Jump to content

Who is Joe Rosen?


Deang

Recommended Posts

I've been reading his posts at The Asylum for the last 3 hours, and this guy is hilarious. In spite of the fact that he's constantly contradicting himself -- the guy is obviously a genius.

Anyone here know anything about him?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All of them, by him -- Tubes Asylum, Vintage Asylum, etc...

Here are two. The first involves the Scotts -- watch him pop in about half way down.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=vintage&n=2437&highlight=rosen&r=&session=

The second involves Quicksilver. This one's a scream. I don't know why -- but I was rolling.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=tubes&n=36063&highlight=quicksilver+joe+rosen&session=

It took me a long time to figure out why he's hearing what he's hearing with these amps. He listens to electrostatics with relatively low power, and the more feedback the better. Lots and lots of feedback. He seems to despise anything that has a rated sensitivity higher than 90 or so. Hates Altec or anything with a lens in it. Still, he appears to be extremely knowledgeable, and funny as hell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

----------------

On 7/26/2003 5:12:19 PM DeanG wrote:

I've been reading his posts at The Asylum for the last 3 hours, and this guy is hilarious. In spite of the fact that he's constantly contradicting himself -- the guy is obviously a genius.

Anyone here know anything about him?

----------------

Joe Rosen is an opiniated guy but as you described it well, he's a genius and a heck of a nice guy. He's leaning more toward the high power PP amp (eventually SET if not in the flea power SET amp). I think he's the Mdeneen of AA. I wish I had 1/10th of their respective knowledge.

Reading his posts on AA is a pure delight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, you got to admit he's usually right (as stubborn as he may appear).

Let's take for exemple his opinion on Heathkit or Eico kits in general. They sound good but these amps are filled with crap, OPT or power transformer were blowing as hell (this being said, I like the sound of these amps!). But I still have to find him wrong on something other than a subjective opinion (OK I'll admit this sounds strange... but read his posts and you'll see what I mean).

I like opiniated guys in general as long as they've been through their journey (sorry BigBusa but you don't qualify....9.gif). Romy the Cat was one of my favorite caracter on AA. He's gone, so is my previous interest there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh I find most of what he say's to be pretty much true but to an extreme. He takes things way to far and calls to many things junk that are not junk. Fisher and Scott amps are far from junk and do not use cheap parts. The McIntosh 240 I had hear used the very same capacitors, resistor, Pots and Can caps as the Scott and Fisher amps I do everyday. He just goes to far I'm sorry. Total arrogants ! Nothing worse than someone that spends all his time talking down what everyone else has done, wants to do or may do.

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pddf-0002.JPG

Let me get this straight: SET designs -- a la Techne-Fetishist-Retard school of audio/mystic/phuckupism are superior to "conventional" PP designs for playing selective distortion cancellation games because the output stage of a PP amp is less load dependent & the distortion cancellation mechanism is "independent" of the load in operation. I like the Techne-Fetishist school of dork SET design. Take some funky, absolutely unobtainium DHT transmitting triode (OK, you can find 'em, but you've got to sell off the family jewels just for the downpayment), maybe even one with incredible sonic potential. Now, carefully throw it all away by doing the following:

1) Use some sh!t power pentode as the driver.

2) Use some sh!t noisy & unreliable little RF triode before that, like a 417A/5842 or even a WE437, which may even be a small-signal pentode. Which I think the fad is to triode connect, but it's hard to pay too much attention to stupid fads to get it entirely straight, so forgive any possible inaccuracies on my part!

3) Don't forget to transformer couple the sh!t power pentode to maximize your sonic misery. "Flipping the Bird", or what Nobu Shiseido called "IIC" or Inverted Interstage Coupling, gives further "magical" qualities to the sh!t pentode driver idea. Apparently, flipping the interturd coupling deformer phase can further cancel distortion, at least that it isn't generating on its own, which is also plenty, but lets ignore that, since the SET retards all do, and pretend that this is worth doing, and no doubt it does cancel certain harmonics. Not as well as feedback, of course, but then, for $40,000 USD you can buy Shiseido's company's 833A amplifier, his dying ultimate statement of how to combine killer looks with crap sound. It uses the highly evolved & funky 833A transmitting triode, which Svetlana still markets and/or makes in Russia. I thought about using it too, except it ain't easy. It has no semblance of conventional socketry to mount it, and it likes stupid-dangerous operating voltages to get the best out of it. But it looks boss, and probably sounds great. So that means you have to drive it with an interstage transformer coupled Chinese KT-88, OK? As reviewed in the never-the-least-bit-critical Ultimate Audio and not even entirely raved about there, but of course they tried to love it anyways. Gee, $40k US for a massive distortion generator. Gotta love it.

4) Don't you dare use the demon feedback! The amplifier may end up sounding good, and we can't have that, can we?

