the amp maker

[malcolm22]

the sword maker video posted up here reminded me of sakuma-san, a tube audio electronics builder in japan


DH with the Sakuma System-1





i love this:


To use an example from the painterly arts, Rembrandt's expression through light and shadow is marvellous. Most figures on his canvas reside in darkness. Lighted figures he draws only partially. Our eyes are initially drawn to the lighted part, but to recognize Rembrandt's theme, the darkest areas need to be searched. Darkness is silence; this darkness includes many subtleties to which we must listen. Darkness makes us search our imagination.

Amplifier builders seem to think that clear and "accurate" tone can express the essence of music. I need non-analytical tone in reproduced sound. I aspire to Rembrandt's interplay of light and shadow, to evoke memories both happy and sad.

My audio life is to make emotional shadows from sounds. Hints are found in the many transformers. I draw the contrasts with transformers and tubes. I hope the amplifiers will be my portrait.

Ending

I come back to myself when the Lowther PM6 unit tells me the end of LP.

I go to the player and lift the arm.

As I return the LP to the shelf, I notice a book resting there. That small volume, "Opium" by Jean Cocteau, has greatly influenced me and my audio life.

I read again.

"When I record my poets, I dislike the notion of taking a picture of a voice. I notice there is a problem. If this problem can be solved, the recordings will turn from being the camera for our ears to become a new tool for our hearing. Then this new tool promises us new surprise future.

The machine's hard voice is not same as my voice and is the result of the co-operation with human and machine.

Don't admire machine. Don't regard machine as tool which we can control easily. And create with machine."


I close the book
It is evening by this time

Heavy rain
It seems to destroy my poor restaurant

I stare at the new 845 pre-amplifier which I am building

Solder is burning my fingers
The lines twist about

Something holds its breath behind me

My ears are full
with the sound of beating rain
Blue eye of tube looks at me
I look at it back

All walls bear down on me

I lost my being

[Bob Ross]

Engagingly poetic, which I admire & appreciate. And yet, I find what he's suggesting -- especially this:

"I dislike the notion of taking a picture of a voice. I notice there is a problem. If this problem can be solved, the recordings will turn from being the camera for our ears to become a new tool for our hearing. Then this new tool promises us new surprise future.

The machine's hard voice is not same as my voice and is the result of the co-operation with human and machine.

Don't admire machine. Don't regard machine as tool which we can control easily. And create with machine."

-- is completely antithetical to what I want from an amplifier, and completely antithetical to what I want any amplifier that someone listens to my music through to do.

[Auk]

Having a good friend that builds tube amps for audio purposes, I've had a chance to hear some amazing audio. When a 1watt amp is pulling you around the room like a bull with a nose ring, you know there is something special going on. The amp should just be a transparent piece of the puzzle that reveals what is on the recording, nothing more. Some error in the presentation, the best ones just disappear in the audio chain.

[turkish]

Having a good friend that builds tube amps for audio purposes, I've had a chance to hear some amazing audio. When a 1watt amp is pulling you around the room like a bull with a nose ring, you know there is something special going on. The amp should just be a transparent piece of the puzzle that reveals what is on the recording, nothing more. Some error in the presentation, the best ones just disappear in the audio chain.

I agree, sound must be presented as it was recorded: no signal distorsion neither coloration. Cables don't sound; amps ... well, they amplify, and loudspeakers move air.

Vacuum tubes can be as neutral as transistors.

[rec head]

I agree, sound must be presented as it was recorded: no signal distorsion neither coloration. Cables don't sound; amps ... well, they amplify, and loudspeakers move air.

Vacuum tubes can be as neutral as transistors.

I disagree. I think sound should be presented as you want to hear it. I don't think there is anything wrong with the purist view at all and I'm not dissing it. All I'm saying is that whatever makes you happy is the best. I like the non-transparent "tube sound" and I also like listening to stereo recordings in 7.1 sometimes. Also I'm sure my listening equipment is better than the recording equipment of a bunch of recordings I own and love. That doesn't mean that I going to use a boombox to listen because the band recorded an album on a cassette 4 track.

Music is awesome. Have fun with it.

