[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

 
Steve, why was the Beta 22 not your cup o' tea and what amps do you prefer over it?

 
I'm afraid my status at a MOT prevents me from elaborating on that. Sorry.
 
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[Anaxilus]

Quote:

 
Because I don't listen to reproduced music for the purpose of satisfying any purely objective goals or ends. I listen to reproduced music for the purpose of pure hedonistic, subjective enjoyment and pleasure. As a child of the 60's, I'm simply applying the "If it feels good, do it" to reproduced audio; if it sounds good, it is good, numbers be damned. Further, for me its ultimately all about the experience, or gestalt if you will. And that transcends the sound waves beating on my eardrums. It also encompasses other things such as aesthetics and philosophy.
 
So that's how I approach both the reproduction side of things as well as my own design work.
 
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Okay, I get that.  If you might humor me a bit more, what was it about an objectively designed amp like the B22 (or anything else fitting the bill) was not to your subjective liking?
 
Edit - I see your response.  If you are allowed to PM one I'd love to hear it.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I'm not that familiar with every posting on this subject, but is it necessarily true that he's saying that good numbers = good sound (yeah, that's the natural implication, but can we say more)?  It could just be a design exercise to meet all the criteria, leaving other people to judge whether or not the design was successful in terms of sounding good.

 
Well I can't imagine that he would have established the design criteria that he did without also expecting that criteria to result in a good sounding amp.
 
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[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

 
I don't mean to answer for anybody else, but I think the big problem people would have is if everybody designed amps that way (if "no one ever dared" to do otherwise).  Then there would be no alternatives.  But I wonder if people have a problem with anybody taking that approach, so your question stands.

 
Exactly.
 
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[mikeaj]

Quote:

The issue is what set of measurements in the "checklist" are we taking about. We need to get very specific. IMO, THD+N (at 1kHz at some reference dbFS level), SMPTE IMD, etc. does not tell us very much.
 
One of the best set of amplifier measurements I've seen are here: http://www.leckertonaudio.com/2011/01/uha-6s-harmonic-distortion/, especially the last eight. And even then, I wonder if they are sufficient for such a checklist.

 
I agree about being careful about what's on the checklist.  As for specific points about what's important and what has been covered by others, see my previous response, #709.
 
Despite the many justifications for using mostly sine waves for bench testing, both mathematical and psychoacoustical, I'm curious as to what kind of differences people can expose using music and also reactive headphone loads.  It's possible to run some differencing tests, subtracting signals from one amp loaded compared to some kind of reference, but how far have people gotten with that?  You can do the subtraction before or after the ADC—depends what you're comparing and how you want to compare it.  In some applications you really have to do it before the ADC because of its resolution, but for audio you can do it either way.  Too bad I'm clueless on instrumentation, or maybe I would have better ideas.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I never said it was a travesty if an amplifier were built on spec sheets and not tweaked for sound. I just said it would be a travesty if all amplifiers were built that way because no one dared to trust his ears.

 
I don't recall the "all amplifiers" qualification in your post and I'm too lazy to go dig it up, but if that's indeed what you said or intended to say, then I'm in agreement with you.
 
In fact, I got into a rather heated argument with someone years ago on another forum who was actually demanding that all amplifiers be designed that way.
 
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[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

FYI, the Objective evangelists can keep going on about this all they want, but it's already been said that SS isn't just a "graphs and plots only" forum. Both views are tolerated, so getting individual opinions banned from here isn't going to happen.

 
Subjective experience is ok, but as bigshot said in his post at the founding of this forum, unlike the other forums where the subjective experience is where it ends, here it's only where it begins. Meaning that the subjective experience must have some end in the objective side of things. If not, then there are other forums for the purely subjective side of things.
 
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[Magick Man]

No one's said anything about the purely subjective. I haven't seen anyone who wants long subjective rants going on in SS, but neither can you completely remove personal experience from "personal audio".

 

[JadeEast]

Quote:

 
Subjective experience is ok, but as bigshot said in his post at the founding of this forum, unlike the other forums where the subjective experience is where it ends, here it's only where it begins. Meaning that the subjective experience must have some end in the objective side of things. If not, then there are other forums for the purely subjective side of things.
 
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This also acknowledges the existing relationship between the subjective experience and objective inquiry. If the subjective is where "it" begins then it seems unreasonable to completely bracket it off.  

