audio-luddite

[audio-luddite]

Daft Punk

Weird people.

I have the Random Access Memories album. It is about 14 years old, it won several awards including record engineering at the Grammies. I have seen it mentioned quite a lot in equipment reviews and such. So after a good warm up I spun it up. LP of course.

This is a double album on vinyl. I suspect it may sound fine on CD or streaming as it is almost pure electronic. But it is not pure pure.

Daft Punk made their name with dance, club, electro-whatever, DJ music. The did a lot of mixing and sampling which means they used sounds they found, liked and manipulated with lots of gear. They created robot like identities to hide their faces and that is a good way to protect your real life and family from the celebrity meat grinder.

They worked in an imposed isolation with banks of machines and sound samples. Here they actually went out in the world. This Album was a return to roots of what they never really did before. They had money so hired real people to play on the sessions including a choir and orchestra for several tracks. So the sound is complex and in places very rich and deep. They loved sounds. They used some old equipment to manipulate their voices and may even have used their real voices in some places.

They apparently recorded all the tracks on both an old AMPEX Tape deck and digitally so they could choose what sounded best to them for the final mix. They used at least 5 different studios some in California, and New York, and one in Paris, France.

All this said there is very little ambiance. The tracks were mostly done in soundproof booths by the character of them. Strangely they recorded a few effects on a large stage to give an impression of space in a couple of places.

The quality of the recording is excellent. They used top notch mastering, and the LP seems flawless. Yet I suspect it may sound more in its "natural" setting on a digital platform. The lack of natural sound as in pure human voice, and instrumental timbre on most tracks misses a lot of the analog cues I believe betray pure digital recordings. Though there is a fair amount of close miked human voices without the vocoder stuff. Still it feels like the whole thing went through some kind of filter. Kinda like cloudy water through a Brita pitcher.

There is deep and impressive Bass as well as delicate treble. The range of hearing is covered.

The songs are a bit weird and a few are emotionally sterile. The song "Get Lucky" was a huge hit and is almost offensive in its emotional shallowness. The theme and lyrics are women want fun, men want sex, lets party. Yup a global hit. Other songs tried to balance that I think.

For all that it has depth and complexity to the sound, if not the themes. Yes this is an audiophile recording as it as about as clean and clear as it gets. My wife actually liked it a lot as it reminded her of her prime of life in the disco age. Lose yourself to Dance.

This was the last Daft Punk album and it was a summing up and clearing of the air effort. They have abandoned the robot suits and went on to other quieter lives. They were good at what they did.

I enjoyed the play with a glass of wine and the album with liner notes on my lap. It was good.

[audio-luddite]

what all this stuff is for.

Is listening.

It was a day of mixed weather. After a bike ride and lunch I was tired. So I fired up the old music boxes and had a few hours of auditory stimulation. I warmed it up on a recent Rick Wakefield album called Yessonatas. He is an accomplished keyboard player but his compositions are not going to win any prizes. But this was just to warm the system up. Gotta get all that thermal equilibrium sorted.

I may have had a nap.

Next up some hard media.

I have two NIMBUS CDs of Mendelssohn string symphonies. Felix Mendelssohn was a genius and wrote an entire set of symphonies before he was 14. Later he ignored then as he considered them juvenile. They are short most only 10 minutes, but pleasant to listen to. They are interesting to see how he matured, from a fan of BACH through Mozart to Beethoven as style models.

NIMBUS was / is a gourmet CD label from the 1980s. They did a lot of their own recordings using the Ambisonic method. For all the technical blah blah it captures the sound of the group and the full ambience of the room very well.

I played both of those disks which took a couple hours. Both exhibited impressive room sound and almost a holographic sound stage. Yes that is a golden ear term, but it is impressive to experience. The Famous Trinity Sessions Album is also an Ambisonic recording and is famous for the room sound.

Ambisonic is popular today for Virtual Reality recording as it captures the full 3D sound field around the microphone array.

NIMBUS is still in business and you can order much of their catalog from stock.

https://www.wyastone.co.uk/all-labels/nimbus.html

I recommend them.

These symphonies are just for strings, but it is impressive how powerful a string orchestra can be without big drums and horns. Full range including BASS.

I especially liked the massed violins clear and silky. The ambisonic method restricts the microphone selections so all those classic Neuman mikes cannot be used to give a rich voice to the sound. But damn its still good.

Next up I dusted off an old LP (had to) of the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner Playing "Prokofiev Lt Kije. " This was a favorite of the old "Absolute Sound". My copy is a repress by Chesky records (yes that Chesky). The Brag label claims it was played on a restored and rebuilt AMPEX three track tape deck mixed directly to stereo with no processing to the lathe. My audio nerd heart is happy.

It is an amazing record. There is a piccolo that blasts out its presence with all the authority that a 1958 three track tape can muster. The strings and horns, well everything are very clear and realistic. I have a few Chesky LPs they are all excellent.

Back in the golden days of The Absolute Sound amplifiers and speakers would triumph or get impaled by how they reproduced this recording. Though it would be the original RCA disk.

The original Lt Kije was a soundtrack for a comic movie. These albums are a suite. It is fun music.

I finished with my new IMPEX Famous Blue Raincoat. WOW.

This is rumored to be an "original" analog tape direct to lathe. Ironic in that the studio recording is digital, but the analog master was done to tape by Bernie Grundman. JW owns the tape apparently and is best buddies with IMPEX.

I have a vanilla consumer copy that is very good. Actually I could not remember if I had already played this copy. It is very clear and detailed and pushes all my buttons. I can easily separate each track they did. There are more comprehensive notes which are always appreciated. I did not realize that JW co-wrote the "Song of Bernadette" and that Cohen only sang on one song. Notes are important. The music is of course very good. There is magic in the plastic wiggles.