[malcolm22]

i'm not so much in the 'accuracy' camp either, only because every system i've heard that purports to be accurate (i've heard literally hundreds, ranging in price from 500 bucks to the totally insane) in not musically satisfying in the long term. in other words, if the goal is to transmit without distortion, as some of you say, simply wht's on the recording, then theese systems do well, but i find that they are not musically communicative. systems that some people call 'colored' end up doing this better, imo. the grail, to me, is a happy medium - not so easy to accomplish.

[Human Epic Jolt]

haha hifi.



think about it.

a loud speaker does not produce sound in the same way as a clarinet does.
a loudspeaker does not produce sound in an in inversely identical manner to that of a microphone producing electricity (for example).

why on earth would what's between the clarinet and the loudspeaker need to be neutral?

[Human Epic Jolt]

this is completely antithetical to what I want from an amplifier, and completely antithetical to what I want any amplifier that someone listens to my music through to do.

what type of music are you creating around this hinted at device?

[turkish]

i'm not so much in the 'accuracy' camp either, only because every system i've heard that purports to be accurate (i've heard literally hundreds, ranging in price from 500 bucks to the totally insane) in not musically satisfying in the long term. in other words, if the goal is to transmit without distortion, as some of you say, simply wht's on the recording, then theese systems do well, but i find that they are not musically communicative. systems that some people call 'colored' end up doing this better, imo. the grail, to me, is a happy medium - not so easy to accomplish.

Vacuum tubes add "good distortion" to music, they are said to be warm.

[malcolm22]

Vacuum tubes add "good distortion" to music, they are said to be warm.

yes. i think the fallacy of the 'accurate' camp for me is that it's only accurate on the surface, with seemingly less 'distortion' than the 'euphonic' camp. but my benchmark is not what it sounds like (accurate vs not, etc) but which system allows me to better connect with the music. my own experience is that most of the 'accurate' systems i've heard do not do this as well as some of the decent to better 'euphonic' systems.

[54ny77]

hi fi.

[rec head]

word.

[malcolm22]

hi fi.

hi ho

[54ny77]

FYI, with all this hi-fi talk, y'all do know it is a prerequisite to have a boombox in the garage/workshop that is at least 20 years old, right? Preferably caked with dust and paint splatters.

I just laid to rest a Panasonic that was pushing 30 yrs old. It served its masters well. People mourned, women cried.

[Auk]

[QUOTE=54ny77;364523]FYI, with all this hi-fi talk, y'all do know it is a prerequisite to have a boombox in the garage/workshop that is at least 20 years old, right? Preferably caked with dust and paint splatters.QUOTE]

Older the better, as it's a better chance that it has a paper cone that actually plays music.

[Rico]

Vacuum tubes add "good distortion" to music, they are said to be warm.

And when overdriven you have a great guitar amp.

[malcolm22]

[QUOTE=Auk;364528]

FYI, with all this hi-fi talk, y'all do know it is a prerequisite to have a boombox in the garage/workshop that is at least 20 years old, right? Preferably caked with dust and paint splatters.QUOTE]

Older the better, as it's a better chance that it has a paper cone that actually plays music.

you mean kevlar is not musical?

[Auk]

I've always found them (kevlar drivers), with very very few exceptions, to be a bit dead until you have some real umph sent to the driver. Great for sub and low freq. applications, but low to mid volume applications love paper. And none of that carbon/poly impregnated stuff either. Just good ol paper cones. . .banana paper too.

[malcolm22]

I've always found them (kevlar drivers), with very very few exceptions, to be a bit dead until you have some real umph sent to the driver. Great for sub and low freq. applications, but low to mid volume applications love paper. And none of that carbon/poly impregnated stuff either. Just good ol paper cones. . .banana paper too.

sorry, my response was not clear - i totally agree wiith you on cone materials. even worse now is the obsession with beryllium. have you tried any of the hemp drivers?

[Bob Ross]

I'm sure my listening equipment is better than the recording equipment of a bunch of recordings I own and love.

But that's a red herring; the quality of the recording equipment is immaterial if you're of the belief that a playback system's job is to reproduce the sound of the source...and by "source" I mean the recordings, not the original performance.