[ultrabike]

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engineers feel free to correct me, but don't you kind of need to know what you're doing? And if I had a company which made amps with good measurements on a quality never before measured, I would try to show it to the world!

 
I believe in approaching a problem with both self-confidence and humility. One needs to understand what one can leverage and the real limitations of what's available. As far as what we do and/or don't know, I cannot stress enough how important simulation and prototyping is in the development of a product for precisely what we don't know. And how many new ideas flourish in the process. Moreover, what works in one situation does not work in another one (even if the problems are somewhat similar) - and there are always trade-offs (no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch).
 
As far as measurements is concerned, more often than not they are filtered by marketing and provided as a sales pitch. In many cases, one has to have NDAs in place if real data is to be shared.
 
EDIT: Let me give you another perspective. When two or more companies develop a product for the same market, they want their product to outperform their competition. They don't share IP or give away secret sauces. In some cases, what does happen is the development of standards so that products can inter-operate. And even these standards have a lot of politics involved. Companies will try to push their agendas by attempting to cripple each other. They often try to push clauses that disable the application of certain technologies their competitor is knowledgeable and relies on. Inter-operability exercises are really interesting. One company's team locks itself out of the other and hide as much as possible. Written agreements and negotiations take place. Believe me, every effort is done at obscuring your product to the competitors. White papers? They are more often than not "mumble-jumbo."

 

[LizardKing1]

Quote:

 
I believe in approaching a problem with both self-confidence and humility. One needs to understand what one can leverage and the real limitations of what's available. As far as what we do and/or don't know, I cannot stress enough how important simulation and prototyping is in the development of a product for precisely what we don't know. And how many new ideas flourish in the process. Moreover, what works in one situation does not work in another one (even if the problems are somewhat similar) - and there are always trade-offs (no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch).
 
As far as measurements is concerned, more often than not they are filtered by marketing and provided as a sales pitch. In many cases, one has to have NDAs in place if real data is to be shared.

I tried to not go much into an area I am not versed at at all. I can understand if someone suddenly started preaching biochemistry with a very obvious transcript-from-an-article speech, and questioned something I believe in, I wouldn't exactly be passive about it.
 
 

The red portion is a good point that I think deserves re-highlighting.  I mean, seriously, what's the design process behind improving something you can't demonstrate?  If not, I want to hear about it.  (Next, we'll have people saying that it's trade secrets...)

 
Thanks for the info on Vioelectric, I guess I didn't look a lot (but it should be more visible, if I'm buying an amp there's no way I don't want to know at least an output impedance).
I have some skepticism when someone says there's some unmeasured phenomenon. But I can live with it if it's true - only then I don't see how some companies are achieving so much at controlling this phenomenon they can't even measure or understand (at least publicly). This isn't magic, let's stop mysticising science.

 

[JadeEast]

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Anyway, ever since I took interest in objective audio I've read this countless times:
 

There was a time when everyone thought the world was flat, and then they were proved wrong​

 
...
 
So my question is this: if indeed there is some aspect in an audio signal going through an amplifier, and it's one we can't measure, but somehow some amps are better at it than others, how are the companies building these better amps measuring this effect? And why don't they advertise this?

A couple of thoughts. If I look outside my window the world still looks the same as it did when people believed it to be flat. I can see between two building across a small flat bay to a hill on the other side that blocks the horizon, it looks pretty flat. In my everyday encounters with the world the flatness or roundness of the planet isn't a concern. The knowledge of the earths roundness that is now "common sense" isn't obvious from simple observation of our daily activity. Our senses and living in the world alone don't tell us that the world is flat. Using the "discovery" of the roundness of the world as a grounding an argument for the validity subjective experience is wrong.  
 
For the question, it may be helpful to deflate the difference between measuring by instrument and measurement by ear. So, the answer would be the companies measure by ear. 

 

[tmars78]

Quote:

A couple of thoughts. If I look outside my window the world still looks the same as it did when people believed it to be flat. I can see between two building across a small flat bay to a hill on the other side that blocks the horizon, it looks pretty flat. In my everyday encounters with the world the flatness or roundness of the planet isn't a concern. The knowledge of the earths roundness that is now "common sense" isn't obvious from simple observation of our daily activity. Our senses and living in the world alone don't tell us that the world is flat. Using the "discovery" of the roundness of the world as a grounding an argument for the validity subjective experience is wrong.  
 
For the question, it may be helpful to deflate the difference between measuring by instrument and measurement by ear. So, the answer would be the companies measure by ear. 

