2. misc-audio
  3. 186570-6055

How do you add color?

For those of you who are adherents of straight wire, ruler flat frequency response, accurate and neutral sound, artists’ true intentions, etc. ... please stop reading now. You’ve been warned. If you continue to read, you might get heartburn and since I’m a nice guy, I don’t want to do that to you.

Now, for those who are not opposed to adding a bit of color and flavor to tune/tweak the sound to their liking, what is your preferred method of madness? Speakers, amps, preamps, DACs, cables? I know many who like the combination of solid state amps with tube preamps. Lately, a lot of upmarket DACs are using tubes (Lampizator) or R2R to add a sort of tube-like flavoring. Let’s say you’re happy with your solid state amp but want to add a bit of tube magic to the chain, would you get there by way of tube preamps or tube DACs? Or both -- which might be too much of a good thing perhaps?

128x128arafiq

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
6,412 posts
 

@frogman

 

+1 I think you put your finger on it. I looked at this for a while and kept thinking… but…. but.
 

Most good high fi companies try to make their products sound like the real thing. I suspect those that use simple electronic measurement fail miserably. It’s great if you can parrot a sine wave… but real music is all frequencies and amplitudes being simultaneously varied.

All the great designers use engineering principles as a starting place, then listen. Ruler flat speakers sound terrible. I have heard this from speaker designers and reviewers. I don’t look at many specs. I read about or listen myself.

Different engineers approach getting to the best most natural sound from different directions… different designs, technology, materials to arrive at their best… and they arrive in slightly different places. Hence, you get different flavors.

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