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  1. analogsa

    Turntable Theory on the Optimal Turntable

    Yet, there are plenty of examples where the stiffness dogma is broken, but the sound does not appear to suffer. What about air-bearing tonearms? Should those be bolted down stiffly, or is a free standing pod ok?
  2. analogsa

    Jeff Polan's New NextGen PHONO Preamp!

    This card looks like it has been designed in the 80ies. You just don't see this kind of pcb layout and routing anymore. A true museum piece.
  3. analogsa

    Best audiophile switch

    If a switch produces better audible results in a particular setup and to a particular set of ears, that's all that counts. It is only the end result that counts and for better or worse, this isn't an engineering discipline with clearly stated objectives and design parameters.
  4. analogsa

    Best audiophile switch

    Better clocks require better power supplies and better regulation. More than enough effort to be worth a little extra :)
  5. analogsa

    Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

    The output impedance of a typical SET is perhaps in the order of 3ohms. A 10m run of speaker wires will increase this by how much? 2-3%? Can anyone notice this?
  6. analogsa

    Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

    Surely there is some context to this preference. As far as amps go, some topologies yield very easily to balanced connections and others do not. It makes little sense to add a balanced link between a SE preamp and a SET power amp. Apart from the exceptionally rare case where the preamp output...
  7. analogsa

    Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

    In the context of amplifiers based upon a global loop nfb this certainly makes sense. It is rather surprising that nfb free, bandwidth limited amplifiers do not appear to be significantly more immune to audible cable effects. I can believe that at -140db some contact effects are indeed...
  8. analogsa

    Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

    Once you put together numbers and notice the complete lack of measurements, it becomes clear why these explanations are more like Voodoo than science. At what level do these effects manifest themselves? -200db?
  9. analogsa

    Is it possible for a tweeter to “partially fail”?

    All sorts of unpleasant things can and do happen. A severe overload can cause the coil former to overheat, change shape and start rubbing against the pole piece. The overheating may also cause a partial short between windings.
  10. analogsa

    Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

    Nothing fundamentally wrong with Voodoo. Are there more convincing explanations for sonic differencies when all other variables are kept constant and just the metallurgy is varied? Ofc vs occ vs all the silver and gold flavours? And yes, let's not forget platinum too. What do the correlations...
  11. analogsa

    Strange bias setup..

    Thanks for posting this! By separating biasing and nfb application, very low resistance values can be used for the NFB network with a large compensation cap. Otoh, a huge electrolytic cap is now needed for decoupling. Is it a worthwhile tradeoff where sound is concerned? Not obvious to me.
  12. analogsa

    Strange bias setup..

    Could you please upload the entire circuit? Thanks.
  13. analogsa

    Why negative reviews can be unethical and misleading: 10audio.com

    Agree about the lack of magic, but "exactly as it sounds" is not a description I find useful. Is it just an excuse for joyless sound? Does it also describe the sound of an over engineered, deep nfb, vanishing distortion SS amp?
  14. analogsa

    Why Is My Lampi DAC blowing Rectifier Tubes

    Unlikely. The fact that rectified voltage is as expected almost guarantees there is no excessive current draw. Too high an input capacitor sounds a little fantastic, a capacitor which has developed leakage is certainly a possibility but very likely will bring the plate voltage down. If you...
  15. analogsa

    I am sick of failing amplifiers

    Or is it because of poorly implemented negative feedback, applied with the sole intention of obtaining amazing paper specs? What is your definition for low distortion?
  16. analogsa

    advice please on cleaning up a midrange issue

    That Atoll amp... not good at all imho.
  17. analogsa

    I am sick of failing amplifiers

    Another, even bigger advantage, is that you can then sell it for $8900. You don't even need a nice case or nice termination.
  18. analogsa

    How Good a CD Transport is Required to Sound Better than Streaming?

    These are not opamps. They can be used as unity gain voltage buffers or VI converters.
  19. analogsa

    I am sick of failing amplifiers

    Not sure what rectifier are you guys discussing: no mercury in the tube lineup mentioned above. And mercury does not take a first cap, it's strictly choke input. It also needs warm up time, hence delayed B+. Very unusual to see such rectifiers in modern commercial equipment. Some people seem...
  20. analogsa

    High Quality Step Down?

    All such exercises done outside the phono pre will increase the noise and/or mess up the loading.
  21. analogsa

    Getting Good Sound From “Regular” Rooms

    It hardly absorbs anything below a few kHz. Not necessarily a problem. The choice of a good speaker/listener position can sort out many room issues.
  22. analogsa

    Bakoon Amp-41R and 51R integrated amps using SATRI circuit

    Yes, in the earlier Sit amps the outputs were custom made by SemiSouth. Sadly, that manufacturer bankrupted. The current Sit4 is using the ancient Tokin devices.
  23. analogsa

    Bakoon Amp-41R and 51R integrated amps using SATRI circuit

    The rear panel is in direct contradiction with the text in the blurb explaining what SIC stands for and what are the basic properties of the devices. Pass has been buying obsolete parts for years in order to be able to offer SIT amps today. Common sense suggests there are no SITs in the...
  24. analogsa

    Bakoon Amp-41R and 51R integrated amps using SATRI circuit

    It should but is not :) You use what you can get your hands on. Weird they are making a fuss out of the switching characteristics, as if those matter in a linear amp. On-resistance? Please.
  25. analogsa

    Neutral power amp recommendations?

    These were just the rectifiers, not the signal tubes.
  26. analogsa

    Clocks

    This may be oversimplifying it a bit. How exactly would a dac make use of a 10MHz clock? It is not generally a frequency dacs use internally. A dac which synthesises MCK/word clock out of a 10MHz clock relies on a pll circuit which already is a compromise. Or it may still rely on its internal...
  27. analogsa

    What Virtues and Benefits do SS Phono Stages Provide? If Spinning Vinyl, Why not Just Do Tubes?

    The typical way to achieve low noise with low ouput carts and tubes is to use an SUT. So, at the end a tube phono stage will combine all sorts of interesting colourations: transformer hysteresis, low frequency core distortion, several coupling capacitors with their unavoidable flavours and...
  28. analogsa

    Mark Levinson on today’s audio industry

    Practically all sigma/delta dac chips contain digital filters. To the best of my knowledge only the PCM1794, among the older generation of chips, offered the option to bypass the digital filter and that required a specific input data format and mono operation. A single 1794 is doomed to use the...
  29. analogsa

    Mark Levinson on today’s audio industry

    "if distortion/harmonics components have been intentionally added to sweeten the sound" This seems to be well received when done with technically unnecessary tube stages. Which also add reverb thanks to tube microphony. Why would achieving something similar be wrong if done in a DSP? This...
  30. analogsa

    Mark Levinson on today’s audio industry

    "what happens when he puts a pure digital sine wave thought the Wadax dac and how it is reconstructed at the analog outputs." Still not clear to me. How can a sine wave be reconstructed into anything other than a sine wave? Perhaps checking the FR for a wide range of amplitudes would be more...

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