Text 30625, 146 rader
Skriven 2009-04-01 22:22:36 av Stewart Arnett (3:772/100)
Kommentar till text 30508 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Tube or not tube
========================
Hello Michiel.
30 Mar 09 21:42, you wrote to Lee Lofaso:
I deferred to answer your last reply in this thread, I realise as far as music
reproduction goes you are a musical luddite, this I have to poke my nose into
though.
MV> Hello Lee,
MV> On Monday March 30 2009 11:07, you wrote to me:
LL>> Speaking from experience, a musician can tell the difference in
LL>> sound between a solid state amplifier and a tube amplifier.
MV> There is (or was?) a programmme on German TV called "Wtten Das?".
MV> There once was a guy who claimed he could tell the make and model of a
MV> car by just listening to the sound of the doors closing.
The sound of a car door closing is only of interest to a petrol head, I can
find many petrol heads that can tell the make of a car from a sound it makes.
Coloqualy West Auckland is full of them they are refered to as Westies and come
in three particular species, Ford, Holden and Rice.
MV> He demonstrated he could tell e BMW from a Mercedes and an VW.
MV> Now does that mean a VW is "better" than a Mercedes?
I can demonstrate from a blind test that I can tell the difference between a
Flemish or an Italien Harpsichord when played using all stops and regardless of
whether it is on a recording or live. Though if I was to do a blind test with
my instrument it would not be fair. First I would be playing the live bit and
secondly, have you ever tried to blindfold an opposum? ;-) they have sharp
teeth and claws on each corner. Neither test would suggest which was the
better.
LL>> Although there is less distortion with a solid state amplifier,
LL>> it is often preferable to use a tube amplifier for certain
LL>> instruments. Especially acoustic instruments, such as guitar and
LL>> piano.
MV> Some audio phreaks seem to prefer distortion.
Barenboim on hearing early CD's (he favours Acoustic Research loudspeakers)
noted to an "audiophile" who complained of the distorted violin sound, "the
distortion is the same as I hear when conducting the violin sections,". The
action of a bit of a horses tail passing over the dried gut of a sheep causes a
scraping sound amplified by the sound box of the instument, many horses tails
on many a "catgut" causes a lot of scraping and other sounds. Should one take
this out of the reproduced recording or not?
Many musicians, myself included tend to forget there are people who have never
trained nor learnt to understand music or who do not live it. I am sorry to say
we forget what it is like not to have music in our lives and this is where your
problem stems from. You are deaf to the inner part of the sounds of sound and
not trained to hear them.
A wind organ is a very complex piece of engineering, I trained under the
tutilage of the late Dr Brian Runnet at Norwich Cathedral during the late 60's.
It makes many noises other than that of the "whistle" of the pipes, hisses
creaks, whooshes and clatters. The pedal board on most organs clunk from the
contact of the organists leather shoes, incorrectly de-pressed keys clank as
they strike bottom, swell dampers flap and can make a very loud thud when they
are closed too rapidly. All of this makes up the sound of the instrument and
should (must) be reproduced accuratly by a "HIFI" system.
Probably the most important item in a the "hifi" chain is the performer, if it
isn't worth listening to live in the first place, then why record it? Next is
the recording equipment and the recording tech's skill in placement and mixing,
One tone deaf techy can "Eff-up" the best performance, the worst of them argue
with the performer.
If we take the recording as being the best possible (be it solid state gear or
tubed or hybrid that was used) we have to consider the reproducer at the
listening end. If you have "Radio Shack" ears then you will be satisfied with
"Radio Shack" sound. Generaly the higher the price the more natural the
reproduction, and that "generaly" is a pretty wide paint brush of a generaly!
You do enter the realm of reduced returns as well, the dollar side can move in
an exponential climb. You are an engineer cum scientist, what is a solid state
device made of? What is the weight of an electron? My cats liked my solid state
gear (Perraux) it is 100% class A from in to output, commonly called "current
dumpers" and bloody good amps they are and nice and warm. Incidently the
manufacturer fitted them with gold plated RCA sockets and speaker outputs. As a
matter of policy I use gold plated plugs, not nickle, why? I can go out and buy
gold ones, I am not searching the country for nickle plated ones ... they just
aren't made ...
End of that argument isn't it ;-) Tinned ones are a dime a dozen though and
hopeless in this climate.
The sole purpose of the amplifier is to accuratly increase the current of the
recorded analogue signal to a level comensurate with a comfortable listening
level produced by the electrical to mechanical interface reacting with the air
in the place where the sound is to be listened to.(phew) This of course comes
back to something you touched on in an earlier message, the importance of the
loudspeaker and the distortion introduced by such devices. My main (most used)
speakers are Tannoy Westminsters, 1 pair. On a whim last year I picked up a
pair of Magneplanar MG 20.1, brilliant with something like Matt Savage playing
his Bosendorfer, but they get a little bit lost with Carlo Curly at Bristol (St
Mary's) where the instrument can and does several times go down to the bottom C
of a 32ft pedal rank that runs out at 16 Hz. Don't even dare to say you don't
know that note is being played, I can assure you (The great at Norwich has
several) when you play it you know you are playing it, the Tannoys sound it the
Maggies don't.
The amp has to be able to get hold of the physical weight, mass and size of the
speaker and wave it about as accurately as possible, bugger the distortion of
the tube, it is minimal. Tubes do this far better than transistors, I use the
old name because as I asked earlier, what is a solid state device made of. Yup
it is resistive, it works by gating the current through a silicon resistance,
the electrical properties of which alow large changes in the flow of current to
be made by varying a low current input. Tubes don't work that way, do they? The
mass of an electron is so small it is only recently that it could be
measured,the possible rate of change of the direction of an electron passing
through a vacuum is almost infinitely higher than that of one in a solid
object. Yes we do need a transformer at the end of the power amplifier, to
match the tube with the speaker impeadance. Though in this case we are slamming
the trany with 400 to 600 odd volts, not 60 or 70 as in a top end solidstate
amp. There are deficiencies with even the most modern tubes, microphonic pick
up, some distortion from pin contact and noise from the effect of higher
voltage on capacitors. This can be bought down to below that of the best solid
state amps if you want to spend enough (Wavac SH-833's for instance and I have
heard one set) the real thing is though the ability of the tubes in a "good"
and "well" designed amp to over come the latent deficiencies of a moving coil
operated loud speaker.
MVDV>>> Have you ever done double blind test?
Yes. I have an unfair advantage though, perfect pitch and fifty one years of
musical training, performing, listening and teaching. You just have science and
data, the ears don't obey those things, a microphone is not an ear and an
osciloscope is no replacement for a trained human auditory system. (I probably
despise audio freaks as much as you do though)
LL>> Yes. Acoustic instruments, especially piano, cannot be recorded
LL>> well. The dissonance created by the instrument cannot be
LL>> reproduced to the same quality in a sound recording.
MV> That is not an answer to the question.
Agreed, though we are getting better at recording these particular instruments.
Stewart
--- GoldED/2 3.0.1
* Origin: The RockBBS Auckland NZ 64-9-5799604 (3:772/100)
|