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Advice for Beginners....


ODS123

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Yes, to chris A and Zen Traveler, I agree that tube amplifiers that are NOT engineered to be linear will sound different from amps that are.  But some Tube amp are quite linear.  For example, McIntosh tube amplifiers are so linear that distinguishing them from SS amps would be near impossible.  

 

People who are new to this hobby should know that when tube amps sound different than S/S, it's not because they "do a better job of revealing the true warmth of the music" (as suggested by tube fans), but rather it's simply distortion.  ..Distortion that did not exist in the original source but rather was added by a non-linear amplifier.

 

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27 minutes ago, Chris A said:

I find that anytime the word "synergy" arises in audiophile posts, it means "I don't understand what is happening, but I like the resulting sound with the music I'm currently playing".

 

Before you rush to jump on that bandwagon, consider this:  when you ask someone that is testing system components what synergy means, the usual reply from all engineers that I've asked is "well, it generally means that some non-ideal performance in one part of the system improperly interacts with and partially offsets non-ideal performance in another part".  In other words, it implies that there was something undesirable in at least two places, but when put together and allowed to (improperly) interact, by the roll of the dice they seem to hide undesired characteristics in both parts of the system--at least during the time when certain types of audio program material are playing on the system. On the surface of the situation, at this point I think it's clear that improper interactions are not desirable.

 

When you begin to drill down to understanding what is actually happening, usually what occurs is that the knowledge gained about the audio system under test are used to eliminate characteristics that lend themselves to "synergy" so that the performance is robust with whatever components are hooked together (i.e., module independence from other modules is a fundamental design precept in linear system theory). 

 

Such is the case with single-ended tube amplifiers, which interact improperly with listening rooms that are too small and very efficient horn-loaded loudspeakers that also act as microphones to returning echos, which then return echo delays in the form of electrical reaction signals to the output tubes as delayed feedback (a bad thing)...inside the triodes themselves.  This is audible on decays within the music/audio program material.

 

If you want to add tight reverb to add "apparent room depth", I recommend adding a good reverb unit instead to avoid reducing the stability margin of your amplifiers.  And besides being more stable, at least then you can turn it off when its characteristics become undesirable.

 

Chris

 

Chris - We simply have different priorities when it comes to our hobby, and that is great. How boring life would be if we all viewed everything the same.

 

I am all over 2-channel audio. Don't really care about home theater.

 

You may have the opinion that my SE amps are "coloring" the sound. That's O.K. because the only opinion that matters to me where my audio system is concerned is mine.

 

Regarding evaluating and selecting new components: The opinion that I offer is that each of us should listen for ourselves, gain experience with both live music and home audio, trust your own ears and make your decisions based on what you like - what prompts you to listen to more music.

 

Edited to ask this question: If listening to the music we love is not about emotion, why do we even bother?

 

Just my opinion.

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No truer words were ever spoken. You've first have got to set a budget, even the wealthy do that. Do your homework first. Find the best that the money you want to spend can offer. Some favor features over ultimate sound. You might look into some of the excellent 2 channel receivers, and integrated amps from the 70's and 80's. I had a Concept 5.5 receiver back in the later 70's, that blew away all but the best stuff out. I had a friend that tried 3 different integrated amps that sounded good, but had no bottom. I brought by my receiver, he was so impressed he bought one that week. His speakers were the highly coveted Ar Lst2 speakers. If you don't need a full home theater setup, a great 2 channel for video works pretty good. Besides the Concept, look at Pioneer and Yamaha, as well as Sansui. All top shelf stuff, available relatively cheap, under $500.00 in a lot of cases.

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41 minutes ago, TubeHiFiNut said:

 

Chris - We simply have different priorities when it comes to our hobby, and that is great. How boring life would be if we all viewed everything the same.

 

 

Well, yes... Everyone is of course free to view Hifi any way they care to.  ..This is not in dispute; it is self-evident.  ..And I'm not trying to harsh you for having your own perspective.  But, again, when beginners enter this hobby they should clearly understand that much of what people claim to hear is very likely the result of expectation bias.    

