[Steve[_3_]]

Hi;

I need to have two outputs from my Symetrix 302 preamp. Has anyone tried or
know if it's possible to use the 1/4" TRS and the euroblock outputs at the
same time on this preamp?

Thanks;
Steve

[Scott Dorsey]

In article , Steve wrote:

I need to have two outputs from my Symetrix 302 preamp. Has anyone tried or
know if it's possible to use the 1/4" TRS and the euroblock outputs at the
same time on this preamp?

Sure, but they won't be isolated. It'll just be like using a Y cable, which
is fine for lots of things.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

I wrote a "strong" response to Arny's posting that refuted most of his
statements/claims, but decided not to post it. The following will suffice.

Most of the statements Arny makes about LP reproduction are incorrect, and
can be refuted by a brief listening test. (I particularly encourage
listeners to pay attention to the character of pops and clicks. *) The
following features / characteristics are likely to be well-correlated with
"good" turntable sound:

A reasonably thick platter made of a material with a mechanical
impedance similar to vinyl, with a flat surface the LP can be
tightly
pressed against. ** ***

Extremely low flutter. The absolute value, though, is less important
than its energy distribution, which should be spread over a wide
spectrum, with little energy at any one frequency or within any band
of frequencies.

An acoustically dead, well-damped arm.

High isolation of the platter from the motor.

I don't believe a turntable system has to be Horribly Expensive to minimally
color the playback. Neither do I believe that Duals (which were excellent
products -- I owned one) come close to the quality level of LP playback that
can be achieved. (I own a Well-Tempered Classic system, which, from Arny's
point of view, is a grossly overpriced piece of charlatan engineering. I
bought it because the design made sense, and Bill Firebaugh seems to know
what he's talking about. Though I disagree about reversing the drive belt.)

I need to refute Arny's suggestion that the disk itself provides most of the
needed damping. This might be true -- if the disk were extremely thick. I've
listened to heavy pressings, and their sound is surprisingly "dead", with
reduced "air" and "space". This is evidence that good damping is needed if
you want to hear what the original recording sounds like -- and that neutral
reproduction isn't necessarily what everyone wants.

* I am not the only person who noticed that, in the fraction of second it
takes to drop the stylus into the lead-in groove, you can get a good idea of
the overall sound (or at least the tonal balance) of a playback system. The
way an arm/turntable system colors transient noise has some correlation with
the way it colors musical sounds.

** I don't know whether a damping mat would be less, equally, or more
effective. It would certainly be better than nothing, but the idea is to get
the vibrations in the LP "marching" into the much-larger mass of the platter
to be dissipated. I don't believe that surface damping would be as
effective. (Note the famous Canadian manufacturer that, a few years ago,
produced a platterless turntable, with the disk flapping loose in the air.
The claim was that vinyl made a better impedance match with air than it did
with a solid platter! This is science? The product did not survive long.)

*** Many years ago, James Boyk sent me one of his LPs for review. It was
severely warped. It was possible to clamp one side flat against the Platter
Matter on my Lux PD-121, but the other side had a big section that lifted up
off the mat. The difference in tonal balance between the sides was striking.


Arny criticizing John Atkinson is the pot calling the kettle black. Among
the people I think I know (fairly) well, John stands at the peak in being an
extremely intelligent and well-educated person who utterly fails to use his
intelligence critically or in any constructive way. Arny is not far behind.

Arny's response to my suggestion that a modern "budget" $300 turntable
system might be superior to a Dual 701 was full of the wafflings, weaslings,
misrepresentations, and faulty logic he's shown in other posts. I'm tired of
having to educate other people in the process of critical thinking
(scientific or otherwise) -- or how one ought to view human thought and its
relation to the universe (ahem!) -- so I won't spend any more time on it.
Either you understand this, or you don't.

Arny isn't interested in the truth, only what he wants to be true. Ditto for
John Atkinson. Just because either of them claim to engage in scientific
research doesn't mean either does.


I also have to comment on the gross misunderstanding that occurred. I don't
understand how _anyone_ could think that I (or anyone else, for that
matter -- note the OP's Subject line) was referring those wretched plastic
turntables used for transferring LPs to digital files. I appreciate the
acknowledgement of this error and the implicit apology.

This is a good example of the misreading that goes on in UseNet. I'm also
guilty of it, but not to the extent others are. To give you an example, if I
say...

"The sound quality of the best LPs can be excellent,
and comparable to digital sound."

many people read this as...

"Just about any LP has better sound than you can get
from a CD."

I am not joking. People see what they want to see, read what they expect to
read. It's particularly noticeable when I say (as I have so often) that I
don't agree with _either_ side in this issue. As humans tend to view the
world dualistically (is that the right word)?, the idea that someone could
disagree with _both_ views in a controversy is hard to grasp. So I'm
repeatedly accused of being a member of one group or the other, when I'm
not. In my interpretation of way the terms are currently used, I am neither
a subjectivist nor an objectivist. (That is, I do not believe that either
form of testing necessarily reveals the full truth about what we hear, or
gives us any deep insight into the listening process.)

There's an article in a recent "New Yorker" (it was the current issue when I
started this) about people with persistent itching that has no detectable
cause. One theory is tied to the belief that the brain doesn't perceive the
world directly, but interprets it, "organizing" its impressions, and
"filling in the blanks" -- sometimes incorrectly -- if the information it's
expecting is incomplete or contradictory. If this theory is correct, it
would explain a lot of what we appear to perceive.