 
 
So what you are saying is that the companies that are building the better amps, know this unknown difference that they aren't telling anyone, by measuring by ear? I don't even know where to begin with this. How can you measure something by ear, if you don't know what it is? Now most people will tell you we know all we need to know about audio and what goes into it. I would think if a company found something that we didn't know about, and incorporated into their better amps, they would want the world to know. They could possibly patent this new technology and become even more rich and famous than they already are. They're not keeping it a secret, and I know why. Cause they aren't doing anything outside of the already known boundaries. 

 

[mikeaj]

It's one (very common) thing for a company to have designs and implementations that they won't share—a practical way to build X, a part that does the Y standard for cheap, something that does Z better than it's ever done before—and another quite different thing for them to have developed a greater understanding for how the world works.
 
In a lot of areas, it's academia and government-funded research labs or something similar (e.g. in medicine: hospitals as well) at the forefront of research and development, expanding what is possible.  Results get discussed at conferences and published in journals.  In others, most of the development comes from industry.  Everybody knows that Intel has technology on semiconductor fabrication that nobody else knows, and they aren't telling us every last detail about it.  It's not just techniques and designs but knowledge and models of chemical and electrical properties.  Some of this information gets shared after the fact, after they've moved onto something else.
 
So which audio companies are responsible for innovations and understading outside of the mainstream knowledge, stuff the AES doesn't know, IEEE doesn't know, whatever organizations for psychology, physiology, audiology, etc.?  All of them?  A select few?  Nobody?
 
Some product like the Smyth Realiser is an innovation, but not in the sense I'm talking about.  As far as I can tell, it's just a clever design and implementation of many ideas that were already known.  Sennheiser's ring radiator is certainly a new way of doing things, but is it based on properties nobody knows about?

 

[ultrabike]

Quote:

They could possibly patent this new technology and become even more rich and famous than they already are. They're not keeping it a secret, and I know why. Cause they aren't doing anything outside of the already known boundaries. 

 
Patents primary purpose is not always to protect IP. Many times they are used to build legal ammunition when disagreements between companies happen. Sometimes IP is actually protected through simple non-disclosure (including staying away from patents.) Basically trade secrets. Furthermore, patents don't necessarily make a company rich and famous, critical design wins and becoming the incumbent company usually does.
 
All of the above may not apply to audio amplifier technology development and markets (as it does in some semiconductor markets.) I can understand that due to different factors, different markets behave differently. Just trying to point out that going all out to the world with your innovation portfolio is not always the preferred strategy. Best to watch an learn 

 
Also, while there are boundaries (in communications there is after all the "Shannon limit",) I've found that there is always room for improvement. Don't see why this is not the case in the audio world. It would be great if there was this incredible amp that would power any load you throw at it with zero linear magnitude and phase distortion, and zero non-linear distortion. 

 While at it lets throw infinite bandwidth, zero power consumption, nanometer form factor and stuff... I want it to have flat bass response down to 0.000001 Hz too.

 

[JadeEast]

Quote:

 
 
So what you are saying is that the companies that are building the better amps, know this unknown difference that they aren't telling anyone, by measuring by ear? 

No. I'm saying that if there is an audible difference and no instrumental measurement corresponds, the only way to discern the difference has to be through the subjective measurement of hearing. I'm deflating the division of measurement by ear and by instrument to make the question make sense. 

 

[Currawong]

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I have some skepticism when someone says there's some unmeasured phenomenon. But I can live with it if it's true - only then I don't see how some companies are achieving so much at controlling this phenomenon they can't even measure or understand (at least publicly). This isn't magic, let's stop mysticising science.

 
I don't think there is anything mystical, it's more so that, as Mikeaj put it (emphasis mine):
 
Quote:

Some product like the Smyth Realiser is an innovation, but not in the sense I'm talking about.  As far as I can tell, it's just a clever design and implementation of many ideas that were already known.  Sennheiser's ring radiator is certainly a new way of doing things, but is it based on properties nobody knows about?

 
I think people need to understand better that what it takes to design and produce a product is, as the old adage about science goes, "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." We pay for the research and development and for the designers to be able to live from that. If the latter isn't required, then we get results such as the O2, AMB and DIY Cavalli amps and DACs, which can be build much cheaper than if they were commercial products.

 

[ultrabike]

Quote:

I think people need to understand better that what it takes to design and produce a product is, as the old adage about science goes, "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

 
THIS^ At least in my line of work there is a lot of brute force: Simulations, Exhaustive Verification, Debugging... Long grunt work hours in the lab.

