On May 31, 3:10*pm, Bret Ludwig wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2011 02:23:45 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner
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- Show quoted text -
wrote:
On May 28, 7:59 pm, flipper wrote:
On Thu, 26 May 2011 16:32:44 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner
wrote:
On May 26, 7:35 pm, flipper wrote:
On Thu, 26 May 2011 00:37:17 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner
wrote:
I mentioned......
I have never seen any commercial design with PFB and NFB -
Of course you have and I gave you examples the last time you said the
same thing.
I've been saying the same thing because I've never seen PFB used in
commercial amps like the way its done in RDH4 at that amp.
Now you've changed it again by adding "like the way."
Sometimes
bootstrapping is PFB, but usually the gain increase is mild, from gain
with a load to gain which approaches µ. However, come to think about
it, Dynaco bootstrapped the pentode input tube anode RL ahead of the
triode concertina to boost the gain of the pentode.
Told ya so.
The Harmon Kardon 'Trio' also uses PFB and is the basic topology I've
used in at least three of mine.
The gain with
bootstrapping a pentode often rises much more than with a triode tube
because the pentode has its anode feedback screened off from the
electron stream. Pentode µ is gm x Ra, and as pentode Ra is so high
then µ is high.
BTW,
I have to repair the design results of acountants and bean counters
all too often.
You've never had to do it even once because bean counters don't do
design. Never have, don't now, and never will.
IMHO,
Your 'opinion', and following gibberish, is twaddle. It may fool
fellow ignorants who, like you, haven't a clue but it's drivel to
those of us who've worked with your so called 'bean counters' and done
professional product design.
I don't speak from 'opinion' and cartoons. I speak from fact, having
been there and done that.
Its OK, every man's facts are another man's fictions, and one man's
trash is another man's treasure.
More gibberish. Go bang your head on a wall and see how far you get
wishing it were 'fiction' rather than solid fact.
I just see lots of what I don't want to buy or approve of or want to
be involved in and if everyone was like me the world would collapse.
But fear not and be grateful for the human diversity around you now.
It should be blindingly obvious by now that you are not representative
of the market.
Irelevant.
Of course, it's also blindingly obvious that accountants are trained
in accounting, which is pretty much why they're called accountants,
and not design but, then, it being obvious to everyone else has never
stopped your delusions yet.
*It's true that more robust construction would have made these things
last longer, but to be fair, no one realistically figured anyone would
be running these things fifty or sixty years hence.
And all the old junk needs serious care and revisions to rectify bean
counter inspired shortcomings.
*Saul Marantz (yes, I know) was determined to make the finest quality
hi-fi equipment and spared little in the quest to do so. His build
cost was double and then some of what his nearest competitor,
McIntosh, spent per unit.
I've never wanted anything made by Marantz, could always have been a
lot better.
*Avery Fisher (yes, he was too) was more mainstream but still put a
lot of build cost in his product as compared to his competitors.
Ha, most of the Fisher stuff is generic junk. I've had to repair,
modifiy, re-do, undo bad ways all these brands used to save a dime.
*Both businesses are out of business in terms of being an American
manufacturer. McIntosh is also owned by Japanese, BUT are allowed to
operate autonomously and they are still manufacturing in Binghamton.
And of course the OWNERS exert hard financial controls over design.
I've worked on the McIntosh re-issue models they sell here for $4,300.
REAL CRAP. pcb boards all miniturised, hard to work on short cuts
from the old circuits, tube biasing up to ****, bean counter inspired.
But really, I raise my hat and salute all bean counters for destroying
product quality while jacking up the price because I can compete with
their dumbed down over priced garbage.
Henry Ford raised his hat whenever he saw a Fiat drive past, or a
Morris, or an Alfa Romeo not to mention a Rolls or a Merc.
Not that I'm like Henry, but the urge to smile and raise a hat is the
same.
Maybe Henry would not have raised a hat if he'd seen a Toyota drive
past :-)
Dammit, we beat Japan and now they come back at us! The damn Gummint
musta betrayed us! Tough titty, buster, the people really want the
best cheap car.
