When do our source components get to be too good?

[madbrayniak]

Hey all, I was having this discussion with a buddy of mine the other day and I really did not have a great way of answering it.

When do source components get to be too accurate?

You read magazines like Stereophile, Sound&Vision, etc. and you can almost always bet that the equipment that costs more is usually going to have at least one praise for having the edge over another in a certain area.

Example:

Equipment A has stronger more accurate bass while Equipment B has the accuracy and airiness in the highs that I could only dream of!

Or better yet

Turntable A sounds great and well balanced but Turntable B gets down in those grooves to extract every last detail.

We got to talking about this because of the fact that when you get too accurate you make a lot of your old music actually sound bad....maybe there is an error in the recording you never noticed before?

Honestly this is part of the reason I like tubes, they are not known as being the end all in detail but tends to be known as a "softer" technology when it comes to music playback.

I would really like to hear what others have to say in this regard.

[pvannest]

I don't know about everyone else but I do believe there is a level of truth to that.   I have been on a quest updating my system from scratch and have gotten to the point that the resolution and smoothness are where I want them.    Then just last night after cleaning a relatively new album, (Beatles Sargent Pepper) I was shocked to hear substantial distortion on side two.   We are not talking about difficult to track passages or anything like that.   I immediately got up and started to check the system.  The needle was spotless, and no loose connections were found.    I finally gave in and flipped the album over.  Viola, everything sounded fine.  I did this back an forth a few times and am now convinced at least with that album, I have crossed the threshold.    I would hate to know what it would sound like with all solid state.

As another thought, I do find it somewhat hard to accept that any given individual can really discern the minute differences between one particular component on a high level system.   Once you get up into that rarefied atmosphere the return on investment is diminished so much it is hard to justify.   

[Paul Birkeland]

When do source components get to be too accurate?

I think another important question to consider is which inaccuracies are most audible (and/or perturbing).

[Doc B.]

I think you guys are using the wrong words. Accuracy and resolution are good things. Distortion is a bad thing. If a recording has distortion on it my experience is that a highly resolved system will not emphasize the distortion, it will actually minimize its effect and let the music come through without needing to color it. If a system emphasizes the bad stuff it's not a highly accurate system.

[madbrayniak]

Doc,

I see your point and agree, I will use different terms from now on.

Let me try and reword it here to make sure I am following you correctly.

It seems to me like there are a great number of high-end systems that claim to be so good that they reveal all the distortion in a recording, to the point that those recording are no longer enjoyable.

I want my system to have high resolution and accuracy. However, I DON'T want it to the point that some of the bad recording I have becoming something that I can no longer stand listening to.

Many of the audiophile magazines say that one piece of gear is so good that you will throw away many of your records/CDs....that is something I want to avoid entirely.

I think that might be part of the reason I like the IDEA of tubes so much.

I am still using my Quickie and love it and would really like to step my system up to the next level. Maybe by building an FirstWatt F5 or maybe another Bottlehead kit.

[Doc B.]

If a triode tube is more linear than a solid state device like a transistor (which it is), then it's not adding the higher order distortion that a "high end" transistor circuit might. So it's pretty hard to swallow that tubes are "warmer" because they are "less accurate". In truth they are adding less edgy crap that is so often referred to as "detailed" by IMO untrained listeners.

It is also very easy to fool an untrained listener into thinking that added treble content is higher system resolution, regardless of whether it is tube or transistor. But if you spend a lot of time critically listening eventually you will have the epiphany that a very resolved system actually sounds very relaxed and initially it might even seem that some information that you expect to be there is missing. I think a lot of this has as much or more to do with temporal distortion (slew rate) as harmonic distortion. And of course high voltage tubes generally slew way the heck faster than solid state components as well as being more linear. If you keep listening to a very resolving system you begin to realize that what's missing is added distortion and that now you can listen deeper than before to what is really on the recording. Thus I don't buy the idea that the "better" the system the more it will make a marginal recording unlistenable. That just means it's not that good a system after all.

[Doc B.]

Making a judgement like that with a just-completed preamp is something I would find that falling into the category of non-critical listening in my own experience.

[InfernoSTi]

This is a very interesting topic to me.  I've been working for the last two or three years on improving my digital source.  In hindsight, I realize that there are two parts of this to me.

First, which sounds "clearer" to me?  This is subjective and not related to data/testing.  Clarity is the most important "term" that I would use when I prefer one source over another.  But it is often only possible to tell the level of clarity with a switch from one to the other.  Kind of like looking through two panes of glass.  Both "look" clean but one has a bit of very smooth, even film of residue on it that you can't really see (no spots, for example) but when you compare it to the other pane of glass that is cleaner, it is easy to see that it isn't as clear.  It is the contrast of the two that allows you to see the (relative) lack of clarity.  This may be distortion, S/N, jitter, timing, etc.  All combined, it is clarity relative to the other source that I am looking for.