You simply do not get this on streams.

Satisfying experience.

[audio-luddite]

Good stuff follow up

I forgot to mention.

In the preamp section I have to say that Dynaco PAS 2 and PAS 3 tube preamplifiers are to be avoided. I am sorry to say they are crap. I know from personal experience and having owned amplifiers from that company. The PAT 5 is very good and uses FETS rather than tubes. I had one and it rivaled the ARC SP3. People hang on to them.

In the speaker section I said I could go on for pages. And I am still thinking about that. So here is a bit more.

Large planar speakers such as electrostatics and planar magnetics have a great strength and great weakness. I owned electrostatics and have heard the type planar magnetics like Magnepans many times.

The strength is the large surface area which is usually many times that of cone type drivers. That means it is very efficient at driving air. The technical term is acoustic impedance matching. The result is a wonderful sense of presence and dynamics. It is worth experiencing even if it is in a store or an acquaintance's home.

There are two weaknesses.

First is they are dipoles which radiate front and back so they must be set far enough from back walls to avoid reflections and wave cancellation. You need big rooms even for the smaller examples.

The second is a technical non-linearity. They use membranes which are held along the perimeter. As long as the motion of the membrane is very small the response is fairly linear. As it gets larger the resistance to movement by the membrane goes up exponentially so the response gets compressed. So quiet is pretty good, loud not so much.

The interesting thing is that strength factor sort of compensates for the weakness until it doesn't.

I am intimately familiar with this effect. It works great until it doesn't.

The compression effect also happened with stiff suspension cone drivers and was "solved" with more sophisticated designs.

Horn loaded speakers share the good impedance matching, but they have resonances that are audible. Still if you ever have the chance to hear old Klipsch Horns please do. They are an experience.

Another problem with old electrostatics is they fail mechanically and electrically. Some great old classics can be found for a good price, but repair is very expensive.

Today many speakers considered the best use any of the above methods.

Many old speakers need repair. The big cones often have serious degradation of the suspension material. I have rebuilt some, it is not hard but requires care. Always inspect and hear them running if you can. I bought a $500 pair of speakers for $20 bucks as the woofers were rotted. I knew what I was getting into.

No brand is immune.

The rule of thumb is a speaker set for high end sound should be about 50% of the value of your entire system. That is another reason I build my own.

[audio-luddite]

Good Stuff?!

I am going to recommend some stuff. I have some experience with old audio. There is good stuff and not so good stuff. The key is avoiding the not so good stuff and spend the money wisely.

I will name names so look out!

I wish there was a way to actually rank equipment properly as being in the range of good stuff, to better, to the best. There is no a State of the Art, cuz the goal posts keep moving, not away, but to one side or the other, or even to another field.

So I will name things I actually have experience with, or have had reliable reports of. I also will adhere to the idea of the four part system which is source, preamplifier, amplifier, and speakers.

Starting with the hardest to deal with.

Speakers:

Speakers are a royal pain. What do you like to listen to, how big is your home, and how much money do you spend? All those things are important factors. Tribal wisdom is spend money on the speakers before anything else.

The Size of your room determines a lot. Many speakers require a lot of space. My old favorites Magneplanars need big rooms or just enough space to keep them 3 or 4 feet ( 1 to 1.3 m) away from the nearest wall. And that size requirement is common.

Common bookshelf size speakers can perform very well. Roughly a box of manageable size say no more than 36 inches tall. They are intended to sit off the floor, and may even be set in a book shelf.

Anyway good examples are Old Advents (had some), Classic ARs, Classic Dynacos, KLH. Newer brands are PSB, Infinity, and well there are dozens of brands.

Generally I think two way types are better. That means a Woofer and a Tweeter and that's all.

There are small speakers the most famous being the BBC Ls3/5a ( heard some and liked it). Genuine examples are expensive as in several thousand. There is a crap Chinese knock off "BBC" that should be avoided.

Small speakers may need a subwoofer and you may find joy in such an arrangement.

If you have a big room and can get larger speakers then Magneplanars (heard many of these) are things to experience. Floor standing box speakers mean you are off on the journey and will probably do best to ignore me.

I could and maybe should go on for pages on speakers. I will advise you to avoid electrostatics. Aside from expense the all suffer reliability problems. Seductive beasts though! ( owned some for years)

Now to something easier.

Amplifiers:

Tube amps should be avoided if you are new to this. The least expensive decent type will cost as much as a pretty big Solid State amp. If you must, the entry level is the Dynaco ST70. I lived near one, heard it often, and owned its big brothers the MK 3 for a long time. They run around $1k starting out. Anything less expensive is crap. I mean that, those are crap. Oh and the design is over 60 years old.

More expensive up to $2k there are usually good Audio Research, Sonic Frontiers, and Perhaps a Conrad Johnson. Get at least 60 Watts per channel.

In Solid State the choices are rich. Bryston, Crown, Hafler, SAE, ADCOM, Yamaha, Nakamichi, and many others. There are hundreds listed under $1k and some real treasures under $1.5k. To a great degree a price range for a used amp over $700 bucks means you are playing with the big kids. There are a lot of good ones under $500. Get as much power as you can.

At this point I will advise against the tiny new Class D amps that are flooding the market. They are cheap, and I simply do not believe the claims they make. I have no personal experience with them.

Ok Preamplifiers are next.