*We can look at the classic Mac products and say there were several
aspects where they could have done better but the salient fact is,,
they are still here.
Just being here counts for nothing.
*Quad never set out to be the technical ulimate but to be a usable
integrated system and they succeeded marvelously.
Indeed they tried something. Quad tubed AM tuners, and ESL57 were
good, but everything else MEDIOCRE, ain't nothin special, just chic
junk, like Bose Lifestyle systems and B&O is now. You should see the
BO-6002 slimline speakers I have here for repair, and how badly they
have failed, utter CRAP.
I was never conned by ticky tacky accountant inspired crap where
construction costs were pushed down and down thus smothering technical
integrity.
*Even the Dynaco ST70, which I have slammed long and hard, has to be
admitted as having been insanely successful in its day.
Desperate ppl by the cheapest muck they can, so they bought Dyanco
ST70.
Not many bought Mk VI monoblocks. Now these did have more merit, but
SO MUCH can be done to vastly improve them if the whole circuit is
junked then you just use the chassis, PT and OPT.
But I find bulldozing all the old crap out and starting all over
applies to each and every US made amp I have ever seen enter my shed
because the owners hated the smoke and were none too keen about the
sound. ARC, Manley Labs, Dynaco, VAC, Fisher, Pilot, and many more.
All designed with cost minimisation in mind.
standards of its day it was a great product because a college kid
could afford a Dyna pre and ST70, and AR table and an AR acoustic
suspension speaker set in 1963. Some portable record player outfits
cost nearly as much. Again, no one realistically thought thay would be
running in 2011.
Yes, sure, but right out of the factory, a lotta the old junk your so
proud of was crap because it was already dumbed down by cost cutting.
Its going on today with a whole pile of consumer gear, you buy it, it
breaks, and you chuck it out, because the cost of a repair is larger
than the replacement price, and not to mention that stuff becomes
obsolete, like PC boxes which we all thought were cool in 1995. Its
rubbish now.
AR speakers have very limited appeal for me. Their Flagship model in
1975 was the AR9, and I've had the true displeasure of spending weeks
to make them right. They were $4,500 in Oz in 1975, or in today's
dollars, $90,000. But what was inside? Utter generic crap and
attrociously worst lowest common denominator R, C and L and speaker
drivers. I've measured mint pairs of AR9 and found the response
nothing like what the brochure says. The paralleled 11" bass speakers
have 1.5 ohms impedance at critical bass F and ppl who buy such
speakers want loud bass but they'd blow up amps real well. The AR bass
drivers are probably the most insensitive bass speakers I have ever
measured. The crossover design is hopeless ly inadequate. Basically
AR9 should have sold for $45 in 1975, not $4,500, ie, $900 in todays
dollars.
So my conclusion about AR was that they had very poor management, very
poor quality control, accountants who were ac****ants, a workforce of
rushed and cheap dumbos with minimum skills, and engineers who knew
jack ****.
But they had the best promotions staffers in the world, the best
liars, and maybe they employed the best advertizing company. They
speaker building efforts were just an entrenerial exercize, like so
many other crappy things made around the world in 1975. It was so easy
to study a book or two and make your own speakers that would then cost
$200 which would easily beat the AR9 for $4,500. I did just that. I
baulked at building tube amps in 1975, too many other things in life
to do but I bought a Linear Design receiver in 1977 for $200, less
than half the price and better sounding that the equivalent Marantz
rip off. I still have that receiver.
*Had the dyna been "built right" it would have had to cost more, maybe
considerably more.
The CEO then could not have afforded a Cadillac. Ah, the wonders of
capitalisic greed!
One area where they shaved was weight to meat a
Railway Express shipping target. That's why the power transformer is
undersize. The profit *margins in this stuff were minimal.
Total ****in bull**** type stuff.
*It's like a car. Yeah, if ALL the Ford Mustangs had had 9 inch rears,
five bolt disc brake setups and so forth they'd have been better cars,
but 90% of them were going to the crusher in five or six years anyway.
