tube vs. SS debate, part three

[Colin]

From the long standing defender of the unlimited budget High End of Audio, the magazine Stereophile:

"Let's not beat around the bush: Triodes and their kind go against almost every convention the High End has acquired in the last two decades or so. They don't have many watts, let alone a decent power bandwidth; their measurements are often abysmal; their high output impedance wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting speaker's amplitude response; being transformer-coupled, their phase response is much less flat than that of most decent solid-state gear; and it is extremely difficult to design a stable triode amp that doesn't use capacitors or transformers to de-couple the amplification stages inside the amplifier, which means they won't be as transparent as really good solid-state stuff.

Jürgen Ackermann conducted a blind listening test with 3 systems and 53 subjects, changing first the record player, then the CD player and finally the pre-amp and amp combo with 3 different pieces of music:

Giving the complete results of experiment would be way beyond the scope of an article such as this one; besides, Ackermann has not yet completed his statistical analysis. But there are already some results that seem interesting enough to warrant a preliminary report (footnote 3).

Let's start with the emotional states of the participants. The participants began with a base tension level of 3.26; with the digital system this dropped to 2.35, and with the analog system to 1.75. Nervousness was raised from a base level of 1.8 to 2.2 by the digital system, but fell to 1.1 with the analog system. The need for relaxation fell from a base level of 2.6 to 1.9 with the analog system, but rose to 2.9 with the digital system. The ability to concentrate remained constant with the analog system at 4.3, but fell to 3.6 with the digital system. "Relaxedness" stayed constant with the digital system at 4.0, but rose to 4.6 with the analog

system. This shows that the analog system worked toward a feeling of serenity in the participant, whereas the digital system heightened tension and stress.

The questionnaire asking for the listeners' experience of the music gave just as interesting results. Thirty participants sang along with the music under their breaths when it was played via the analog system, and only 19 with the digital system. Forty-seven participants said they had let themselves be carried along by the analog system, 19 with the digital system. When questioned whether the music had influenced their movements (tapping their feet, etc.), the numbers were 30 and 25. Forty-six participants had been inspired to think about the music by the analog system, 34 by the digital system. Forty-seven participants said the music had improved their sense of well-being via the analog system, 31 via the digital.

The results of the "intermediate" CD/tube system were consistently between those of the digital and analog systems.

At the end of the test, the participants were asked which of the systems they would buy. Those listeners who had some experience of things hi-fi preferred the digital system, which they thought sounded better. Those participants without such experience preferred the analog system's sound. The conclusion Ackermann drew from this is that the sound of modern hi-fi is the result of a learning process. When told that a certain sound is what they should aim for, often enough people will accept this concept of sound as their internal reference.

Some of you will have noticed that there was one long-term test subject: the student who accompanied the participants during their time in the listening room. The poor girl had to listen to the above-mentioned pieces 159 times! At the end of the experiment, she asked Ackermann what the systems were. She said she

couldn't stand the sound of one of the systems anymore, feeling physically attacked by its sound. By now, it won't surprise you that the system in question turned out to be the CD/solid-state one.

J. Gordon Holt: Yes (footnote 7).

"1) The only way to judge audio equipment is to use it to play

music which you love, no matter how 'poorly recorded' you

mistakenly think it is, even if you've never seen it mentioned by an

elitist audio reviewer from Stereophile or The Absolute Sound.

Especially if you've never seen it mentioned by an elitist audio

reviewer from Stereophile or The Absolute Sound.

"2) There is no music, no matter how well recorded, that will tell

you what you need to know about a piece of gear as well as

something you've listened to hundreds of times and still dig the

most---whether it's Booker T. and the MG's, the Grateful Dead,

or Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet. Familiarity trumps

recording quality every time.

"3) The harder you listen, the less you hear.

"The essence of an interpretation lies in working on the infinitely small---be it an attack on a note held back for a fraction of a second (perceptible if the preceding note is reproduced neither too short nor too long), or be it a note that develops in itself; or, on a larger level, a crescendo or diminuendo encompassing several notes---all of which gives music a sense of direction, its palpable dynamics, its quivering life, and all of which, in the end, lies in the nuances.

"Which explains, by the way, why certain old loudspeakers with a very high sensitivity and thus a very high precision in the rendition of dynamics, especially of very small signals---just like certain tube amplifiers with very simple circuits---and despite more or less obvious colorations and the omission of an octave or two, manage to reproduce with disturbing fidelity all the emotional intensity of an interpretation. Which should give our designers something to think about, and convince them that the musically more important kind of dynamics is that which loses itself in silence (footnote 14), not the kind that turns into noise."

This acoustic impedance stuff is one of the reasons why horns were once so popular. A horn can be seen as an acoustic impedance transformer: The air in front of the driver cannot escape to the sides when stimulated by the membrane, but will faithfully follow the stimulus. By gently broadening the canal through which the sound waves travel, these air movements will be imposed on an ever greater amount of air, until you come to the end of the horn. In a certain sense, the air that is present at the horn's outlet can be seen as the effective driving surface of the horn driver, because it is this air that couples to the rest of the room. The larger the surface, the less excursion is needed to play at a certain loudness level; and in speakers, the less excursion, the better."

<"thank you for listening, I hope you enjoyed the audition">

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HORNS & subs; leather couch & feet up; lights out & tubes glowing!

This message has been edited by Colin on 10-21-2001 at 01:46 PM