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Topic: Interview Time (Read 11010 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Interview Time

Reply #1
Horrible sound quality, horrible golden ear propaganda.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #2
But he's the 'anti-audiophile' guru all the objectivists love. What happened?

Re: Interview Time

Reply #3
But he's the 'anti-audiophile' guru all the objectivists love. What happened?

Who?   Carver?

He went rogue, long ago.

The host is out to lunch, as well.

I'll give Carver this - his description of the audible aspects of the technical causes of the sonic imperfections common to tube amps is  OK as far as it goes.  However, as far as I got into this tedious and poorly-made video, he did not point out that for amps reproducing music, the nonlinear distortion can't be euphonic except to those who like listening to sonic garbage.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #4
His 'Silver Seven 700' would look good in your living room Arnold. And you could heat the house this winter too.


Re: Interview Time

Reply #6
didn't get far with this video as i'm absolutely not interested in tube amps. but im curious, is the distortion that they introduce predictable and model-able? if yes, then one could practically outCarver the Carver by coming up with a DSP that distorts the signal in a similar fashion to his ridiculously priced amps, like the aformentioned one for example. kinda like he did himself a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carver .  now that would be a fun ABX test to do!

Re: Interview Time

Reply #7
Could never understand what Peter Aczel saw in him or Mondial Designs for that matter.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #8
didn't get far with this video as i'm absolutely not interested in tube amps. but im curious, is the distortion that they introduce predictable and model-able?

Absolutely.

Quote
if yes, then one could practically outCarver the Carver by coming up with a DSP that distorts the signal in a similar fashion to his ridiculously priced amps, like the aformentioned one for example. kinda like he did himself a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carver .  now that would be a fun ABX test to do!

There are a number of ways to do ABX tests related to adding various amounts of nonlinear distortion to clean audio files.

Math model tools like Matlab ($$$) and Octave (free/shareware) can be used to add nonlinear distortion of your choice to audio files you want to test with.

Audio editing programs like CoolEdit Pro and Audition have built in functions for doing some ar things.

Their is a VST plug in (potentially usable with the Audacity freeware editor called Distorder that has potentially useful capabilities along these lines: http://www.ohl.to/about-audio/audio-softwares/distorder

The AddDistoration program that you can download from here http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/freeware.html is a stand alone program with similar gaosl. You can read more about it here: https://www.stereophile.com/content/euphonic-distortion-naughty-nice-page-2 .

Re: Interview Time

Reply #9
i see that adding the distortion isn't difficult at all, but how would one go about replicating the same "model" of distortion from one of his tube amps for example, how do you reverse engineer it? i guess harmonic distortion can be quite predictable, but from what i understand IMD may only enter audibility with some particular signals, and thus very individual to every amp.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #10
i see that adding the distortion isn't difficult at all, but how would one go about replicating the same "model" of distortion from one of his tube amps for example, how do you reverse engineer it? i guess harmonic distortion can be quite predictable, but from what i understand IMD may only enter audibility with some particular signals, and thus very individual to every amp.

You should perhaps stay aware that the loudspeakers drivers have their own audible THD and IMD, the medley of the non-linearities of the amplifier and the loudspeakers is impossible to predict without the complete system IMHO.



Re: Interview Time

Reply #13
i see that adding the distortion isn't difficult at all, but how would one go about replicating the same "model" of distortion from one of his tube amps for example, how do you reverse engineer it? i guess harmonic distortion can be quite predictable, but from what i understand IMD may only enter audibility with some particular signals, and thus very individual to every amp.

You can fairly easily  measure the output of a power amp while it is amplifying a certain test signal, and find out the size of each harmonic that it generates with that signal.  You can then use software to add the same harmonics in the same quantities to music, and obtain a pretty good  approximation of what that amplifier would do in real life under the similar circumstances.


Re: Interview Time

Reply #15
I really don't see the point, TBH.

it's more of a theoretical exercise i guess. if the whole point of tube amps is their particular distortion profile, then wouldn't it be much cheaper and easier to simply emulate those distortions with some DSP and a proper solid state amp? it's pretty much what Carver did himself as that wiki i linked to shows...

Re: Interview Time

Reply #16
I really don't see the point, TBH.

it's more of a theoretical exercise i guess. if the whole point of tube amps is their particular distortion profile, then wouldn't it be much cheaper and easier to simply emulate those distortions with some DSP and a proper solid state amp? it's pretty much what Carver did himself as that wiki i linked to shows...

It might be easier to emulate those and cheaper to run them, but the problem is: they wouldn't sell. It'd be like emulating the sound of a different engine in your car through the speaker system. I know some cars actually do that, but with tube amps, that's kinda their main selling point. Having an "emulated amp" is just not gonna sell.

It's like selling homeopathy: homeopathic "medicine" isn't sold because it works, but because people want it.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #17
Here's the deal:

The idiots who would want such a thing are the same people who reject anything digital in the signal chain.

