OH Shit!!!
roughplanet
just for interest sake :-). It has the latest OPA627AU op-amp module, 24/196
DAC, Elna caps, 1% metal film resistors & ALPS volume pot.
Not a cheap, shoddy Chinese box at all. But the problem is.... IT SOUNDS THE
SAME AS MY DX-71!!!! And for US$200 all up.
As Molly would say....do yourself a favour. Those bloody Chinese are getting
better at this game every day :-). Now I'm looking at a phono stage & a 60
watt amp. How can you miss at these prices?
ruff
TT
"roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:49cf165f$0$19954$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
with the DX71 goes it does have a very high quality pre-amp in it ;-)
Cheers TT
Arny Krueger
message news:49cf165f$0$19954$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au
> Just bought a new Zero DAC for US$200 including postage
> from a seller in HK, just for interest sake :-). It has
> the latest OPA627AU op-amp module, 24/196 DAC, Elna caps,
> 1% metal film resistors & ALPS volume pot.
> Not a cheap, shoddy Chinese box at all. But the problem
> is.... IT SOUNDS THE SAME AS MY DX-71!!!! And for US$200
> all up.
All good DACs sound the same.
Iain Churches
My only experience with Chinese audio equipment
is with tube amps. They sound "OK" but their actual
measured performance, particularly bandwidth and
distortion at full power, leaves something to be desired.
But most important they have serious reliability issues.
Also, because they are so cheap. people gripe at paying
Euro 150 for the repair of an amp that only cost Euro 300.
Once they start to give trouble, they really need to be
stripped out, and rebuilt just as Patrick Turner suggested.
I have two Chinese power amps lined up for repair at the
moment. One works OK with my Tannoys, but tends to
instability issues with some other speakers.
The other has burnt cathode resistors. The designer seems to
have rated these to act as fuses:-)
But you can be sure that the inscrutable Chinese are working
all the time to improve their quality and still keep prices low.
There is no doubt that they will be the first to recover from
the global recession, and get sales going again, much to the
detriment of European,US and other non-Chinese
manufacturers who are really struggling.
Iain
Iain Churches
"roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:49cf165f$0$19954$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
> As Molly would say....do yourself a favour. Those bloody Chinese are
> getting better at this game every day :-). Now I'm looking at a phono
> stage & a 60 watt amp. How can you miss at these prices?
>
Ruff. Do you have any experience with Chinese guitars?
I was in a piano workshop not too long ago, where a
Chinese grand pano manufactured by Dongbei, was being
set up for delivery to its new owner.
The technician told me that the instrument which is about
one third the cost of a Steinway, has already overtaken
the American Baldwin in both sound and build quality.
I have also heard a Chinese made viola (alto violin)
It sounded quite nice, and the teacher who was taking
the (children's) group told me that it was a pleasing
instrument to play. It was priced at only Euro 500.
In contrast, Chinese woodwind instruments, flutes,
clarinets and saxophones are still right at the bottom
of the barrel. They are not in tune through the whole
range of the instrument. They are intended for student
use, but the student needs to know if the poor intonation
he is achieving is due to his/her technique or the
shortcomings of the instrument.
Iain
Mark Harriss
One of the only exports of North Korea to China is
Grand pianos, I wonder if they get rebadged and resold?.
Soundhaspriority
"Iain Churches" <Iai...@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
news:t4Kzl.1098$xx4...@uutiset.elisa.fi...
>
> "roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
> news:49cf165f$0$19954$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
>
>
>> As Molly would say....do yourself a favour. Those bloody Chinese are
>> getting better at this game every day :-). Now I'm looking at a phono
>> stage & a 60 watt amp. How can you miss at these prices?
>>
>
> Ruff. Do you have any experience with Chinese guitars?
> I was in a piano workshop not too long ago, where a
> Chinese grand pano manufactured by Dongbei, was being
> set up for delivery to its new owner.
>
> The technician told me that the instrument which is about
> one third the cost of a Steinway, has already overtaken
> the American Baldwin in both sound and build quality.
>
There is nothing they will not be able to do, which suggests that they will
become preminent in all areas. How will this change our lives?
Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511
Iain Churches
"Mark Harriss" <bi...@blartco.co.uk> wrote in message
news:KeKdnYWoMPbl7VLU...@westnet.com.au...
> One of the only exports of North Korea to China is
> Grand pianos, I wonder if they get rebadged and resold?.
Interesting question:-)
I was told that the Chinese pianos may be rebadged as
Baldwin in the US
Arny Krueger
> My only experience with Chinese audio equipment
> is with tube amps. They sound "OK" but their actual
> measured performance, particularly bandwidth and
> distortion at full power, leaves something to be desired.]
Well, that's because they are tubed amps.
If you want something to work well with lots of different speakers and
measure well on the test bench, go SS.
> But most important they have serious reliability issues.
Of what nature?
I've heard that Chinese tubes aren't the best.
> I have two Chinese power amps lined up for repair at the
> moment. One works OK with my Tannoys, but tends to
> instability issues with some other speakers.
Instability and tubed amps kinda go hand-and-hand.
> The other has burnt cathode resistors. The designer
> seems to have rated these to act as fuses:-)
In fact, that's been accepted practice for decades.
