Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo EMERALD PHYSICS EP2.8

I always enjoyed posting with craigsub. I thought his post was insulting and gave it some thought. I love music and am obviously an audio enthusiast. I post about my hobby and talk about my equipment and impressions, what's worked and what hasn't. I always figured this site was a good one for me because it is pretty low-key and populated with some like-minded folk. Disputes about whether shoe laces make good interconnects and tube amps and vinyl are usually pretty tame compared to some sites.

Nevertheless, I figure perhaps I've talked about my stuff and my quest a bit too much.

I am going to back out of this site for a while.

Ola Serenity, I changed "your wife run away?" with "trouble with the wife?" nothing too juicy.

I checked my PMs and the only interaction I had with craigsub regarded his concern about my posting with yabasta, as to more, well, that's why they are private messages.

Anyway, enjoy the music!

2X6, though I don't always agree with your choices I do respect them as being yours. I like what I like also regardless of what the graphs and charts and waterfalls tell me. I love my Axioms for my movies and they are pretty good at music but I still prefer my HPM 900s and my Vinyl for listening pleasure , though they were not made by felons they still sound good. I find digital music to sound canned, to my ears. Don't let one insult drive you away,some people are short on tact. Hell I have people come to my shop driving Chevrolet's, I realize they just don't know better but I don't insult their car. LOL

Welcome back craig - haven't heard from you for a while.

I too enjoy my tube amp; however, being a modern design, I don't notice any distortion like an electric guitar tube amp can induce by over driving the tubes. One would have to drive it pretty hard to make it audibly distort but by that time one's hearing would be in jeopardy.

I still prefer CD/SACD music to anything on vinyl, simply due to its superior dynamic range & lack of surface noise & clicks & pops. Well recorded & mixed digital music (sometimes hard to find), such as all of Clapton's productions over the past decade, are nothing but superb. My tubes, CD/SACDs, M2s & EP400s are simply spectacular on that system - to me & to anyone else who has heard it.

Still snow on my palm tree out here on the left coast, ha!

TAM

Tam - I have been swamped between work issues and a son healing from the three broken vertebrae in his neck/back.

The type of distortion you are talking about with a guitar tube amp would be a "grunge distortion" effect, and deliberate.

The distortion in a "regular" tube amp has been proven to be there, over and over, for 50 years. This type of distortion gives amps what is known as a "warm sound".

Floyd E. Toole is the best known source for this type of information, and The Audio Critic did 100's of tests over a 30 plus year period.

2x6 speeds - the monoprice amp you love has over 10 % THD when delivering over about 3 watts. This type of distortion in a tube amp gives lots of "warmth".

The Emerald Physics speakers rate their frequency response within a 3 dB window of the "target curve", instead of a flat response.

I have the latest generation of Klipsch LaScalas. They have a lot in common with the Emerald Physics speakers - high efficiency, compression driver tweeter, exciting sound, and a widely varied response curve.

Combined with a tube amp, they are great sounding, but not accurate. I don't mind it, as it's fun on occasion. I know I am listening to distortion and a widely carried response curve, but don't let it stop me from enjoying. You shouldn't let it stop you, either.

My comments were nothing personal. I didn't mention your wife, nor your dog. I kept the discussion to the issues of the amp, speakers, and the designer.

The only personal part of my post was about the designer being a convicted felon. The man is a convicted felon. He raised over $100,000 for children's charities on his website that never reached the charity in question. The fact that he did this is not your fault. However, he still did it, and people deserve to know the truth, especially when thinking about spending hard earned money.

Enjoy your system, and I hope you understand there was nothing personal towards you in my posts. There is the science side to this hobby, and there is the art side, and plenty of room for both.

I searched the net for the specs on my Yaquin MC-100B integrated tube amp. Distortion is listed at <1.5%. Now I know that that doesn't tell us a lot; however, will this level be actually be audible; ie, cause 'warmness'?

Several articles in the forums mentioned that it sounded very much like a SS Amp. As I've stated before some time back, after the placebo effect of having a new toy wore off, I found that I didn't notice much, if any, difference in what I was hearing from my CD/SACDs at normal listening levels. Same as when I made a full change of the tube compliment (10 tubes) to a different brand. According to the tube enthusiasts, I should have I guess - but I didn't.

Mind you, in low light, 10 tubes glowing has a certain 'cool factor' & helps to heat my house at this time of year, ha!

TAM

Tam - It would be interesting to have the amp tested to see what the distortion level is at a particular frequency and also at a particular output level.

Total harmonic distortion is measured in relative decibels, then converted to a percentage.

1% THD is actually measured at -40 dB. A 100 dB fundamental will have a 60 dB of total Harmonic Distortion - probably not audible to most people, but possibly adding a bit of warmth.

A highly regarded tube amp from Manley was rated at 40 WPC with a THD of 1%. When measured by Bascom King, it hit over 10% THD at 38 watts. This is now a -20 dB level. Most Tube amps have "almost all" of the THD in the second harmonic.

For example, in the case of the Manley amp, at volume, a 100 dB, 100 Hz tone will have an 80 dB tone at 200 Hz. It won't sound distorted in a "bad" way, but rather will be warm.

A tube amp and SS amp "should" sound identical, unless one is either adding distortion or has a fairly wide response curve.

It is usually the Tube amp with the wider response curve, which again lead us to that warm sound.

I would wager a lot of money that people who love the tube sound would have a much harder time identifying the tube sound under blind tests.

It's a great conversation to be had at an event like a "home theater meet".

To your specific amp, based on what you posted about your experience with it, it seems to have a pretty linear response curve and lower distortion.

And yes, looking at the tubes is going to add to the experience. They just look awesome!

Ah yes. Sonic Frontiers. A company that no longer exists. Well, they sort of do. They use to be 5 minutes from my house here in Oakville. then the two owners had a fight and one wanted to stay true to the purist tube sound, and the other wanted to go solid state. Then the company got chopped up and sold off to Paradigm and their work became Anthem.

Craig, I hope your son is making improvements in his recovery.

Mark - Thank you for the kind words. His recovery has been remarkable. He started at a local university this fall, and joined a fraternity. Overall, we have been well blessed.

Thank you again!

Good to hear he is recovering nicely. Those kinds of injuries can be very painful and debilitating. You truly are fortunate that he is able to recover and return to school.