atmasphere
Responses from atmasphere
| Should I steer clear of class D amps Class D amps need a tube preamp or a solid state Class A input stage that adds 2nd order harmonic distortion to the signal. Linear power supplies can also add 2nd order harmonic distortion. These statements are false. I can imagine some amps (... | |
| 300b lovers Ralph, it seems curious to me that knowledgable audiophiles would rely on anything but sound to be the arbiter of their purchase decisions. Tube gear is a hassle and costly, but to my ears, it is the price to pay for such magnificent sound. I th... | |
| Weak Link in Vinyl Playback I say this because getting analog right can be an unexpectedly expensive endeavor. It used to be that getting the digital right compared to the vinyl was the expensive bit. @owl9113 The cartridge gain settings won't have anything to do with lo... | |
| I'm thinking about a low watt tube amplifier? @pooch2 Your current speakers will be a disappointment with an amplifier of only 4-5 Watts. My speakers at home are 98dB and I like more than just 4-5 Watts on them as well, although most of the time that sort of power would be fine. If you do c... | |
| Weak Link in Vinyl Playback it looks like the iFi Zen that I'm using has a fixed load at 47K Ohms. Am I referring to the same thing you are? @owl9113 You are. Cartridge loading is one of the more arcane issues of LP playback and it can have a big effect on MM cartridges! ... | |
| Weak Link in Vinyl Playback @owl9113 Your cartridge is a high output MM type. This type of cartridge needs to be loaded correctly to prevent very high audio frequency or ultrasonic resonance. If in the audio band, which seems to be the case here, the resonance will act like ... | |
| 4 8 or 16 ohms. @tattooedtrackman looking at the impedance curve measured by Stereophile on that speaker, I would seriously try the 8 Ohm taps as well. Most of the speaker's curve is well above 4 Ohms. There is a bit that is 4 ohms and slightly less in a limited ... | |
| Should I steer clear of class D amps My understanding was class D never really took off, despite the power efficiency due to the HF noise caused by the PWM. Times change things improve but I can’t find much about how they have mitigated this, in fact an article in EETimes refers to ... | |
| 300b lovers Are you at the point where you feel your Class D amps are equivalent to your best tube amps? @whitestix Yes. After extended listen sessions as you put it I don't find that our tube amps bring anything to the party that the class D doesn't. I r... | |
| 300b lovers A Cornell Dublier engineer once explained to me that the difference between a 150V rated cap and one rated at 175V was the way the cap was formed up and nothing else. Forming is a process where voltage is applied to the capacitor with a target of... | |
| 300b lovers I understand that you are referring to the approach you use with judicious application of negative feedback. I was referring to Lynn’s comparison to the “golden age “ PP amplifier which typically used 20db of NFB. Your current class D amplifiers ... | |
| Amplifier circuitry-4 ohm vs 8 ohm I believe tubes represent a more even profile of the harmonics, elevating the harmonics in the upper range better than solid state. @emergingsoul This is incorrect. Tube amps tend to make more the lower ordered harmonics, the 2nd and 3rd, whi... | |
| Amplifier circuitry-4 ohm vs 8 ohm I've looked at many tube amplifiers. Interested to know which solid state amplifiers achieve the same goal as tubes? @emergingsoul In my experience, not very many! But I am playing a class D amp at home that has the same distortion spectra as y... | |
| Question about how analog audio recording works I've wondered this same thing about speakers. How does a single driver replicate sounds of different freq. at the same time without stepping on itself and smearing one or the other? @dweller Full range drivers are not an example. They fall all... | |
| 300b lovers Zero NFB seems to uncover a masking effect. @charles1dad That's not quite correct. It depends on how well the feedback is executed and as I've been pointing out a lot recently, with most amps made in the last 70 years or more that's not happene... |