Eeyore
roughplanet wrote:
> Just bought a new Zero DAC for US$200 including postage from a seller in HK,
> just for interest sake :-). It has the latest OPA627AU op-amp module, 24/196
> DAC, Elna caps, 1% metal film resistors & ALPS volume pot.
>
> Not a cheap, shoddy Chinese box at all. But the problem is.... IT SOUNDS THE
> SAME AS MY DX-71!!!! And for US$200 all up.
What did you expect ?
Graham
Mark Harriss
The Dongbei region of China shares a border with North Korea
as well as being a heavy industry region for China. Either
option may be possible.
Patrick Turner
Ruff, Check out Valab DACs made in Taiwan.
http://home.comcast.net/~omaille/audio/valabdac/valabdac.html
Its got paralleled NOS DAC chips.
I know nothing about how a DAC chip works but these DACs sound quite
well.
Some chinese are doing OK but the tube amps are generally attrocious and
poor copies of 1955 consumer crap made in Oz.
They look nice, but when you look really close at the schematic and how
they have designed it, its all bullshit.
I had to re-wire/repair two "HK Hi-Fi" branded amps people here bought
for $700 aud (much more now). 40W per channel from 2 x KT88.
Lotsa smoke within weeks of purchase. Awful N&THD/IMD, and very poor
damping factors, and with built in peak in the bass response to ensure
good bass. Very low quality OPT with high losses and high leakage
inductances.
Sorry, but I wouldn't touch a chinese tube amp with a 40 foot pole.
Da Ming headphone amps are noisy and a POS They need to have their mains
and OPTs potted like they did in real quality gear made for pro use back
in the 1950s.
Melody preamps need a good re-wire and re-design to reduce the THD
tenfold and need a log pot put in to replace the linear gain pot.
They are stupidly heavy, like a power amp, because someone at Melody
doesn't understand the difference between shit and clay, and insists on
the use of monstrous chokes with very low wire resistance when they are
a complete waste of time. Regulator pass elemnts are 1920 era 101D
triodes, very impressive looking but set up really badly in the circuit
as regulators that don't work very well at all at very low F.
Low value oil&paper rail caps are used, all to utterly no sonic or
technical advantage. The XLR output sockets for balanced outputs are not
really balanced and input XLRs have little 600 ohm trannies.
The nice shiny black paint is nice, but has zero effect on the sound
quality. You wouldnt wanna know what goes on inside a chinese amp
because its all depressing news, and the general public is pig ignorant,
and is being fooled by the Chinese desperate to make money any damn way
they can.
Once re-designed and re-wired, the melody can be an excellent preamp. No
doubt about that. The sample I altered had very microphonic 6SN7.
And all it had was a line level stage, no phono amp included. All decent
preamps used to have live level and phono stages with the phono stage
having a heater switch so that if you don't want to play vinyl the tubes
are turned off at their heaters and don't wear out after years of
listening to CD.
Gain in any preamp line stage should be alterable between two available
RCA outputs, one from a cathode follower after the volume control to
give nearly unity gain, or a slight gain loss of -1dBm at full volume,
and the other RCA from a ľ-follower gain stage with slight loop NFB to
make a gain of about +14dB max after the volume control. You should find
that with CD, the high gain outlet is never required because CD players
make 1.4vrms and most power amps clip at 1vrms input or less, so most
ppl use the 12o'clock gain pot setting for normal listening using the
low gain setting of the preamp.
If you have an old fashioned low level line source from say a radio
tuner or tape deck, then the gain section becomes usable.
There are a lot of people saying to themselves, "Oh Shit" when they have
chosen very sensitive speakers, tube power amps with no NFB a high gain
preamp, and a source putting out a huge signal.
They have all forgotten the KISS principle, and that there is NO need to
have excessive gain.
Most of the Chinese power amps I have seen have little NFB because they
immediately become hopelessly unstable so they are all very sensitive
and much more so than the Quads and Williamsons made in the 1950s which
were better made with a total of 20dB of NFB and needed over a volt of
input to get only 20W. but most lesser makers in the 1950s strayed from
the costly design requirements spelled out so clearly in the Radiotron
Designer's Handbook, 4th ed, 1955. Its the most ignored technical book
amoung commercial makers of that era.
Moat makers gave tube audio a bad name. Had the makers adhered to best
practices, then the sonic results of tubed audio gear is second to none.
Modern makers are bessotted with marketting principles and their
products often only superficially better than the best mades of 1955 or
which there were so few. Big names like ARC and CJ and Manely Labs et
all have become far too complex under the bonnet, and most tube power
amps now are glorified PA amps operating in 90% class B op with just
barely enough NFB. Their lack of any large amount of class A operation
and poor choice of load matching is all done to win the war of watts to
get sales and they spit in the face of their customers by offering junk
that all too often smokes and loses its bias settings and costs a huge
amount to fix and get some reliability.
Not ONE modern tube amp maker instals active protection circuitry to
guard against the inevitable occasional failure of an output tube.
Sometimes its the Chinese OPT that gets a shorted turn thus overloads
the tubes driving the OPT and then the tubes go into thermal runaway and
this means tube failure and smoke. Sometimes the tube gets old, or was a
crook one from a Chinse batch and it goes into thermal runaway and then
overheats an OPT winding and you've lost the OPT as collateral from the
smoke event.
