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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffcin
And you are just confused. Fidelity is a word with a standard meaning. It's not something that you "feel" it is. I suggest you go look it up.
Definition of Fidelity on the Web:
* accuracy with which an electronic system reproduces the sound or image of its input signal
* the quality of being faithful
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyfi
Definition of Fidelity on the Web:
* accuracy with which an electronic system reproduces the sound or image of its input signal
* the quality of being faithful
Exactly! In this case reproduction is measurable against it's input signal.
As to the second meaning, that would be between you and your sig other. Although there are some here to which their tube gear would qualify as their sig other.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tube fan
YOU are confusing fidelity with frequency response. Much more is involved. YOU are not considering micro and macro fidelity, and accurate tonal saturation, among other factors favoring tubes. Consider this: the best music is beautiful, and I've yet to hear the same sweet beauty in solid state equipment, regardless of cost. I go to a lot of live music events (classical and jazz), and tubes capture the thrill of live music. I am looking forward to the California Audio Show, especially to the matching of tubes and recent examples of speakers with high efficiency.
Another note: many confuse the crisp sound of solid state with accuracy. It's really an innaccuracy, an overemphasis of the leading edge of notes. It's a kind of crispness not found in music. I'll take the liquid bloom of tubes that closely mirror the live event.
If it's got feedback - it's not accurate - If it were it would not need to be "corrected". The system that plays the signal directly through without error correction (to corrrect errors it creates itself) is not accurate - no matter how the measurements are manipulated to make it look good. You won't however convince people of it so it's really no use. The ears are the arbiters and if you have perfect listening pitch as I do then it's tiresome to listen to the arguments when the ear states the bleeding obvious. Most audiophiles and most of the top manufacturers are tube guys. Tube amps really ONLY sell to audiophiles - audiophiles tend to be the guys with the best hearing and take it the most seriously. CES 2010 I'd say at least 80% possibly 90% of all the rooms used either all Tubes or Tube hybrids. Even the speaker makers who you would think would not run tubes like Dynaudio used Tubes. As Martin Colloms noted - even the SS amp makers have been progressing over the years to less and less feedback. And the makers that make both SS and tube - Tube tends to be their flagship products. McIntosh, ARC, MF(Nuvista) etc.
That said SS has a certain kind of sound and if you like it buy it. At the end of the day as Steven Rochlin says - do what you need to do to enjoythemusic. The arguments over accuracy and measurements are all just forum debate fodder. And like most debates, Tube/SS, Vinyl/CD, standmount/floorstander, electrostat/horn, HE/LE, PP/SE etc people rarely change their views so Steven probably has it right - enjoythemusic should be the first concern and worrying whether your preference is more accurate is rather pointless.
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I don't think any one is in disagreement as to what fidelity means, the difference is what constitutes the fidelity. I disagree with the assumption tubes have to be inaccurate. I find although these days both camps, tubes and solid state, are doing pretty well at approaching each other's sound each still bring a different aspect of the music to life. Tube gear still has fidelity. Just because one may think solid state does a better job doesn't mean you can exclude every other technology from having fidelity. What about the various digital amps, do they not have fidelity? Or, maybe they are because technically they're still solid state. If we get to splitting hairs then we have to admit there is no fidelity at all because no solid state or tube gear will render a perfect, faithful reproduction of the original recording, let alone the original performance. Some may come closer than others or do a better job in one area or another but until you can walk in one room with the hi fi set up and another with the band and can't tell any difference we have to either say there is no fidelity or agree there are degrees and varied aspects of fidelity.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tube fan
YOU are confusing fidelity with frequency response. Much more is involved. YOU are not considering micro and macro fidelity, and accurate tonal saturation, among other factors favoring tubes. Consider this: the best music is beautiful, and I've yet to hear the same sweet beauty in solid state equipment, regardless of cost. I go to a lot of live music events (classical and jazz), and tubes capture the thrill of live music. I am looking forward to the California Audio Show, especially to the matching of tubes and recent examples of speakers with high efficiency.
Another note: many confuse the crisp sound of solid state with accuracy. It's really an innaccuracy, an overemphasis of the leading edge of notes. It's a kind of crispness not found in music. I'll take the liquid bloom of tubes that closely mirror the live event.
