general question about audio amplifiers

Just to help cultivate your sense of humility, (and without suggesting it is lacking), I offer this reconstructed sequence of our discussion:

Q: Would, for example, the output waveforms be smoother on a vacuum tube than they would be on a transistor amplifier?

A(by LB): Only when the amp is underpowered for the signal it is being asked to pass.

S(by JF): Not 'only'. The transient response of the output transformers has a lot to do with it as well.

Q(by LB): Do you believe that, within the nearly linear output range of a tube amp, the output transformer is usually going to smooth out the content that a high fidelity amplifier would have passed? If that is the basis of your contention, then I must point out that transistor amplifiers can also act as low pass filters, either intentionally (treble control) or not. If your contention is not about frequency response, maybe you[r] could explain your contradiction.

R(by JF): [contrasting with magnitude frequency response] The transient response, on the other hand, deals with the behavior of the transformer when subjected to complex input signals and is affected by, among other things, the leakage reactance and interwinding capacitance in ways which wouldn't be readily apparent when exciting the transformer with a single spectral line.

R(by LB): What triggers my skepticism is the suggestion that transformer transient response uniformly tends to smooth output waveforms.

R(by JF): I'm not arguing "smoother", I'm arguing that some folks think tube sound sounds _better_ than transistor sound, whatever the reason. Perhaps it's because some of the crispy corners have been knocked off, perhaps because some of the edge rates have been slowed down, perhaps not.

At this point, I don't know whether we disagree or not. I have to ignore parts of our discussion to take either position.

Perhaps I mis-spoke; I should have said "the (usual, or more common) electronic amplifier" instead.

tube

distortion,

A lot of people have made some very interesting comments on this thread. Some of it is above my understanding; I'm not sure what a transformer is used for inside an amp, for instance.

Tube clipping of the waveform would modify the sound, and I guess that's what our family friend means by his "warmer, less tiring" sound. He's not much of a sea salt enthusiast, if anyone's wondering. Personally, I like the standard sodium chloride, with the FDA-approved traces of sodium iodide. The cheaper the better. ;)

Mike

Sounded like a verbal assault to me.

It's the way those nice smooth organic glass bottles gently mellow the flow of electrons, not like those jaggy, angular, crystalline semiconductor things.

Cheers! Rich

Yep, there is more than just NaCl in it.

Jim

Perhaps it's that warm glow they give off on cold snowy nights.

I wonder what the trace mineral/micro-nutrient content of mined salt is as compared to sea salt. I've seen some pretty funky colored "sea" salts. Grey from France (Fleur de Sel) , pink from Hawaii, black (very sulphurous) from India. The evaporating pond probably has more to do with the trace minerals than the ocean location does, but I don't know that for a "fact".

Jim

I know several of the brands give fairly good descriptions as to how they ensure the quality of the product. I wouldn't worry about pathogens as much as chemical contaminants. Salt is the original food preservation system. Not too many "germs" could handle the salt concentrations in the ponds let along the desiccation that occurs when the pond dries out and the salt pulls the moisture out of their little membranes.

Jim

AFAIK, all salt deposits are from ancient oceans, so it's *all* "sea salt". just some from older seas than others!

Best regards,

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

I guess that is true, but how it is created can be different. The current gourmet salts are created from shallow pools evaporating in the sun. That couldn't account for the gigantic chunks of salts found in deposits. There is some fundemental difference in how the salt was separated from the water and the conditions that occurred when that happened. If you want to get REALLY down to details, it is all space salt, created in the depths of some old star, try that as a marketing gimmick. Wait, I'm too late! Astor brand salt!

Jim

"John Fields" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Actually, I think a sense of humility is a prequisite for any competent but human engineer. And it is not a bad thing for people generally to cultivate.

The issue is not my prowess. The issue is how to reconcile a set of inconsistent positions. I had actually thought, incorrectly it seems, that you would be able to see the inconsistency rather than trying to bluster your way out. You could take my prior post as a compliment.