If they had overbuilt them it would have made little difference in
this rate. A great many cars get driven to the crusher under their own
power.- Hide quoted text -
Well thank christ most old US made cars have been recycled so that 2
cars come from the metal used for one. We have a big car festival here
each summer, see
http://www.summernats.com.au/ The grounds are just
1/2 a km away from where I live. But I just don't see what the
thousands or rev-heads see in their cars which are expensive, noisy,
and a waste of money, like the rich men's yachts at Pit****er. All
this stuff, more stuff, no end to stuff, more and more horse power and
much of it crap. So Vain! So Futile, So Meaningless. So Wasteful. So
Unsuccessful. I've seen the work guys put into cars, beautiful sure,
but heck, its only a car, and how come it don't give 50MPG? How come
most of the hotted up highly modified cars are NOT allowed on city
streets but are confined to the show ground parade loop? Because so
many dreadful incidents occurred when the rev-heads were allowed to
drive on city streets. Strict Government control is needed. But 5,000
people manage to have a ball for 4 days and maybe spend a grand or two
each. But far more income comes from big art shows at the National
Gallery. Just harmless paintings on the wall, no smoke, burnt rubber,
stoopid young jerks showing off and wasting so much precious fuel.
Its most unfortunate that American cars have wasted so much fuel
because bean counters stopped expense on developing efficiency; better
to lobby the Govt about 101 favours and do all sorts of weird deals so
that Joe Public funds the inefficiency, not Ford, Not GM, Not Chrysler
or anyone else except Jack Buyer. Yippee, 7 litre engines and 10MPG,
WOW, what progress to be proud of, I DON'T THINK! Ralph Nader should
not have had anything to write about, but he did, and you ought to
know that.
A country and its people should never rest on its laurels, never self
congratulate itself, and when the accountants and the bankers go to
lunch for 3 hours every day you know things are close to ****ed.
The GFC was a sure indicator of that.
Maybe the US will muddle along out of its woes, but there's a long way
to go, and youse will have to learn fast to reduce greenhouse CO2 just
when ya don't wanna pay, while mostly denying any problem even exists.
America seems like the fat guy who is told the doc won't operate
because he's so fat, and the guy says he really wants that operation
but he can't stop eating so much. America shows what the rest of the
world should not want to copy or emulate. And in countries like mine
which has addopted much of the excessiveness and greed and bull****,
the carbon tax is a raging argument and people don't want to pay for
the change necessary to keep the planet cool. Some will pay more than
others, and as usual a whole big argument is on over that one, so
muddle here is as big as muddle where you are and elsewhere. Muddle is
normal. We never get over it, and I doubt you can admit you are a
member of a seriously flawed species. Never mind, you will die with
your beliefs like those who clung to the idea that the Earth was flat
even on their death bed. The grave will take stubborn beliefs with the
man, and the enligtened will inherit the Earth, and the job of energy
management revolution will be done by young clever hands and minds who
criticise themselves and methods each and every day, not to save a
dime while charging outrageous prices. And the product of the
revolution for the next 50 years might give us time to avoid the silly
wars we've had, and the absurd way we treat forests, and environment.
I'd like to think the coming revolution might allow some frivolity
like the occasional tube amp but never again will mainstream stuff be
allowed to be as bad as it was in 1950. PWM amps are very efficient, a
bean counter's delight in fact, don't even need a heatsink. Tiny robot
made circuitry allows highspeed switching signals. Chinese labour
ruins any chance of the US charging too much like they used to. Not a
perfect scene because the average Chinese worker gets shafted, but his
64c an hour is better than 20c per hour on the farm up the country
where his parents eek out a living that is infinitely unacceptable to
the average Oz or US person. The failure of the Chinese for 3,000
years has been to not improve life much for themselves, and the
failure of the West has been to improve its material wealth far too
much while swanning around and crowing about how wonderful it is. I
don't care if I represent the minority view of things in general.
Patrick Turner.