"Bruce J. Richman" wrote in message
...
Robert Morein wrote:


"Clyde Slick" wrote in message
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"Robert Morein" wrote in message
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wrote in message
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Some people really do not like the vacuum tube, or the fact that
some
audiophiles really like them and persist in still building tube
equipment or buying it from "boutique" or high end vendors. You know
who they are.

The thing is, what motivates this obsession with denigrating and
deterring users of vacuum tubes? Are unhealthy, often destructive
pathologies at work here?

Yes, if one considers such a pathology an inability to separate the
subjective and objective.

Music + solid state = Music
Music + tubes = Modified Music

Modified Music is held to be more enjoyable than Music by many
listeners.

And don't forget, your so-called modified music, to some people,
sounds more like live music, and your so-called solid state 'music'
just doesn't soud quite real.

This is true, and very plausible. Music is seldom miked from the POV of
an
actual audience. And how could the extreme example, a synthetic
multitrack
recording, have any resemblance to an actual physical space? Long before
synthesized surround sound, listeners yearned for something to close the
gap
with reality. For many people, tubes do this.


I think you've raised a very valid point. Whether it be via tubes, SS, or
some
mixture of the 2 (an option for many of us), the central fact remains, as
you
point out, that recordings are by design, artificial syntheses of mulitple
signal sources, microphones, mixing boards, etc. So to claim that only
one
type of audio product - whether it be tubes or SS - is the ony path to
"high
fidelity" I think misses the point. Most music lovers - or at least those
with
a considerable amount of live acoustic music concert experience - may want
to
try and come as close to that experience in their home as they can.
That does *not* imply that that the manipulations of a recording studio
have to
be recreated. It's interesting in this regard to note that even in
classical
music recordings, some of the most highly revered recordings for their
"sound
quality" - i.e. RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Prescence recordings
used
relativley simple microphone techniques - reflecting the less complex era
in
which these recordings were made.


On the other hand, I find the absolute refusal of most tube and vinyl
enthusiasts to explore synthetic surround sound the reverse form of
bigotry.

Exploring does not necessarily mean adopting. Many years ago, I
experimented with the Haller/Dynaco circuit via the use of a Dynaco
Quadaptor
box. As I recall, this simple, inexpensive device, made use of
out-of-phase
information sent to the back channels for amibience effects. I found its
effects variable from record to record, but perhaps not surprisingly,
found it
most effective on live concert recordings. It would be nice if products
like
this were avaialble today - i.e. inexpensive devices that don't
necessarily
require multiple amplified channels - to see if multi-channel sound is
worth
the investment. Presumably, if one liked the effects enough from this
simple a
device, one could then move on to explore the added benefits of more
electronics, speakers, etc.



I actually do find a lot more reality in my twelve year old Sony
TA-E1000ESD
digital surround preamp than I do in my buddy Larry's Sonic Frontiers
gear.
My Sony's cold fluorescent display and rotary digital encoders give me
access to Beranek's monumental work, "Concert Halls and How they Sound",
which is still the fundamental reference to modern venue design. The tube
lovers take cheer in their rituals: voicing and biasing of tubes,
cleaning
the records, measuring stylus force, and appreciating what to me is the
inappropriate use of fine wood.


If you know of some empirical studies that substantiate your claim that
those
favoring tubes and/or vinyl are less likely to use multi-channel setups
than
those favoring CDs and/or digital equipment, I'd be interesting in
learning
about them.

As for rituals, what about the rituals involved in endless worrying about
and
fiddling with numerous "room" and "hall" options on one's zillion-input,
multiple-LED display - with bright flashing numerals, no less - and of
course,
endless experimentation with the numerous placements of all those
speakers, not
to mention the need, perhaps, to change level settings between front,
center,
and back for each recording to reflect the obvious differences in
"recording
environment effects" intended by the engineers?

I hung a bunch of RadioShack Pro 77 Linaeums from the ceiling. I did this in
a 12' x 18' space. I haven't moved them, or the main speakers -- Kef
Reference III's, although it did take me six months to find the correct
placement of the Kefs, purely from the stereo point of view. I also managed
to squeeze in two additional pure stereo setups.

And for those of us using large planar dipoles (e.g. electrostatics,
magnetic
planars, etc.), there is little if any "beautiful wood" to be concerned
about.
OK.

And while it's anecdotal, a number of classical music lovers have been
observed
to favor speakers such as Maggies, Quads, and Martin Logans. And yes,
many
classical music lovers also favor tubes and vinyl according to most
anecdotal
reports.