I've seen it all happen like this. Don't buy any tube amp with toroidal
OPTs such as a CR Audio Developments amp. Their Woodham is supposedly
Made In England but is worse than anything made in China. Nobody knows
how to wind toroidals properly for tube use. All have mainly forgotten
the basics.
People today expect tube gear to just last well like their other
consumer electronic gear such as their PC, electric jug, washing machine
etc.
They forget how often the service guy had to come out to fix the B&W
teles of the 1950s and 60s when the bean counters controlled the R&D.
Audiophiles in 1960 running complex stereo hi-fi sets using all tube
gear and the latest phono amps and tape players were always fighting
noises and hums whenever they changed something. It gave them something
to do in evenings because there was fuck all else to do.
But when made well, tube gear can be VERY reliable and LONG LASTING, and
you won't mind replacing an output tube once every few years because in
fact in real terms an average output tubes is many times cheaper than it
was in 1960. I find that in much tube gear made now its the surrounding
solid state gear used in regualate power supplies that gives more
trouble than the tube circuits.
I have a DAC here made in China and its got a unity gain output tube
stage on each channel. Its also got 1mV of switching noise from its PSU
and the owner wants to using it with a high gain set up and sensitive
speakers. He cannot, because the noise is intolerable. Its not the fault
of the tubes; they are dead quiet and there is plenty of NFB to supress
noise. Its the SS circuitry.
1mV of any sort of noise at the output of a DAC or preamp may not seem
like much but it is an attrocious noise figure because the following amp
may have a gain of 30x so 1mV of noise becomes 30mV, even without any
signal present.
And before anyone laughs at tube shenanigans just remember the steady
stream of SS gear than plays up and needs a fix by a tech.
Patrick Turner.
roughplanet
news:49D0BCF1...@turneraudio.com.au...
> roughplanet wrote:
Hi Patrick...good to see you back.
I couldn't agree more with your summary (treatise :-) on Chinese tube amps.
I have heard at least 30, 5 or more from the same stable (Melody) and EVERY
single one of them sounded atrocious, even after replacing those terrible,
cheap Chinese tubes with decent OZ, European or US ones.
The THD was quite audible & was, to my ears, unlistenable. Poor N, lousy
IMD/THD & literally no damping at all completed the mix. Bloody rubbish!
But as you correctly said, with a total rebuild & some careful thought, they
CAN be turned from an ugly duckling into a swan. But it all costs money,
although they are so cheap to start with it's probably worth the effort.
But Taiwanese SS devices have risen to the point where they are now
rivalling their European & US competitors. My Zero DAC is truly amazing, and
I suspect the Valab DACs are probably similar.
Da Ming headphone amps sound awful; as noisy as. I bought one for around
$150 postage included & sold it within a week.Obviously, any problems with
headphone amps are multiplied tenfold with 'phones on.
My TT Unisis SET tube amp does have protection circuitry for the output
tubes, and even has a small speaker that makes a funny noise if one tube
(out of 8 ) goes thermal or hydrophonic. It also automatically biases all
tubes. A wonderful amplifier that I will never part with.
TUBES RULE! OK!
ruff
TT
>
> TUBES RULE! OK!
>
> ruff
What's that loud noise I hear? Could it be Arny, Philthy
and TW all having a collective heart attack :-))
Cheers TT (still living in a toob free zone)
roughplanet
news:cOydnRWRKOqm9EzU...@westnet.com.au...
>> TUBES RULE! OK!
>>
>> ruff
More the fool you :-).
ruff(er)
Doug Flynn
Doug Flynn
"Patrick Turner" <in...@turneraudio.com.au> wrote
> They are stupidly heavy, like a power amp, because someone at Melody
> doesn't understand the difference between shit and clay, and insists on
> the use of monstrous chokes with very low wire resistance when they are
> a complete waste of time....Low value oil&paper rail caps are used, all to
> utterly no sonic or technical advantage.
There's nowt wrong with monster chokes. I never build anything without at
least two 5 kg chokes in the PSU. Get over the shitty 12 cent DSE poly caps
you tight-arse. Even a basic cap like the Auricap will crap all over
anything you can get at DSE. As for paper-in-oil caps, I consider them to
be superior to any other cap technology, so there........Doug
Iain Churches
"Doug Flynn" <doog...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:SgkAl.1740$Bm1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
Has there ever been any doubt? :-)
Marc (V)
Patrick Turner
Ah, ye have not lost the Faith is seems.
It'll soon be weather for keepin' the home triodes burning....
Patrick Turner.
atec 7 7
the music
Iain Churches
"atec 7 7" <"atec 77 "@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gqsma7$4jq$1...@news.motzarella.org...
Indeed. As a pal of mine says:
"If it don't glow, it don't go!"
Patrick Turner
Yes Doug, I hear you loud and clear, but I prefer my customers who buy
my amps be able to lift them AND still I have plenty of chokes in there.
Melody have two extremely heavy potted chokes in the power supply to run
4 x 6SN7.
I'm sure if I'd ever had the chance to discuss the technical details of
what melody have used I'd convince you that I'm right about the Chinese
design team.
