High Fidelity Sound

About 10 years ago my girlfriend dragged me to a yard sale. The guy was just selling the typical yard sale junk. When he saw that I wasn't browsing, he walked up and started a conversation.

I was actually in the market for a sub-woofer for my main system, but did not expect to find one there.

Turns out he was French, was returning home after 8 years in the USA, and needed to sell some heavier items that would be too expensive to ship.

I walked away with (2) bookshelf, (2) tower, (1) center channel, and (1) 250W powered sub woofer, all made by Accoustic Research. I could barely pick the towers or the sub woofer up. I paid him $650.00 for the set. When I got home, I priced them online. Used the set was selling for $2,700.00.

This speaker system has the cleanest sound I have ever heard from a home system, and will remove the walls and roof if desired. All wire connections are banana plugs.

Experience with sound: Sonar technician in US Navy, studied the science of sound. Worked as sound mixer for local bands in Richmond, VA area while in college.

My home sound system was built in 1972, and has exceptional sound. It replaced a mid-high end modern receiver system, which couldn't come close to the sound quality.

There is something to say about the old stuff and the way it sounds.

I run a small recording studio/company in my spare time (spare time?!?). And have a collection of old reel to reel, and vinyl equipment, as well as modern day digital hard drive recording equipment, and always prefer the warmth of the sound from all the old analog equipment.

I think there is a healthy resurgence of Hi-Fi folks out there who are sick of the compressed MP3 sound everyone is always listening to.

Now it's all about high definition video, iphones and ipads....We live in a faster paced society, nobody has time to relax, and the war on drugs has taken it's toll on the drop-out tune-in culture of cool, that drove the music industry and it's cult following...The wallowing in the excess of society, has been replaced with the lean green culture of efficiency, mother earther's have gone mainstream and the decadent pursuit of personal perfection in one's own pleasure, has become sinful and politically incorrect....Music related professionals are the new audiophiles, spouting their techspeak to other music professionals...If you're talking quality sound to Joe Public today, you're talking about "The Bullet" or high quality earbuds...Time marches on....The only place left that still seems to be thriving is car audio...

The definition of High Fidelity used to be a 40dB signal-to-noise ratio, Boss. Goodness knows whether it has a definition at all these days...

Capitaine Bonsoir, comment avez-vous été? Je n'ai pas entendu parler de vous dans un tout, vous avez sans doute été autrement détenu sur un cas de beaucoup d'importance ... bon retour....


http://www.bcae1.com/sig2nois.htm

I feel like I should help out some other who may otherwise be confused...

Translates to:

"Hello Captain, how have you been? I have not heard from you in a while, you probably have been otherwise detained on an event of great importance ... welcome back ...."

你的翻譯技巧令人印象深刻的，但你忽略了提我到頁面的鏈接上信號信噪比，它的意思...

My translation skills arn't shabby, What's the SNR mention?

Signal to noise ratio...

doh

Part of the problem is the MP3 revolution. Almost all music is now downloaded.

MP3 sound quality is simply not high fidelity due to file compression losses, compressed dynamic range, and lower bit rate sampling.

To compensate, the mix engineers are adding more audio compression to give it more impact.

I have purged all my MP3 music and have been slowly replacing them with either CDs or high definition downloads.

High definition is a niche market. Most everyone listens to music via an MP3 player, which is poor quality compared to high definition or even CD audio.

The digital revolution is a mixed bag. On one end the quality can be very good, but most people do not have the equipment (or money) to play back high definition and they simply do not care. As long as they can cause the neighbor's windows to rattle they believe they have obtained high quality sound.

I described why some of the vintage tube equipment seems to sparkle compared to solid state amps in the other post. There is some truth to what you stated.

However, almost all of the pre-1980 loudspeaker systems were not very good. Some significant technological improvements have been made since them and what few systems were exceptional back then have fizzled out due to aging of components.

Maybe use this;

With this?

