Are future improvements in Amp/PreAmps slowing to a crawl?

When you say "a bunch of us" I assume that means you and the other pseudo skeptics. Maybe you mean you and the other GED recipients.

I was just getting down to kross_emoji's level. If thy eye offend thee pluck it out. 👁 My job is setting the record straight. 

But the air is still still. It’s not moving. Have you forgotten your argument already? This was Roger Paul’s concept, preserve the relative motion of the acoustic waves and the air in the room, nothing to do with temperature. We don’t care what the temperature is. We don’t care because it’s irrelevant. Even if you want to use some bizarre example like the room is in a NASA wind tunnel and the air is heated to 120 degrees the principle still applies, the speed of sound is the relative motion of acoustic waves through air. It's a timing thing not a temperature thing.

kross_emoji, you are a little slow on the uptake today. The speed of sound is just that, relativistic motion, the speed of acoustic waves relative to the speed of air. Duh! This is what happens when you go to a school that advertises on the back of matchbook covers.

kross_emoji, if the air in the room had any motion your hair (assuming you have any hair) would be blowing in the wind. Besides the speed of sound at Standard temperature pressure is calculated for STILL air, not moving air. If the air is moving the speed of sound is a different number. Hel-loo! Thus, you argument is a logical fallacy. Case closed. Go back to school, get money back.

😡
kross_emoji
@geoffkait
Geeze, Mr. Magic Rocks! Can’t seem to forget the physics of air, can you? Sorry, but that’s a completely valid and required component in the calculation of mass and sound moving though it. It’s funny how you ridicule me for reality and defend you fantasy fields. You’re the one who claims to tweak audio and video gear over the phone. Not me. You’re insane.

Ha ha! You pulled out all the stops that time, kross. I bet I know what's coming next. I always enjoy these extreme reactions from newbies. No worries, I realize you're physics challenged, so here’s a little tutorial for you. It’s not difficult.

Get smart on speed of sound:

What changes the speed of sound?

In fact, assuming an ideal gas, the speed of sound c depends on temperature only, not on the pressure or density (since these change in lockstep for a given temperature and cancel out). Air is almost an ideal gas.

have a nice hair day

😡
kosst_amojan
@geoffkait
Ok, Mr. Magic Rocks. Go play with your mystic morphic fields now and let the big people talk about reality.

kross_emoji, anyone who actually believes the air in a listening room is moving at 1000 mph is not exactly living in reality. No offense, maybe you’re just pretending to be dense. Hey, that rhymes! 😄 And anyone who believes the velocity of sound is not constant in a given listening room is not exactly living in reality. Now I will let the Big Baby continue his badgering and name calling. Would it be a fair statement to say you’re ignorant of crystals and Morphic fields? Maybe a little afraid of what you’re ignorant of? No need to answer, it’s only a rhetorical question.

"Knowledge is is what’s left after you subtract everything you forgot from school." 😳
- audiophile axiom

costco, but I DID attack you for what you said. It’s very easy to do. You're the resident name caller. And quite a sophomoric one at that. I am starting to suspect reading comprehension might be another issue for you. You know, they’re doing wonders with anti psychotics these days. Check it out.

costco_emoji, good reaction! I assume you are enjoying another one of your DMT flashbacks. Obviously I’m not referring to transformers that are already outboard, Mr. Smarty Pants. I’m not surprised you didn’t know that all capacitors induce vibration in themselves. That’s why damping them is a good idea. I realize you’re a newbie and a wannabe but you shouldn’t let your emotions go crazy. As I said previously anyone who argues that air in a listening room moves at some great speed is not exactly in normal reality. If you wish to become the resident know it all I'd say you've already made it. 😀

Let’s get serious for a second. High end amplifier manufacturers really need to do something about toxic transformer-generated magnetic fields (magnetic field countermeasures), directionality of all wire, not only the wire in transformers, but in fuses and the power cord. Also, they need to implement effective EMI/RFI countermeasures, damping for transformers, maybe decouple the transformers entirely, or put them outboard. Whose brilliant idea was it to bolt the things directly to the chassis, anyway? Not too swift. And those capacitors also, need to be damped. Hel-loo! So, the moral of this story: $90K Tenors or $200K Dart Zeels are off my Christmas shopping list until they solve those issues. You can’t just sweep this stuff under the carpet, folks. Hel-ooo! You can paint a turkey different colors but it’s still a turkey. 🦃

You’re not the first wannabe that tried to hump my leg. Go ahead, knock yourself out. 🐩

Costco, you are a wannabe who hasn’t done anything. Little boy, little stick, big mouth. 