The chokes used in the Melody are only used for rail filtering and they
have very low dc winding resistance and high inductance.
the capacitance values used for the rail filtering are minimal and this
gives rise to resonant behaviour at LF and poor ability to keep the
rails free of the LF jitter caused by mains level changes going on all
the time. The chokes would have been far more effective as impedance
blockers of ripple and other noise had thay had much higher dc winding
resistance. The inductance thus could have been much higher as well and
the LF pole between choke and following shunt C would have been lower,
and the lower the better. The choke weight could have thus been far
less, had it been designed properly. Perhaps the chokes they used are ex
CCP army stocks of junk the army is now disposing of in favour of
modernising iteslf to be a rapid response army rather than a stodgy army
to fight a war of of endless attrition.
So like you, maybe they are merely using up tonnes of cheap surplus
gear. And disguising it by potting it.
Nobody really knows exactly what's in there, but when I found out I
couldn't see any reason to build it the way they did and employing so
much waste of precious world resources on something that costs a
Westerener so much dosh and achieves such a petty level of sonic and
technical outcome.
Nobody has clearly demonstarted to me that they can reliably chose which
of two IDENTICAL tube preamp channels has the Auricap polyprop caps and
which has the Wima polyprops. I did try such a test on a customer who
had me replace all the Wimas for Auricaps. He couldn't get better than
50% when I made blind changes to the signal path to a mono speaker with
a mono signal. So he was merely guessing.
But hey, i repect people's peace of mind which is very necessary for
them to be able to relax and listen to music so in went all the Auricaps
and out came all the Wimas.
When he bought my speakers which he reckoned were better than anything
else he'd tried, despite being full of bi-polar electros and polyester
bypasses, he was really chuffed. Then he had me replace all the caps
with Obligatos motor start type polyprops which of course were much
bigger in size. I completly re-built the crossover boards using the
exact same values and solid copper wiring with silver content solder.
The choice of the SEAS drivers, well damped boxes and careful but simple
X-over design are the main factors which give the speakers their
fabulously flat response and captivatingly un-coloured sound. Again he
thought the re-capping sounded better, but I thought the improvment only
mild, if it existed. Replacing the resistances followed, but that didn't
seem to do much.
There isn't anything I buy from DSE which I use in gear which I sell to
my customers except perhaps an occasional 5VA auxiliary transformer for
the active protection circuits, or a blue LED, or other non signal pathe
related item.
But I do have some DSE/Jaycar $4 carbon pots in my test gear i built
over 10 years ago and their performance is fine and I cannot measure
their distortion contribution to the signals from my oscillator which
makes 0.002% THD for testing tube amps.
Paper in Oil caps have no great superioity over other types of
capacitors. If you can proove this to be false, then by all means please
do so forthwith. You should have two identical tube preamp amps each
with different cap types but of the same values in each, and have a way
of switching the same input signal and output signal to the same power
amp channel and speakers to ensure the only thing that changes in the
signal path are the capacitors. Then have someone blindly controlling
the switch, and allow them to ask you which caps you think you are
listening to after they say they have made a change to the amps. I think
you'll find you can be very easily tricked and that after about 10
attempts to fool you by the determined sceptic at the switch, you won't
get more than 50% of correct answers.
Ie, your ears are maybe no better than average, and could be tinny
rather than golden, and certainly no detectors of the real truth in the
electronics.
I upset a good many people this way.
I once built a pair of mosfet outputted class A amps with output
transformers. They have the same basic topology as one might use with a
pentode PP class A amp with mild amounts of NFB. Just enough NFB to get
Rout < 0.5ohms. They measure almost indentically to a good 50W PP class
A tube amp. I first believed them to be not so good as the class A tube
amps but when I AB'd them and had a friend AB them niether he or myself
could tell any difference between amplifiers. So my faith was confirmed
about class A at least.
Sometimes one of these audiophiles who subject himself to a real test do
seem partially right at least some of the time but a lot are way off the
mark and their purpose in upgrading is unfounded and they should just
concentrate on the music instead of the eternal upgrades, often made
without any AB comparisons, so they really go around in sonic circles,
not really knowing if their latest aquisition is better than than their
old toys.
I think I have got to a point where I don't need to look for
break-through new audio techniques and that i don't need to be obsessive
about audio for myself. I enjoy music, but enjoying it on your own is a
bit introverted and over the last few years i have hopped back on my
bicycle to get away from audio work and being only around other
audiophiles.
I also prefer a few games of chess on a saturday night with a bunch of
mates to listening to music at home alone.
Both chess and mateship and music have to be better than sitting glumly
with a wife who insists we watch The Bill, and who doesn't ever want to
bonk.
But however we spend our time, there is always more than one way to make
good sound fill any room.
Patrick Turner.
Patrick Turner
Doubt propelled armies of workers to build a brave new world with
transistors.
I'm glad they got what they wanted.
But I'll do it my way.
Patrick Turner.
Patrick Turner
Tubes allow the best cuisine for musical delicies worth eating.
There is only so much raw music I can eat when the dish is passed to me
by a transistor.
Patrick Turner.
atec 7 7
settling for solid state
Efficiency demands quality in the entire driven line...
Just scored another linn today as a gift so the refurbishment begins .
Patrick Turner
I have one customer with pure class A SE 32 watt tube amps and with
dynamic speakers rated at 88dB/W/M.
He thinks there's plenty of power, not to mention total panache,
preserved warmth, dynamics, musicality and uncoloured clarity.
