"and here's the truth in audio"

[Coytee]

I found the following points on "commonsenseaudio.com" as the "truth" in audio.

1. The speakers represent about 90% of the quality of sound you will get from your audio system.

--A speaker takes an electrical signal, moves air to convert it to sound, and then sounds like a real person. Incredibly hard to do well.

2. The source component (CD or LP) is the next most important piece of equipment.

--It takes a piece of plastic with pits in it and converts it to an electrical signal capable of making a speaker produce music.

3. The preamp (or preamp stage of an integrated amp) is next in importance.

--It takes components of varying impedances, voltages, and levels; uses switches and attenuators, and has an amplification stage of its own.

4. The amplifier is the least important part of a system.

--It takes a signal and makes it bigger.

--There are only 3 types of amps: good ones, bad ones, and 'boutique' ones (ones that alter the sound).

--If you're spending more than $500 on your amplifier....you're wasting your money.

are the preceeding points fair in their presentation AND in their order?

Seems if the amp is LAST on the list, then we'd have a difference of opinion between the SET crowd vs pp??

Not trying to start wars, just curious as to the order above.

[Daddy Dee]

On balance, I think it's pretty good conventional wisdom. The order of importance sounds right to me. The one thing that I might take issue with would be the $500 amplifier. It probably is true that for something in that neighborhood one is getting about 85% of what someone can expect out of an amplifier. After that, it gets more and more expensive to get incremental improvements.

Good case made here for the value of Klipsch speakers. Lots of people can have $20K or $30K or more in non Klipsch systems and then be real proud of what they've got, dissing Klipsch. The Klipsch guy can just be a smiling country boy knowing that while it might be possible to do better, it would take 5X as much to improve what he's already got.

[Klewless]

I believe that it is all relative. A series chain is, well, in series where the end result passes through ALL elements.

Also one of the most important considerations was left out from the list; namely, the room and where you sit in it.

I think we often are straining to try pinning the performance of a system to it's individual components. And since there is nothing close to perfect, any individual component will slip it's signature into the result.

There can be a synergy or complementary set of components that work well together.

[Coytee]

Good morning Mark... btw, in case you did not realize... I'm the one in Knoxville awaiting your package

[Daddy Dee]

One more bit from commonsenseaudio

5. Fancy cables are the 'snake oil' of modern life.

--Most are designed to have a sound of their own...to alter the signal. This is not the role a cable should play.

--16 gauge multistranded copper speaker wire (quality 'extension' cord) is all you need for resonably efficient speakers.

--Gold plated interconnects from Radio Shack will give you sound as good as any expensive cable.

[sunnysal]

I have no propblem with general comments like that, but when he drops to specifics like "over $500 is a waste" he shows his colors. there are $500 crap amps and $5,000 crap amps, there are also great examples of amps at both prices levels (and lower AND higher BTW)...when he says things like that he goes "julian hirsch" and loses credibility with me. all amps sound the same and all that jazz...CRAP! tony

[Coytee]

[Coytee]

[dodger]

Well I've heard that there are some amplifiers costing more than $500.00 that will be of more importance and not a waste of money.

An interesting concept as far as audio goes, but there is no price given for Pre-Amplifiers. .

I would be curious as to what the total amount for a good mid - high end system should be.

And we all know RS makes the cables and Interconnects for EVERY Company on Jupiter.

dodger

[Erukian]

Hmm, i'm one of the rare people here who use their computer for DVD-A playback, CD playback, DVD-Video playback etc.

All this time i've been looking at an amp to "open up" my sound, when a better sound card could of done it all along?

[sfogg]

"I found the following points on "commonsenseaudio.com" as the "truth" in audio."

Common sense missed one of the biggest determinates to sound.... your room.

I think it could be argued to be even more important then your choice in speakers though I personally feel it could be a toss up between speakers and room.

Shawn

[mike stehr]

"--If you're spending more than $500 on your amplifier....you're wasting your money."

Cool. I'm only into my triode amp a little over $500.

[neo33]

"Well, in that case, let me revise my comment to: The PREAMP is THE most important element - bar none - in your audio system!"

I'd have to respecfully disagree with you here, Mark!

[DrWho]

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

On 12/24/2004 9:34:11 AM Coytee wrote:

1. The speakers represent about 90% of the quality of sound you will get from your audio system.

--A speaker takes an electrical signal, moves air to convert it to sound, and then sounds like a real person. Incredibly hard to do well.