Preamps:

Now this gets interesting. There is not a hard divide between tube and solid state in this class. Excellent entry level preamps may be had for under $500. Almost any brand that has gone to the trouble to make a preamplifier is worthy to explore. And the used market is rich pickings. Also you can probably sell it for what you paid.

The only thing to be sure of is that is has a phono preamp stage. That is what really makes or breaks a preamplifier.

There are almost too many brand names to list. SAE ( had one) Rotel, Hafler, Pioneer, Bryston, Sony, Nakamichi, Luxman, so many more.

If you go over $1k it is serious. My preamp cost me $1.9 k including insured shipping.

Ok Lastly the Source.

There are Three legitimate sources. Do not get involved in the fight as to what is best. I have CDs, a Turn table, and a streaming node. They can all be good. The quality depends on the care making the recording more than the medium. Generally LPs and CDs are made with more care.

CD players: I have no recommendations, spend whatever you like. Many have inputs for streaming from a phone which works OK. I have a Yamaha S300.

Streaming Node: I have limited experience and have a Blue Sound Node Nano, which works fine. It has the same DAC chips as the big high end beasts and is not that expensive. All streaming things use chips from only a few sources. The guts are all the same.

Turn Tables:

Oh baby this is complicated. A very good one may be had for $500 bucks. There is no upper limit. Careful inspection of older cheaper stuff can get some treasure. But these are simple mechanical devices. If it spins you are almost there. I prefer direct drive, but belt drive is fine if you can get a new belt. Idler drive I do not like as there are more parts that roll and rub and wear out.

The tone arm is good to have a standard removable head that holds the cartridge.

A key part is the phono pickup or cartridge. You almost have to buy new as old worn styli will damage records. An excellent starting point is an Audio Technica AT95E which is under $100. Up from there has no limit.

[audio-luddite]

Amplifier Voice

I did a lap through Audio Science Review and came away with a bit of frustration and anger. Do these people actually hear what they are saying? They are supposed to be the rational ones. I once again considered joining, but I know I would end up getting flamed.

The topic was once again "All amplifiers sound the same" presented as a negating of the statement they "do not sound the same". The claim is under certain not quite perfectly defined conditions good amplifiers with low distortion working well within their capabilities all sound the same.

They do not see the conflict and contradiction in the avowed purpose of their site, and this discussion. They test things with well defined and executed methods to give a score to a given product. They then rank the product from worst to best.

OK pay attention. If they all sound the same why rank them? Or at what level of quality do any differences disappear? You cannot have it both ways ASR. If the ranks are legitimate, there are differences. If not then not. The math is very simple.

I can understand wanting to chase numbers, but at some point good enough is good enough. Or not?

One of the arguments mentioned Mr Carver and his null method to adjust the response of one of his products to match exactly the performance of a very expensive SOTA amplifier in a bet. He won the bet. The story was presented to support both sides of the "discussion". It was claimed by one side that the success of the test was because the result was flawed. The other side claimed it proved the sound of an amplifier could be modified while still giving good test results. Same event opposite argument.

I have a Carver M 200-t which is one of the models supposed to match the sound of a super amp. It does not sound good to me. I have three other transistor amps that beat it easily. It has good numbers as do my other amplifiers. But it is confined to duty with a subwoofer.

My personal experience is all my amplifiers sound different. Is it my long experience? Is it my amazing hearing (err probably not that)?

I suppose that my acceptance many decades ago that these devices are different makes it easy for me to think I hear differences. But other people also comment "oh that is different." I am familiar with the sounds of recordings I have played for years. If a clarinet sounds more prominent, or something I had not noted before I say that is different.

The testing people defend the faith in the measurements and think tiny things are beyond human detection without sensitive devices. I do not meditate on that, I just hear differences.

I may have been a bit obsessive but I read through the entire forum. Fair is fair, so here it is. Nobody wins the argument. They do get almost nasty. It is not a rational discussion.

[audio-luddite]

Found a video of Rites of Spring Ballet.

Seek and yee shall find. Yup YouTube has a copy.

This is an old performance of a reconstruction of the ORIGINAL Choreography done by the Joffery Ballet. It is a poor quality video, but that is somehow appropriate. There are more modern versions of course. Just imagine this is over 100 years ago and the audience had no way to expect this type of dance. Legend is, there was a riot.

Take a half hour and watch it.

I expect some new age fools will claim they stole indigenous american themes here, but no. It was based on people who were the ancestors of indigenous americans. Everyone comes from somewhere.

Yes it is a fantasy. Yes it is a reconstruction, but when this was first done there were still people who remembered the original.

So now I have seen the ballet and the music makes more sense. This is art. This is why.

The hobby of mine is to dive as deep as I can into the essence of recorded music. It is a rational pursuit of an irrational medium. The goal is to appreciate the art, not the hardware.

Years ago I had an interesting exchange with my youngest daughter. She just completed an honors degree in Art History. She was proud and also conflicted and said after dinner; "I now have the most useless University degree there is." I replied; "NO you don't. You learned about art. That is one of two of the most important of human endeavors. The other is science. They are both humanity's attempts to understand the world and express that understanding to society. Neither gets it as right as they want."

She really said that, and I really said that. The look on her face I took to mean she saw what I meant and that I was a serious as I ever was. Or that I was crazy. The subject never came up again. She has done very well since then.

I love and appreciate art. I love to see ballet, though I cannot dance. I love to attend music concerts, yet I play no instrument, I love to visit art galleries, but I cannot paint. Get the drift? I am the perfect audience. I also appreciate and understand many sides of science. I use it in my work. I do not see them as separate and apart, just different sides of a rough shaped object.

Sorry this was a stream of consciousness type of thing.

