Douglas Self on Negative feedback and distortion

I don't trust ANYONE who is dogmatic about specs. We're not trying to reproduce sine waves at 1000Khz. It's ridiculous- all you have to do is compare a cheap yamaha with 100 watts and ultra low distortion to a 25 watt audiophile amp. How many compromises did yamaha engineer in to get those specs right? A little Naim Nait sounds better and plays louder- but the yamaha is better on paper.

Marakanetz- you are missing my point. The Yamaha doesn't sound as good at 20 watts. Or 5 watts. Or 1 watt. I'm trying to point out you can't hear specs, but IF YOU ENGINEER A PRODUCT TO SPEC OUT WELL (because that is what the buying public is looking for) YOU MAY SACRIFICE MUSICALITY.

For example, there may be trade-offs in ANY design. If there are 100 things that make up a musical amplifier, a good designer, like a good physician, first "tries to do no harm." When you sacrifice 40 elements of good design to get low THD (as you said, on a resistor at one freq.) and a low pricepoint, you are going to wind up with poor equipment. Even at the same price, the product that is engineered to sell well will not sound as good as the one that is engineered to sound great. One engineer spend his money on bells, whistles remote gadgets- the other spends it on good power transformers, mil. spec. transistors/ resistors/ capacitors/...point to point wiring....The first guy covers up his deficiences with lots of zero negative feedback and buys good articles in Stereo Review. Marketing over substance. Specmania is a good way to fall into that trap.

Welllll...I'll agree to disagree, because I know that "The one that truely specs out great MUST sound great" is not true. It only means the unit performs well on that test. Music is much more complex than audio industry specs are good for. Furthermore, many companies don't test specs uniformally. Some test 20-20. Some with a true load. Some some with a test resistor. Specs show CDs sound better than LPs. They don't. They are more convenient. Researchers recenly found 2nd and third order harmonics above the range of human hearing affect audible tones and thus are perceived by listeners. Specs don't test for that. How many other unresearched areas of acoustic and psychacoustic interactions are not addressed by "slew rate" , "damping factor" and "Total Harmonic Distortion". Plus, you DID miss my point that in designing to ACE spec A, a designer might screw up spec B, C, and D.

Sean, we could get you a list of highend amps, give you the specs- I am sure you couldn't answer andy's question. Especially more subjective things like listener fatigue. Look, Eldartford's answer makes perfect sense. Of course Andy and I don't ignore specs. I need to know the impedance of a cartridge or speaker, whether the designer uses negative feedback to cover a crap design (Gives great spec though), what the sensitivity of a speaker is ...

A lot of what you say has merit. It's not as black or white as I have portrayed it... I just know from experience that you hear music, not paper. It may be the bees knees on paper, and sound like crap. A lot of bob carver's products were like that. The specs from the lab were impressive, but in the real world the amps needed more current than a twenty amp residential circuit could provide. Oops! Worked great in the industrial lab though- loved those specs. My previous example of ultrasonic harmonic distortion is a good one as well- you can't test for something if you don't understand the science yet. Clearly hi-fi is not perfect. Perhaps twenty years from now digital amps will reproduce the waveforms perfectly, and my faith in specs will be renewed. In the meantime, as science has proved ultrasonic H.D. has audible effects due to interaction with audible freqs., T.H.D. probably should be renamed total harmonic distortion up to twenty thousand cycles, or T.H.D.U.S.S. (THD using sixties science). How many other sacred cows are flawed? Why is analog experiencing a renaisance? Why do tube amps sound so good? (yes, aside from bass). Clearly Solid State specs better . I maintain the human brain is a thousand fold more complex at processing sound as a PC. The human ear is much more precise than the lab analyzer- partially because it works exactly like the analyzer I use to process my music- my ear!

In conclusion, use specs. to help compare products for final evaluation....but don't try to tell us you can judge two products exclusively on paper.

Well, I never tried it, as I am a former musician and liberal artsy/ fartsy guy. My ears have never failed me- but they have cost me a bundle. Probably the most spot- on post in this whole affair was:
Hammy & Marakanetz: I'm somewhere between the two of you. That is, i believe that you CAN hear specs, if the tests are performed in the proper manner and ALL the spec's are taken into consideration and properly interpreted.

Yes, all things in moderation....something less and less common in politics. I suppose if you can interpret sound from specs. they can be a handy aid.