Another has 35W pure class A SE amps but with speakers rated for 95dB+
and noise is a main concern because the slightest hum or hiss from the
electronics can be heard. But distortion in the total tube amp system
is always below 0.02%, and the result is fine.
Another has PP AB amps capable of 100W into 4 ohms with 4 x KT90 per
channel. He runs 3 stacked pairs of Quad ESL57.
He says its fabulous.
Yet one more has old Tannoy dual concentrics in 6 cu.ft. reflex boxes
with sand filled panels. 96dB efficiency.
He has more than enough power with a mere 8W/channel from lone 300Bs,
and beautiful sound.
The biggest mistake buyers of tube amps often make is to get something
cheap and nasty and underpowered. Sometimes they compound their troubles
with a pair of insensitive speakers.
Smoke happens, or dissapointment, so they go to solid state. The dollar
per watt you pay is less.
I'm presently building a pair of pure class A 60W SE amps with 6 x 6550
per channel. I know the owner will never have to consider SS unless
someone steals the amps, but I'm making that difficult, the power tranny
alone weighs 22kg.
Collect Linns duz ya?
No accounting for taste eh :-).
Patrick Turner.
atec 7 7
>
>
>
> Collect Linns duz ya?
>
> No accounting for taste eh :-).
spare j+h still in the box which cost almost nothing ($20.00)now I just
need to see which cartridge to run (looks at junk collection)
Ah the good old days with twin 8 watt amps and sand filled Wharfdales :)
nothing like sound peaks running up the walls across the ceilings at 5
or 6 watts in the dark accompanied by that pale reddish flicker and the
floor boards gently rumbling with the bass .
>
> Patrick Turner.
roughplanet
Patrick Turner wrote:
Iain Churches wrote:
Doug Flynn wrote:
"roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au> wrote
>>>>>> TUBES RULE! OK!
>>>>> Amen, tube brother!
>>>> Nothing like some 88's glowing in the dark corner flaring a little
>>>> with
>>>> the music
>>> Indeed. As a pal of mine says:
>>> "If it don't glow, it don't go!"
>> Tubes allow the best cuisine for musical delicies worth eating. There is
>> only so much raw music I can eat when the dish is passed to me
>> by a transistor.
> Biggest problem for many is they own very inefficient speakers so settling
> for solid state Efficiency demands quality in the entire driven line...
> Just scored another linn today as a gift so the refurbishment begins .
Ahhh......the answer is to buy loudspeakers that can handle up to 200 watts
but at the same time are rated at 92 dB.
I own such a pair and have done since 1977. I will NEVER part with them!
ruff
roughplanet
Patrick Turner wrote:
Iain Churches wrote:
Doug Flynn wrote:
"roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au> wrote
>>>>>>>> TUBES RULE! OK!
>>>>>>> Amen, tube brother!
>>>>>> Nothing like some 88's glowing in the dark corner flaring a little
>>>>>> with
>>>>>> the music
>>>>> Indeed. As a pal of mine says:
>>>>> "If it don't glow, it don't go!"
>>>> Tubes allow the best cuisine for musical delicies worth eating.
>>>> There is only so much raw music I can eat when the dish is passed to me
>>>> by a transistor.
>>> Biggest problem for many is they own very inefficient speakers so
JH T/T's used to run very well with Grace 707 or Black Widow tone arms
& light weight cartridges like the Entre. From memory, the Audio Technica
AT95E was also a very good performer, as were several of the Ortofon
range. But keep you eyes open for a Denon 103S with the Shibata stylus.
It will sound sensational on the JH.
> Ah the good old days with twin 8 watt amps and sand filled Wharfdales :)
> nothing like sound peaks running up the walls across the ceilings at 5 or
> 6 watts in the dark accompanied by that pale reddish flicker and the floor
> boards gently rumbling with the bass .
Mine still rumble now when I turn up the wick :-)
ruff.
Doug Flynn
> Both chess and mateship and music have to be better than sitting glumly
> with a wife who insists we watch The Bill, and who doesn't ever want to
> bonk.
Way too much information there, dude !!!!
Patrick Turner
Horrified by the idea of watching The Bill with a sexless shiela on
Saturday night?
But I know guys into that scene.
Oh, and instead of sitting around politely in Church on Sunday while a
God Botherer lectures me with utter BS, I much prefer the atheistic
persuit of human conviviality and companionship to be found in a cycling
bunch.
Patrick Turner.
atec 7 7
> "atec 7 7" <"atec 77 "@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:gqsseo$ktr$1...@news.motzarella.org...
>
> Patrick Turner wrote:
>
> Iain Churches wrote:
>
> Doug Flynn wrote:
>
> "roughplanet" <rough...@optusnet.com.au>
rote
>
>>>>>>> TUBES RULE! OK!
>
>>>>>> Amen, tube brother!
>
>>>>> Nothing like some 88's glowing in the dark corner flaring a little
>>>>> with
>>>>> the music
>
>>>> Indeed. As a pal of mine says:
>>>> "If it don't glow, it don't go!"
>
>>> Tubes allow the best cuisine for musical delicies worth eating. There is
>>> only so much raw music I can eat when the dish is passed to me
>>> by a transistor.