[audio-luddite]

DG Rites of Spring.

Got it!

For old people who would rather read a book made from paper than scan an AI article on a Tablet, real things in your hands are just better.

For those young people who have not had the experience of buying and enjoying 12" diameter (30.48cm) plastic disks with sound on them, please join the club. They come inside sleeves with artwork and words printed on them.

The DG package just arrived and it looks like this.

It is a bi-fold sleeve which opens like a book. Inside is brag material with an image of the box the master tape was held in DG's (Actually UMG's) Vaults. That describes the methodical way this was produced. They actually slagged the old way of mixing down the recorded tracks to a stereo master then making copies to be sent all around the world in 1975 to distribute the first issue.

For this one they got the original 4 track tapes and mixed them live into a console and on to the lathe cutting the lacquer. So first generation no digital fussing or fixing. Pure analog from start to finish. All the vinyl nerd boxes are ticked.

The back cover is a copy in three languages of the Story of the composing of "Rites of Spring" by "Strawinsky", as opposed to Stravinsky. It was composed for a ballet to be choreographed by V. Nijinsky who 100 years ago was the primo ballet person in the world with the Ballet Russe.

(Extreme Trivia! one of the young dancers in that troupe in later years played BatGirl on the silly TV show. Yvonne Craig) How the mind wanders.

I warmed the system up on a stream of Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints. I once had a CD of that which was eaten by our car stereo. It has good bass and is a workout for the electronics.

I did not turn it up much for the usual reason.

This was the first spin for me. The LP was not brand new. I got it from a dealer and it was clean and in very good condition. It had the brag labels for "Original Source Series" but the wrapper was resealable plastic.

I am especially interested that the companies that own this material know of it's value for crazy people like me. They went to this trouble for audiophiles. We are a large enough market I suppose.

First impression is really good. The surface is very quiet. The instruments are very clear and resolved. I was distracted by the various parts as when one section ends and another begins. I recalled the music, and it was familiar, but I got lost in the program. One day I may see the ballet, but it is rarely performed. Still as an orchestral recording it is as good as claimed.

It is maybe a bit too extreme to seek out such exceptional recordings. I bought this one as the reviewer I quoted a week ago was knowledgeable of the performance, the recording, and knew some of the musicians. He was enthusiastic. I didn't even need a phono pickup more expensive than a car to appreciate this.

The brass was especially impressive, and there is a lot of it. The strings were smooth and clean. Yes there are big drums as this is supposed to be very primitive and primal. It is. I will need play this one loud to get the whole effect. But even at this level the sound is excellent. I am in front of a brilliant orchestra playing with heart.

I have another LP of this on a Philips Disk from the same era. I should play that for comparison. Were the Dutch or the Deutsche better recording engineers?

System:

Phase Linear 8000a series 2 linear tracking TT.

Audio Technica AT 7V with 440 ml stylus.

Audio Research SP14 preamp.

Nakamichi PA-7 Amplifier.

DIY Speakers

[audio-luddite]

And now for some vinyl.

I played my copy of Diana Krall's "Live in Paris". It is a double 180 @ 45 album. It is recognized as a good one and mine is pretty good. The brag label says "limited" edition, but limited to what? The internoise has things to say. Originally 2500 copies, then more, then the story is the label just lies and sells as many as they can. Mine is numbered in the mid 12k of copies. Generally that is not a lot.

In any case it has Bernie Grundman's signature in the dead wax.

It is a nice quiet disk. There is one track where there may be a bit of a flaw in the lacquer, or in the pressing. A very short buzz like microscopic bubbles going zzzzip. It is only one place and it passes very quickly. I am not going to get anal about it. The rest sounds great.

This is the first Spin with Naka-san in line. It did sound different. A very tiny bit different. The instruments were more securely placed in the soundfield, but the mix has a lot to do with that. The photo in the bi-fold shows the stage with Ms Krall far right and the band arrayed to the left of her. The mix had the piano on the right, but her voice was mixed to the center. I mean you can't get obsessive about it. They all had microphones and amplifiers. Aint no "Absolute Sound" here. Oh and that magazine loves this album.

I did not notice any lips parting. Frankly I did not notice till I had finished. I was not playing it my normal volume as the wife had already scowled at me. That could have been it. Overall the sound is very natural.

I next played "Jazz at the Pawnshop." I have to say it was weird that the engineer miked the audience so carefully. But ,one factor about this Album's reputation is the clarity of the sounds of plates and glasses clattering in the background. There is chatter in the audience and if I knew Swedish I could listen in. Jazz aficionados sneer at this, as Jazz should only be played by Americans in that world. Why listen to dinnerware?

The crowd noise and applause in Krall's "Paris" was just noisy clapping. Probably whatever washed over the microphones on stage.

I noticed that the crowd noise was a bit more clear, and detailed. Take that as a measure that so was the rest of the sound, cuz it was also clear and detailed. By a bit I mean a small increment over the Franken-Amp.

I have to warm the system up for at least an hour better two. It does not sound bad, it just gets a bit better after the thermals are sorted. It probably affects the biases. I know that changes over that kind of time.

While I was listening I thought I should email the guy I bought it from. Boy you made a mistake selling this thing! Then I think everyone has their own journey to make. He wanted to explore tubes well go for it. Hey I had tube amps for a very long time and enjoyed them. And now I do again. They are a golden light. I have to say that Naka-san is pretty close to that without the too soft, too warm, signature.

I could and maybe I should sell my big tube amp. There is a baby brother for sale in Quebec for 2300, and the US Mart has one for 1700 USD which is roughly the same. I would need to get 2700 to break even. Maybe not. It is nice and warm in winter.