If the idea is to see whether you can fool someone in a blind test, the same thing applies: idiot believers won't take the test and will contort logic beyond all recognition fabricating all sorts of reasons why any properly administered test of a competent algorithm doesn't show any true positives.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #18
it's more of a theoretical exercise i guess. if the whole point of tube amps is their particular distortion profile, then wouldn't it be much cheaper and easier to simply emulate those distortions with some DSP and a proper solid state amp? it's pretty much what Carver did himself as that wiki i linked to shows...
It might be easier to emulate those and cheaper to run them, but the problem is: they wouldn't sell. [...] Having an "emulated amp" is just not gonna sell.

In the ProMusician world a lot of profiling (guitar)amps exist, e.g. https://www.kemper-amps.com/. And they sell good.
.halverhahn

Re: Interview Time

Reply #19
I really don't see the point, TBH.
It seems to me pretty dificult to comment the amplifier flaws when the loudspeakers are unable to reaveal them.
Doesn't the same problem apply to actual usage of the amp and speakers?

Whatever stuff you use, in our highly reflective domestic environment, randomly placed uncalibrated loudspeakers sounds bad.

I will not comment the "strange men choices" because they have pushed the oddity button too far for me, i look at it like a kind of resarch through the human beliefs... a little bit like alchemy.
BC have opened a door in my brain (he clearly know how to do it with its customers... as all very good merchants) with its 1ohm "purely resistive" loudspeaker coil.
How can you qualify as a "purely resistive very low back EMF" loudspeakers driver coupling when its coil is linked to a large highly inductive amplifier output transformer... relativity, the back EMF is generated by the moving coil, not the static one and the static coil is dominated by its resistance.
He is doing his job, he blur your mind and put his seeds inside.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #20
it's more of a theoretical exercise i guess. if the whole point of tube amps is their particular distortion profile, then wouldn't it be much cheaper and easier to simply emulate those distortions with some DSP and a proper solid state amp? it's pretty much what Carver did himself as that wiki i linked to shows...
It might be easier to emulate those and cheaper to run them, but the problem is: they wouldn't sell. [...] Having an "emulated amp" is just not gonna sell.
In the ProMusician world a lot of profiling (guitar)amps exist, e.g. https://www.kemper-amps.com/. And they sell good.

Sure, in that sort of niche market, they might sustain a bit, but it'll never be the main target consumer base. Some producers might want to emulate tube amp sounds for period correct film sounds tracks, etc. but they'd used software for it.

What we're talking about here is "creating the tube sound, without actual tubes" for the general consumer. Most consumers wanting tube sound, don't want just tube sound, they want tubes, and the sound kinda comes with it. Selling tube amps is about selling nostalgia and elitism, not about perfection. You could sell function correct emulated tubes, but you wouldn't sell the nostalgia and elitism, etc.

The tube aficionado sort of audiophile market is already kinda small, people being OK with "faked tubes" would be an order of magnitude or several of those smaller.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #21
And just to be clear, it is not the tubes per se that result in the distortion, but the transformer that matches the high impedance of the tubes to the low impedance of the speakers.

Re: Interview Time

Reply #22
And just to be clear, it is not the tubes per se that result in the distortion, but the transformer that matches the high impedance of the tubes to the low impedance of the speakers.

Kinda-sorta.

I've studied this issue extensively over the years, and I agree with several of the points that Carver raised in the video. If you cut though the pseudo science, the most audible aspect of vintage amps is their generally higher source impedance.

Carver alluded to, and measurements and tests confirm that while tubed amps tend to be much more nonlinear at full output, at typical listening levels, the tube distortion is relatively low.

 In some relatively well-engineered tube amps like McIntoshes, the nonlinear distortion is below audibility at any reasonable in-spec operating level.  Even in the boutique freak-show SETs, at the power levels that most people listen to these things to at, the nonlinear distortion is still probably inaudible.

PDQ comments about output transformers is true, but their limitations come in two ways. Transformers can be free of audible distortion if they are well-designed and used at relatively low levels. But if they are undersized or otherwise poorly-designed, they can have audible distortion, particularly at low frequencies.   They limit ultimate performance via another route - their phase shift at high and low frequencies. This makes applying enough inverse feedback tricky or impossible.

However, tubed amps and even some legacy SS  amps might have source impedance issues. Even nominally good SS amps often have stability-enhancing RL networks at their outputs and outside the feedback loop that cause potentially audibly rising source impedance at high frequencies near the top of the normal audible band.  Any legacy SS amp that has a single power supply for its output stage generally has a large DC blocking capacitor that will interact with some woofers to create relatively large amounts of bass boost (YES, BOOST!)  - often several DB in the lowest normal octave.

Often, the high source impedance of a tube amp is well-simulated by means of a simple wirewound series resistor on the order of several ohms and several watts. Or. use suitably long very thin speaker cables.



Re: Interview Time

Reply #23
"Any legacy SS amp that has a single power supply for its output stage generally has a large DC blocking capacitor that will interact with some woofers to create relatively large amounts of bass boost (YES, BOOST!)  - often several DB in the lowest normal octave."

What is a "legacy SS amp"? How far back are you going in time? 10 years? 20 years? More?