All that said, you're overlooking what for me, at least, and I suspect a
number
of other music lovers, are several very valid reasons for not converting
to
multi-channel sound systems. (1) Placement considerations, and (2) Cost
considerations.

It really wasn't that hard, or expensive. A Sony TA-E1000ESD, as late as
last year, could have been had for $125, though they've gone up in price a
little since then. I use old amplifiers, Haflers and Acoustats.

Not everybody has the type of listening environment options
that would lend itself to multiple speaker placements - at least not the
type
of speakers some of us prefer (see above). Put simply, some of us would
rather
have 2 highy refined, highly musical, and sometimes (but not always)
rather
large speakers which give us maximal pleasure, then have to downsize -
both
economically and sizewise - to recreate a multi-channel space.

Well, I've got Kef Reference III's as the mains, and they are full range
speakers. There is an apparent myth that the surrounds have to be similar.
My experience is simply that they only have to be good at what they need to
do. Ralph Glasgal, whose outsize surround system is one of the audio wonders
of the world, does not use identical speakers, though his idea of a surround
is, amusingly, an Acoustat pasted to the wall.

I suspect that
for many, preference for 2 good speakers versus 4 or 5 or 6 inferior ones
(a
value judgment to be sure) is a strong factor. Also, the costs of
additional
processing and amplification will discourage others. And then add to this
the
aforementioned need to have much more "placement anxiety" re. speakers,
and you
can see many reasons other than bigotry why some of us prefer a stereo
setup.

I urge a rethink. There are several points that deserve consideration. I am
not an Arny or a Ferstler, and I do not believe that all of anything sounds
the same, but there are several points of misunderstanding that, I believe,
are abetted by the audio press. The following is my impression of audiophile
group think. I do not wish to imply that you have any of these attitudes,
except perhaps (2):

1. Newer is better, or at least promises improvement
2. Stereo is better than multichannel, for the reasons that you gave.
3. Equipment that has an exotic aura is better than equipment that does not.
4. You get what you pay for, or, there is a strong correlation between price
and quality of reproduction.

There may actually be some correlation of the above parameters. However,
IMHO, it is so weak that were such notions promoted for use in clinical
psychology, you would reject them as defective. I wish to propose something
radically different:

From 1980 to 1995, men -- and oddly, they were all men -- who were conscious
of a heritage of design that goes back to the Willamson and Ultralinear
amplifiers exercised their remarkable talents in keen competition to design
electronics capable of handling the challenge of the CD. This was truely an
intellectual competition. Almost every year brought out the best that
Hafler, Strickland, Nelson Pass, Bob Carver, the Krell guys, , et al, could
muster. I mention Hafler first because he was based in Philadelphia, and
I've heard a bit about him.

As long as this continued, cosmetics were of secondary importance. For a
brief period of time, much like the thirty golden years of physics, people
with ears were amazed, surprised, enlightened, and entranced. But all this
is rapidly shrinking. The American consumer has limited disposable income.
The visual has supplanted the aural. The consumer tries to capture reality
in an inferior combination of both.

High end audio has a problem, which is that there is so much equipment that
is very well designed (and by this I don't mean Arny's PA amplifiers or
Howard's an-amp-is-an-amp), and the gap between objective accuracy and what
can actually be provided has shrunk to a very small gap. But the industry
wants to survive, and they do this by reinventing the audio orgasm.
Companies form, sell their wares for afew years, then dissolve and
mysteriously reform with the same participants, all in the pursuit of
newness, novelty, the neoteric. But neoteric is not necessarily better, and
is frequently worse.

My feeling is this. If you or any other perceptive listener had the
opportunity to listen to anything you wanted that you'd ever seen on eBay,
from 1980 on, to listen at length, you would discover diamonds you never
knew existed. I say this without denying the existence of pure trash. I say
it as an expression of personal eclecticism, which pays no attention to
reviews, buzz, aura, exoticism, image, price, or anything else. There is
equipment out there with all physical allure of a refrigerator that will
astound you, and cost peanuts, and there is equipment that also sounds like
a refrigerator. There is no way to tell except listen, because no one, not
even your friends, has the motivation to tell you the truth. Most hifi
listeners, myself included, have been caught up in severe cognitive
dissonance.

I'm afraid that we live in an audio version of THE MATRIX. There is no
denying the validity of any choice we make in pursuit of subjective
pleasure. At the same time, we blind ourselves to the virtual infinity of
choices that might sound marvelous, but deny us the validation of our peers.

With respect to one specific point, good surround need not be expensive. I
did it for peanuts.