[audio-luddite]

Telarc CDs

I played an interesting CD in my TELARC collection. It is the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra playing musical arrangements by Stokowski. It is TELARC 80129 The Stokowski Sound.

Telarc is known as the digital label that did not suck back in the early days of numbers instead of magnetic tape. This album is rather cool as Leopold Stokowski was an interesting person and a real Diva. His musical talents were real and impressive. But his strange European accent was phony as he was born, bred and educated in England. Oh look it up if you want.

Stokowski came up with the idea of Pops concerts to give music a wider audience, so a Pops orchestra is perfectly appropriate.

He did arrangements of many many things from Bach Organ Fugues to piano sonatas, and string quartets to be played in a full Orchestra. His style emphasized a lush rich sound. This CD has a couple big numbers. The Toccata & Fugue in D minor and it is BIG. Stokowski was an accomplished organist and knew the piece. The other biggy is Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. This was done for Disney's animated music film "Fantasia".

Big Rich sound recorded without compression or limiting or other bad things record labels usually do. The notes list in detail the microphones, cables, Console, Speakers, and yes Nelson Pass Threshold amplifiers used to monitor the production. They were proud of their stuff.

And this is what you get. Big rich detailed sound. I do not have a big budget CD player and there are no tubes in this chain. But I am getting high end sound. In my system there is not perception of right and left speakers. There is a broad big sound field stretched across the room. This was now filled with an orchestra. Clean Strings, and powerful bass drums. I was enjoying the music. Every so often i would think, how is this different?

It is different. The best recordings in digital rival the best in analog. They are different under a microscope. And I can hear the difference, but is one better than the other. I prefer vinyl LPs generally, but I have none that can push air like some of these TELARCS CDs.

[audio-luddite]

In other news.

I did a search for Dynaco ST400 on YouTube. There were lots of under a minute "see it turns on" type videos. But one was tossed up by the algorithm that had nothing to do with that venerable mark.

The laconic guy from Skylab Audio in the US midwest did a thing about his favorite old school big amplifiers. No Dynacos in the mix, but something else. His shop deals in old stuff and does service and repair and gets a lot of stuff through the door. It may even be they have seen everything.

But that is not what I want to talk about.

The old "everything sounds the same" issue came up. He comes out and says that basically all solid state amplifiers sound the same. He criticizes the idea that they can have a voice. He goes on to emphasize that preamps will have a greater impact on a system voice, which I mostly agree with. This is a widely held opinion on amplifiers that I do not share. I can hear differences. Some are obvious, some are subtle. I am not special, just experienced.

Anyway in the video he goes through some old treasures like a Pioneer Spec 4, The Phase Linear 700 & 400 (I do not prefer those), Harman Kardon Citation 16, and a big old McIntosh transistor beast. It is a nice cross section of 1970s and later big stuff. Of those I have heard a Spec 4, and a Citation 16 and liked what I heard. The Phase Linears I do not care for as think they are harsh in comparison.

What I want to emphasize is that around 15 minutes and 30 seconds into the video he talks about the McIntosh signature sound. The transistor amplifiers had output transformers more specifically "autoformers" which only have a primary winding with multiple taps. (did I lose you there people, oh not tube guru, but civilians). Key point is they had a particular sound. It was warmer and tube like and other than "they all sound the same."

Many people can hold two opposite ideas in their heads at once. They may not even notice it when they contradict themselves. Even the commenters followed with the preferred assumption.

SkyLab Audio is a business and they buy fix and sell stuff. To keep the goods flowing they need to be mostly neutral parties. Stuff that proves more profitable and popular in the business becomes what they prefer. Sometimes they will keep a piece like that McIntosh cuz its what they really like.

Here is the video:

Oh too much power does not come up in the talk. You cannot have too much power.

[audio-luddite]

Poking around.

I found a site run by a guy who lives just a ferry ride away from my home. He seems to be a knowledgeable and sophisticated listener with a professional classical music background.

There are reviews and ads for expensive stuff. He must be well off as he has definitely drunk the cost-is-no-object Kool Aid. Of interest to me is he has a list of good LPs. LPs that are well recorded, and available.

For all that he has knowledge and enthusiasm. He prefers LPs and CDs over streaming based on what he hears. It is not that streaming does not have potential. it is that potential is usually wasted.

It that list I found that Deutsche Grammophone has joined the gourmet LP game. DG has always been pretty good in my opinion. I have a full set of DG Karajan's Beethoven Symphonies and concertos.

DG is now producing issues under the "Original Source" banner where they go down in the vaults and pull out original 4 channel master tapes, mix them down to stereo and carefully cut them to lacquer. All analog and unprocessed. I am intrigued.

A reliable source of good stuff is important. Why have fancy equipment only to feed it trash?

I read his review of one of them. He was in the UK when this was done, and has performed this work in an orchestra, though not in this recordings. Well read it for yourself.

OK I had to see if this was available anywhere. DG has a store, nope not there, at least for outside Europe. Gotta Check Discogs, yup found it. And I found a copy in a shop in Canada. Guess what I did?

I have this piece on a Philips Disk. I like it but the wife always goes into "turn it down mode". I have hopes for this copy. Maybe with enough wine?

Last night I played Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade another London (DECCA) FFrr LP. Damn the orchestra sounded good.

All this stuff is only to facilitate listening to music.

I feel sorry for people who only judge based on numbers they cannot hear. Its like buying a car with drag race acceleration, but only use it to get to work. Then they get dusted by Toyotas in traffic.

[audio-luddite]

David Chesky Philosopher.

