@noromance , you did indeed, Somehow, I missed your post. Unusual, since your posts always interest me, Credit where credit is due. Regards.
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?
68 responses Add your response
@mapman Why post just to mock the thread? Some of us enjoy nitpicking Audiophile jargon. Several of you have expanded on my previous post with very interesting commentary. IMO some also confuse engagement with coloration. A speaker that perfectly describes that as a myth is the Totem Metal V2 The Totem is nearly colorless(no sound of its own) but completely engages you without any color saturation. |
The acoustic definition of " color" is related to the definition of timbre experience which can be understood and must be understood in psycho-acoustic by at least 5 physical acoustic criteria which are influenced by simultaneously the room speakers relation and the gear components characteristics and also by psychological evaluative perception ( the state of emotions and the individual music journey ) ... It is a complex matter pertaining not just to gear design quality but also to physical room acoustics in specific relation to specfic gear system design and to the psycho-acoustic conditions linked to timbre experience and evaluation which imply subjectivity and neurology... In a sense the question of the OP is a road to misunderstanding by underestimating the complexities of the timbre experience, with the implicit presupposition that the gear will be the main factor... The better question will be : how do we improve timbre experience ? For sure i could understand this question as a question not about fundamental acoustics but about the gear pieces...This is not wrong to ask this question about the synergy of gear pieces in one direction : warm, cold , neutral...My claim is that this question about gear colors is not meaningless no , but it is misleading question which stay on the problem surface ...
|
Now if we want a better TRANSLATION of the specific acoustic trade-off conditions in some specific music recording, we must create a room able to optimally make possible this translation , nevermind the relative qualitative variability of the gear components ... It is acoustics domain i spoke about ... The gear pieces are more or less optimal for each one of us to convey this recording trade off choices as an analog/digital information processed line for sure, gear matter for sure , but they will not beat the room conditions for this acoustic TRANSLATION from the living recording Hall or studio into the acoustic conditions of your room...Acoustic room conditions change impact way more than a dac change in most case.. TIMBRE is first and last an acoustic concept nor a gear engineeering concept... Then buying a tube pre-amp to improve "colors" or "balance" between components is notenough for solving the acoustic problem about tonal color perception from recording playback in YOUR ROOM for your ears... Buying a tube pre-amp is only good to improve the performance of your system but in the SAME room acoustic condition...Upgrading may be not always the solution...Acoustics rules nevermind the level and price of your system...This does not means that acoustic improvement will compensate for bad gear design , it means that gear design will NEVER replace acoustics defects .. |
"Gotta love a conversation about sound that’s talking about color. Aren’t those two different senses? Go figure! Only audiophiles……" Yes, but we don't have agreed on terms to describe these things, so we make them up. Would it make more sense to talk about the ratio of even vs odd harmonics? How would you decide your preference? Who would understand that? How about moving the image fore and aft with 1/4 dB equalization changes? Color. Warm, clinical, musical, natural? Our feeble attempt to describe something we are not sure how to measure. Then we get into even harder things like dynamic compression which happens in all speakers and in some electronics. Is that "life" or is 1/2 dB @ 4K life? Or is that "flavor" |
**** Gotta love a conversation about sound that’s talking about color. Aren’t those two different senses? Go figure! Only audiophiles……**** Not really 😊 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmeu3dwBjdGzVIQT6wZ1TzdxyH2573tsn&si=IVCHb6XodL1UAk2V |
I’d wager Mr Spock would call this topic “illogical”.
Then Dr McCoy would bawl him out and Kirk would give a speech about being human. This would be an episode called “The Color of Sound” where a strange alien probe makes the crew have mind wiping psychedelic dreams whenever a certain tune plays. Then they take over the Enterprise and only Spock can save them thanks to his unwillingness to see color from sound. Great episode! Make it so! |
@noromance Wrote:
I agree 100%! Mike |
I have already mentioned that perhaps the usage of the term ’color’ was not very apt to describe what I was trying to say. I see folks are still hung up on that word :) The point was that some people want neutrality at all cost. Some are okay with morphing the sound just little bit, similar to how you can season your food without altering the basic essence of the dish. Why get so dogmatic about it? I know people who reject tube amplification as a form of ’polluting’ the sound. The tube euphonics, in their mind, are an added coloration. They hate tone controls, and look down upon folks who buy amps with tone controls. These people often have telepathic abilities to know exactly what the artist had in mind when recording the song in 1967. I readily admit that I have no idea what the artist had in mind. I listen to enjoy and connect with music in a way that pleases me. I like what tubes bring to the table. I like what some of the very best SS amps bring to the table. I like to swap cables to try out a different ’flavor’ of sound every now and then. Different strokes for different folks. |
There is another point. Microphones do not 'hear' everything and so part of the real sound being recorded will be missed. Let's call it negative coloration. You might try to at least partly restore those lost in recording elements, without adding elements that were never there. This is a formidable task bordering on utopia. But we can try. |
"colour" as qualitative word associated with the gear component is one thing... "colour" as a qualitative concept in acoustic and psycho-acoustic associated with TIMBRE is ANOTHER thing... I cannot be clearer and shorter... Confusing the two muddle the problem... Gear colours as with dac that are of different type or with amplifiers S.S. or tubes is a synergy and design qualitative coupling problem... "Colour" as with tonal colour associated with TIMBRE experience is the main problem in audio with the spatial aspects of sound independently and this independently of the price tag of your system ..... No recording reproduce a perfect experience of timbre only a specific one in specific recorded location of the musician in the room and with some microphone location and typ; our room acoustic translate this imperfect recording of timbre and the spatial recorded information cues into our own room acoustic ...( Speakers crosstalk muddle this information about timbre and location and other spatial acoustic concepts ) The best gear in the world in a very bad room will be less desirable than less costly gear in an optimal room... This is a fact not my opinion... |
Totally and absolutely correct. Remove the color of the system to hear to actual colors of the music. @mahgister
|
@mapman we talk about color all the time in the recording business as well. Anything that changes the sound from what came before is considered "coloring the sound" . Some colors are desirable, some not. It is also true @mahgister that studio monitors are used to reveal information, reveal color, reveal mistakes, etc so the mixer or mastering person can work from a place of truth instead of illusion. This is the basic reason low distortion loudspeakers are important in studio work. The dont make things sound better than they are. Brad |
For a bit of tube flavor you might want to audition the Modwright analog bridge. It add a bit of melo-ness and the bridge allows for a number of tubes that can be interchanged -tube rolling really does add another whole level of insanity to this hobby. I have used the bridge with a pair of 1961 gold pin PG amperex 7308 tubes along with a Sophie rectifier tube and I believe it has improved the listenability of my system considerably. |
@mahler123
Nothing snarky about asking something. I am sure many people will take exception with my opinion but carrying on. . . Technically, a 10" driver makes a lousy midrange. It has bad dispersion and moves too slow. So it does more of the musical generalities than extraction minute details = colorful. Paper drivers have more of a colorful presentation than metal as do tubes but that doesn’t necessary mean they are colored any more than one type of violin sounds different from another. Coloration would be some type of distortion, resonance, etc. It’s true and is called synesthesia.
|