The following is Arny's Weltanschauung (as I see it):

"If a product costs more than I can afford, it does not and cannot offer any
meaningful sonic improvements over something more-modestly priced." (Please
note Arny's almost-livid reaction to my spending $2000 on a Sony multi-ch
SACD player. When my rear amplifiers arrive who-knows-when, I will attempt
to make a reasonably unbiased comparison with my high-end -- but much
less-expensive -- Sony DVD player, which also plays multi-ch SACDs.)

"If an observation doesn't fit with my preconceived notions of the way
things 'ought' to be, or my current understanding of science, I reject it
without further consideration."

"The results of 'scientific' testing are not truth with respect to the
testing, they _define_ absolute truth."

The last is important. I do not believe in multiple truths. If two
observations ("objective" **** or subjective) differ, they cannot both be
correct. One or both must be wrong (at least in part). But the assumption
that just because you attempt to remove sources of bias from your testing,
you _have_ removed them, is naive.

Furthermore, just as John Atkinson (and others) believe that careful
listening is all that's needed to discover the truth, Arny (and others)
believe that anecdotal listening has nothing to offer in terms of developing
a better understanding of the process of listening and analyzing. Both views
are parochial and self-serving.

**** I put the word in quotes because I don't believe that an attempt to
perform objective tests _necessarily_ results in objectivity -- that is, the
removal of all biasing effects.


For those who say "Sommerwerck, why don't _you_ do the research you accuse
others of not doing?", I point my finger at John Atkinson. Twenty years ago
I urged him to hire me to do full-time research. His instant decision was
the one he invariably gives to suggestions that aren't self-originated --
"No."

I might as well kick John in the shins again over Stereophile's recent
"Tales from the Crypt" parody of the transitional period in the magazine's
management. JGH as the Cryptkeeper is not particularly funny (though it
might have been with better artistic execution); the conceit is decidedly
forced. This attempt at humor grossly misrepresents (by omission) the
character of the pre-Archibald/Atkinson Stereophile.

Stereophile was in a period of great stress. Gordon had not properly managed
the magazine, and even if he had, the glut of new products (which
Stereophile was partly responsible for, having encouraged an increased
interest in high-quality hardware) would have made it necessary to take on
additional reviewers. Which Gordon had; I was one of three. (The statement
that Larry Archibald "put together a team" is inaccurate, not only
factually, but philosophically. There was no team in the usual meaning of
the word.) This got more products reviewed, but necessarily diluted the
magazine's point of view, which had previously been that of one man.

Not only was there no longer a tightly focused world-view, but the
acceptance of advertising (which began before Larry came along) started the
process of changing the magazine's approach from "This is what you need to
know" to "I'll tell you what you want to hear".

I can't emphasize this point enough. Gordon and I have discussed this
philosophy many times, including last night (7/4), and he agrees. Right or
wrong, Gordon did not adjust his reviews to please the readers. He had a
single standard -- reproduced sound should sound like live sound -- and (to
the extent it was possible) this was how all equipment was judged.

One example was the AR turntable. Though now considered a classic product,
Gordon refused to give it a top recommendation (if it was ever on the
Recommended Components list, it did not sit very high) simply because (he
felt) the arm bearings had too much friction. Gordon wasn't worried that
someone on a budget might want to be told that there wasn't anything
significantly better than the AR.

Once a magazine accepts advertising, its bias necessarily shifts in the
direction of "selling" the products advertised in it. This selling doesn't
have to be part of any conscious bias or dishonesty. Rather, the magazine
has to provide reviews that will not dissuade readers from buying the
products they're interested in. A plurality of reviewers makes this easier,
because the editor is more likely to find one sympathetic to a particular
product (or class of products), and the reader to find one whose philosophy
reflects his own. Stereophile's absurdly long list of Recommended Components
can be viewed as a reflection of the (presumed) overall high quality of
modern audio equipment, or as a pandering to the readers.


Perhaps the worst thing is that Arny's claims and statements, though
possibly true (and often almost certainly true), are nevertheless generally
unconvincing. They don't seem to fit any Gestalt (pattern) that give us a
better understanding of sound reproduction and our perception of it. Arny's
research is not prepossessing.

I would truly like to see a book from Arny that starts like this...

"Over the past 20 years we've tested hundreds of amplifiers. We feel we have
finally come to an understanding of which measurements and design principles
correlate with subjective sound quality -- good, bad, and euphonic.

"Though double-blind testing was the focus of our testing, we also performed
other tests. These included anecdotal listening -- short- and long-term,
blind and sighted. We also did a lot of work in the lab, too, measuring
every conceivable error or distortion.

"As a result, we now understand many things we did not understand befo

"The relative audibility of different types of distortion, and variations in
frequency response

"How static distortion measurements correlate with distortion produced on
program material

"The threshold at which each type of distortion becomes inaudible

"Which circuit topologies and design philosophies correlate with good or bad
sound

"We also gained an empirical understanding of the problems of subjective and
objective testing. We have a pretty good idea of why subjective reactions
are sometimes correct and sometimes wrong, as well as why controlled testing
occasionally fails to reveal real differences."

Such a document would be a major contribution to the science and psychology
of sound reproduction.


I don't expect John or Arny to ever change their points of view. They have
too much invested -- emotionally and financially -- in not learning the
truth. Whatever it turns out to be.