>
>> Biggest problem for many is they own very inefficient speakers so settling
>> for solid state Efficiency demands quality in the entire driven line...
>> Just scored another linn today as a gift so the refurbishment begins .
>
> Ahhh......the answer is to buy loudspeakers that can handle up to 200 watts
> but at the same time are rated at 92 dB.
> I own such a pair and have done since 1977. I will NEVER part with them!
>
> ruff
>
>
I am afraid to ask , my little transmission lines work just fine on a
couple of watts...
atec 7 7
selling it , might have to go sort the storage out as I know there is a
hood emblem off the Jag in there somewhere and a couple of Ortofons in a
cardboard box . I did sell the Denon pma700z which was a wonderful
little ss amp and I regret doing so but I while back at a garage sale I
found a diy el34 amp without supply ( which I have almost finished
finding the parts for ) so might press it into use when a preamp
becomes available
>
>> Ah the good old days with twin 8 watt amps and sand filled Wharfdales :)
>> nothing like sound peaks running up the walls across the ceilings at 5 or
>> 6 watts in the dark accompanied by that pale reddish flicker and the floor
>> boards gently rumbling with the bass .
>
> Mine still rumble now when I turn up the wick :-)
the size of the speakers but accept size makes good sounds
>
> ruff.
>
>
keithr
> TUBES RULE! OK!
>
> ruff
I remember the days when there were only tubes - we couldn't wait to get
rid of the damn things. Just imagine trying to get rid of the heat of an
all tube radar set stuffed into a six wheel drive armoured car.
Keith
keithr
weight with quality. Personally, I think that the late Sir Barnes Wallis
put it rather well - "Weight is only an advantage if you are building
steamrollers".
Keith
Arny Krueger
news:49d36094$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au
> I remember the days when there were only tubes - we
> couldn't wait to get rid of the damn things.
Agreed.
And then I did get rid of them, and lived happily ever after.
>Just imagine
> trying to get rid of the heat of an all tube radar set
> stuffed into a six wheel drive armoured car.
AFAIK, that never happened. What did happen is that fully-tubed narrow-band
FM transmitters and receivers ended up in tanks. The radars ended up in
ariplanes which were about as tight as the armored car you mentioned. These
were both fairly complex systems for the day.
In 1966 the fire control system of a Hawk anti-aircraft battery took about
25 2 1/2 ton trucks to haul around. That included a goodly number of
trailer-mounted generators and radars. These days a far superior system fits
on the bed of a HumVee with some room to spare.
One of the amusing things I remember reading was among the comments in a
book of schematics of tubed military electronics. They pointed out that at
the beginning of the WW2, mobile transmitters were based on 211s and
therefore huge. By the end of the war they were being sucessfully made using
6146s.
Tubed audio seems to be about going backwards.
roughplanet
roughplanet wrote:
>> TUBES RULE! OK!
> I remember the days when there were only tubes - we couldn't wait to get
> rid of the damn things. Just imagine trying to get rid of the heat of an
> all tube radar set stuffed into a six wheel drive armoured car.
Much closer to home, I had a pair of Tube Technology 'Genesis' 100 watt P/P
monoblocs that were housed in a timber cabinet & the heat generated by them
was so fierce it drove me out of the room on a warm day.
Either they or I had to go, which was the REAL reason I chose the TT
'Unisis' 35 watt SET amp that I'm using now :-).
Phew!!!
ruff
keithr
the British GS No19 battlefield surveillance radar). We had fitted a
complete KU band battlefield radar into an armoured car, well an APC to
be more exact. Trouble was that it got so hot that they had to keep the
back doors open which kind of defeated the armoured bit, and it required
so much power that they had to tow a generator which defeated the all
terrain capacity bit. Transistorising it fixed all that, the only tubes
left were the magnetron, the front end (you couldn't get high enough
frequency transistors in those days) and the CRT, not bad for 1962.
Designing the IF amplifier was my first proper design job as a third
year apprentice.
Patrick Turner
I built two PP mono bloc amps capable of 300W AB1 each, and the idle
power from the mains is about a kilowatt.
They are splendid in cool climates and are very nice room heaters.
But I have used 100W monos and stereo amps and they never get too hot,
or heat a big room too much. Usually such things are used at night when
its cooler. If its a warm evening my windows are open.
One SET channel making 35W of pure class A would probably need about
150W of input power including cathode filament power. This is about the
same as a 100W capable PP amp well set up for AB1.
The SE35 amps I built here with 4 x 6CA7 per channel draw about 85W
anode power plus heating power of around 50W so a total of about 150W
including cathode resistors and other losses. So two channels are about
the same as eight 40W lightbulbs.
Not a huge deal when you consider such things won't be used all the
time.
http://turneraudio.com.au/se35cfb-monobloc.htm
Patrick Turner.
roughplanet
news:49D40CD9...@turneraudio.com.au...
roughplanet wrote:
"keithr" <ke...@nowhere.com.au> wrote in message
news:49d36094$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
>> >> TUBES RULE! OK!
I can assure you that 2 X 100 watt monoblocs housed in a cabinet that
directed the
heat towards the listeners was impossible to tolerate on a hot Melbourne
evening.
Spoilt the whole listening experience, so out they went. Saved on power
consumption
too; all that power no longer converted to heat. A better arrangement all
round.
ruff
Arny Krueger
Interesting.
