Jon Yaeger wrote:

I dunno . . . . most SS stuff I've heard with wonderfully low THD, IM, etc.
doesn't sound as good to my ears as some 1% distorting tube sets . . .

Simplicity is a good goal. In my experience, less complexity means less
chance of failure, and sometimes lower noise.

Golden ears may be a delusion, but it's often a pleasant and rather harmless
one . . .

Indeed,

But Hey Dudes! this thread has gone on as a cross poster.
I am just letting you all know I am posing a reply back to
rec.audio.tubes only.

I am just letting you know.

Patrick Turner



From: "Kevin Aylward"
Organization: AnaSoft
Reply-To: "Kevin Aylward"
Newsgroups: rec.audio.tubes,sci.electronics.design
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:29:20 -0000
Subject: A little feedback worse than none at all?

NewYorkDave wrote:
I apologize for not providing more detail in my original post. I'll
try to give a clearer explanation of what I'm trying to do. I have
only a few minutes left in my lunch hour, but I'll try to put it to
good use

I record music on an 8-track multitrack recorder, and I want to build
a tube mixing console to take the place of the IC-based model I've
been using. My goal is to achieve a clearer sound (due to a simpler
circuit with fewer active stages)

This is an old wife's tale, i.e. a complete and utter nonsense argument.
Less parts do *not* mean a clearer sound. Indeed, more stages mean you
can have less gain per stage allowing for more feedback at each stage
which reduces the distortion tremendously.

and perhaps some of that intangible
"tube warmth."

This where a dirty sound sounds better.

However, I'm not looking to build a "distortion
device"... The tube consoles that were used to track the records we
all love from the '50s and '60s were designed to be as linear as
possible within the limits of the technology of the day, and any
euphonic qualities added were incidental. It's not clear to me whether
that sound really came from the tubesand transformers or from the more
straightforward topologies, anyway. In a modern mixing console, a
signal may pass through tens of IC amplifiers on its way from input to
output.

So bloody what. A decent modern console uses op-amps with 0.005% thd
and imd. It makes no practical difference whether there are quite a few
in series, especially as explianed above. A final spec of a decent
console is easily 0.01%, 1db flat from 20Hz to 40khz.

You are suffering from a severe "golden ears" delusion.

Kevin Aylward

http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/index.html

Understanding, is itself an emotion, i.e. a feeling.
Emotions or feelings can only be "understood" by
consciousness. "Understanding" consciousness can
therefore only be understood by consciousness itself,
therefore the "hard problem" of consciousness, is
intrinsically unsolvable.

Physics is proven incomplete, that is, no
understanding of the parts of a system can
explain all aspects of the whole of such system.