I owned some fairly high-end gear at one point, but I would have to say that many things have improved since then. Those BIG Klipsch horns - whose bass notes sounded *later* than the tweeters' and midrange because of the difference in acoustic path length? I don't miss that. The dead silence during prolonged rests in an orchestral piece? Not something I experienced with analog gear. What I miss which can never be replaced is the novelty and thrill of owning my first high-fi system.

I replaced the novelty of my first system with the novelty of a system that I designed and built.

HR -

Is it a push-pull parallel type of stereo power amplifier that you assembled? It just kindled some old memories when I did mine way back in the late 50's. I remember winding my own power output transformers using interleave winding techniques on ultra-linear cores?

vsar

Wow! I have never rolled my own transformers. That takes some engineering work. Impressive.

My amp is a tube amp running two KT-88s per channel, ultra-linear. The topology is based on the Williamson with 6SN7As as the drivers. Delivers about 60 WRMS per channel into my loudspeakers, which have a sensitivity of about 95 dB-m.

The loudspeakers are a ported two-way with Acoustic Elegance 15" woofers with Beyma TPL-150 ribbons.

AH -

I agree, Williamson was a very popular topology then and if I remember correctly KT-88 are those with the clip type plate connections on top of the glass envelope.. Rewinding speaker coils were a bit harder, using very fine magnet wires.. something like # 45 maybe 48 AWG or so. Centering the voice coil onto the permanent magnet was bit an art. that I had to improvised several triangularly shaped cutup film negatives, inserting them in between the voice coil and the permanent magnet, for centering before applying adhesives to secure speaker cone.

Wow, you really get down to the nuts and bolts!

KT-88s do not have a plate cap.

Europium I agree with the "novelty and thrill of owning my first high-fi system" ! Still have a lot of my original components. I have had my amp's solder connections redone and the foam around the woofers replaced because the foam was disintegrating. My wife would like to replace my JBL speakers with smaller units where I would rather leave them in the living room (a room in my opinion that is totally useless along with the dining room) ! Our son is a guitarist and he uses a tube amp because he feels tube amps are superior. But the thrill of hearing music thru this system is still great and I need to sit down and enjoy this more often.

The answer to your question can be given in two words "Klipsch LaScalla"

I have these speakers and they are magnificent. 101 watts per channel with no measurable distortion. Peak performance starts at 7 watts. I bought mine in 1972 and they still perform flawlessly. They are more expensive now but with the change in the value of the dollar since 1972 they are essentially the same price to value ratio. Klipsch makes the best in my opinion.

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Satisfaction is the enemy of improvement

modern equipment is'nt designed to drive high quality speakers from the old days. they just don't have the output. modern speakers are usually light "efficent?" units that use less power, and the manufacturers lie a the specs. the sound quality sucks.

i found an old optomica that was made in japan by sharp around 1974.the unit weights 64 pounds and has the largest output transformers i've ever seen. the sound is amazing. i had it worked over for around $150.

most units today usually weigh about 10 pounds.

What is your opinion on Carver amps? I recall that they would shut down if over driven. I tried one time to fill a very large room, but if I turned the volume up all the way, it would start to distort and then shut down. I don't recall what speakers were connected.

I guess I would have to say that they had/have their place in the audio circles.

Bob is one hell of a character. He is still kicking and now makes a line of tube amplifiers. Bob even makes his own transformers.

Bob Carver Amps are probably more for the well heeled that want something to show off to their friends. I suspect that they work well, but he appears to enjoy being a showman in the audio circuits.

$7400 for the Cherry 180. A bit much for my wallet. I wonder where he gets his tubes from. I don't know of any American company still making vacuum tubes.

I believe Groove Tubes still manufacture in the USA, but they are more orientated towards guitar amps than hi-fi, I think. Electro-Harmonix have theirs made in Russia. Most tubes now come from Russia and China, but it is quite staggering how much NOS, from Europe and the US, is still available.