The fact is that you have come down on both sides of the issue with respect to whether the frequency response (which includes the transient response) of a tube amp transformer will generally tend to smooth waveforms presented to it. You initially disagreed with my position on that, and later let loose of your initial position, but have never quite managed to acknowledge the change.

I have never claimed to be an authority, so for the sake of discussion, I will translate your exaggeration into "have acted as if knew" about something. ("Anything"?)

So, acknowledging an error is "back-pedalling" and somehow inconsistent with believing oneself to have relevant knowledge of some subject. I suspect that view may explain a lot here.

Funny, but I recall using the favored Ascii schematic editor just so I could post a few circuits here. And I've written enough expressions to falsify your "no math" charge unless you are trivially referring to some kind of algebraic transformations all laid out. And on several occasions, including a post today, I have described the operation of portions of a circuit.

I cannot speak for the horse, but I decline, thanks.

So, did you or did you not contradict my claim that output waveforms will be smoother from a vacuum tube than they would be from a solid state amp only when the amp is underpowered for the signal it is being asked to pass?

And did you or did you not, after a discussion about transformer transient response, finally abandon the "smoother" position for tube amps operating in their near linear output range?

ROFL!

No, of course not. I am claiming that a sense of humility is worthwhile for everybody, myself included. I have no interest in some sort of domination by means other than rational and correct argument. I would just as soon be shown wrong and learn something as prevail.

I suggest we drop this branch. My comment, as you could see for yourself if you were in a better mood, was not maliciously intended, nor was it intended to incite you. If not for my dislike of little smilies all over the place, there would have been one on that paragraph.

That's really going over the top, John. Any humility I have brought up has been only in reference to the attitude most people need to have in order to recognize an error or inconsistency in their position. I take your suggestion that I am demanding or asking for unthinking acceptance of my statements as truth to be insulting. As for "evidence", I wonder how that could exist for a claim of infallibility.

Huh? What makes you think I seek comfort here? As for some kind of settlement, I had no idea whether you were still disagreeing with me, (as I stated in the post that set you off).

I think we agree on that, at least. In fact, I have made no argument to contravene such a position.

Uh, no, that is not my claim. If you review our subthread more carefully, (or my recent extract of it), you should be able to see that "smoother" has been your claim, not mine. Perhaps that is the whole, comical root of this little tempest.

Guilty as charged. I act is if I believe what I know to be true, until shown otherwise. What would you prefer? That I pose every statement as some sort of weak hypothetical? For your benefit, I would be happy to agree that there is an implicit qualifier in front of every factual statement I make: "Unless I am mistaken and become aware of it, I believe:".

Readily granted.

Believe what you like. I disagree with your characterization, but cannot imagine how to debate such notions with you.

This is too much, now. After I try to get to the root of your contradiction, and before we ever got there as far as I can tell, you insisted "I'm not arguing 'smoother'". Maybe you can make that argument, and maybe it can be considered a refutation once made, but I have not yet seen it.

Ok, when it comes from you I will not interpret "I am not arguing X" in an argument about X as any abandonment of your position on X. I may have read more into your words than was there.

As for "some people like tube sound better", that is not anything I have denied or argued against. Nor do I know of any obvious way to relate a position on that subject to this "smoother" notion that is different from soft limiting. (Given what I have read about the phase sensitivity of human hearing, I doubt there is such a relation.)

I've considered trying to get that better defined, too, but for any of the usual meanings, my skepticism still applied. If it is going to involve only phase response, (given that we are holding the magnitude response constant in this discussion by implicit agreement), then I am unable to come up with a definition that resembles anything (I believe to be) commonly meant by the term.

My hopes for a meaningful argument here are severely limited at this point. If you are not arguing some ill-defined "smoother", then I am not up to wanting to revive such an argument.

It's easy to settle this question with a simple experiement I have conducted many times for different individuals who have all come to the same conclusion. All you need is a vacuum tube, and a metal can TO3 type transistor, and a hard floor surface, concrete is best. Drop each one, the transister, then the tube from an equal height and the tube definitely has the warmer sound... the transistor is harsh, more tinny by comparison. Anyone listening to a side by side comparison will agree.