This thread - for better or worse - has become the poster child for what happens when you let the angry Juror from 12 Angry Men badger you with the old, "then, what about this, then what about that" routine. It’s the oldest scam in town. You can’t PROVE it!! Nobody has to prove anything. Duh! This behavior on this thread and many other threads appears to be nothing more than a desperate ploy for attention and an opportunity for rudeness and name calling. 😫

Re Tenor Amplifier

"Anyone on this thread own one?
I noticed they are not cheap."

Tenor amps were not cheap twenty years ago. To say they are not cheap now is like saying the black hole in the center of the Milky Way is not small. The new Tenor 350M Haute Puissance (High Power) monoblocks are $90K.

stfoth
http://tenoraudio.com/pedigree/the-perfect-amplifier-.html
http://tenoraudio.com/technical/zero-perceived-distortion--.html

a different approach on "perfect."

>>>>>footnote on history. I was in the big Tenor/Rockport/Shunyata/Audio Aero exhibit in the brand new Tuscany Hotel. The room was 50x50. It was judged by most senior audiophiles and reviewers to be the best sound of show. It was judged by senior reviewer and author of the RCA Bible Jonathan Valin to be not only the best sound at the show but the best sound he had ever heard anywhere. What was your humble scribe doing in this monster system? I was providing vibration isolation stands for all four (4) count em Tenor Amos as well as the Audio Aero CD Player. A customer of mine knew the exhibit coordinator, Jonathan Tinn. Yeah, Baby!

costco_eruption,

Whoa! What’s with all the angst, Costco? OK, let me take a different tack. Let’s look at it this way. There’s a sailboat out at sea ⛵️ and it’s in the doldrums, you know where the air is very still. Where the air is not moving. Where it’s velocity is effectively zero as well as force. If the air was moving the sails would catch the wind, no? Only a fool would argue that air in a listening room is moving. The kinetic energy of the molecules is irrelevant. Only a fool would argue that the speed of sound is not constant in a given listening room. Any listening room. Even if it was in a wind tunnel. 🌬

stevecham wrote,

"Ok, so what are you going to do, slow down the propogation of an electrical audio signal to 750 mph? That in and of itself, if achievable, and I doubt it, would time distort the signal even further in the electrical domain."

>>>>Uh, I get the feeling you’re not following the discussion. He’s not saying that at all.

Then stevecham wrote,

"And, I challenge that air does not time distort music; there are microbar or even nanobar changes happening in local environments constantly, simply through the movement of air alone. We know how wind direction can easily change if we hear across a distance or not. Air molecules are chemical entities; electrons are first generation leptons. Each is governed by a VERY different set of physical properties."

>>>>Again, yours are Strawman arguments. He’s not saying any of those things. You are jousting at windmills. Furthermore, If you had been paying attention you’d know that electrons have practically nothing to do with it.

Then stevecham wrote,

"Changes in playback speed change pitch."

>>>>>So what? You might as well say the sky is blue. He’s not implying playback speed changes. Hel-loo!

Costco_emoji, obviously I’m referring to standard temperature pressure at sea level. You can ignore the kinetic VELOCITIES that Steve was trying to promote. I never said the speed of sound isn’t a function of temperature, Mr. Smarty Pants. Stop trying to put words in my mouth. The speed of sound is a constant at standard temperature and pressure. In Roger’s case you can assume any temperature or pressure you want. It doesn’t matter. He wants to preserve the speed of sound - whatever it is under the conditions at the time. Duh! The recording could have been made In 110 degree heat during a thunderstorm. It does not (rpt not) matter. Follow?

stevecham wrote,

"And one more thing because this is ridiculous.

You said "the velocity of air medium is zero.’

Nooooo

Air molecules at room temperature move about 1000 mph. They are bouncing around and banging off each other at very high speed."

Air is considered motionless in the room. The motion of something passing through air is relative motion. It's customary to consider the velocity of air zero relative to acoustic waves passing through it. Consider a listening room on a moving train where music is playing. The velocity of air in the listening room is still zero relative to the car of the train. Thus the velocity of acoustic waves passing through the air in a car on a moving train would be the speed of sound, the same velocity of acoustic waves in a room in a stationary building. It would be absurd to consider still air is moving at 1000 mph when it’s relative motion is zero. It would be equally absurd to consider the air in the room moving at the velocity of the Earth’s rotation on its axis or the velocity of the Earth’s motion around the sun. Besides, all the air molecular motion cancels out. The net velocity is zero since it’s all random motion. 

Quick interrupt. If he really was a liar wouldn't his pants be on fire? 🔥

Whoa! Holy guacamole! Oh, so this îs what happens when a measurement fanatic encounters someone who disagrees with him? Geez, I was under the impression the whole amplifier measurement thing - especially THD - went out the window 40 count em years ago! As well as the bullet headed dude 🌰 from Audio Review or whatever. 

