Bashing...

jaxwired · Nov 20, 2014

Why do Tube lovers consistenly bash solid state and why do vinyl lovers consistenly bash digital?

Its common and almost entirely in one direction.

Could it it be simply due to insecurity since science and measurements are overwhelmingly on the side of solid state and digital? Or are there other motivations?

Myles B. Astor · Nov 20, 2014

dlb2 · Nov 20, 2014

Insecurity due to science and measurements? Who cares about science and measurements. Shouldn't your system just sound good to you? Whether that involves tubes or SS, analog or digital, it's up to the end user. Besides, science has nothing to do with it. Music, and everything else, including science, is an art form.

I guess to actually answer your question though, it's because tubes and vinyl sound the best.

jaxwired · Nov 20, 2014

dlb2 said:
Insecurity due to science and measurements? Who cares about science and measurements. Shouldn't your system just sound good to you? Whether that involves tubes or SS, analog or digital, it's up to the end user. Besides, science has nothing to do with it. Music, and everything else, including science, is an art form.

I guess to actually answer your question though, it's because tubes and vinyl sound the best.

So science and measurements are irrelevant? Not for me. I like to utilize all the information available to me when I make decisions. Ultimately listening is of course the final arbiter but placebo is a very real and big problem in high end audio.

dlb2 · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
So science and measurements are irrelevant? Not for me. I like to utilize all the information available to me when I make decisions. Ultimately listening is of course the final arbiter but placebo is a very real and big problem in high end audio.

I totally get where you're coming from. Everyone has their own way of doing things. Some people like to look at numbers and graphs while others use their ears.

Myles B. Astor · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
So science and measurements are irrelevant? Not for me. I like to utilize all the information available to me when I make decisions. Ultimately listening is of course the final arbiter but placebo is a very real and big problem in high end audio.

And science has proven that reductionism doesn't work either.

Steve · Nov 20, 2014

Gordon Teal from Texas Instruments was from the future. The rest is history.

Some say that tubes painted with red mercury sound better. :einstein:

puroagave · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
Why do Tube lovers consistenly bash solid state and why do vinyl lovers consistenly bash digital?

Its common and almost entirely in one direction.

Could it it be simply due to insecurity since science and measurements are overwhelmingly on the side of solid state and digital? Or are there other motivations?

don't worry, the tube/vinyl bashers are well represented they're on every forum. you cant escape them they even stalk members here trying to stir trouble:evil:

the tube/vinyl bashing hit a pinnacle of sorts in the 90's now I think the tide is turning.

still-one · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
Why do Tube lovers consistenly bash solid state and why do vinyl lovers consistenly bash digital?

Its common and almost entirely in one direction.

Could it it be simply due to insecurity since science and measurements are overwhelmingly on the side of solid state and digital? Or are there other motivations?

They just don't know any better. That is the only possible reason. Besides if they say it enough on the internet it becomes fact.

joeinid · Nov 20, 2014

Ha!

That's too funny.

still-one said:
They just don't know any better. That is the only possible reason. Besides if they say it enough on the internet it becomes fact.

Steve · Nov 20, 2014

Tubes to Solid State. What's next?

Will vintage tech even have a place in HiFi in the next 20 years, I wonder.

still-one · Nov 20, 2014

One of the reasons I enjoy the time I spend at Paragon is they aren't trying to sell one over the other. It's a Dogma Free Zone that goes beyond the owners personal preferences.

I usually try and avoid these topics or threads but your OP was too juicy, Now I will shut up.

dlb2 · Nov 20, 2014

Steve said:
Tubes to Solid State. What's next?

Will vintage tech even have a place in HiFi in the next 20 years, I wonder.

You mean like vinyl?

And thanks for the red mercury tip. :b

Mike · Nov 20, 2014

Checking biases at the door is the first step in becoming a true audiophile, such as: because it costs more, it will be better, all Chi-Fi is crap, tubes are better than solid state and vinyl is better than digital. The fact is, it always depends. My Pass XS amps sound better than any of my tube amps (past or present), SOME recordings sound better on my Lumin than my turntable (example: my Joe Bonamassa albums) and great values (as well as over priced rubbish) abounds.