 

As for being emotionally connected w/ music.  ..I can tell you that I most certainly am.  ..I played it for years, have been to countless live (and many all-acoustic ) shows;  have 1200 CDs/ 700 LPs and probably several thousand digital songs.  ..Music is hugely important to me.  ..And my hifi has only a little to do with that.  Some of the biggest music fans I've known have had very mediocre systems.  ..Heck, my grand-parents listened to music for hours each day on a crappy all-in-one compact system from the mid-60's.  ..And before that, they listened endlessly on a table radio.

 

 

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Pigeon chess is an undesirable game in my experience.  I instead write to those reading this that seek accurate audio reproduction, i.e., the type that PWK created his company and products (the Heritage line and Jubilee loudspeakers) to reproduce, and the customers to which he subsequently sold his expensive loudspeakers. That's been the big drawing card that has sustained this company, I believe.

 

Chris

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14 minutes ago, ODS123 said:

Well, yes... Everyone is of course free to view Hifi any way they care to.  ..This is not in dispute; it is self-evident.  ..And I'm not trying to harsh you for having your own perspective.  But, again, when beginners enter this hobby they should clearly understand that much of what people claim to hear is very likely the result of expectation bias.    

 

And I am not advocating that newbies should put their faith in any of the self-proclaimed "experts", rather that they should listen, gain experience and trust themselves.

 

Just my opinion.

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I am by no means an expert, but my advice is go out and buy a pair of Jubilees. Given the amount of money some you spend on electronics, the performance-to-price ratio on the Jubilees is an absolute bargain. 

 

Are they expensive? In the big scheme of things, not really. 

 

A new pair of Jubilees will ballpark between $7-8 K

A used pair (factory built) in great shape will be less of course. Michael has some in the Garage Sale for shy of $5 K

An accurate clone will be even less. (A shameless plug for me ...) I will let mine go for the low $3 K range. 

 

The improvement over what most folks have right now will be huge. Compare this to the incremental improvements folks "might" get with electronic components (costing thousands). Yes, I can easily recommend Jubilees. In many ways the increase in performance is relatively inexpensive.  

 

Just a data point and just my own opinion,

-Tom

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4 hours ago, ODS123 said:

But, again, when beginners enter this hobby they should clearly understand that much of what people claim to hear is very likely the result of expectation bias.

Having written several threads on helping new people make purchase decisions it was disconcerting to find over at AVS people who asked questions in the Klipsch Owners Thread ended up buying speakers and components online based on internet recommendations....When I think back to my newbie days I did internet research and then went to a lot of places to listen to setups....Nowadays folks look at internet ratings, ask questions which is the better package and then purchase online. 

 

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2 hours ago, jimjimbo said:

And yes, that is just your opinion.  Mine is the opposite.  YMMV

Just to be clear... You don't think that moving up to Jubilees will be a huge improvement? I have to ask, how much experience do have with Jubilees? I am asking because I have found Jubilees to be astounding. Maybe I am foolling myself ...

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No your not nuts. The Jubilee is like a cornerhorn on steroids. A bit much for some rooms due to the fact their made for loud commercial playing. But tamed down with the right amp, and room taming, and you've got as close to live music as it gets. Their not made for a small or overly live room for sure, but do it right, and your jaw drops, and heart can skip a beat. It amazing what 120 plus decibels can do cranking out Tower of power or any live album. Devil went down to Georgia also gets me going!

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5 hours ago, Moosee1955 said:

...Their not made for a small or overly live room for sure...

Actually I find this to not be accurate.  If anything, the Jubilees are the only loudspeakers actually made for small rooms--because they can control their polar coverage to below 100 Hz before handing over to boundary gain (wall, floor, ceiling), so they avoid early reflections much more effectively--which is the problem of small listening rooms.