 

[germanium]

One way to protect ones Ideas is to not publish the real reason for the benefit but to bamboozal people with ideas that have nothing to do with the real reason for the sonic difference.
 
One way that an engineer can pay back an unscrupulous boss is to make intentional errors in the schematics so that if the engineer is fired they can't make the nessessary repairs without the engineer there that built it. I have an engineer friend that did just that & when the people that bought the company fired the engineers & things started breaking no body could fix them so the company went out of business. This company had technology for making high speed dubs of reel to reel tape that were as good as the originals. Not for long though after the new company took over.
 
Same can be done with advertized improvements in sound. One can say they added a new type circuit that sounded better when all they really did was change to an improved part that didn't even have to be an active part (transistor or tube for example of an active part not changed in this case).Or they could have used better matched transistors allowing them to not use a circuit compromise in order to compensate for mismatched transistors. It is quite common in lower end equipment to have circuit compromises designed in part to compensate for mismatched gain in the transistors.
 
The Adcom GFA 545 that I mentioned previously here was one such amp that had mismatched transistor gain in the two halves of the output section with other circuit elements to compensate. This I know because I completely reworked the amp to have improve gain balance between the two halves of the signal & was able to simplify the circuit as a result. I was able to get rid of 6 capacitors/channel , eliminated 1 thermister/ channel,  eliminated one bias limiting resistor/channel, changed 1 transistor per channel to achieve the better gain balance, built a battery powersupply with 16-12volt 14amp/hour batteries, changed all the emitter resistors to a different value & power handling to compensate for the heavy duty powersupply & to allow me to creat my own version of class AB nonswitching amp & changed the type of capacitors for the remaing 3 capacitors per channel on the circuit board.
 
This amp here was one that my engineer friend heard & declared it to be the best sounding transistor amp he had ever heard. This is the same engineer I mentioned that work at the reel to reel tape duplicating company & worked at A&M records, Disney studios & a host of other high end studios. He actually designed the duplicators as well as some of the equipment used at these studios I just mentioned.
 
 By the way most of the sound differences came from the improved caps & the better matched gain blocks along with the simplified circuit. The class AB nonswithing idea did help but only slightly

 

[ultrabike]

One way to protect ones Ideas is to not publish the real reason for the benefit but to bamboozal people with ideas that have nothing to do with the real reason for the sonic difference.
 
One way that an engineer can pay back an unscrupulous boss is to make intentional errors in the schematics so that if the engineer is fired they can't make the nessessary repairs without the engineer there that built it.
 

Possible. In my previous post I was referring to the protection of company IP though. Many times someone comes up with an idea which may be best keep internal in order to have an edge over the competition. One could discuss it with ones manager and CTO. It's up to management to decide on what direction to take. Some of these ideas may not be available in openly published papers (maybe available in an internal memo, or write up.)
 
More often than not though, putting together a system is long hours of work by a team of engineers. The end result can be cheap if sold in the form of a final product to the end customer (an IC chip out of hundreds of thousands). It is usually very expensive if the actual intellectual property is sold to another company (the chips reference simulation code, RTL, reference design - evaluation board, and supporting documentation.)
 
As far as Intentional errors is concerned, they can be reversed engineered at some cost (maybe not negligible.) I personally place value into good work ethic and IMO a good reputation is worth its weight in diamonds.

 

[LizardKing1]

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A couple of thoughts. If I look outside my window the world still looks the same as it did when people believed it to be flat. I can see between two building across a small flat bay to a hill on the other side that blocks the horizon, it looks pretty flat. In my everyday encounters with the world the flatness or roundness of the planet isn't a concern. The knowledge of the earths roundness that is now "common sense" isn't obvious from simple observation of our daily activity. Our senses and living in the world alone don't tell us that the world is flat. Using the "discovery" of the roundness of the world as a grounding an argument for the validity subjective experience is wrong.   

 
The comparison with the flatness of the Earth doesn't apply because it came from observation. Like you said everything appears to be flat. Eventually Science proved the Earth to be spherical. In audio, it seems to be the other way around: you have Science saying, for example, a B22 and an O2 should sound the same, and then come up observations stating the contrary. The Science of electronics was already established when the observations came along, unlike in the flat-Earth example.
 
Quote:

 
I think people need to understand better that what it takes to design and produce a product is, as the old adage about science goes, "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." We pay for the research and development and for the designers to be able to live from that. If the latter isn't required, then we get results such as the O2, AMB and DIY Cavalli amps and DACs, which can be build much cheaper than if they were commercial products.