What I constantly see and hear is audiophiles who lose all objectivity because they fall in love with the romance or story of something or worse, they follow a group. I recognize that many audiophiles don't have the time or opportunity to listen extensively for themselves, so they are looking for a quick fix or a roadmap.....but that often leads to discontent.

the professor · Nov 20, 2014

+1

Mike said:
Checking biases at the door is the first step in becoming a true audiophile, such as: because it costs more, it will be better, all Chi-Fi is crap, tubes are better than solid state and vinyl is better than digital. The fact is, it always depends. My Pass XS amps sound better than any of my tube amps (past or present), SOME recordings sound better on my Lumin than my turntable (example: my Joe Bonamassa albums) and great values (as well as over priced rubbish) abounds.

What I constantly see and hear is audiophiles who lose all objectivity because they fall in love with the romance or story of something or worse, they follow a group. I recognize that many audiophiles don't have the time or opportunity to listen extensively for themselves, so they are looking for a quick fix or a roadmap.....but that often leads to discontent.

mauidan · Nov 20, 2014

Jax, here's a review you'll enjoy. The reviewer likes the D200 more than the tube amp he owned:

The Devialet 200 Review. HiFi at its finest. | STEVE HUFF PHOTOS

wisnon · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
Why do Tube lovers consistenly bash solid state and why do vinyl lovers consistenly bash digital?

Its common and almost entirely in one direction.

Could it it be simply due to insecurity since science and measurements are overwhelmingly on the side of solid state and digital? Or are there other motivations?

And PCMers bashing DSD? LoL

atmasphere · Nov 20, 2014

jaxwired said:
Why do Tube lovers consistenly bash solid state and why do vinyl lovers consistenly bash digital?

Its common and almost entirely in one direction.

Could it it be simply due to insecurity since science and measurements are overwhelmingly on the side of solid state and digital? Or are there other motivations?

Bold: Depends on what website you are on!

IMO you don't need to know anything about technical stuff in the on-going debate. The technology is irrelevant! What is important is the market. When was the vacuum tube declared obsolete by the electronics industry? About 1965 or so? Yet here we are 49 years later and tubes are still very much with us. The LP was supposed to go the way of the dodo about 1987, according to RCA at the time, yet here we are with LP production on the rise, 1993 being the year of the least production.

In short, people must like it or they would not buy it. Some will be vocal about it and others won't. That's really all that anyone needs to know.

Now if you want the science of it, I don't think that science would back you up on the claim. The audio industry for example uses a model created between 1955 and 1965 for most of the kinds of measurements made on electronics. What has happened in the last 45 years has been major advances in our understanding of how the human ear/brain system works, yet almost none of those advances are represented by improvements in our measurement and testing regime. For example by 1965 we already knew that the ear uses higher orders (especially odd orders) of harmonics to sort out how loud a sound is, but the audio industry has pretty much ignored this fact for the last 45 years, instead encouraging design practice that actually *causes* such distortions rather than mitigating them.

Tubes, FWIW, generally speaking make less of these distortions. So recent science says something different from old science.

wisnon · Nov 20, 2014

This guy always beat his own path from way back then too:
Oskar Heil A.M.T.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The
research behind the Oskar A.V.T. ( AMT)
As a
physicist, Dr. Heil concentrated his study on how nature designed and
constructed the human ears. Then his studies concentrated on animals of a small
proportion, which can produce a loud sound, especially compared to their size.
These studies led to Dr. Heil’s formulation of his basic diaphragm design theory
and the subsequent development of the Oskar A.V.T. ( AMT) Air Velocity
Transformer.[/FONT]

[TABLE="width: 95%, align: center"]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Spurious
Diaphragm resonances:The design of the Oskar A.V.T. ( AMT) diaphragms makes
the use of dampening material with all of its detrimental effects, totally
unnecessary[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Non Uniformity
of Driving force: In the Oskar A.V.T. ( AMT), the driving force is applied
uniformly over the entire surface of a structurally rigid diaphragm by means of
the conductive aluminium foil strips.[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ability to
move air efficiently: The A.V.T. ( AMT) diaphragm’s pleats propel air at a
speed of 5.3 times their own velocity.Oskar Heil AVT/AMT[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ability to
differentiate sounds:
A principal function of the ear is to identify
voices and for this it has developed an extraordinary ability to differentiate
sounds. Single sound sources, such as a distant voice can be separated from
other sounds by concentrating our hearing apparatus upon the voice and ignore
noise or other voices which we do not want to hear[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="width: 96%"]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-------airconditioner noise -
- - - desired information[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]noise as discriminated by
the ear is always below the level of the desired
information.[/FONT]
[/TD]

