Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions CD Player - CD-A8T, Tube/Solid State HDCD

kcarlile:

Read my apology on the M60 + SAub thread. I really screwed up big-time yesterday with my posts. I've apologised to everyone on the Forum, and I'm apologing to you here. Will you accept it?

mojo:

Thanks for explaining that. My reasoning for having two tube devices was that although, total distortion would increase, tube 2nd order distortion would cause an overall pleasing audio sensation. Since I already have a SS CDP and amp, I can experiment with the two different types of CDPs.

You're not the only one to blame for escalating a non-situation into a situation. Sometimes people drag their "Jump to Conclusions" mat out of cold storage instead of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Welcome.

John:

This is the important one to me, which is from one of my earlier posts:

"Tube amps produce more harmonic distortion, but the type they produce is even order distortion, and is not as harsh-sounding as the odd order distortion transistors produce. Large amounts of even-order distortion (as high as 1-2%) produces little listening fatigue, and can even be relatively pleasant. On the other hand, small amounts of odd-order distortion (less than 0.5%) are audible, even by untrained ears, and make music harder to enjoy."

Tam, check the amplifier lab measurements, such as those at SoundStage which I mentioned. All amps produce both even and odd order distortion, in varying proportions. The use of tubes can result in 2nd order distortion being higher than third, or the third being higher, depending on the overall design(e.g. using a balanced push-pull configuration to partially cancel the even order components).

JohnK:

I thought the point of what I was saying is 2nd-order & in general even-order harmonic distortion is pleasant, while odd-order is not. Am I correct?

I shall check your reference.

Thanks

pmbuko:

I'm glad that you could see that an ill-perceived issue escalated into something that shouldn't have occurred. I have no grudges against ANYONE on this Forum, and I find them all to be be congenial people.

Nonetheless, I STILL apologise for the going-ons. (Hope those uppercase letters don't get me in trouble again).

Best Regards

JohnK:

Would you pls. give me a URL; I''m gonna' spend yrs. in that vault. Thanks.

Yes, I should have supplied the link. Here's their list. It would be worthwhile to analyze all the reports when you have some time, but in checking I find that fortunately the very first solid state amp listed, the Accustic Arts, illustrates the point by having only the 2nd order harmonic high enough to appear above the noise level. Likewise, looking down to the Atma-Sphere tube amp, we find one of the examples of a tube amp having a higher 3rd order harmonic than the second.

Distortion characteristics and some other factors(e.g. very low damping factor, soft-clipping, etc.)sometimes spoken of as if they were unique to tube applications can be duplicated in solid state if desired.

JohnK:

Thanks for the URL.