I can hear a tube from way down the hall. So can the guy under the bridge. No mystery there. 🕵🏻

High power all tube Class A amplifier. In case it's not clear translates to a HUGE amplifier.

And with that kind of attitude I’m sure he never will find perfection.

Life is is what you make it to be. - Fresh out of Borstal

An ordinary man has no means of deliverance.  Old audiophile axiom

shadorne wrote,

"Is there anyone on Audiogon actually interested in high fidelity or is everyone just fixated on making up completely imaginary pseudoscience nonsense?"

Wasn’t it Einstein in his later years who said, "I wish I had spent more time on metaphysics than I did on Physics."? 

toddverrone
Yeah man, sorry, as far as a testable scientific theory, m fields are out.

What did I just say? They’re testable. I just said they already had a contest. You know, con-test. And on the panel was David Bohm, super duper theoretical physicist. Besides, your humble scribe is a super tester. I’ve tested billion dollar comm systems. I’ve tested Morphic fields, too. You can trust me. They’re testable. And I’ve been testing them as long as almost anyone. I’m not hot dogging you. 🌭

stfoth
"Geoff--finally something on which I think I can sort of at least partially agree with you, although the distinction between the purely psychological and the physiological is getting blurred as more folks monkey with brains.

Has a mood affected hearing/perception? Has anyone had auditory hallucinations--"natural" or, ahem, induced? Synesthesia? Ever said, "Hey, did you say something?" when the he/she hadn’t made a peep? "Hear" more deeply into the music, when relaxed with a clear head? Had a great day and the birds chirped more loudly? Been irritable and every little annoying noise that’s usually tuned out now heard.

Not just hearing...every sense can be impacted in similar ways. Some of it is hormonal, too.

What’s this have to do with amps/preamps? Depends."

>>>>I am making a distinction between what we CAN control ourselves by action or thought and what we CANNOT control by action or thought. So I’m not really talking about drinking some wine or taking hallucinogens to get in the mood or change one’s perceptions. The mind matter interaction I’m referring to is a natural phenomenon that can be conscious, for example the sense that someone is staring at you, but usually it’s subconscious, so we’re not (rpt not) aware that the influence of our immediate surroundings, the local environment as it were, on our sensory perception is taking place. It’s all just factored into whatever we observe through our senses. We can make no distinction between say the distortion of a wire and the distortion of the mind matter interference. The mind matter interaction/interference does affect all senses, not just the sense of hearing. Think of it like interference on a radio channel. I.e., noise and distortion.

toddverrone
I’m pretty sure morphic fields were laid by the wayside years ago. Sheldrake had great ideas, but the details didn’t seem to pan out.

Sorry, you might have listened to one too many pseudo skeptics. They said the same thing about gravity waves. And black holes. Morphic fields are alive and well, thank you very much. 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 Heck, they even had a contest to prove or disprove them. Guess who won. 😳

kosst_amojan
Morphic fields!?!?!? I’ve been poking around physics for a while now but I’ve never come across Morphic fields. Sounds like you listen to lots of Coast to Coast AM. In the world of reality we call crap like that pseudoscience. State vector collapse within the framework of the Copenhagen Interpretation certainly doesn’t call for magical Morphic fields, and that’s the cornerstone concept concerning the observer’s relationship with the universe.

>>>>>See, that’s the difference between a real physicist and someone who just pokes around in physics. Your post is so reminiscent of what many skeptics and pretend skeptics say, "I looked everywhere but I could find no mention of it anywhere. So it must not exist." Maybe you just need to look harder, Pokey. 👀 I’m going to help you out. Remember I said I’m talking about psychological, not physiological, phenomenon. So there is no reason to assume Morphic fields must fit into the realm of physics per se. In fact, they actually don’t. They do not obey the laws of physics (physical science) so chances look good Morphic fields are not physics. First law of science - never assume anything.

It is if you're a pseudo skeptic.

