit a line input to most old tube radios, but not without dramatic changes to the device. You need at least an additional switch and a hole in the backside. Most people who love old tube radios would rather like several root canal treatments without anesthesia than that.
Some "newer" and expensive old tube radios have inputs for a record player and/or a tape, both could be used to connect modern audio devices like the iPod, but not necessarily without mechanical and electrical adapters.
So the most easiest way to "connect" an iPod to old tube radios is an FM transmitter. As a nice side effect, you can "connect" several radios to the same iPod, all without fiddling with cables.
And by the way, frequencies below 50 Hz and above 15 kHz can only be heard by very young people. The older you get, the narrower the bandwith of your ears becomes.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
Tubes DO sound different than transistors. Doesn't mean they are more accurate, the opposite in fact but it isn't an unplesant sound, at least not to most people. Also before the advent of delta-sigma DACs, CD players were pretty harsh. The way the output stage worked, it was a bitch to control accurately so the sound they produced really wasn't as good as it could or should be. Later converters ixed that but I'm not sure if they were around 16 years ago, or in widespread use back then.
Even now I could see someone wanting to do this. Tubes just kind of warm sound up and take the edge off. This means they are less objectively accurate and add more distorion, but that's not necessiarly a bad thing, so do equalisers. If you are listening for pleasure you are concerned about pleasing sound, not accurate sound.
Hmm. I keep hearing about how vinyl is a more accurate representation, and how I should trust my ears. Well, I do trust my ears. But here's the funny part: so far my ears tell me otherwise. It's not about watching pretty graphs, it's about how it sounds.
;)
I grew up on vinyl and magnetic tapes. (And I mean tape reels, not cassettes.) And lemme tell you: good riddance. I'm not in the least nostalgic about it.
They were noisy, and they were pretty much a low pass filter. And I mean _noisy_. Soft screeches and clicks as every dust particle or imperfection was also converted into sound, well, those were the name of the analog game.
Yes, vinyl is a direct mechanical representation, and that is it's _problem_. You're talking a mechanical device, with all the mechanical limitations that come from that. Such as erosion (which eventually flattens high tones out), dust particles, non-linear frequency response due to mechanical inertia, wobbly bearings, and different linear speeds at different positions on the disc. (Hence, different frequency responses.)
And analog had another problem: each copy would be worse than the original. No, I don't mean pirated copy, I mean that a lot of copying would happen between what was recorded and what you bought on vinyl or tape.
E.g., the mechanical imprecision of pressing the disc. You are not listening off the master plates, you're listening off a cheaply pressed replica which is _not_ faithful down to the micron. If you think that that process alone does not lose a lot, you haven't given it much thought.
E.g., it was probably recorded on tape and then transferred to that master plate. In the process any imperfection along the amplifier _and_ mechanical chain, got passed along to the copy you bought.
I.e., in the end you got an approximation of an approximation of an approximation. Less is lost? Ha. In practice, _more_ is lost. And you could say more is added: noise.
For all the bullshit about how slicing sound into samples and recombining it is bad, you can instantly tell a digitally recorded sound from old tapes played through tubes. The CD is the one which still has all the high tones, while the tape-and-tubes setup is the one which sounds like it's played through a low pass filter.
Strangely enough, the sliced and recombined version actually lost less. For starters it didn't lose anything when being copied around: the 7th copy of the 7th copy of a digital signal, still is identical to the original. So by the time it gets to you on a CD, it's still an identical copy of the original sample.
What slicing and recombining does is add harmonics. Luckily, though, they're waay out of the range your ears pick.
You want that warm analog FM-and-tubes sensation with solid state and CDs? That's easy. Open WinAmp and set the equalizer so it's tappers after around the middle of the scale and hits zero at the rightmost slider. There you go: all that warm all bass sound you were pining for.
Simulating vinyl might be a more tricky proposition, though. Just adding more white noise (such as a few high speed case fans) doesn't quite reproduce that screechy and clicky experience. I'm sure some kind folks could be persuaded into writing a screech-and-click open-source module
That said, I will aggree with your statement about speakers. Cheap computer speakers, and even some of the non-cheap 7.1 ones, sound like crap. Last ones I tried just for experiment sake, sounded literally like an AM radio at the bottom of a plastic barrel. And the tweeters on some monitors sound like the music is played through a cheap digital watch. So, yeah, a good set of hi fi speakers are a must.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Tube audio ... let the jihad begin.