 

Also, playing any type of loudspeakers very loudly actually masks what they can really do.  It turns out that the human hearing system masks frequencies either side of the fundamental notes/frequencies played as the SPL rises.  You have to turn the SPL down to the mid-80s dB to hear the details clearly.  Many people have noticed this effect, I've noticed and willingly turn the volume control down to hear more details in the music.  This is also the reason why mastering guys usually set the average loudness at 83 dB at the listening position when mastering.  I've found, independently of this mastering rule of thumb, that demastering at exactly the same SPL--when no one else is in the house--is my "loud" setting level. I naturally gravitate to that listening level as the best tradeoff point for final demastering fine tuning.

 

Chris

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4 hours ago, Chris A said:

This is also the reason why mastering guys usually set the average loudness at 83 dB at the listening position when mastering. 

Interesting and thanks for posting this fact. I started a thread years back "How Loud do you listen," after recommending people measure their SPL and purchase power requirements accordingly.  Fwiw, I found that I listened to Multichannel material right at 83 dBs and Movies usually about -5 dBs from reference after running Audyssey. 

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I have asked this question many times, with hardly ever a  credible answer.

 

If all amplifiers sound the same, whey aren't the people who believe that drivel just using some cheap 200.00 receiver from the local big box store? This goes doubly for people who own high efficiency speakers. In this instance there's no need for arc welder type amps that double power down to 1 ohm. Just about any amp out there will drive most klipsch speakers.

 

So for those of  you that ascribe to this theory, what made you pick your amp? Does it have prettier lights? More useless features? Lifetime warranty? Wife likes the way it looks? Must be something?

 

As if there was ever any doubt, I buy electronics based on what I hear in my system. Sometimes that's the more expensive choice, other times it's not. But it's ALWAYS because one sounds better (or at least different) than the other one. Same goes for DACs, preamps, and (gasp!) cables.

 

Shakey

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12 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

If all amplifiers sound the same, whey aren't the people who believe that drivel just using some cheap 200.00 receiver from the local big box store? This goes doubly for people who own high efficiency speakers.

 

Because $200 AVRs don't usually come close to delivering what they claim in the specs into a multispeaker configuration. The other thing is some Klipsch Speakers I have heard are closer to 4 to 6 Ohms instead of 8, which adds into the equation. Iow, some lower end units can't provide enough current to drive the speakers very loud before they start to distort. And lastly, the processors in upper end AVRs are better than in the lower ones. More Bells and whistles, which are a pretty good bang-for-your buck nowadays.  That's my take.

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14 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

I have asked this question many times, with hardly ever a  credible answer.

 

If all amplifiers sound the same, whey aren't the people who believe that drivel just using some cheap 200.00 receiver from the local big box store? This goes doubly for people who own high efficiency speakers. In this instance there's no need for arc welder type amps that double power down to 1 ohm. Just about any amp out there will drive most klipsch speakers.

 

So for those of  you that ascribe to this theory, what made you pick your amp? Does it have prettier lights? More useless features? Lifetime warranty? Wife likes the way it looks? Must be something?

 

As if there was ever any doubt, I buy electronics based on what I hear in my system. Sometimes that's the more expensive choice, other times it's not. But it's ALWAYS because one sounds better (or at least different) than the other one. Same goes for DACs, preamps, and (gasp!) cables.

 

Shakey

Sorry I didn't answer right away, but I just got back from the K-Mart audio department.  

 

Perhaps you'd get more "credible" answers (according to you), if you were less condescending in your questions.

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3 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

 

Because $200 AVRs don't usually come close to delivering what they claim in the specs into a multispeaker configuration. The other thing is some Klipsch Speakers I have heard are closer to 4 to 6 Ohms instead of 8, which adds into the equation. Iow, some lower end units can't provide enough current to drive the speakers very loud before they start to distort. And lastly, the processors in upper end AVRs are better than in the lower ones. More Bells and whistles, which are a pretty good bang-for-your buck nowadays.  That's my take.

 

Thanks for your opinion. I would never consider an AVR, because for listening to music, the "V" part is unnecessary. And DSP is the devil, so there's that...........

 

Shakey

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