That's actually not true. Sheldrake would be the first to say Morphic fields apply to everything, animate and inanimate, from birds to fish to electrons to trees to words and symbols. Now, we can do this the hard way or the fun way. 😄

So, I imagine someone is thinking, well, what’s an example of a psychological issue related to human perception of hearing, you know, something consciously or consciously that affects how you perceive the sound? You need to look no further than the standard, tried and true naysayer arguments - the placebo effect and expectation bias. These are both psychological effects, not physiological effects. I believe they are both real phenomena and both affect the sound, presumably for the better. Alas, while they are examples of psychological influences on the sound, they are not really examples of what I am referring to when I mention mind-matter interaction and Morphic fields. Wait’ll the naysayers get a load of this. 😀

Moo goo gai pan. Mmmmm! Making me hungry. 🍲

The original question had to do with psychological not physiological issues related to human sensory perception. For the answers to that question one has to think outside the box. Outside all the boxes. This is Peter Belt territory, and Rupert Sheldrake and David Bohm territory. One of the best, though would certainly appear to an extremely unlikely place to start, is Rupert Sheldrake’s landmark book, The Presence the Past, which has to do primarily with memory and behavior of animals and defines Morphic fields. To cut to the chase, this all has to do with how our local surroundings influence how we hear sound. It is what I refer to as mind matter interaction. It can be a conscious or a subconscious reaction to shapes, materials and words and phrases and symbols, such as barcodes and logos. The good sound you worked so hard to obtain is actually there in the room. You just aren't hearing it correctly, that's all. You think you are. Why wouldn't you, right? But you're not. That's all for now. See you later...

I’d say about 90% of the problem audiophiles face is getting all the music that is in the grooves and all the data that is on the disc. It’s really a playback problem. The challenge is to resurrect or archaeologically dig up the information, clean it, deinterleaved it, make it coherent, so it makes sense. You are not protected by the Error Detection/Correction algorithms. Only 10% has to do with equipment and even cables.

Without tweaks, without isolation, without room treatments, there can be no high end. There is no artificial ceiling that cannot be broken through, some silly line that signifies Audio Nirvana. There is no hyperbolic curve of system performance. Hel-loo! Those who believe they only have 2% or 5% left to go before they reach Audio Nirvana are simply mistaken. You don’t know what you don’t know. 😳 Think of Audio Nirvana like climbers climbing Mount Everest. Many climbers get up one morning and declare, "Hey, we made it! What a view!" 🏔 Then they’re informed, "Dude, chill! We’re only at Base Camp." Which by the way is only half way up Everest. 😛

I hate to judge these things too quickly but it certainly appears that human sensory perception, psychoacoustics and how the brain interacts with its surroundings (mind matter interaction) are subjects that tend to make grown men and audiophiles run in the opposite direction as fast as their little feet will carry them. What grown men really want is far from neuroscience or evolution, very far. What they really want is things that make sense. Not things that go bump in the night. Something they can vaguely remember from high school or find quickly on Wikipedia. Something that at least looks like real science, real engineering. Something they can measure. Well, not them, specifically, but somebody. 😬

Question: why be so concerned about distortion of the amplifier? Didn't we find out a long time ago that some amplifiers with relatively high THD - I.e., more than an order of magnitude higher than those amps with vanishing low THD - actually sounded considerably better? 

It wouldn’t be the first time someone automatically called something snake oil before coming to grips with what the idea actually was. Folks sometimes appear programmed to jump on just about anything that deviates a little too much from the standard model. Like ducks on a June bug.

I used to use a headphone amp, a Woo Audio pure tube Class A headphone amp with WWII era tubes. Today I use a Walkman CD player and Walkman cassette player. With Grado SR 60 headphones and Sony Ultralight headphones and Radio Shack Pro 35 titanium headphones. I heard a quarter million dollar system the other day. It was much better. 😀

phd
geoffkait, that’s definately a different but interesting approach but how were you able to get rid of the house ac?

Batteries. No more ground issues. No more expensive power cords. No more bad power from the wall. No more big power supplies. No more teacher's dirty looks.

Pretty sure the whole THD cat was out of the bag back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when relatively high THD tube amps crushed relatively low THD solid state amps in terms of sound quality. So, it’s not exactly news. The tube amps in question sported 0.05% THD vs solid state amps with "vanishingly low" THD around 0.001% or whatever. You know the amps I’m talikng about, the ones that’d rip your ears off. 

Unfortunately amplifiers inherently shoot themselves in the foot. Too many large capacitors that produce phase shifts, too many big honking transformers that create large magnetic fields and vibration, too many capacitors and resistors that are placed arbitrarily without thought of directionality, fuses the same. Printed circuit boards that are strongly coupled (bolted) to the chassis and transformers that are bolted to the chassis. Give me a break! I got rid of my amplifiers last year. Or was it the year before? I also got rid of house AC and all the attendant issues thereof. I got rid of speaker cables and power cords and interconnects and digital cables. And fuses. And I don’t have to worry about room treatments since I’m strictly headphone oriented. I never looked back. Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you. 😬 If thy eye offend thee pluck it out. 👁

The real advances in preamps and amps in the future will involve metaphysics not physics. I'm afraid they've run out of options trying to somehow improve upon the current model. More designers must think outside the box. 🕋