I saw this had had to link it. There are still people who think.

[audio-luddite]

My System

I often list what my audio system consists of. It is made from a rather rare suite of devices. They are out there, but do not come up often. I restrict my interest in older stuff for reasons I have gone deep into before. Basically the best old stuff is just as good and FAR less expensive that the new stuff.

Here is a deeper dive.

My Turntable is branded a Phase Linear 8000a.

It is actually a Pioneer PL-L1000a which was never sold in North America. It is not a cost no object halo product, but shares features with that fancy version. It is a top of the line consumer device. It was expensive in the day.

One or more come up on the global used market every year. I got very lucky. I also was able to get new rubber sleeves for the suspension springs, install some dynamat and give her a good clean. I also added a tweak of a cork mat under the stock rubber one. The arm hieght is adjustable and the tone arm is carbon fiber. Pretty cool.

My preamp is an Audio Research SP 14.

I was looking for one of these for about 3 years. It is a medium price range high end unit. Medium meaning $3000 bucks in 1989 and about half that two years ago. It was the second tier of ARC just below the top of the line SP15 which cost double. ARC is still an artisanal builder, but one of the bigger ones. I am a fan of the company they make very nice stuff with premium parts. If I wanted I could send the beast to Minnesota and have it rebuilt and made new. ARC does that.

It has one vacuum tube which is in the phono section. The rest is all FET. The vacuum tube must be a Russian Version of the 6DJ8 ECC88 ( Actually a 6H23Pi) which is just different enough to make a difference. Thanks to my Tube Guru who pointed this out to me.

It revealed the parting lips effect and many other things. I do not think I could do better. It replaced my all Tube ARC SP12 which I had forever and loved, but it hid some stuff from me.

These two things team up with my phono cartridge to extract sound from my LP collection. That is my main path to sonic bliss.

I have had moving coil pickups, but believe they are inferior in every significant way. The sound generating mechanism is heavier than either a moving magnet or moving iron and certainly cannot be as rigid. Moving coils have a different electrical impedance function so depending on many things it will behave well electrically while being otherwise not as good. As long as you load a moving magnet or iron cart properly it will just work better. Load one wrong and its just bad.

I have phono pickups that respond to 45khz. The top of the line GRADO (very pricey) is a moving Iron and responds to much higher than that. End of lesson.

On duty most recently is an Audio Technica AT7V body with a microline stylus that has exceptional clarity and resolution. I also use a GRADO wood body that has a lovely voice, but not quite as clear as the AT.

Amplifiers:

I have a collection. Limiting them to ones in my house and used for stereo there are 3. There are 2 others but not in my system rotation. Oh and they all sound different.

Each has their charms, but my oldest the Franken-Amp is now acting as a spare. I may even sell it, but I could never get its true worth. The newest is the Nakamichi PA-7 which is a Japanese build of a Nelson Pass zero global feedback 200 Watt per channel beast. He is on duty now, and I really like it. It has an amazing clarity. My wife's early comment was "It sounds so much more clear." The golden ears use the analogy of a cleaner widow. I thought the Franken-amp was a damn clear window, but Naka-san is taking away the pane of glass.

My third one is an Audio Research Classic 60 tube / FET thing. It is the heaviest one at 75 lbs. It has 12 Vacuum tubes. The power tubes are wired as triodes which is supposed to be more linear. It has a lovely sound. It is not as clear, but damn, tubes have a thing. It has the golden light.

The ARC and Naka-san both cost me $1500. In some way they are a steal. I have seen the ARC advertised for over double that. I have put a new set of tubes in which is over a grand, so I am about $2600 into it. But I will not need new ones for a long time. The set that came out was over 40 years old and may have been the original factory set. That Nakamichi model has a few listings on the Audio-Mart for over $1600 for a not working one. Ebay has a selection for over $2000 plus shipping. Their Threshold cousins go for more.

These are rare. Knowing that is what had me jump on this one. I even checked the Chinese Counterfeit market for comparison. They will sell you a phony Krell or Dartzeel for not that much money. I did not find a Threshold Stasis, or a Nakamichi clone in China. But those are copies and they may use inferior, even poor quality counterfeit parts. That is the risk.

I have a CD player that is a Yamaha CD-S300. It is a consumer version and not high end. But it is good enough. All the heavy lifting for digital is done with chips that come from a small number of places. Yamaha knows how to build stuff.

My speakers were designed and built by me. They were inspired by the philosophy of Mr Stigg Carlsson a Scandinavian designer who had a line of speakers designed to work in a room as opposed to the idea the room had to be modified to work with speakers. Crazy right! There are several products in the market that use the same idea. I invested as much $ in the cross over components as the drivers, using a Linkwitz-Reily filter. I used the impedance curve of the drivers to select the components at specific frequencies, rather than the nominal "pick a value" impedance. If you know what any of that means good on you! These are great speakers, and they look good.

I am very happy with what I got, and hope I never have to replace them. It would be very hard, and take a long time.

Listen to good music.

[audio-luddite]

London FFrr

Had some family over. We played a lot of tunes on the system. They had to leave as it was getting late for the kids. But is was early enough to have another album go round once the toys (toy trains and cars) were put away.

I had pulled out my copies (2) of a UK pressing of Stravinsky's Firebird. How I ended up with 2 is lost to hazy memory. They are DECCA LPs sold in Canada as LONDON, which was the North American Brand of DECCA. One looked more worn than the other so the "better one" went on the TT.

This one is STS15139 a FFrr version. It was recorded in the 50s. The performance is by L'Orchestre De La Suisse Romande conducted by Ansermet. I have played it many times and really like the tone of the woodwinds and expanse of the strings. Oh and it also has some big Bass when called for. It is also interesting that it is the complete Ballet Score and not a suite.