I like tubes just like the next man likes tubes. But frankly I am tired of hearing the same old lies that SS can not have fidelity, accurate tonal saturation, that SS music is not beautiful or no sweet beauty. Its a bunch of lies. Like SS cant capture the thrill of live music. Its a pack of lies. As I type this I am now listening to the 1986 Playboy Jazz Festival on vinyl. Side C has Benny Golson, Art Farmer and Nancy Wilson and my Rotel has captured all the thrill of this live performance. BUt there is not coloration from a tube what so ever. And accuracy....my ears don't hear any inaccuracy from the speakers....I don't care what you've read that says other wise.....you guy who spout this stuff are something else.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffcin
Exactly! In this case reproduction is measurable against it's input signal.
Exactly!
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As to the second meaning, that would be between you and your sig other. Although there are some here to which their tube gear would qualify as their sig other.
True...and thats why they say infidelity.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
I don't think any one is in disagreement as to what fidelity means, the difference is what constitutes the fidelity. I disagree with the assumption tubes have to be inaccurate. I find although these days both camps, tubes and solid state, are doing pretty well at approaching each other's sound each still bring a different aspect of the music to life. Tube gear still has fidelity. Just because one may think solid state does a better job doesn't mean you can exclude every other technology from having fidelity. What about the various digital amps, do they not have fidelity? Or, maybe they are because technically they're still solid state. If we get to splitting hairs then we have to admit there is no fidelity at all because no solid state or tube gear will render a perfect, faithful reproduction of the original recording, let alone the original performance. Some may come closer than others or do a better job in one area or another but until you can walk in one room with the hi fi set up and another with the band and can't tell any difference we have to either say there is no fidelity or agree there are degrees and varied aspects of fidelity.
I think what's really going on is that there's an idea that because something sounds/looks beautiful it must be accurate. It's simply not the case. For instance; I happen to like impressionist art. That kind of art has poor fidelity, but it's exceptionally beautiful, at least to my eye. The same goes for audio. Most of what makes tubed/analog gear so attractive sounding is NOT how accurate it is, but how good it's inaccuracy sounds to the ear. Fidelity as a word should not be misconstrued to mean beautiful or attractive in this case.
FWIW; I've always enjoyed tubed gear (I own several pieces) going all the way back to days when it was not in the rare "audiophile only" category. It was fun to get RGA babbling again though!
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The real issue is that NOTHING is perfectly accurate and if you are going to buy something that is innaccurate you may as well by the one that "sounds the best." SS and SET makers both claim and argue for Accuracy but in the end both are not perfectly accurate. It is either 100% or accurate or it isn't. The word Accurate is absolute. And without a frame of reference then notions of more or less accurate are problematic.
So it comes down to accepting a preference. Most of the high end industry is in the tube vinyl camp - the best of the best of the best ears are in this camp. IMO they're correct. And the bonus is that consumers get to save a pile of cash. Modelstly priced Rogue audio and Mystere made speakers like Martin Logan, Dynaudio, and Wilson Audio speakers sound better by a mile than I have heard them sound with top of the line Krell, MF, Bryston, Mark Levinson. Tube amps for under $5 grand versus SS in the $50 grand plus range. What was interesting is that ML, Dynaudio, Wilson ran their gear with 30-50 watt tubes. It made some speakers that usually sound grossly overrated sound clearer, cleaner, more open, faster, dynamics, three dimensional and forced me to re-evaluate their speakers.
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RGA, you are misrepresenting things again, just a bit. The ONLY reason Dynaudio was using a tube amp is because they brought Octave Audio under their umbrella. If they really thought tubes were better the Dynaudio mega dollar amps would have been tube. Instead the are massive solid state with ridiculous capacitance reserves, their amp will play for hours after being unplugged from the wall.
We may not know the original performance but one can reasonably ascertain if a cymbal is struck it's not "warm", you will hear metal being struck, if an amp some how holds back so your ears aren't offended then it's not accurate. Maybe offended isn't the appropriate word but hopefully you get my drift. And, on the other hand if the tapping of a cymbal in a Jazz Quartet has you reaching for cotton there's a problem, we know that's supposed to be subtle. We know a cymbal unless stopped fades or shimmers out it doesn't crash then immediately stops. So I agree nothing is perfect yet but we can reasonably tell if one unit is more accurate than another, although, we can see that is highly subjective. With all that being said I've heard tube gear more capable of doing that over some solid state, say McIntosh for instance, solid state, in my opinion not very accurate at all. I'd say rather than one technology over another it's more a unit by unit thing.
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The poor OP, he's probably, huh? all I wanted to know is.......
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RGA
The real issue is that NOTHING is perfectly accurate and if you are going to buy something that is innaccurate you may as well by the one that "sounds the best." SS and SET makers both claim and argue for Accuracy but in the end both are not perfectly accurate. It is either 100% or accurate or it isn't. The word Accurate is absolute. And without a frame of reference then notions of more or less accurate are problematic.