> Trouble was that it got so hot that they had to keep the
> back doors open which kind of defeated the armoured bit,
Indeed!
Seems like the design needed some refinement.
> and it required so much power that they had to tow a
> generator which defeated the all terrain capacity bit.
Yes, the support circuitry for a smart radar can be extensive. One of my
tracking radars had over 400 tubes. Total signal processing B+ power was
something like 300 volts at 2 amps, and the filament supplies were 6.3 volts
at about 50 amps, all regulated DC.
> Transistorising it fixed all that, the only tubes left
> were the magnetron, the front end (you couldn't get high
> enough frequency transistors in those days) and the CRT,
> not bad for 1962.
Typically, the front ends for radars were pretty simple - a local oscillator
and a crystal mixer. The IF strips were very elaborate, maybe 8-12 stages.
Our tracking radar had an elaborate circuit that nulled out power reflected
back at the receiver by nearby objects. So, there were 3 receivers, one
reference (fed by a signal tapped off the transmitting antenna), and more
two operating in quadrature. There were two more receivers operating in
quadrature for reducing the AM and FM noise in the transmitter.
Patrick Turner
So whyja have the amps in the cab directing a breeze at listeners?
And did you realise that if you didn't need all that class A power that
its easy to bias the tubes for 30mA instead of 60mA to reduce the heat?
Patrick Turner.
roughplanet
roughplanet wrote:
"keithr" <ke...@nowhere.com.au> wrote in message
news:49d36094$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
>> >> >> TUBES RULE! OK!
>> >> > I remember the days when there were only tubes - we couldn't wait to
>> >> > get rid of the damn things. Just imagine trying to get rid of the
>> >> > heat of
>> >> > an all tube radar set stuffed into a six wheel drive armoured car.
>> >> Much closer to home, I had a pair of Tube Technology 'Genesis' 100
>> >> watt P/P
>> >> monoblocs that were housed in a timber cabinet & the heat generated by
>> >> them
>> >> was so fierce it drove me out of the room on a warm day.
>> >>
>> >> Either they or I had to go, which was the REAL reason I chose the TT
>> >> 'Unisis' 35 watt SET amp that I'm using now :-).
>> >>
>> >> Phew!!!
>> > I built two PP mono bloc amps capable of 300W AB1 each, and the idle
>> > power from the mains is about a kilowatt.
>> >
>> > They are splendid in cool climates and are very nice room heaters.
>> >
>> > But I have used 100W monos and stereo amps and they never get too hot,
>> > or heat a big room too much. Usually such things are used at night when
>> > its cooler. If its a warm evening my windows are open.
>> >
>> > One SET channel making 35W of pure class A would probably need about
>> > 150W of input power including cathode filament power. This is about the
>> > same as a 100W capable PP amp well set up for AB1.
>> >
>> > The SE35 amps I built here with 4 x 6CA7 per channel draw about 85W
>> > anode power plus heating power of around 50W so a total of about 150W
>> > including cathode resistors and other losses. So two channels are about
>> > the same as eight 40W lightbulbs.
>> > Not a huge deal when you consider such things won't be used all the
>> > time.
>> > http://turneraudio.com.au/se35cfb-monobloc.htm
>> I can assure you that 2 X 100 watt monoblocs housed in a cabinet that
>> directed the heat towards the listeners was impossible to tolerate on a
>> hot Melbourne
>> evening.
>>
>> Spoilt the whole listening experience, so out they went. Saved on power
>> consumption
>> too; all that power no longer converted to heat. A better arrangement all
>> round.
> So whyja have the amps in the cab directing a breeze at listeners?
>
> And did you realise that if you didn't need all that class A power that
> its easy to bias the tubes for 30mA instead of 60mA to reduce the heat?
The cabinet is part of the audio/visual setup. It's what the widescreen TV
sits on.
The tubes WERE biased for 30mA rather than 60mA as I just don't need bags of
power, but the heat was still impossible to ignore on a hot night. FIN.
ruff
Patrick Turner
There should be NO tube amps used for TV/movie sound IMHO.
Listening to music should be done in a room where NO screen exists even
to be seen out of the corner of your eye.
Movie sound tracks and TV sound never much warrant the use of tube amps.
Old guys get sucked in by movies at home but I need to go out to a
theatre and a really big screen.
I'm also too busy to watch movies most evenings.
If I ever did secumb to HT, I'd have maybe 25W/Ch with tubes and only
two channels and the amps wouldn't heat the room nor heat a TV screen
mounted above the amp. I don't need a sub, or any more than full range
stereo. Any movie needing more probably has a lousy boring story.
Jus' my 2c,
And BTW, a PP 100W tybe amp using 4 x 6550 per channel and biased for
30mA each tube would have anode dissipation of say 15W per tube plus 12W
for the heaters so thats's 108W at idle. Inputs and losses make another
15W so that's 123W all up.
Now any SET amp making 35W would have anode diss at 110W and heating
power maybe 30W plus inpts and losses of 15W so thats 155W all up which
is **more** than the 100W channel. So in fact your SET 35W amps are
heating your room more than the PP amps.
Just strip right off, pray your missus doesn't mind a naked cool man in
a hot room which to her is probably better than a hot man in cool room
even well dressed.