The machines are well warmed up, and ready. So I put it on. As a big orchestral work it likes power and I have many spins going into the old Franken-Amp, and my stealth speakers. I have probably not heard it with the ARC SP14, or the current phono pickup, but I knew the recording and music well. At least I thought I did.

Naka-san is on duty. The testing people swear that ALL solid state amps sound the same when they are running within their limits. They don't. So sorry, you are wrong.

This was really different. I knew the music, but I had never heard THIS performance before. It was not jaw dropping, but damn close. I really enjoyed it. Especially the strings were alive. Stravinsky was doing things differently in 1910. He was the young Radical in Paris, so orchestration and arrangements were not done in a classical style.

Part of the newness in this sound would be the SP14, but good phono pickups are more similar than not. The big difference must have been Naka-san. This machine uses a different circuit conceived by the crazy Californian Mr Pass. It bragged zero global feedback which I now understand is rather important. It was that which interested me over the other big amps that were on the market, all for less money.

In the other music I played earlier that afternoon say Dire Straits Brothers in Arms, differences were subtle. More texture in the crazy guitar distortion example. I still think it funny that you need to play distortion with low distortion, but that is what electric guitars do.

Here with an old "classical" LP the differences were life like sounds. The theater or studio where the recording was done had life. The room had sound and dimension. All the instruments were more distinct and real.

This was old enough to predate digital. Hey it predated the people who invented digital. It is obviously pure analog and tube electronics as that all they had back then. I am sure the voice of tubes is in there a bit, but it was professional equipment handled by professionals.

I read that this Orchestra was considered second rate, but standards of Europeans are very high. Yet when under the leadership of Mr Ansermet they did pretty good.

I have several copies of this work. I have a Philips set of Firebird, Petrushka, and Rites of Spring. But this old one is my favorite. Of course now I have to listen to the others to see what magic happens now.

[audio-luddite]

Quality.

The entire hobby claims to be about QUALITY. I pursue it and hope I get it. Many people cannot tell the difference between quality as a standard versus say expense. The Trap is quality is not a standard. It is based on a concept that cannot be rigorously defined. I explain that by the term good is used to determine quality. More "goodness" means better quality. But then good uses quality in it's definition so round the loop we go.

Good is a term we use and understand, but we really cannot define without using the same word in the definition loop. (in any language) That uncertainty is where alternate "measures" sneak in. "This power cable must be better because it costs more." "This DAC must be better because it costs more." Et cetera ....

As a comfortable road transportation device a Rolls Royce is not any better than a high end Toyota, but it costs more.

OK I think I made that clear. Cost is not a measure of quality.

Cost can be a measure of expense used to make something. In electronics virtually all parts are relatively cheap commodities. The expense may be extreme care in building, or a designer or investor trying to recover their input (usually mostly that)

One reason I like Audio Research is they have always taken care in building their product. The use good parts and sweat the details. They have always been relatively expensive, though not the most expensive. Good parts and good assembly means reliability so most of their stuff is still around 40 or 50 years later. And in my case affordable compared to new, as in one whole digit of price.

Product that takes care is almost always better. One reason I like classical music and Jazz recordings (aside from the art) is that the producers took care in making it. There are recognized "good" copies of performances by recognized good groups. I have several Philips LPs of Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Haitink or de Waart that are nice. I have LPs of the Chicago, Philadelphia, and LA Symphonies. (I have also heard them in person!) I have a famous DECCA of Stravinski's Firebird with Ernst Ansermet and the Suisse Romande. These are touch stones of goodness.

The last one is one of several Firebird recordings I have but is of the full score, not a suite. It has amazing dynamics and texture, even without a tube amp. Though it was probably recorded with all tube stuff.

Jazz is also recorded with respect if not great care. My jazz collection is far smaller than my classical one. All of my Jazz records are good ones. Oh and they are all vinyl.

Good quality recordings of popular music are harder to find. Folk, and world music is out there. Rock music is very rare in terms of quality as they were so drunk or stoned. Fleetwood Mac did good stuff under the haze. Oh and Steely Dan was OCD under all the cocaine and booze.

The vinyl renaissance is populated by careful curation and production of known good recordings. There are three gourmet vinyl producers I use that hunt for good masters and make respectable quality stuff. They are MOFI, IMPEX, and Analog Productions. They care and that is the key. They are also businesses so they will sell you CDs and SACDs too of those same recordings.

Business is so good even the big old recording behemoths are getting into the act. Universal Group which owns almost everything will sell you stuff too. Though I doubt they take as much care.

People who record new stuff on vinyl do so because of two reasons. One they want the sound they get. Two it is relatively easy to do it. It is accessible. That Mike Dawes LP I have is great.

If you buy a new vinyl LP it is probably very good for those reasons. Streamers give a F about quality. The sound is massively compressed and formulaic. Get attention for 90 seconds and move on. It does not matter at all that the digital media have potential to be great if all the resolution and dynamic range is wasted.

Do not quote numbers. LISTEN!

Cheers and listen to good music.

[audio-luddite]

The more things change.

My system is at a point where any changes are so subtle and tiny that I sometimes doubt they are real. I have asked here the question of how much more can you extract from media. Lips parting is only an indicator and does not contribute to the art. The mechanical sounds of the levers and stuff in a piano are actually annoying.

All this detail and high performance is with equipment 30 and 40 years old. I am certain that things have not improved in any real sense since then. The State of the Art is not a goal or standard as really nobody knows what it is. New stuff is marketed as if it is revolutionary and their weaknesses glossed over.