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

This also acknowledges the existing relationship between the subjective experience and objective inquiry. If the subjective is where "it" begins then it seems unreasonable to completely bracket it off.  

 
And I'm not suggesting that it be completely bracketed off. Only that it needs to ultimately be brought to an objective end in some meaningful way. And so far I haven't really seen any of that to speak of.
 
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[estreeter]

I know I'm going to cop plenty for this, but here goes - 
 
OK, Stereophile reviews cop a pasting from many in this hobby, but the basic concept of having a subjective review followed by an analysis of the measurements seems, to me, to be a good compromise. For all the flak that JA cops in various places for his editorial efforts at Stereophile, he DOES periodically raise issues relating to specific aspects of his measurements that dont appear to have been apparent to the author of the subjective review, and signs off on his effort with sentences like 'there is nothing in the measurements to explain why this amp sounds as good as it does'. Some would see that as a cop out, but for anyone so inclined there are graphs to peruse and they can make their own call as to whether it is something they would want to audition or whatever. 
 
Flame on,  

 

[gnarlsagan]

Quote:

I know I'm going to cop plenty for this, but here goes - 
 
OK, Stereophile reviews cop a pasting from many in this hobby, but the basic concept of having a subjective review followed by an analysis of the measurements seems, to me, to be a good compromise. For all the flak that JA cops in various places for his editorial efforts at Stereophile, he DOES periodically raise issues relating to specific aspects of his measurements that dont appear to have been apparent to the author of the subjective review, and signs off on his effort with sentences like 'there is nothing in the measurements to explain why this amp sounds as good as it does'. Some would see that as a cop out, but for anyone so inclined there are graphs to peruse and they can make their own call as to whether it is something they would want to audition or whatever. 
 
Flame on,  

 

 

[purrin]

Just don't listen to MF!  

  JA gets flak because he doesn't call his associates on BS. But then again, he really doesn't need to.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I know I'm going to cop plenty for this, but here goes - 
 
OK, Stereophile reviews cop a pasting from many in this hobby, but the basic concept of having a subjective review followed by an analysis of the measurements seems, to me, to be a good compromise. For all the flak that JA cops in various places for his editorial efforts at Stereophile, he DOES periodically raise issues relating to specific aspects of his measurements that dont appear to have been apparent to the author of the subjective review, and signs off on his effort with sentences like 'there is nothing in the measurements to explain why this amp sounds as good as it does'. Some would see that as a cop out, but for anyone so inclined there are graphs to peruse and they can make their own call as to whether it is something they would want to audition or whatever. 
 
Flame on,  

 
A good compromise toward what end exactly?
 
Let's say the measurements don't show any aberrations that are within currently known audible thresholds. What then? What exactly have we learned?
 
And what of the case where the measurements are atrocious, but the subjective listener says it sounds absolutely fantastic?
 
Case in point, the Harmonic Technology CyberLight cable review.
 
In his subjective review summary, Michael Fremer wrote:
 
Harmonic Technology's Light Analog Module Photon Transducer is the most significant single technological breakthrough I have experienced in my career as an audio reviewer. It is immediately superior in every way.
 
Now, Stereophile doesn't normally do any measurements on cables because other than resistance, inductance and capacitance, there's really nothing there to measure save perhaps to noise suceptibility. However since the CyberLight cables weren't a typical passive cable but rather used electro-optical converters to convert the electrical signal at the source to optical, feed it down a fiber optic cable to another electro-optical converter that converted it back to an electrical signal, JA made an exception this time.
 
The measurements were SO bad that JA wrote:
 
If this review were of a conventional product, I would dismiss it as being broken. Ultimately, no matter what someone might think of its sound—and Michael Fremer is one the most skilled listeners I know of—I really don't see how the CyberLight P2A and Wave cables can be recommended. I am puzzled that Harmonic Technology, which makes good-sounding, reasonably priced conventional cables, would risk their reputation with something as technically flawed as the CyberLight.
 
What's to be learned from this? I've never in my life seen a greater disconnect between the subjective review and an analysis of the measurements.
 
Which brings me back to my original question, a good compromise toward what end exactly?
 
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[dvw]

Maybe distortion is the key. Distortion is the good sound the Michael F likes. We needs to try clip the amp and build harmonic generator in the DACs. That might be the key to transparent anf neutral sound.