You CAN make a solid state amplifier sound as poor as a tube amplifier, if that's your goal. Apply current limiting to the transistors (to get that soft overhead someone talked about), run it through an iron core transformer (to limit the high and low frequency response), add some low-level 50/60 Hz to simulate the filiment hum, add a chassis mounted microphone fed to the input to simulate the microphonics tube amplifiers exhibit. Then, lets slow the response time down to round over those fast rise-time signals. Oops, forgot the random shot noise ... better add a pink-noise generator. Almost forgot the frequency-dependent distortion ... gotta have that now, don't we? Want that gassy, old-tube sound? Guess we'll have to shunt the output transistors with a high power resistor to carry some of the load. Don't forget to add a 300 watt halogen lamp inside to provide the glow, and more importantly, to bake the varnish out of the transformers, the wax out of the capacitors, and to fry any dust that gets in ... for that authentic odor. Probably ought to put the entire thing inside a cheap wooden box as well; you'll have to decide on shellac or varnish as the finish of choice (it DOES matter, you know). Add a heavy steel chassis, weigh the entire thing down with some paving bricks (cheaper and easier to get than granite slabs), and you've pretty much gone back in time to the pre-transistor era. Oh, almost forgot ... you have to overload the transistors severely so they fail after 100-200 hours to regain that thrill of yesteryear ... changing out bad tubes.
*****
I keep threatening to build a signal conditioner that will emulate all but the smell of tube audio, and add it into a simple Class-D amplifier. Want the "Fender" sound? Select from the menu and press enter. I'm sure the number of amplifier/speaker combinations will be unlimited ... so for a small fee, and some lab time with the audio setup of your choice, you'll get a non-exclusive rights to the sound of your own.
The problem is, I really hate engineering something so horrid to prove a point. It's probably much better to allow the existing marketplace to continue providing the cure for MMTB Syndrome (More Money Than Brains). That's it ... spend for the cure.
When people use optical descriptions to describe aural characteristics, you must suspect they're already part way to the cure for MMTB ... in that they recognized that they spent money foolishly, but want to have company so as to not look TOO silly.
Back to the anvil factory.
Don't get me wrong. I agree with most of your post. Just running a signal through tubes doesn't make it better.
But...
You go way too far when you ridicule people who say they hear differences that can't be seen on instruments.
It's just wrong to couch this in terms of "If it's some mystical thing that can't be measured or detected in any way, it's no more than some poor man's religion." Fact is, when someone says they hear a difference, the "thing" IS being detected. The difference IS being measured. It's being detected by the listener's ears. It's being measured on a scale defined by that listener.
The problem is that human ears are not calibrated against any objective standard. In the best cases, they are the finest detectors of subtle differences in sound available to us, far surpassing the sensitivity of the best mikes and racks of measuring equipment. They are also, unfortunately, completely non-standard in their reaction to input, subject to variation depending on a host of external and internal factors, and their results are not repeatable from instrument to instrument. That doesn't mean they are insensitive. That doesn't mean they don't actually hear a difference. It just means that the difference may or may not be obvious to another listener and may or may not be meaningful to anyone except the person listening at that moment.
I have no doubt that if you have good hearing and a love of music, you could listen to a particular orchestra play a particular piece in a particular venue many times over the course of years. That piece could then be recorded by that orchestra in that venue. As a fully-qualified judge, then, you could listen to the recordings through tubes and solid-state, planar and box speakers, etc., and be able to tell not only which ones were different and which you prefer, but which recordings and playback setups are more accurate. Just using your ears. And your results may not track in any meaningful way with the measurements produced by that bench full of instruments.
In that case, I'd consider the conclusions of the qualified listener to be far more authoritative than those of the technician who simply looks at the output of test instruments.
To translate to a more general case: By far, when everything is right, you'll be better guided in your choices of audio gear if you use your ears rather than just look at specs.
Or at least scientist audiophiles do. I was totally blown away when i tested different power supplies, power cords, interconnect cables, and speaker cables on the same system. I basically figured most of the hype was total nonsense. I mean, why the heck would you have to burn in a *cable*? Turns out that you can easily tell the difference in a blind test
What a bunch of nonsense!
I'm consitenly amazed by the crap that gets sold to audiophiles. Special power cables....please.
I should start a business selling "special" replacement plastic knobs for stereos, claiming they offer "nicer" sound.
Did you ever stop to think that the difference in sound was because you just turned the freakin AMPLIFIER on and off?
No, it could possibly have to do with the thermal characteristics of the AMPLIFIER, it must be the freakin power cable even thought there's no scientific basis for believeing so. [/sarcasm]
Another selling point is that truly digital recordings stored on random access media do not degrade over time, while the CDs and SACDs in your collection do so demonstrably.
You should review the meaning of the terms "digital" and "random access". CDs are both. (Why do you think you can jump to track 6 with a button push?)
