"Harry Lavo" wrote in message


The discussion started when I said that I thought their
had
been a large increase in transparency over the last 25
years
in high-end gear, and even in mid-fi gear.

25 years ago was 1980, or about 3 years before the
introduction of the CD. Well, there you have it - the
perceived improvement can be largely *blamed* on the
replacement of outdated, known-to-be sonically corrupted
analog playback with digital.

I said I thought
this was due to better selection of passive
components....more
recognition of this phenomenon by the design fraternity as
the
result of the early '80's work of a handful of
designer/engineers which had spread.

Nothing of the kind ever happened. The whole electronics
industry has changed considerably for reasons that had very
little to do with audio. The early 80's work of the
designers that Harry wants to lionize like Marsh an Jung was
techno-trash and science fiction, which has been thoroughly
debunked by real engineers like Robert Pease of National
Semiconductor.

Chung seized on this to inform me that in his
experience/opinion their was no difference in the sound of
passive components...a cheap capacitor sounded identical
to
the most esoteric and expensive...same for
resistors...they
needed to be judged on their appropriateness for the
circuit,
not on sound qualities..

Chung is correct. One of the toughest thing there is to do
is to actually change the sound of a piece of audio grear
where parts choices are based on appropriateness for the
circuit,. This is because to a very large degree, so-called
audio grade passive components are just hype. It's been
shown conclusively that if chosen using long-established
engineering guidelenes, and made in accordance with industry
standards, a part like a mylar capacitor is pretty much the
same whether it is sold for a dime or a dollar.

One of the humorous things in my stash of old components is
a CD player from a wwll-known manufacturer with capacitors
that are stamped with phrases indicating that they are
audiophile quality. Ironically, the caps dried out, lost
most of their nameplate capacitance, and started audibly
hurting bass response within 32 months of purchase. The only
good news was that I was using only its digital output all
along.

He further opined that all the
engineer had to do in selection was to choose the right
component for its intended use and the desired reliability
level, and that was that. The one exception he might see
was
in opamps, where some measured bad for audio purposes. He
said he listened to his designs, but baically to judge his
design decisions and not to listen to anything as esoteric
as
passive components, which he simply didn't believe sounded
different one from the other across categories.

DBTs support Chung's philosoply, but Harry ducks that issue
by making bogus attacks on DBTs.

I've been a party to listening tests based on oft-dissed
parts like electrolytic caps and TL074 op amps cascaded
actually dozens of times. On the one had people on RAP brag
about major sound quality benefits by recapping and
rechipping gear where the signal passes through maybe 3
stages of electrolytics and TL074s.

One would think that bypassing say 30 stages of the same
parts would be like comparing a AM transistor radio to a
great digital master. In fact, its not possible to reliably
detect any difference in a blind test provided that the
usual frequency response, noise and distortion specs
continue to hold up. Admittedly it takes a little adjustment
to maintain +/- 0.1 dB level matching over 30 cascaded
stages! ;-)

Now compare this to the above and tell me how much
difference
there is.from "they basically rely on modeling
and theory in the big companies..and for whatever reason
feel
that most component selection is best left to the
purchasing
department once spec'd". I don't see much, if any.

There is a difference Harry, but at your level of remoteness
from hands-on audio, I'm not surprised that you can't see
it.

Remember, you're the guy who claims that your experiences
with audio production in the 60's are definitive today. IOW,
there's nothing that you need to learn. You already know it
all.