When I started out in this hobby The best stuff was truly better than ordinary consumer stuff. But only a bit better. Music came out. Bigger speakers had better Bass. Bigger amplifiers got louder. This was the time when new parts like high power transistors became available. It is that which allowed the creation of the Phase linear 400 and the Dynaco ST400, and the Crown DC300. It was parts, not design skill.

The sound of those things was secondary to power, but they did sound pretty good all told.

The iconoclasts at Audio Research said tubes were not the past, but the future. The Magneplanar speakers were very different, but the principle behind them was high school physics. They became important because they were different and worked really well. Those two companies still make more refined versions of what they made 50 years ago. Where they better? I thought so.

From 50 years ago to 30 years ago there was progress. Designers got comfortable with the methods and had ideas. Some ideas were so clever they keep getting invented over and over. My contention is that progress is asymptotic. That is where a curve on a graph rises or falls steeply then flattens out as it approaches a value getting closer and closer, but never actually getting there.

I am sure that 30 years ago the equipment got really close to the line and has stayed close, but we will never quite get there. I mean really how much more can you extract and reproduce in an audio system? Business and obsession requires things to be bought and sold and tried out.

Add to that is the new thing where adding specific types of distortion is considered good. You create a specific voice or effect.

The person I bought Naka-San from is going down the vacuum tube rabbit hole. I know that hole. It is nice and warm. Yet his attempt is with a 70 year old amplifier. That he let go of the Nakamichi is my gain for his new experience. Is he getting better? If it makes him happy, yes.

That really is the whole game. Different or better? Different is better?

I think I know the difference in that condition. Naka-san is from a different philosophy of design. It uses a different idea. That is what made me curious. That it exposed more detail and removed a very slight haze was almost a surprise. The reason it did that is explainable, which for the scientific mindset is a comfort.

I think Naka-san is a 9.7 if the asymptote is 10.

Last night I played my Loreena Mckennitt album "The Mask and Mirror". Heavy vinyl LP limited run noted on the cover of 10k and my copy is around 4k. The music is new age / folk / world, or whatever box you want to put it in. I like the interesting and unusual instruments from medieval winds and drums to synthesizers. Clean recording and a haunting soprano voice.

The music has texture and richness. I do not care if it was recorded digitally or not. The credits are complex with contributions from several studios across the globe listed. It was first released 30 years ago. It sounded great. If digital helped keep the sound intact flitting from place to place thank you for that.

It is a clean recording and it suffered little if any compression.

The next album I played was K.D. Lang "Hymns of the 49th Parallel." It is a Nonesuch LP. It is a selection of songs written by Canadians. Ironically recorded in the US. We got good songwriters. I had to turn it down a couple clicks as it was louder and may have been compressed a bit. The vocal is the feature. It included "Hallelujah" my wife's favorite song, by her favorite singer. She has heard that live twice and it is transformative. That is what art is for.

I have a great stereo, and this is what it is for.

Phase Linear 8000 a TT with Audio Technica AT7V

Audio Research SP14 (russian tube in phono section)

Nakamichi PA-7 Amplifier

My Stealth speakers.

Loreena Mckennitt

KD Lang

[audio-luddite]

Media madness

I was bouncing around YouTube and saw a couple rants. One was Micheal Fremer about "Vinyl is always better blah blah blah." In that he mentioned an LP I had heard about. Last century there was a singer named Dusty Springfield who made what was called blue eyed jazz and blues. One song she was famous for was "The look of love" which was written for a rather dumb Hollywood movie. That song on one of her albums was a favorite of the founder of The Absolute Sound magazine, H. Pearson.

That is not the album Mr Fremer was talking about. A more recent Blonde singer named Shelby Lynne did an homage album to Dusty Springfield, "Just a little Lovin". Mr. Fremer went to some length about how Ms Lynne insisted on that album being pure analog from microphone to LP. She was an audiophile and wanted that sound.

I played the Apple Music version of the album on my way home from work. Its nice bluesy / country music and Ms Lynne has a very nice voice. I have listened to it before and frankly I preferred a different blonde blues singer I first heard from Post Modern Jukebox.

When I got home I fired up the system and played it again as a warm up.

When I bought Naka-san the guy selling it said, "Wait till you hear women singers on it." I have played a few since he went on line in the rack. Yes very nice.

There is something about the sound of a person in the same room as you. My wife was away visiting the Grandkids. I was putting something away while Ms Lynne was starting another song. She spoke a few words. I was startled, thinking my wife got back early and spoke to me from behind my back. No it was the album. Spooky and very natural.

Pure analog recording via a digital Stream of an audiophile grade production through my system and it sounded absolutely real and in the room. I do not recall any experience like that before with either the ARC or the Franken-Amp.

There is something about pure analog, and there is something about pure digital when either are done with care and a minimum of fiddling. I think it is the not fiddling part that makes the big difference. A digital example is any TELARC CD. Analog has numerous examples. I am lucky to own a few. Here is a link to one of Mr Fremer's rants about that. It is long so come back and look at it if you must. I spun ahead a lot when I did.

I think a reference to the Shelby Lynne LP is in there somewhere.

Mr Fremer is an enthusiastic promoter of pure analog, a respected golden ear, and has a million dollar system. He also has several tons of LPs. I do not doubt he can hear the digititus in a production even blind. He knows a lot of stuff. But he does go on a bit too much.

His taste in music is different than mine. But this hobby is about preferences aint it?

Bluesound Node Nano from Iphone

ARC SP 14 Preamp.

Nakamichi PA-7