"In the fields of engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to its actual (true) value. " from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
RGA, you are misrepresenting things again, just a bit. The ONLY reason Dynaudio was using a tube amp is because they brought Octave Audio under their umbrella. If they really thought tubes were better the Dynaudio mega dollar amps would have been tube. Instead the are massive solid state with ridiculous capacitance reserves, their amp will play for hours after being unplugged from the wall.
We may not know the original performance but one can reasonably ascertain if a cymbal is struck it's not "warm", you will hear metal being struck, if an amp some how holds back so your ears aren't offended then it's not accurate. Maybe offended isn't the appropriate word but hopefully you get my drift. And, on the other hand if the tapping of a cymbal in a Jazz Quartet has you reaching for cotton there's a problem, we know that's supposed to be subtle. We know a cymbal unless stopped fades or shimmers out it doesn't crash then immediately stops. So I agree nothing is perfect yet but we can reasonably tell if one unit is more accurate than another, although, we can see that is highly subjective. With all that being said I've heard tube gear more capable of doing that over some solid state, say McIntosh for instance, solid state, in my opinion not very accurate at all. I'd say rather than one technology over another it's more a unit by unit thing.
Ahh but then you are trusting your ears - and some people can't have that. Some CD's soften the cymbal crash and some don't. Interestingly, the best SE tubes I have heard sound clearer and faster and have that "crash" along with the follow through. It's a matter of what the grear is over just the technology - because there are a bunch of mushy tube amps out there and they're probably the ones that created the reputation I presume. The mushier tube gear is liked and I suppose if you lean in a direction a little warmer is probably more "likable" than leaning unrelenting bright.
I might try and get one of the OCTAVE amps here. It's always nce to have a different take on things.
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The local Dyn dealer has the 40 watt Octave and I can't wait to go hear it. They tell me the 40 watt rating is a joke based on how it sounds. I shall see.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luvin Da Blues
Yes 2+2 = 4 and 3 is more accurate than 18 billion but we all know that because we know that 2=2=4. In other words we know the degree of accuracy because we know what the answer is. In audio - we don't. We have assumptions.
We may as well be asking the question Duawlla82 + Yoda S = TilipRose.
Is juwallO more accurate than chasersW? And then apply it to a subjective response.
We can presume that a flatter frequency response is better than a non flat one (though some debate on that with some Quad guys), and lower distortion is better than high distortion, and that the left speaker should match the right speaker as close as possible, and that the speaker retain very high resolution, the ability to reproduce a tremdous dynamics envelope without overshoot, is fast, is sonically pure through a wide frequency range, Comes from the same point in space.
Loudspeaker designers often make choices to make one parameter better which often makes another parameter worse, which is why lots of companies have lots of engineers who know the math way better than I will ever know it - and yet they make completely different loudspeakers.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frenchmon
I like tubes just like the next man likes tubes. But frankly I am tired of hearing the same old lies that SS can not have fidelity, accurate tonal saturation, that SS music is not beautiful or no sweet beauty. Its a bunch of lies. Like SS cant capture the thrill of live music. Its a pack of lies. As I type this I am now listening to the 1986 Playboy Jazz Festival on vinyl. Side C has Benny Golson, Art Farmer and Nancy Wilson and my Rotel has captured all the thrill of this live performance. BUt there is not coloration from a tube what so ever. And accuracy....my ears don't hear any inaccuracy from the speakers....I don't care what you've read that says other wise.....you guy who spout this stuff are something else.
ALL units have some type of distortion, tube and solid state. IMO, your system would sound more realistic driven solely by tubes. Try tubes in place on your solid state on the same music. BTW, be sure to use records, not CDs in any comparison. As I stated earlier, there is a reason why more high end is driven by tubes and analogue at the audio shows. They want their units to show well, and they realize that means tubes and analogue.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tube fan
ALL units have some type of distortion, tube and solid state. IMO, your system would sound more realistic driven solely by tubes. Try tubes in place on your solid state on the same music. BTW, be sure to use records, not CDs in any comparison. As I stated earlier, there is a reason why more high end is driven by tubes and analogue at the audio shows. They want their units to show well, and they realize that means tubes and analogue.
Sure, be sure to use a source with a guaranteed several percent of distortion to prove that your higher distortion amp sounds better. How much sense does that make?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffcin
Sure, be sure to use a source with a guaranteed several percent of distortion to prove that your higher distortion amp sounds better. How much sense does that make?