2. The source component (CD or LP) is the next most important piece of equipment.

--It takes a piece of plastic with pits in it and converts it to an electrical signal capable of making a speaker produce music.

3. The preamp (or preamp stage of an integrated amp) is next in importance.

--It takes components of varying impedances, voltages, and levels; uses switches and attenuators, and has an amplification stage of its own.

4. The amplifier is the least important part of a system.

--It takes a signal and makes it bigger.

--There are only 3 types of amps: good ones, bad ones, and 'boutique' ones (ones that alter the sound).

--If you're spending more than $500 on your amplifier....you're wasting your money.

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

I would make it more like this:

1. The room is thee most important aspect of a sound system.

An extreme example is putting a pair of khorns in your closet (assuming you could cram them in there, lol). No matter what, they are going to sound like crap because your acoustical environment is crap. A great system will sound bad in a bad room, there's no way around it.

2. The speakers.

This is where the electrical info is finally converted back into the movement of air and is where the most amount of distortions are going to be introduced. The inherant distortions introduced by loudspeakers cannot be attenuated electronically and thus it is important to choose the speaker with the best sounding compromises. This of course is very subjective.

3. The amp.

The speaker and the amp work together like a single device. There is so much interaction that I'm surprised that it's not more common for speakers to come equipped with a matching amplifier (much like studio monitors). I would agree that there is an extent to where you're spending too much on the amplifier, but if you hear a significant improvement, then I see no reason not to spend the extra money.

4. The source equipment.

"Garbage in, garbage out." A good recording won't sound it's best with poor downstream equipment (the amps and speakers), likewise good downstream equipment won't sound good without a good recording either. I'm pretty sure we all know what we like to listen to, so it's very important to build the downstream equipment around the trends in the recording styles of the music we like to listen to.

5. Pre-amps I feel are the least important part of the signal chain.

It is an exact science on how to convert all the "varying impedances, voltages, levels, switches and attenuators." Other than pre-amps that alter the sound, the only real difference is the noise floor.

[Erukian]

so what's more important to upgrade?

Using a ipod as your source or using the cheapest amp avaliable.

What would you upgrade first?

[neo33]

"It was a jest in response to Coytee's comment. Surely you understand."

You take everything seriously too, Mark?

[middlecreekguy]

My take on the first rule is that the author is talking about the quality of the information or signal that your speaker is capable of reproducing.

The room would come into play once that is done so for that reason the speaker is more important than the room. You choose your speaker based on room size. Then you have speaker placement to deal with in that particular room. The room and speaker placement are all very important but the speakers come first. Always.

For anyone to think the preamp is the least important item in a sound system leads me to believe one has never rolled tubes in one. Even if a SS front-end is used this little box is not just a place to turn the sound up and down. It`s the brain child of your entire system IMHO. It can color and or lose parts of the signal your source is feeding it or it can give your amp detailed bits of information that you would have other wise not heard.

A vital link in the chain.

[DrWho]

With the right equipment, you can entirely get rid of the pre-amp stage in the signal chain.

[middlecreekguy]

If you are referring to an integrated amp then I still stand by my statement.

[mike stehr]

I kinda liked the stepped attenuator. Simple, quiet, cheap. A nice TVC would also be a fun option.

How many flavors of tube pre-amp/linestage circuits are out there?

It would seem rolling pre-amp topologies would be more of a advantage than just tubes in a pre-amp.

You have the mini-pin pre's, the octal pre's, pre-amps with line out OPT's(and input transformers). And also linestage/pre-amps using the old DHT triodes, like the 10, or the 801A.

Think about taming the 7.5 volt thoriated tungsten filament on the 801A for linestage use?(I still wanna do it with my Electra-Print line OPT's.)

12B4 seems to be getting attention among DIY. I did mess with a 5687 simple linestage.

Some may think just a stepped attenuator is akin to the flavor of plain yogurt, and a tube linestage/pre-amp will add life and color to the sound.

How much color? Too much isn't a good thing. How much life to the sound? Some may think it's too bright, or dull.

I do agree that a good tube linestage/pre-amp is one of the most important things in obtaining a prefered sonic signature.

I don't have the money to roll pre-amps until satisfied, so it's DIY or nuthin'.

So when you just have a stepped attenuator, and there is no line noise issues to battle, it's easy to get lazy and skip the pre-amp.

It is very recording dependant. Some ol' eighties CD makes things seem like the polarity was reversed.

Kudos to Mark Deneen for coming up with the Juicy Music gear. He pondered it out, followed through, and now sells the sh*t out of them!