Progression?

[DSJR]

That hollow rapping sound doesn't stop current Tannoy Prestige models sounding great

Thinner chipboard boxes won't store energy as heavy MDF will, for example. The ABR's should also keep internal pressure in check too. if you're worried about the boxes, some car sound deadening pads may assist a bit perhaps...

[Reid Malenfant]

Thinner chipboard boxes won't store energy as heavy MDF will, for example. The ABR's should also keep internal pressure in check too. if you're worried about the boxes, some car sound deadening pads may assist a bit perhaps...

Agreed, they'll just shift the frequencies that get muddied by the enclosure.

If you look at the way bass reflex & ABR enclosures work they actually create much more pressure inside the enclosure at or within an octave or so of the tuning frequency, this is how they manage to actually damp the driver & make the driver move less because the port/ABR is resonating with the enclosure volume & driver. There will be more internal pressure, not less.

Bass can therefore be improved a good deal by stiffening the thing, with bracing it could be taken to well over 500Hz, which i believe might be the xover frequency to the midrange & thus avoid as much cabinet colouration as possible given that the mid is a 2" dome.

[Pete The Cat]

To the original point, I think the pace of improvement in performance has slowed every decade since the '70s, certainly at the price bands in my range. Hi-fi was always a case of diminishing returns on investment, now it's diminishing returns over time as well. For what you could buy at around £5,000 in 1995-2000 I haven't heard anything recently manufactured at today's equivalent amount that's better. Different, yes. However my late nineties kit is much better than my late eighties second system.

I confess my tinnitus does seem to have evolved more over that period !

Pete

[John]

I actually think you could build a very decent system for £5000 but not from the Usual Suspects

[Sahib]

My answer to the original question is, yes we have. The advent of CAD-CAM took the design and manufacture to great heights. A lot of things that would be thought impossible to do thirty years ago is not an issue now.

In terms of audio the circuit design techniques greatly advanced producing much better and higher performance. Thanks to the topologies that were/are used in IC design. What used to be a standard single transistor input stage now does mundane jobs like driving (psuedo) vu meters. Class D being noisy and switch mode power supplies being not suitable for audio are the notions of the past.

I was once savagely attacked by an analogue worshipping sound engineer for my suggestion that the digital audio was about to be as good as analogue. He ranted on saying that how wonderful that particular brand of analogue audio equipment was and its quality could nevere be replaced etc, etc. I let him wank. He does not know the fact that I know very well that the designer of that particular sound equipment (a legendary designer and I am not dropping name) has been fighting against the notion that his old designs sounded better.

Almost all of the recordings today are recorded digitally. Print them on vinyl. Will they sound better?

[Marco]

Hi Cemal,

How's it going? I hope all is well up there in sunny Glasgow!

My answer to the original question is, yes we have. The advent of CAD-CAM took the design and manufacture to great heights. A lot of things that would be thought impossible to do thirty years ago is not an issue now.

In terms of audio the circuit design techniques greatly advanced producing much better and higher performance.

For me, in terms of audio circuit design techniques, nothing can touch the good old-fashioned point-to-point wiring used in any high quality valve equipment for achieving the best possible audio performance, and that particular circuit design technique has been around for about a century!

In contrast I find that PCBs, for example, impose a distinct sonic signature on proceedings you don't get with hard-wiring, point-to-point (when possible). It's one of the advantages of using valves.

Yes, modern techniques have refined some aspects of circuit design, but there's a lot still to be said for some tried and tested ones, too.

Keeping signal paths as short as possible is fundamental in achieving true high fidelity with any design, and that IMO is best served by simple point-to-point wiring. This is one of the reasons, amongst many, why I would never return to using solid-state amplifiers, where the use of PCBs is mandatory.

As an aside, I've yet to hear a valve amp that uses PCBs in its design sound anywhere near as good as one which doesn't.

Marco.

[REM]

Almost all of the recordings today are recorded digitally. Print them on vinyl. Will they sound better?

The answer to that is very probably yes, if we're talking about mainstream contemporary recordings, given all the compression that is so prevalent in todays digital market. Vinyl, being such an out dated medium, just can't handle that sort of treatment and as a result the music is so much better for it.

[Sahib]

Hi Marco,

Going not too bad. I am sorry that I could not get in touch. While I was on holiday in Istanbul the guys took it a bit easy and we got behind with the jobs. So the last two weeks were totally panicky. Yes, amazingly the sun is shining today but you know how the weather goes in Glasgow.

I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard. It also goes against your view of keeping the audio path as short as possible. Longer component leads mean not only longer signal path but also a lot of inductance which is exactly what you don't want in your circut.

Let me touch on the shorter signal path issue a bit more. More components in an amplifier does not neccessarily mean the signal path is longer. The signal path is always as short as it needs to be. The rest of the components are there to make the components that carry the signal do their job as linear and stable as possible. Also take the example of a single transistor input stage that I mentioned above. Old designs utilised it because it was the only option. Then differential input (two transistor) topology came about. The performance of the circuit increased. Now the input stage handled the signal better. Then the constant current and current mirroring techniques that the chip designers invented were applied in discrete form. This made the circuit even more linear and stable.

Now another point. The music you listen in your system actually travels miles of path during its production. I'll show you the schematics of an inner world of a typical mixing console when we hopefully get together. So that alone takes that argument away.