You just don't get it, and I suspect that you never will. Stick with solid state/and digital. I'll stick with tubes and analogue BECAUSE they are both more accurate (in pitch, dynamics, and tonal saturation) and more beautiful. I'm loking forward to hearing the Aesthetics IO phono/preamp, Audio Note speakers and amplification, King's Audio Magico, and Teresonic at the show. I am especially interested in the Aesthetics IO phono/preamp, because you get a phono amp that is also a preamp for a "bargan" price of around $12,000. I have not heard anything significantly better than my Audio Research SP 8 and Counterpoint SA-2 combination in decades, but I hope the Aesthetics phono preamp is a big step up in accuracy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
The local Dyn dealer has the 40 watt Octave and I can't wait to go hear it. They tell me the 40 watt rating is a joke based on how it sounds. I shall see.
Hey MrP its 3am in the morning and you are still online? Im about to leave for work. I can be at your house about 1pm and we can go and take a listen to the Octave tube amp if you want.
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Frenchie and I did indeed see the Octave Audio 40 watt integrated today. It drove a set of Dynaudio Confidence One's and used a T+A CDP. I was very impressed by this unit. It's one of those tube products that bridges the gap between tubes and solid state, this amp had the best of both worlds. The V40 had extended highs, the sound was quick, detailed and had a serious bottom end. You know this amp is serious to have the capability of driving C1's. The presentation was spectacular, it delivered all aspects of dynamics. They have an external power supply that is said to step up performance even more, it wasn't hooked up at the time. One version is $1200.00 and another is $3500.00. That's just the power supply, the amp alone is $5k USD. The shop had KT-88's in, the sales rep said he likes the KT88's over EL34's that were originally in it.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/octave/octave.html
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All I can say is wow. The Octave had the mid range and upper detail of unpeccable sound engineering without being overly colored or warm and the bass slam of a SS amp. On a scale of tube sweetness or coloration I would say the tube sweetness was about 4 on a scale of..very colored at 10 and the least color or sweetness of tubes at 1 and the bottom end had the slam, pace and deep bass of a solid state power amp. I've made my impression made to Mr.P that it was very close to the sound of those very big mono block Reference amps Marantz makes that cost $15,000 a pair. The Octave was warm but not overly warm. Cymbals and Benny Greens piano had a very nice texture and Christian Mcbrides bass was slamming like...it was like we where listening to a nice big warm solid state amp but you would look up and it was tubes. We then switched over to a T+A SS amp and preamp and all of a sudden SS sounded really grainy. The magic was gone, until we put the tunes back on the Octave....if any one has $5000 to spend on a very nice and classy looking integrated preamp thats not overly warm or overly colored with nice air go and take a listen. RGA if you can...try and do a review of that thing....and I betcha you will find synergy between the music of the Octave and your own soul ...the Octave was full of passion.
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You don't need to tell me - The Octave joins a number of Tube amps from Grant Fidelity, Mystere, Rogue, that have nice prices and loads of power.
The issue that tubes colour the sound or can't drive loudspeakers is horse droppings.
Lower power tubes have the same power and drive IF the speaker is higher in sensitivity. It comes down to the amp power/speaker efficiency formula.
Rogue was running the Sophia II to stupid loud levels at CES. Like I said then - the loudest hardest hitting most bass most bass at high levels, cleanest crispest rooms were the ones driven by tubes. The Trenner and Freidl RA box with tube gear played louder than any room I hear at CES. The 20 watt Jinro on the AN E was right up there. The Ra Box played louder overall but a little noticeable distortion was also present at extreme levels. And I mean ear pain levels and felt like the entire room was compressing. Unbelievable.
All the power and speed without the grainy two dimensional SS grain that enters into it.
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Ok RGA....I've asked you about this in the past but I never kept up with the thread and now its lost and I cant find your answer. I was once considering Rogue preamps but I read many reviews that said they where noticeably noisy so that kinda turned me away... What your take on Rogue?
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Having heard the Octave V40 it would be interesting to see what RGA wrote about it, if his thoughts were along the same as ours.
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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
Having heard the Octave V40 it would be interesting to see what RGA wrote about it, if his thoughts were along the same as ours.
A PP Ultralinear eh? Now who do I know who has one of those?
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Originally Posted by frenchmon
Ok RGA....I've asked you about this in the past but I never kept up with the thread and now its lost and I cant find your answer. I was once considering Rogue preamps but I read many reviews that said they where noticeably noisy so that kinda turned me away... What your take on Rogue?
I heard no noise issue with the Rogue gear - so if they had a problem they fixed it or perhaps they had a new preamp. They were running the Herra II preamp ~$8,000
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