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What is the Single Ended Triode thing?

awkwardbydesign said:
That is your deficiency, not the terms'.
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No. All those terms are relative to a person's experience and more importantly a matter of personal preference.
Otherwise we would all agree that digital is better than analogue and solid state is better than valves and distant-miking is better than close-miking, or vice-versa. Which we definitely don't.

And our personal judgements mean little to other people. GTAudio is using his opinion as a form of undeniable truth...
 
Last summer I went to the Audio Consultants & Crescent Recording Studio Live Session where one can listen to the sound of the jazz musicians playing and singing in the live room then walk to the mixing room and hear what's coming out of the monitors.
Very educational experience. Live sounds very different, I could hardly hear the whisper-quiet voice of the singer and the drum kit sound was just huge.
You don't hear that in a jazz club because vocals and some instruments are amplified for balace.
 
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I too have a musician daughter, she plays through alot of club pa systems of varying quality, but a few years ago she did a session through my speakers and amp, she sounded very close to her unamplified performance in both voice and guitar sounds.

Worth listening to the end.. she has quite a voice
 
tuga said:
Last summer I went to the Audio Consultants & Crescent Recording Studio Live Session where one can listen to the sound of the jazz musicians playing and singing in the live room then walk to the mixing room and hear what's coming out of the monitors.
Very educational experience. Live sounds very different, I could hardly hear the whisper-quiet voice of the singer and the drum kit sound was just huge.
You don't hear that in a jazz club because vocals and some instruments are amplified for balace.
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Absolutely. I've been in a "group" where we used to just jam for fun. I've helped a Jazz musician freind of my fathers in his recording studio. I've attended classical concerts involved in putting up the lighting rig, so have heard them practice without reinforcement and then play with reinforcement for the actual concert. I've been to countless musical instrument manufacturer shows (basically like hifi shows but for musicians), where they've had demos and masterclasses. I've had professional drumming lessons. I've had friends who played violin, piano and trumpet. I've attended countless pub Jazz bands who all played unreinforced (by any PA). The one thing that all that direct contact with music being played live and the proces of putting it down to a recording medium, is that recorded music does not sound, and never will sound (because it's deliberately changed during the recording/mastering process) exactly the same as live instruments.
 
Steve 57 said:
I too have a musician daughter, she plays through alot of club pa systems of varying quality, but a few years ago she did a session through my speakers and amp, she sounded very close to her unamplified performance in both voice and guitar sounds.
Worth listening to the end.. she has quite a voice
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She certainly has Steve. Great to see and thanks for sharing! 👍

Here is my daughter from 2018 when she was heavily in to Triple Threat performances. I don't have much of her own recent work except for a CD she made a couple of years back...

 
tuga said:
No. All those terms are relative to a person's experience and more importantly a matter of personal preference.
Otherwise we would all agree that digital is better than analogue and solid state is better than valves and distant-miking is better than close-miking, or vice-versa. Which we definitely don't.

And our personal judgements mean little to other people. GTAudio is using his opinion as a form of undeniable truth...
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I think you are missing the whole point of domestic hifi. It is subjective and a matter of personal preference. Any measurements are only a guide to why it sounds the way it does, and a tool to fix any heard deficiencies.
 
awkwardbydesign said:
I think you are missing the whole point of domestic hifi. It is subjective and a matter of personal preference. Any measurements are only a guide to why it sounds the way it does, and a tool to fix any heard deficiencies.
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Exactly. I prefer to think of measurements as being tools to be used by designers.

I have had decades of enjoyment from triode amplifiers, including some SET and some PP, some 2A3, some 300B and some 845. Nearly all of them sounded simply glorious but at no point did it ever occur to me to compare their measurements.

No one asks to see measurements for musical instruments. There is no need. We just listen.
 
Not too sure whether price or topology rule.
After 30 years of owning SET, PP, and SS amps, some costing an ‘arm and a leg’, there now resides in our Audio Note system a £120 T-amp. Wow, it sounds Fabulous, with a capital ‘F’, though sure others would disagree.
 
awkwardbydesign said:
I think you are missing the whole point of domestic hifi. It is subjective and a matter of personal preference. Any measurements are only a guide to why it sounds the way it does, and a tool to fix any heard deficiencies.
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You are missing the point that people’s preferences are not generally transmissible or universally accepted.

That, personal taste, is what’s subjective not audio.
Domestic reproduction of recorded music generally aims at high fidelity, (performance) which is measurable to a point.
 
tuga said:
You are missing the point that people’s preferences are not generally transmissible or universally accepted.
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They can be if you make the effort to try to understand them. Just like with measurements, it takes some work, but if you can't be bothered then it won't.
 
The trouble is... the limited measurements used don't highlight what's going on in an amplifier when it's reproducing music connected to loudspeakers
If amplifiers where as perfect as some measurements seem to indicate, we would have full reproduction of the source.
In my experience we rarely have full reproduction of the source
 
awkwardbydesign said:
I think you are making a mistake here too. The aim is, or should be, the greatest involvement with the music, not fidelity to a measurement. Otherwise the artist is wasting their time.
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Artists and sound engineers produced the music recording, hi-fi equipment reproduces that recording.
An audio engineer does not design audio equipment for "involvement with the music" but high fidelity.

I agree that the goal of the system is to provide listening enjoyment and recomend that people should get equipment they like not follow measurements, SINAD tables or predicted speaker preference ratings.
Buy different audiophiles will prefer different kinds of 'presentation', no single support, source, amplifier or speakers will provide the same level of enjoyment to all audiophiles.

My point is that an equipment or system I find 'musical' will not be so for everyone. That belief is a mistake, no matter how often I go to recitals or whether I am a top tier professional violinist or a famous mastering engineer. As you might have noticed some people prefer vinyl and others digital, some accurate and others euphonic equipment, some narrow directivity speakers and others wide or even omni, some a treated others an untreated room...
Due to the inherent imperfections of stereo recording and reproduction it is a mistake to claim that a particular system or topology sounds more 'realistic' because 'realistic', like 'musical', is a matter of opinion.
 
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I am interested in putting together a system that can extract as much information as possible from the support, amplify that signal and transduce it as accurately as possible and a specific set of requirements needs to be met for that to be achieved with SET amplification.
The absolute level of performance depends on the performance potential of the topologies chosen as well as the adequability of the system to the room, regardless of personal preference.
But, with preference/enjoyment being the ultimate goal, high performance (accurate reproduction of the signal) may or may not be the right option depending on the individual's taste.

If someone is happy with a 12Wpc Leben driving a pair of 86dB speakers or a conical stylus over a high-res tip then that's what he sould be aiming for.
 
tuga said:
An audio engineer does not design audio equipment for "involvement with the music" but high fidelity.
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I've heard very well regarded recording engineer (Decca) and designers of high end studio equipment use phrases like 'these (we were talking about a 70s mixing desk mic pre) don't sound particularly transparent and they can be a bit noisy, but they have a lovely sound and I would use them in preference to that (points at a current digital mixer costing about the same as my house) every time for a small chamber ensemble'.

Some recording engineers do pick equipment to sound 'right' and 'nice' and 'involving' over accurate. much in the same way they will chop and edit the hell out of a performance to make it sound more correct, pleasant and enjoyable than accurate to the original performance. Likewise many Audio engineers will design equipment to have a particular sonic signature. Studios will often run ATC loudspeakers not because they are the absolute best loudspeakers system available or the highest fidelity (they are quite respectable though), but they are reliable and repeatable. sit in front of any pair or SCM100ASLs and you know what you are listening to.
 
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