"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 19 Dec 2005 15:30:31 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:


dave weil wrote:
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:28:36 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

True. A great advantage, much more pleasant than the odd harmonics
of
PP even when the latter is at a much lower absolute level.

**Huh? In which universe do you imagine that higher levels of
distortion
will lead to greater fidelity?

Where did he talk about "fidelity"? Can you say, "Strawman"?

To be fair, Dave, he talks about "greater fidelity", thought the answer
is still the same. Here is an experiment:

Set up two amplifiers exactly the same in all respects except one is PP
and the other is SE, with just enough distortion on each amplifier to
be perceptible to a refined listener. Spin a disc.

If the two amps are *in fact* the same in all respects, i.e the same
tubes at the same operating point, then the SE amp will have the same
level of odd harmonics as the PP amp - but *much* more 2nd harmonic
than the PP, which of course cancels the even harmonics.

To make the distortion levels 'just perceptible' in each case means
that the SE amp has much *less* basic distortion than the PP amp -
which is of course a completely unrealistic scenario.

Exactly! That is why a silent SE amp, such as I build, sounds so much
better than anything else.


The only time an SET sounds good is when it's silent. :-) It's when you
turn them on that they suck.