Open you windows, turn off the lights and she'll be right as they say.
There are very few evenings when the house heats up unbearably.
Patrick Turner.
roughplanet
> roughplanet wrote:
>> >> >> >> TUBES RULE! OK!
> There should be NO tube amps used for TV/movie sound IMHO.
There aren't. I have a Denon AVC-A1SE SS 7.1 AV amp for that purpose.
It also resides in the beautiful wooden cabinet built for me by Chiswell
(steel
reinforced shelves etc.) in the days when quality furniture was still
available.
> Listening to music should be done in a room where NO screen exists even
> to be seen out of the corner of your eye.
Why? You really have a load of psychological baggage Patrick. My screen gets
used....maybe 7 or 8 times a year at the most. Tonight is one of those
times, as I
bought the DVD 'Australia' at the local supermarket this morning.
> Movie sound tracks and TV sound never much warrant the use of tube amps.
I agree, but I don't use tube amps for that purpose. Your ASSumptions are
making
a fool out of U and ME.
> Old guys get sucked in by movies at home but I need to go out to a
> theatre and a really big screen.
Maybe you're not disabled. I am.
> I'm also too busy to watch movies most evenings.
Me too.
> If I ever did secumb to HT, I'd have maybe 25W/Ch with tubes and only
> two channels and the amps wouldn't heat the room nor heat a TV screen
> mounted above the amp. I don't need a sub, or any more than full range
> stereo. Any movie needing more probably has a lousy boring story.
Again, another assumption Patrick. No wonder you live on your own :-).
> Jus' my 2c,
Worth about 1c I'd say. Certainly no more :-).>
> And BTW, a PP 100W tybe amp using 4 x 6550 per channel and biased for
> 30mA each tube would have anode dissipation of say 15W per tube plus 12W
> for the heaters so thats's 108W at idle. Inputs and losses make another
> 15W so that's 123W all up.
>
> Now any SET amp making 35W would have anode diss at 110W and heating
> power maybe 30W plus inpts and losses of 15W so thats 155W all up which
> is **more** than the 100W channel. So in fact your SET 35W amps are
> heating your room more than the PP amps.
Wrong again. I run my amp at around 7.5 watts, not 35. Do your calculations
again Patrick.
> Just strip right off, pray your missus doesn't mind a naked cool man in
> a hot room which to her is probably better than a hot man in cool room
> even well dressed.
She's used to me 'stripping off' as I have a problem with excessive body
heat :-).
> Open you windows, turn off the lights and she'll be right as they say.
> There are very few evenings when the house heats up unbearably.
Around your place I'm sure that's right :-).
ruff.
Patrick Turner
Not as much baggage as nearly everyone else I meet.
I just don't like most visual media.
>
> > Movie sound tracks and TV sound never much warrant the use of tube amps.
>
> I agree, but I don't use tube amps for that purpose. Your ASSumptions are
> making
> a fool out of U and ME.
Why not spell things out more clearly then so I cannot make assumptions.
>
> > Old guys get sucked in by movies at home but I need to go out to a
> > theatre and a really big screen.
>
> Maybe you're not disabled. I am.
>
> > I'm also too busy to watch movies most evenings.
>
> Me too.
>
> > If I ever did secumb to HT, I'd have maybe 25W/Ch with tubes and only
> > two channels and the amps wouldn't heat the room nor heat a TV screen
> > mounted above the amp. I don't need a sub, or any more than full range
> > stereo. Any movie needing more probably has a lousy boring story.
>
> Again, another assumption Patrick. No wonder you live on your own :-).
No, just my opinion. Stereo has been fine for me for 40 years. I don't
need more channels than 2 with a movie.
>
> > Jus' my 2c,
>
> Worth about 1c I'd say. Certainly no more :-).>
>
> > And BTW, a PP 100W tybe amp using 4 x 6550 per channel and biased for
> > 30mA each tube would have anode dissipation of say 15W per tube plus 12W
> > for the heaters so thats's 108W at idle. Inputs and losses make another
> > 15W so that's 123W all up.
> >
> > Now any SET amp making 35W would have anode diss at 110W and heating
> > power maybe 30W plus inpts and losses of 15W so thats 155W all up which
> > is **more** than the 100W channel. So in fact your SET 35W amps are
> > heating your room more than the PP amps.
>
> Wrong again. I run my amp at around 7.5 watts, not 35. Do your calculations
> again Patrick.
7.5W? that's terribly low audio power.
>
> > Just strip right off, pray your missus doesn't mind a naked cool man in
> > a hot room which to her is probably better than a hot man in cool room
> > even well dressed.
>
> She's used to me 'stripping off' as I have a problem with excessive body
> heat :-).
Gees, fancy her being used to you naked. There's no accounting for
taste.
>
> > Open you windows, turn off the lights and she'll be right as they say.
> > There are very few evenings when the house heats up unbearably.
>
> Around your place I'm sure that's right :-).
This last year we had a hot time while the bushfires scorched Vic.
I thought of an evap cooler but they cost thousands and consume a lot of
water and its only for a month.
But I sometimes use tube gear on hot nights and the nice large room I
have doesn't get any hotter with the windows open.
And at my age, I have given up chasing wrinkly old ladies who can't ride
a bicycle.
Patrick Turner.
> ruff.