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Originally Posted by Inkmo
You'll try to fix anything if the mechanism is sufficiently weird, won't you?
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Yes, because when I was a tad, home audio was still struggling mightily to get down flat to 20Hz on the bottom and straining to get all the way out flat to 20kHz on the top. It wasn't a given, even with amplifiers, much less with something like headphones or-- keep this in mind when listening to most vintage recordings-- microphones. And don't let the vintage speaker crowd tell you any lies either, although with modern amps the old KLHs and ARs can sound okay. No, this stuff almost always needed help, like the standard motorcar circa 1910. So the first thing you do is crank up the EQ to see what's what. I think folks who consider the K340 or the HD 650 "hard to drive" would be shocked--
shocked!-- to see what's required to make the SE-500 sound like something. This is my attitude toward all headphones and speakers in the real world. Unless they're exceptional, they all need some help. I'm willing to meet them halfway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inkmo
What stock is there really in watts/channel. I know my receiver is probably 50 sumfin' per channel, and it'll practically tear the walls down at just half volume.
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Good point, because it's too infrequently pointed out that there's loud, and then there's
clean loud, which sounds entirely different. What many people perceive as loud is "It's too loud-- it's distorted-- I gotta turn it down. Therefore I know it's loud." in the same way that they perceive "fast" in a car as "I'm having to hold the wheel in both hands and the noise and vibration is stressing me to my limits" which is altogether different from fast on the Autobahn in a big Mercedes.
So "tearing the walls down" might be clean loud, but somehow the description connotes something else. Receivers are good enough for a lotta things, but they don't usually meet the criterion of "clean all the way to clipping with any load" . Tube amps have that wattage-grace bestowed upon them that makes a flea-powered amp still sound good well into clipping because they clip so softly. They... fade... gradually... into.. "too loud". SS amps, on the other hand, depending on the power supply, hit a wall and then start spraying harmonics. There's a break point. Since they can be made to put out high power more easily than tube amps can, they get around the break point by being powerful enough to hit it only infrequently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inkmo
On that note, what it is really that determines what what can drive how loud? voltage swing?
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Voltage swing, current reserve, power supply ESR, the ability of an output stage to handle difficult (read: reactive as opposed to resistive) loads without panic.. All that and more. There is no single figure of merit. You might as well ask how a bike will ride based on whether the tubes are Presta or Schrader.
EricJ is the guy to ask about the details.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inkmo
g'night folks!
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[waves like an idiot] 'night, Inkmo! ...There he goes, brave lad...
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