Going back to your original question, "Where has Hi-Fi gone?", I would say it is alive and kicking and healthier than ever. Yes, a lot of people seem to prefer Lo-Fi/High-tech audio, home-theatre systems, MP3, etc. But equally, I think there are more manufacturers of Hi-Fi turntables now than in the 60s, ranging in price from about $250 to over $100,000. Exactly the same for Hi-Fi amps and speakers. It is much easier these days to find something to suit your budget and tastes.

I agree with pretty much all that Anonymous Hero has said, and I'm sure that technology and sound quality have improved considerably. I still get a warm feeling when I think about the thrill I got from my first real system, but I think that is more to do with being young and green then, and old, jaded and nostalgic now. I'm sure I get a better sound now, for comparitively less money.

It is also much easier now, via the internet, to hook up with others of a similar ilk. There are communities and forums covering all sorts of things, including horn-loaded speakers, single-driver speakers, vinyl, new amp technologies such as chipamps and Tripath amps (so-called 'D'-class amps) and a huge DIY community (I myself have a huge stack of parts, components, drivers, modules, etc for projects I hope to get around to before too long).

Groove Tubes went up for sale. The owner decided to finally hang it up and I don't know if there has been a buyer yet. It went up for auction with all the original GE machinery.

That's a shame, but probably not a surprise. I guess that just leaves us with Russian and Chinese made tubes.

When I lived in New York City many years ago, it was an audiophile paradise. I'm probably out of it. I don't live in a large city any longer where it may be easier to find audiophiles and shops that cater to them. All the high end shops are located in those big cities. I live in south Mississippi, where the closest thing to a hi fi shop is Walmart.

I can see your point. I enjoyed the hi-fi shops in London for several years, then spent a few years in rural Nova Scotia and felt totally cut-off. This was quite some time ago, before the internet which makes it much easier to find out what is available. It might seem odd, but I never bought anything based on listening tests at hi-fi shops anyway.

Now that I think about it, I don't live in the city but I think there are two hi-fi shops (which I have never visited) within 5 miles of me, as well as three hi-fi manufacturers.

I remember you saying that you are 77, as am I. Hearing deteriorates as we age. I don't have any unusual hearing problem but my small Bose is good enough these days. I am often surprised at the bass output from those small speakers. I did experiment with a brilliant little speaker that Sinclair marketed, by putting it in a large board so that the return path for the sound was similar to a big woofer. It was better but not as good as my good speakers.

True; hearing does deteriorate with age. Maybe that's a good reason to turn up the volume. I still hear pretty good and enjoy listening to full orchestras, marching bands, bagpipes, drums and the deep notes of a pipe organ. Certainly the type of music one listens to can benefit from good high fidelity reproduction. The type of sound produced by the typical car sound system is only suitable for the music young people listen to these days.

Age caries its own baggage. We sometimes believe everything old is better. Let me say this. I run a Denon amplifier that drives Bose speakers paired with a locally manufactured set of speakers with a 15" set of base speakers. The Bose supplies the higher frequencies and the locally built speakers provides the base. Vinyl lives at our home. I can turn it up until the ears hurt and it is still crystal clear. I love new technology.

My current system is also a Denon surround sound system with sub woofer. I also drive two Cerwin Vega 3-way speaker systems. The Denon was a good price and it replaced an ailing Mitsubishi amp and preamp; not worth fixing at today's repair technician prices.

From "High Fidelity" by Flanders and Swan:

Try to bring that down through your pre-amp rumble filter to your woofer, what'll you get? Flutter on your bottom!

An absolute classic, although I think it is called "A Song of Reproduction". One of our favourites is "A Song of the Weather" which, if you had seen the weather we have had in the UK so far this year, you would understand. ("In July the sun is hot". "Is it shining?". "No it's not!")

You are correct. I remembered the phrase, searched and got the wrong answer; I should have played my LP of it instead.

Reproduction by Flanders and Swan

High frequency range complete with autochange. Mustn't forget a Transport of Delight. Flanders and Swann, one of my favorites. I believe they both have passed on.