Second, I find that if every album sounds different, that is the better source.  To be clear, this is every album sounds "different" not every album sounds "better" by the way.  The less developed sources tend to have a "house sound" to them that makes all recordings generally sound similar.  What I have discovered is that if some sound more full, round, and soft while others sound more thin, edgy, and detailed, then my source is more accurate.  I am actually hearing what is recorded, not the equipment being used.  This often takes some getting used to, however.  I find that, sometimes, I actually like the sound of the less accurate source better on one particular album.  However, this is short lived as I also find that I prefer to hear the actual recording as presented in the material more, 9 times out of 10.  So I am trading a preference of liking 1 out of 10 recordings better vs. 9 out of 10 better.  The math is simple.  The issue is that I would prefer if they had recorded/mastered a certain album differently...kind of like going to the art museum and liking 9/10ths of the paintings and thinking on that 1/10th painting "why didn't the artist just do it the way I like it."  It sounds so simple (i.e. silly to think that way) when talking about paintings in an art museum but sometimes I loose perspective with music in my home. 

It is such an interesting journey...

Best,
John

[Doc B.]

I think your perspective is closer to the way I see it. The distortion that is on the recording is on the recording. If it is masked I don't feel that the system is necessarily making it sound better, you are just adding more and different distortion on top that masks it. In some cases that is a good trade off, perhaps the system is rolled off and thus plays down some HF harmonic distortion on a specific recording that has a lot of that. But if you peel off any distortion added by the system chances are much more likely that most recordings will sound less distorted. That's pretty simple math too.

I do think this is a subject that is easily derailed by semantics, and that some people have a more narrow view of what might be considered distortion than others.

[InfernoSTi]

Thanks, Doc.  And thank you for posting the comments about slew induced distortion.  I wasn't really familiar with the concept and am reading about it now.  Here is an interesting quote from my Google search:

[The]...circuits rely on eliminating what the company calls ‘memory distortion’, a form of non-linear distortion in the time domain that is not recognized or measured elsewhere. The company suggests this distortion is inherently lower in tube amp designs compared to most solid- state models, and this is the secret to the continued success of tubes. [Their] solid-state circuits claim to reduce this temporal distortion to as low as 1,000th that of other solid-state designs.

I've not heard of this idea of SID but apparently is a design criteria for some high end equipment (and interesting to see SS trying to "catch up" to tubes again).  High dB rated speakers that allow low watt tube amps seem to be a key to falling into a lot of good audio choices...in ways I never even considered.  I'm reading more now...

Best,
John

[Paul Joppa]

There is an analogy to wine tasting here. If you only drink, and become accustomed to, very good wine for an extended period, then perfectly decent ordinary wines become disappointing even though you enjoyed them in prior years.

The only practical solution is an attitude adjustment. I can't afford to pay restaurant prices for high end wines, so I order something decent and enjoy the food and the company without focusing on the wine. It still cleanses the palate, complements the tastes, it's refreshing - that's good enough. When I have a really great bottle then I'll focus on it and have some simple food that does not distract me from the wine.

I think the analogy to audio is clear enough.

[RPMac]

But PJ, Bottlehead gear is a "great bottle"...just not at restaurant prices.
Thanks!

[johnsonad]

PJ, great analogy.  Robert, BH gear is great but it's only a significant part of the system as a whole. 

[madbrayniak]

Hey guys, I have been following what you have been saying in the background silently from my iPad(i hate typing on the thing).

You guys make some really good points.

I guess it starts to beg the question is that "detail" that you may get from...lets say a Pass Labs(can't think of any other brand off the top of my head, not targeting Mr. Nelson Pass or anything)....is not necessarily more "detail" but a sharper/shorter kind of distortion that we interpret to be more "detail" or "sparkle" as many audiophile reviewers seem to call it...

I am still working on trying to learn more about amplifier design and construct but my electrical engineering knowledge is far below what most on here seem to be able to grasp and understand. That said, I have a very strong interest but I am currently short on free time but would love to build more Bottlehead gear or even design/build my own or repair/improve vintage tube gear in the future....

My current "fix" is reading about some of the famous vintage integrated amps like the Sansui AU-111 and AU-1100(even though it is SS I like that it has Tone controls)

But above all else, all the truely great systems that I can recall hearing all seem to have tube based front ends. There must be a reason for this, which is why I have started to try and learn more about the technology.