[TD="width: 4%"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Volume (
Intensity) variations. The ear has little sensitivity to sound level "jumps"
or to the relative loudness of different sound’s which are audible at the same
time. For a loudspeaker, sound output levels (amplitude) over a range of
frequencies are valid criteria, but are of less importance for our ears. Our
ears are protected from damage by a construction which makes them relatively
insensitive to amplitude changes. The difference in amplitude between a whisper
and normal volume speech is not just 1:2 or 1:4, but 1:100’000.The relative
loudness of different sounds, within certain limits, is therefore not too
important to us, since the ear has the ability to adjust to different levels.
This explains why street noises do not necessarily disturb conversation level.
It also explains why we can hear an opera singer even though the sound level of
the orchestra is many times that of the voice itself. Frequency variations: In
contrast to its relative insensitivity to amplitude variations, the ear is
extremely sensitive to minute fluctuations in the frequency of sounds,
especially in the mid. frequency range. a half-tone in the musical scale
represents a frequency change of 6% while the frequency shift in the vibrato of
a violin is approximately 0.5%. In the critical midrange of 250 - 6000 Hz, we
can differentiate between two tones even when the frequency difference is as
little as 0.06%.
It is this sensitivity to frequency variations that
enable us to identify different voices. When we speak, we do not produce
constant tones, but tones which are constantly varying. We can usually recognize
a familiar voice immediately even over the telephone and can often tell the mood
of the other party by the differences in speechpattern produced by the changing
of the tension of his vocal cords.[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Frequency
variations verses amplitude variations: It is commonly accepted that the
smallest change in amplitude that the ear can detect is 1 dB, which is a power
difference of 26%. Compared to the ear’s sensitivity to frequency variations of
0.06%. Contrasting this relative insensitivity to amplitude changes with the
ear’s extreme sensitivity to frequency variations, it is difficult to understand
the loudspeaker industry’s obsession with the minor loudness variations of 1 or
2 dB in the frequency response of a loudspeaker, while completely ignoring the
audible shifting or fluttering or high frequencies which can result from changes
in membrane stiffness as a sound wave spreads transversely across a
diaphragm.[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="colspan: 2"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Phase
Differences: The Ability to Localize Sounds A listener’s ability to localize
sounds is made possible by phase differences ( time delays) resulting from the
difference in path lengths from a sound source to each ear. This ability is
frequency dependent and is more pronounced in the critical range of 500 - 3000
Hz. than at lower and higher frequencies. This is why the speed of response of a
loudspeaker diaphragm is extremly important to the faithful and realistic
reproduction of music. If the loudspeakers diaphragm cannot respond fast enough
to enable it to reproduce these transients, or if it distorts them, the
listener’s ability to recognize and localize the sound source is greatly
diminished and the realism of music reproduction and the pleasure of listening
is seriously reduced.Problems of loudspeaker design[/FONT][/TD]
[/TR]

[TR]

[TD="width: 96%"][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Spurious
diaphragm resonances: Any solid material which is made to vibrate by
striking it or otherwise setting it in motion will produce a unique pattern of
resonances characteristic of that particular material. If made to vibrate at a
specific frequency by an external driving force it will, in addition to this
frequency introduce its own resonances. In music, the pattern of these
resonances or harmonics is peculiar to each instrument and enables us to
distinguish between the sound of a saxophone (metal), for example, and an oboe
(wood) even though both instruments are playing the same fundamental note.This
charactristic, useful in recognizing musical instruments, constitute a major
problem for the loudspeaker designer, since spurious resonances generated by a
diaphragm will distort and mask the musical signal.
In order to move a large
amount of air with minimum loss and provide fast response to the transients, the
diaphragm must be extremely lightweight. However, if the diaphragm material is
too thin and light, it will not be sufficiently rigid to prevent it from flexing
and producing its own resonances. If the deformation occurs between the center
area and the edges, that portion will vibrate independently of the music signal
and produce standing waves or bell shaped vibrations which are clearly audible
as distortion. In addition, the diaphragm will store the resonant energy and,
when the music signal stops, it will continue to move in order to dissipate this
energy. The continued vibration of the diaphragm will dampen (absorb) the sharp
rising transients of the following music and seriously affect the quality of the
music reproduction[/FONT][/TD]

[TD="width: 4%"]