 
I was taking the price out of the equation. I'm not questioning wether certain amps are worth their money, although the talk of these unmeasured properties often comes up when someone compares the O2 to an amp above 800$. I have no issues with the existence of unexplored territory when objectively evaluating an amp, but it's hard to believe certain companies have mastered these properties without measuring them, just by hearing.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

 
THIS^ At least in my line of work there is a lot of brute force: Simulations, Exhaustive Verification, Debugging... Long grunt work hours in the lab.

 
Fantastic. Yet, somehow, those aren't the things I want waiting for me when I stagger home at night. I don't understand string theory, or black holes, or quantum gravity, but when someone with the imagination to pull this out of thin air (!) emerges from the dull grey world of science, I am suddenly interested (fascinated, actually):
 
In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scalesand at low energies. Cosmological holography has not been made mathematically precise, partly because the cosmological horizon has a finite area and grows with time.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
 
You can run measurements 24/7 for the next thousand years and never stumble on something like that empirically - that took inspiration. There is a part of me that really needs to believe that the uber-expensive amps have something beyond beautiful casework - that their designers were also inspired. Just like the holographic principle, I can neither prove nor disprove that - the important thing is that I have no desire to do so. This could all be an elaborate prank, and it reads suspiciously like something from The Matrix, but I have to admire someone who is willing to step that far out of his comfort zone to pose a solution to the quandary of black holes - makes catching an apple look kinda pedestrian.  

 

[Chris J]

Speaking from my EE experience, Ultrabike and Currawong have a good handle on the design to production process.....1% inspiration, 99% perspiration
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I'm at page 10 of this thread now, because I have way too much free time. I've read a few good posts, some stupid ones, and the rest are in the middle. I understand most of this had already been said hundreds of times, but I for one had never read many of these opinions.
I guess I am what you consider an objectivist, the kind that doesn't really know his engineering, but quotes people who do a lot. Annoying, I know, but I never think too much of it.
 
So my question is this: if indeed there is some aspect in an audio signal going through an amplifier, and it's one we can't measure, but somehow some amps are better at it than others, how are the companies building these better amps measuring this effect? And why don't they advertise this? Because they can't just be making amps with this unmeasured quality out of the blue with out they themselves measuring it, the same way you don't type gibberish on a computer and then expect it to compile into an amazing program - engineers feel free to correct me, but don't you kind of need to know what you're doing?

 
Question:   Do we kind of need to know what we are doing?
Answer:      Yes, but that is a very black and white way of approaching things.
If we had perfect knowledge then we would go directly from design stage to production stage.
But in practical terms, this would be extremely foolish, you must build a protoype or two and test it thoroughly before you go into prodcution as something will always invariably work slightly different than you had originally expected, no simulation is perfect.
In fact all this was discussed in posts a few days or weeks ago. 
 
 
Quote:

One way to protect ones Ideas is to not publish the real reason for the benefit but to bamboozal people with ideas that have nothing to do with the real reason for the sonic difference.
 

 
Yes, I very much agree with this statement.
It appears to me that most of what you read from manufacturers is propaganda used to bamboozle the average Joe or the typical non technical audiophile.
I believe that companies such as Pass Labs, Arcam and Bryston have done significant research to reduce the amount of EMI and RFI created by and affecting their equipment.
But if you read Arcam's PR they use voodoo terms like "Mask Of Silence" and "Stealth Mat" to describe EMI and RFI reduction techniques.
The Pass Labs redesign from the X-150 to X-150.5 power amp (as another example) had a similar rationale.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

 
Question:   Do we kind of need to know what we are doing?
Answer:      Yes, but that is a very black and white way of approaching things.
If we had perfect knowledge then we would go directly from design stage to production stage.
But in practical terms, this would be extremely foolish, you must build a protoype or two and test it thoroughly before you go into prodcution as something will always invariably work slightly different than you had originally expected, no simulation is perfect.
In fact all this was discussed in posts a few days or weeks ago. 

 
I don't think this addresses the original question that was being asked.
 
Reducing EMI, or some other property of the known universe, is one thing.  Even if it's not readily apparent which steps should be taken to reduce emissions, reduce susceptibility, you can iterate, run through some math, redo the simulation, redesign, retest individual components, and importantly: re-evaluate.  At the end (or even at points in the middle), you can tell whether or not you've made an improvement.
 
How do you improve something that you can't measure (whether by bench equipment or ears)?  How do you evaluate whether or not your prototype was good at it, and how do you make a next prototype even better at it?  By guessing?