Psycho-acoustic memory and the Audio Illusionist.

Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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I think that's more a question of the size of the gap than the length of the memory. The differences between speakers, and human voices can be/often is dramatic. Identifying them doesn't require A/B switching at all; the speed of such switching is irrelevant. The differences between amps, preamps, DACs, etc. should be, and usually is very subtle if audible at all. That's where we may need to switch very quickly, or give ourselves more time to hear what we want to hear.

Tim
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I think that's more a question of the size of the gap than the length of the memory. The differences between speakers, and human voices can be/often is dramatic. Identifying them doesn't require A/B switching at all; the speed of such switching is irrelevant. The differences between amps, preamps, DACs, etc. should be, and usually is very subtle if audible at all. That's where we may need to switch very quickly, or give ourselves more time to hear what we want to hear.

Tim

Yup, I agree.
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Does anyone ever wonder if the differences we do hear in electronics are due to aberrations in the frequency response that were either deliberately designed in or happened as a result of the circuit design/topology?

There should be a difference in sound between a tube power amp and a SS power amp due to the output transformer used in tube amps. Tube amps also aren’t going to have the iron grip control in the bass that good SS amps do because of their low dampening factor.

The gap between SS preamps and tube preamps sound-wise should be much smaller. How hard is it to make a circuit linear from 20 Hz to 20 KHz? Not very is the correct answer. So, unless you have designed in some dips and peaks in order to emphasize some part of the frequency range, we should really be down to listening to the differences between passive parts that are used in the circuit. And if you have a preamp with coke-can sized Teflon capacitors, you have to wait 8 years for the caps to break in before your preamp doesn’t sound horrid anymore (just kidding Myles!). Seriously, some people have a religion with capacitors. It has to be paper in oil, or they have to be Teflon or MIT, or Mundorf get out your platinum credit card caps. And that’s just the film caps. There is another whole religion with electrolytic caps unless of course you are CJ and you don’t use them at all.

The bottom line is that with properly designed audio circuits, there shouldn’t be huge differences in sound quality.
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Does anyone ever wonder if the differences we do hear in electronics are due to aberrations in the frequency response that were either deliberately designed in or happened as a result of the circuit design/topology?

There should be a difference in sound between a tube power amp and a SS power amp due to the output transformer used in tube amps. Tube amps also aren’t going to have the iron grip control in the bass that good SS amps do because of their low dampening factor.

The gap between SS preamps and tube preamps sound-wise should be much smaller. How hard is it to make a circuit linear from 20 Hz to 20 KHz? Not very is the correct answer. So, unless you have designed in some dips and peaks in order to emphasize some part of the frequency range, we should really be down to listening to the differences between passive parts that are used in the circuit. And if you have a preamp with coke-can sized Teflon capacitors, you have to wait 8 years for the caps to break in before your preamp doesn’t sound horrid anymore (just kidding Myles!). Seriously, some people have a religion with capacitors. It has to be paper in oil, or they have to be Teflon or MIT, or Mundorf get out your platinum credit card caps. And that’s just the film caps. There is another whole religion with electrolytic caps unless of course you are CJ and you don’t use them at all.

The bottom line is that with properly designed audio circuits, there shouldn’t be huge differences in sound quality.

Well actually the caps in preamplifiers are easy to burn-in :) Just plug in that CD player and let it rip. Not that many tubes in a preamp and they are of the small signal variety, so not much cost involved in replacing them :) (unless one is of course using some exotic NOS.)

Tube amps on the other hand, are a different monster. Don't know too many people who like to leave their tube amplifiers on for a week or two straight. And that's 336 out of say 2000 hrs lifetime shot already :) And we're not talking chump change here; retubing the cj ART retube runs a cool $1600/set of tubes. And think about what it costs to retube a ARC 610T :) Of course, the caps in a tube amp may form quicker than that of a tube preamp because of the voltage involved.
 

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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Well actually the caps in preamplifiers are easy to burn-in :) Just plug in that CD player and let it rip. Not that many tubes in a preamp and they are of the small signal variety, so not much cost involved in replacing them :) (unless one is of course using some exotic NOS.)

Tube amps on the other hand, are a different monster. Don't know too many people who like to leave their tube amplifiers on for a week or two straight. And that's 336 out of say 2000 hrs lifetime shot already :) And we're not talking chump change here; retubing the cj ART retube runs a cool $1600/set of tubes. And think about what it costs to retube a ARC 610T :) Of course, the caps in a tube amp may form quicker than that of a tube preamp because of the voltage involved.

I often found myself not listening to my system because I knew I only had about an hour to sit down and listen and I didn't want to fire up my tube amp and let it warm up for an hour only to listen to it for an hour. Now that I have crossed back over to the dark side, my system stays turned on 24/7 (except for my Ampex 350s) so it is always ready to listen to. And yeah, I'm not going to miss retubing my Jadis Defy 7 MKII. 12 KT-88s aren't cheap either. I damn sure won't miss biasing that monster. The Defy 7 has one of the dumbest bias schemes around.
 

DaveyF

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Jul 31, 2010
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Mark, I have to agree with you that waiting for your system to "warm up" isn't that great. Otoh, i tend to take that into consideration these days and just come back to listen after about 1/2 hour.
The benefits of tube amps are, IMO, worth the headaches of ownership:D However, I'm a little lucky as I have a good tech nearby. Otoh, when my ss Rowland is in the system,I do have a greater sense of shall we say...... Security:rolleyes:
 
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Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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The bottom line is that with properly designed audio circuits, there shouldn’t be huge differences in sound quality.

Mark, you are soooooo close to crossing over. :)

Tim
 

FrantzM

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MylesBAstor

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Thats interesting. IME once a power tube has a couple hundred hours on it (speaking generally here) it sounds the same to me after a few minutes of warmup. Of course, I am talking SET amps, which are shall we say "musical by nature".

Tom

I actually find in the SE that I had around, that they take much longer than a traditional PP triode or tetrode to warm up. I assume some of it may be due to them using interstage coupling transformers. My cj's take 30-45 mins to sound their best. While they sound nice at turn on, the biggest thing missing is say the amp's ability to reproduce harmonics and capture the recording's sense of space.
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
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We should be careful what we call "auditory memory" and how we use the term... Seconds for an AB test, sure. However, if I put away my Magnepans for a week, then replaced them with a pair of midrange Klipsch horns, I am pretty sure I could hear the difference and accurately describe it. (Months, maybe depends on how old you are... :) ) And, decades after he passed away, I can still "hear" my grandfather's voice. I do not interject this to argue definitions of terms, just to highlight that the definition and context are important...

In my experience, after any modification or up grade, sound quality improved and I were happy for a while till I got used to the new sound and thought that was a normal sound to me. if I don't switch on my system for a few weeks (too much heat create in summer time), my memory will be down graded by car radio and when I listen to my system again I will be happy again for a while till to get use again
tony ma
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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In my experience, after any modification or up grade, sound quality improved and I were happy for a while till I got used to the new sound and thought that was a normal sound to me. if I don't switch on my system for a few weeks (too much heat create in summer time), my memory will be down graded by car radio and when I listen to my system again I will be happy again for a while till to get use again
tony ma

I concur - I frequently switch systems, going up in resolution, going down, so that I know what it is I'm listening to. I have a couple pairs of speakers other than my own so that I know what others sound like, and I switch them in (one pair actually very often.....)

Isn't that like driving? After a while, you get used to the speed, and it doesn't seem that fast anymore..... until you have to slam on the brakes to avoid becoming pavement pizza.... So, on long distance trips, I make it a point to speed up, and slow down so that I don't get lulled into complacency.
 

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