In terms of true fidelity. What is the criteria? If the criteria is your ear then it varies from one to another and all comes down to individual preference. But if it is the amount of distortion then I can tell you that an amplifier which was touted as "reference" and cost arm and a leg had a terrible thd level. It is a brand that probably some of you have in your rack. The fact is that our ears like distortion. That is just the way of our nature is. We dislike steril sound and probably an amplifier that produces it is the cleanest one in terms of thd. So let's be very careful about this term of true fidelity.

Now that brings us to another point which will also reply to REM.

I make music. I record mix and master it digitally. I print it on vinyl. How can it sound better in vinyl? I already finished the final sound on digital domain and it sounded the way I wanted it sound on my monitors.

Applying compression is totally irrelevant. It is used during the production of the music and at that stage whatever works is allowed to get to the sound you want, even if it is clipped to hell. During production anything that works is allowed. Otherwise how do you think all these big guitar sounds of the 70s were achieved?

Printing it on vinyl will make it sound different but not neccessarily better as I have already decided on the best sound after I produced it. That decision mechanism belongs to me as the artist. But you, as the listener have the right to comment on it and that varies from one to another.

[Marco]

Hi Cemal,

Good to hear that you're keeping well. We'll definitely hook up sometime... I'm due in Glasgow probably mid October

I'll tackle your reply in more detail later (loaded with the flu just now and just about to pop off for a kip), but just to address this bit:

I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard.

I agree, but I'm not talking about old designs. My point was in reference to currently produced valve amps, which I know and use, such as those from Glenn Croft and Anthony Matthews of Tube Distinctions - there are others, too. These are all point-to-point wired, without a PCB in sight, by vastly experienced and very capable audio designers.

They deliberately choose to build their valve-based equipment that way because they consider it to be sonically superior, even though these days there are other options available.

From experience I can tell you that not only does their equipment sound utterly stunning and outperform many rival solid-state designs using the modern circuit techniques you mention, but they are also in no way noisy - far from it.

It's all about skill and implementation. I'd rather my equipment was made by a highly skilled and experienced artisan, doing point-to-point (audiophile grade) wiring and making astonishingly high quality (bespoke) designs in small quantities to dedicated enthusiasts, than some mass-produced equipment largely designed by computer and full of, in my experience, sonically degrading PCBs, no matter how supposedly 'wonderful' the new technology used is!

Progress (in terms of the thread topic)? Not for me in this area, in terms of my system. Introducing PCBs into the design of my valve equipment, no matter how well implemented by modern technology, would be a backwards step, sonically.

I guess with these things it's a case of different stokes for different folks.......

YMMV

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

Hi Marco,

Going not too bad. I am sorry that I could not get in touch. While I was on holiday in Istanbul the guys took it a bit easy and we got behind with the jobs. So the last two weeks were totally panicky. Yes, amazingly the sun is shining today but you know how the weather goes in Glasgow.

I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard. It also goes against your view of keeping the audio path as short as possible. Longer component leads mean not only longer signal path but also a lot of inductance which is exactly what you don't want in your circut.

Let me touch on the shorter signal path issue a bit more. More components in an amplifier does not neccessarily mean the signal path is longer. The signal path is always as short as it needs to be. The rest of the components are there to make the components that carry the signal do their job as linear and stable as possible. Also take the example of a single transistor input stage that I mentioned above. Old designs utilised it because it was the only option. Then differential input (two transistor) topology came about. The performance of the circuit increased. Now the input stage handled the signal better. Then the constant current and current mirroring techniques that the chip designers invented were applied in discrete form. This made the circuit even more linear and stable.

Now another point. The music you listen in your system actually travels miles of path during its production. I'll show you the schematics of an inner world of a typical mixing console when we hopefully get together. So that alone takes that argument away.

In terms of true fidelity. What is the criteria? If the criteria is your ear then it varies from one to another and all comes down to individual preference. But if it is the amount of distortion then I can tell you that an amplifier which was touted as "reference" and cost arm and a leg had a terrible thd level. It is a brand that probably some of you have in your rack. The fact is that our ears like distortion. That is just the way of our nature is. We dislike steril sound and probably an amplifier that produces it is the cleanest one in terms of thd. So let's be very careful about this term of true fidelity.

Now that brings us to another point which will also reply to REM.

I make music. I record mix and master it digitally. I print it on vinyl. How can it sound better in vinyl? I already finished the final sound on digital domain and it sounded the way I wanted it sound on my monitors.

Applying compression is totally irrelevant. It is used during the production of the music and at that stage whatever works is allowed to get to the sound you want, even if it is clipped to hell. During production anything that works is allowed. Otherwise how do you think all these big guitar sounds of the 70s were achieved?

Printing it on vinyl will make it sound different but not neccessarily better as I have already decided on the best sound after I produced it. That decision mechanism belongs to me as the artist. But you, as the listener have the right to comment on it and that varies from one to another.

Hi Celmal,
Good points and I don't disagree,but I think a good point was raised about the overuse of compression in modern recordings in order to make them as loud as possible.It destroys the dynamic range and renders a lot of stuff unlistenable IMO.

I don't use vinyl,I use a SB Touch and it sounds great,particularly with good 24/96 files.I have noted though that all the best sounding music I have is 20 or more years old,the very best being a Duke Ellington 24/96 I just downloaded on Friday.It sounds stunningly good,and nothing modern I've heard,hi rez or otherwise,comes close.