Actual CDs have a very good shelf life, and it's really silly to compare the lifetime of a FILE FORMAT, to that of a real physical storage mechanism. What if you have a CD full of MP3s for example?
Life is too short to proofread.
- Turn the amplifier on and let it warm up for a good 30 to 60 minutes (especially if you're using a tube amp).
- Turn amp off and plug in cable A. (The amp doesn't cool down much during the 30 seconds it takes to change cables.)
- Listen to cable A
- Turn amp off and plug in cable B.
- Listen to cable B
- Go back to cable A (which you always do, to confirm whether you heard a real difference).
- Repeat 10,000 times.
- ????
- Profit!
Blind testing works the same way, except that each cycle involves a random choice between cables A and B.You control for the "thermal characteristics of the AMPLIFIER" by designing the test carefully. No problem.
And, yes, you can hear the difference between cables in blind tests. And it is very easy to do... if the cables are sufficiently different. I went from plugging in my speakers with lamp cord (don't ask) to some whiz-bang audiophile speaker cable and I fell out of my chair.
I won't get into the "scientific basis" here... except to say that, if you were to watch an apple fall from a tree, you might well conclude that there's no "scientific basis" for quantum mechanics. After all, doesn't Newtonian mechanics explain apples perfectly?
- - - -
As for the idea of selling "special" cool-looking plastic parts and claiming they improve the sound... that business already exists, and it's called "Bose". :)
Actually, that's not fair. Audiophiles love making Bose jokes (bitter jealousy, you know) but I believe that Bose has a quality product. The product is composed of (a) a box that audiophiles laugh at, but which can produce better sound then any random boom box, and (b) amazingly great marketing, such that the customers truly believe that they are hearing great sound. And so, therefore, they are.
Audio is psychology, and reproducing audio is as much magic as it is science. I've heard it said that the customers who brought the first hand-cranked record players were amazed by the realistic quality of the sound, and were often unable to tell the difference between a live band and a Victrola in blind tests.
Actually I can conclude whatever I want. After all they are my ears.....
However, you don't have to accept my conclusions.
Let us know how your double blind test works out.
A couple of counterpoints to speaker technology over the past 50 years. I will agree that standard speakers have improved markedly at a given price. However, some of the best speakers ever made (EVER!) were developed from the 50's to the 70's. Visionary desingers such as James B. Lansing (Ever hear of JBL? or Altec Lansing?) and Paul Klipsch rigorously developed scientific technologies and techniques to create speakers that absolutely CANNOT be duplicated today. Why? Because it is illegal. Voice coil magnets of the very purest sort are not Rare Earth magnets, like many high end drivers today. The heaviest voice coils back then were built using AlNiCo (Aluminum-Nickel-Cobalt). These drivers were massive (a driver for a 16" woofer weighed close to 20 pounds) and deliver impressive flux densities for given currents. In turn, the 2nd and 3rd order resonances within the flux are far purer than any Rare Earth magnet. AlNiCo has become hard to obtain due to manufacturing costs associated with Cobalt. Only a few speakers today use AlNiCo (the overpriced stuff from Audio Note....makers of a $25000 8-watt tube amp ). Coated paper cones are actually one of the best driver surfaces. Stiffer and lighter is only better for low frequency response, but is very poor for high/mid frequency fidelity. I have listened to many speakers, and I can honestly say that most high end, new speakers still can't hold up to the power, clarity, efficiency, and tonal re-creation of a well cared for Altec Lansing Voice of the Theatre system or a Klipschorn. PLUS, I can buy a mid 1960's VoT speaker (say an Altec Valencia) for $1000 for the pair, have them completely refurbished with new foam and cones, rebuild the X-overs with new caps/resistors/inductors, and for less than $1500 have 12" Woofers, a 8" Wide Compression horn (1" driver), adjustable X-over (standard feature on all old Altecs) that has 98dB efficiency and can run to deafening sonic levels (150dB) with NO distortion, full tonality, and only be driven by a 15 watt amplifier. No modern speaker can match that. Plasma driver speakers, Magneplanars, all of those are incrediblly good speakers, but they require too much power and offer only impressive high/mid frequency reproduction.
The thing is, if audiophiles wanted to hear damn-near-prefect signals, they wouldn't be playing records on their tube-amp setups.
I guess I'm an anomaly; I was born in 1975, and grew up hearing audio as presented by American vinyl. Don't believe the hype; engineers did horrible things to audio to make LPs sound good; if you think it's terrible that MP3s use filters to cut down on artifacts, you should hate vinyl. On top of that most the time I heard said records through a tube amp. It sounds warm, yes, but you're not getting the full range of human-hearing-range audio. I can make a transistor amp sound warm, dang it, with the right level of signal degradation.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.