5) Make sure to use crap passive parts, like leaky, low-performance electrolytics that happen to have "magic" porcelain anodes or fragments swimming around uselessly in the electrolyte, such as Rubycon Black Gates or Elna Cerafines. And resistors made from Carbon Composition, such as Allen-Bradley or Riken. Remember, there is no such thing as too much noise, too much distortion or too great an inaccuracy. As one twit on the HK tube audio board sezs: "Measurements mean nothing. Designing an amp is like making a recipe. If I like what I hear, then it is good." Sure, and if you don't know what accuracy sounds like, you don't know what sounds good, and the vicious circle goes 'round & 'round, accompanied by the dying sounds of a deranged carnival calliope. So, if dependence on the load is "good", because this makes the distortion cancellation characteristics of dumb SET design more "interesting", how to predict just what affect the load impedance or general trend will have on the sound? Of course, the retards don't know, but as you say, they think they can dance, too... So they'll recommend some sh!t horn piece of dreck, never mind that there are high-efficiency high-impedance speakers out there that almost sound good, like your old Warpdales or Tin-noise.

I like newer Swirlin' Vegas, although their load impedances are pretty low. Otherwise, how does 102db/W/m @ 4-5 ohms grab ya? Even converted back to voltage parameters (say, output for 2.83VRMS in) you still get at least 99db/W/m! And $1200 pr. CDN, can't have that! Too bloody affordable! Too small, only 90lbs. ea. and only come up to your belly-button. God forbid that you have a predictable distortion cancellation mechanism in your amplifier. How utterly boring! God forbid that something should sound good by having the minimum of sound at all. Since everything has a sound anyways, why not make a technicolor barf & sh!t collage out of it instead? BTW, maybe this is the ultimate coincidence. Harvey Rosenberg died of a heart attack after getting off a plane flight just a few days ago. Like many other folks, even when I didn't agree with Harv I still couldn't dislike him. He had one the best takes on having an alternate POV to any of these other retards. He didn't understand technology all that well, and never pretended that he did. As a result, he never got too hung up on philosophies of design. Philosophies of listening habits & listening purposes & listening pleasures, but none of this "You have to have this one horn POS speaker otherwise you'll die" or whatever crap I read from the usual audio/mystic/phuckups...

pddf-0003.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's Joe all right!

Thanks Dean, your post made me do a Joe Rosen search on Google and I landed on the site where you got this "Joe Rosen takes on SET"! Fascinating site indeed if a bit hard to follow from time to time.

Looking for a nice time waster...

Look no further!

http://www.lacieg2s.ca/w3terra/ols/audion.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gosh Tony, you almost can't believe a word he says -- he's a complete riot.

Check this out: A Joe Rosen design that puts out 2.2 watts. Ready for this? It's called "The Cancerous-tumortronix Fleabreeze Kawabunga 2300 BS ac SE Amplifier."

Wanna build one?

fleabreeze.GIF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jeff, the site almost seems like it's defunct or something. I thought it might be an old site that was shut down in favor of a new one, and tried to find it. Apparently, it is a UK audio magazine, and I did mangage to find where to get subscriptions and order old issues. Nothing as far as an online site.

I did stumble across an index of sorts, and if you go down a little about you can see the "Flingpoo" links. I especially enjoyed reading his spin on the fiasco at the Asylum when the Tubes Asylum was started. I remember all of this happening, and it's great having him tell the story in detail.

http://www.lacieg2s.ca/w3terra/ols/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just picked up a old RCA "Ultratone" phonograph amp that uses 5OC5's.

It's a 7 pin beam pentode output tube.

The amp uses a 12AX7 driver.

I have no idea what this amp uses for a power supply.

I found the power switch in the tonearm of the record player.

One side of line appears to go through a funky looking wirewound resistor of some sort, and then to the heater pin 3 on one 5OC5. then the heater wires are in series to the other 5OC5 and 12AX7.

Another wire comes off the same line side through another funky looking wirewound resistor with a cloth type cover to what appears to be a diode.

Through the diode into a multisection electrolytic.

I can't understand why there is just one diode with no bridge rectifying circuit.

I need to sit down and draw up a schematic.

It's a teeny little amp, the chassis is three and a half inches, by seven and five eighths inches.

Like I really need it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like newer Swirlin' Vegas, although their load impedances are pretty low. Otherwise, how does 102db/W/m @ 4-5 ohms grab ya? Even converted back to voltage parameters (say, output for 2.83VRMS in) you still get at least 99db/W/m! And $1200 pr. CDN, can't have that! Too bloody affordable! Too small, only 90lbs. ea. and only come up to your belly-button. God forbid that you have a
predictable
distortion cancellation mechanism in your amplifier. How utterly boring! God forbid that something should sound good by having the minimum of sound at all. Since everything has a sound anyways, why not make a technicolor barf & sh!t collage out of it instead?
pddf-0003.JPG"
----------------

Dean,

Sounds like Joe and I would get along just great.He actually likes Cerwin Vegas! (like the VS series) and the Marantz 8B amp.

I don't know if I'd bring up my Klipschorn speakers or former Scott tube amp as all discussion would end there.

2.gif

Jeff

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...