AudioPhiles don't want NEUTRAL, Audiophiles Don't like NEUTRAL (Part Two)

Dear god, so it must be BETTER than the real thing!!!!!

 

Hey, why bother with this rational line of thinking when, rather than checking out a modern hi-end tube pre or power amp, you could just presume that tube is tube is tube!?

My system woke up when I ugraded from a decent SS pre to Cary's SLP-98. I was stunned. Recently I upgraded to their flagship SLP-05. Simply insane!!

 

Is that Yesterday and Today in the picture a "compilation" album?

 

The Peanut Butter Conspiracy

The Stax SM-T1 amplifier for my Stax Signature Headphones deliver the signal to the earspeakers with direct coupled triodes driven by the kind of low-noise J-Fets that are getting hard to find these days. It was the closest to "Nothing" I could get my hands on at the time—1988. Maybe not the 'funnest' way of listening to music but super-high resolution and no grain at all. When you push tube technology to the wall what you get is a lot less noise modulation than with solid state, There's a trade-off in delivering current in the lowest frequencies, but the best of tubes have less "grain" than the best of solid state. There's a 'crunchy' distortion in solid state gear that is an essential aspect of the tonal palette of Hard Rock. There's a rich 'smooth' distortion in tube gear that is part of the sound of classic electric Jazz Guitar.

And so it goes . . .

 

Sorry can't resist.

 

"Smell-o-Vision replaces Television!"

Now first of all, you can't smell her . . .

I love the smell of old tube gear warming up in the morning!

 

I wish I could hear that setup.

 

Department of hopelessly sexist but obviously inevitable comments

That's some quality gear!

 

If you can live with all those voices in your head

There are current iterations of those sorts of designs that go further than what I own.

I replaced the resistors, internal wiring, AC wiring, resistors and caps of the Stax SM-T1 with higher quality components than in the stock version. I rolled tubes like nobody's business. I also bypassed the 'ALPs' brand potentiometer [volume control] with a network of Vishay resistors and changed level either via the headphone outlets of the DAT machines [low-res, and obviously so] or or at the pre-amp level at home [higher-rez, notably so on my OK but not mindblowing turntable, a Merrill Mod- AR with a Grace 707 arm]. I made all these modifications to have less of the sonic signature of the headphone amp. Similar measures will be found in current SOTA headphone systems. It's the cheapest route to the very top end of audio gear. I found it a very useful tool in recording.

 

I'd like to hear her set-up! (Damn! We're gonna get this thread shut down!)

 

My experience with tubes is with headphone amps. The less expensive tube amps have some of that tube style thickening of the sound. The expensive tube amps have none of that. You are left with only tube goodness, none of the obvious bad traits. Not only that, but the expensive tube amps give a soundstage that just opens up and becomes more dimensional. The sound is also as neutral as I could ever want it to be. Not rolled off at either end or bloaty in the middle. Unfortunately those tube amps are expensive ($3K to $4k). I can dream. I'll have to settle for getting an amp that gets me part way there for less money. I'm not there yet. I know now what great tube amps can do. The great ones are not at all like the cheap ones. I place my Lyr amp (hybrid tube) at the high end of the cheap sound quality range. It still suffers from some tube badness (some thickening and some loss of detail resolution due to that thickening) without giving me the jump in soundstage goodness.

 

Continued????


Hang on a minute.......






.....OK, I'm back.

(insert "eating popcorn" emoticon)

 

...And inspect her grooves.

 

I love those deep grooves!

 

Why am I always adjusting my treble control?

 

Ho boy! We're getting carried away! Maybe this topic is done.

 

Gentlemen, we have a winner!

Is that an Empire Tonearm in her right hand?

 

I sure hope none of our many sister audiophiles aren't offended!

 

I don't actually know if I like neutral or not, I think I do but it's hard to tell if I get there or not. Even using tapes I recorded of bands in my 'eighties living space, I get to a "real" sound that may or may not be neutral.

What I do like is "flexibility." I have tube amps as they bring the "real" into my home more often, and they both have a treble cut that is outside the signal path and shunts treble to ground, and I find this wonderfully useful for many cds. I can also roll tubes to tailor the sound though I do that less and less as I've really dialed the sound in over time. I also have two ohm settings for my speakers and my speakers fall fairly well in between so both settings can be used, and a bias setting for the output tubes to add weight. And I can "ride the gain" between my DAC preamp, my tubed preamp (which has very adjustable gain, separate for each channel) and the volume control on my amplifier.

Flexibility, adjusting several factors, this makes me happy.

 

The Mafia's Greatest Hits!

Those Tommy James Hits have some kind of sound "quality" alright. Perfect for a booming jukebox or the dashboard speaker of your Impala.

 

Well, that CD is kind of edgy in the upper mids, anyway. I am not crazy about it, but it's still nice to have most of the mono singles available. They got at least two of them wrong. Notice that "Mony Mony" is the wrong edit.

 

Yes, it was.

 

Does the carpet match the drapes?

 

So my take-away from this thread is that console stereos make women take off their pants? I've been doing this all wrong.