Jon Risch distortion test signal

[E-Stat]

Check this out:

http://www.vmpsaudio.com/dc31.htm

No revelations made there by Mr. Cheney. Questions of mid-fi vs. high end aside, there are simply more entertainment choices and reduced fidelity, yet popular formats for music such as MP3 available today that have drastically reduced the number of folks who simply sit down to listen to music. Before you cry elitist regarding my MP3 comment, consider that I am listening at this very music to MP3s stored on my computer. I ripped all my CDs. There's no denying the convenience of having one's entire musical library immediately accessible. It works great for background listening which is really what most folks do.

re:"...I'm sure glad that we're not stuck with those dreadful early sixties SS amplifiers today, despite their "better" measurable performance..."

Let me posit this thought...many early CDs got a bad rep due to the fact that most of the analog program material was mastered, mixed and otherwise hocus-pocused on equipment contemporaneous ...

We're talking about different animals here. I am referring to the earliest players, not recordings. Perhaps you never suffered with a first gen unit. I had an early Magnavox unit (really Philips) that I gave to my Mom when I moved to a Pioneer unit. I listened again to that unit a few years back when she passed away. Nope - it still sucks with new recordings. My $69 Toshiba 3950 DVD player of today is significantly smoother in the high frequencies. BTW, the earliest Telarc recordings mastered on the 16/50 Soundstream system remain pretty darn good today. Conversely, I have some remastered Astrid Gilberto recordings from the early sixties that sound quite clear on my current rig, albeit replete with ping-pong stereo effects, limited bandwidth, and in a couple of cases, gross analog distortion.

Since most of the stuff played back thru those "dreadful" amps was probably produced on tubed-gear, for playback on similar gear(and let's not discount the fact that true "audiophiles" of the era were lstening predominantly listening to classical, using Mac and Marantz and Fisher and HHScott et al) IMHO you have a similar problem...particularly since the recording companies are loathe to retool and/or retrofit for any reason, particularly for the "pop" crowd...

Really don't know where you're going here. The AR integrated amplifier (my first step up from an Electrophonic 8-track unit) remains a hard sounding amp. The Crown IC-150 preamp still drags fingernails across the chaulkboard with your choice of recording.

Perhaps the SS amplifiers weren't the problem and it was simply the software "incompatiblities"...

Then again !

rw