Forums - How Much power Is Enough

Pale Rider Seasoned Member Posts: 1271	Re: How Much power Is Enough Reply #30 - 02/23/13 at 20:04:33 Lon, I think you're right on all counts. I expect them to be excellent, and I expect them to be completely un-competitive with Decware and similar makes.
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HPDJ

Senior Member

Posts: 53

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #31 - 02/23/13 at 20:59:33

Wait, Pale Rider...the "girls music" you are referring to is the Linn Records album right?? I'm being a bit slow this Saturday evening, sorry! Tongue

I spent the past week trying to figure out an issue I was having with JRiver on my computer...and today (after some back an forth with some folks on the JRiver forums) I figured it out!

BTW I downloaded some sample Hi-Rez music from HD tracks and it sound pretty fantastic through my DAC...man! I was just listening to some Radio Head (from my own library) and I haven't had time to a/b it with the CD, but playing through my computer with JRiver and JPlay I don't think it's sounded better.....hmmm this computer audio realm is sounding very sweet so far....more to come

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Pale Rider Seasoned Member Posts: 1271	Re: How Much power Is Enough Reply #32 - 02/23/13 at 22:19:11 Yep, Linn Records. Some great stuff from folks who understand what music is supposed to sound like. Enjoy!
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beowulf

Seasoned Member

Posts: 228

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #33 - 02/25/13 at 03:02:16

Quote:

McGowan
There are a lot of variables going on as you would imagine. I’ve been to enough listening environments to have heard the gamut from great sounding SET systems of only a few watts to mega systems of many watts and they are all different.

Some of the SET setups I have heard sounded great on certain kinds of music but dreadful on others.

Today's post pretty much equals ... SET "dreadful" on anything other than Jazz and Classical.

Quote:

McGowan
I’ve noticed, for example, that many SET owners choose their music carefully rarely playing anything with high average value – like my Pink Floyd example – and concentrating their selections on high peak value music like classical or jazz.

Are you guys choosing your music "very carefully"? Because according to Paul if you aren't ... it probably sounds like crap! Smiley

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Pale Rider

Seasoned Member

Posts: 1271

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #34 - 02/25/13 at 05:29:23

Heh, I already wrote Paul about that. Because I listen to Floyd all the time! One of his faves, Wish You Were Here, is a regular SACD on my system. This bit also seems somewhat contradictory of his point the other day about compression, in which WYWH was featured, and it also seems inconsistent with the notion that classical music has dynamics requiring megawatts.

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Lord Soth

Seasoned Member

I'm an American
BadAss!

Posts: 109

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #35 - 02/25/13 at 08:49:34

I disagree with the statement that SET is only suitable for Jazz and classical.

It took me lots of patience and tube-rolling to get my SE setup to work with all genres of music.
My tube rolling adventures came to an end when I finally rolled in the Brimar 5R4GY rectifier in my system.

Now I have the lush tube warmth required for jazz vocals.
Bass wise, I have a tight low end with vibrational impact sufficient to shake one's molars if I play Japanese Taiko drums music.
For the treble, cymbals have "zing", decay and acoustic guitars or harps can bring tears to the listener.
Classical music pieces are also clean and linear sounding.

IMHO, the ultimate test would be modern Pop music which places sonic requirements on the bottom end all the way to the top end.
Contemporary pop music by Madonna sounds great on my SE system.

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Pale Rider

Seasoned Member

Posts: 1271

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #36 - 02/25/13 at 13:32:35

In today's post, SET Down For This One, McGowan starts his deconstruction of what he calls the "SET mystique." The advantages of single-ended output, second order harmonics clipping distortion, and high voltage are briefly discussed, but there isn't much else than that. I am returning to my playlist from last night:

1. John O’Conor’s Telarc Moonlight Sonata;
2. Allman Brothers’ Fillmore East Elizabeth Reed;
3. Boz Scaggs Loan Me A Dime;
4. Allman Brothers’ SUNY Elizabeth Reed;
5. Pink Floyd Sorrow from Momentary Lapse of Reason
6. Pink Floyd SACD of Wish You Were Here;
7. Allman Brothers Blue Sky from SACD of Eat A Peach;
8. Patricia Barber Bluray Modern Cool;
9. Telarc 1812

Granted, my main amp is not an ultra-low-watt SET, but I believe it offers some modest rebuttal to the high power clamor.

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ski bum

Seasoned Member

Posts: 146

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #37 - 02/25/13 at 17:04:42

He's still doing the cursory survey of a complex topic, and repeating some gerealizations which may or may not be the case. He's actually correct on the class A thing. The voltage thing is a bit more complicated, and I'll be curious to see if he veers off into being nonlinear into real speakers, or talks about apparent increased dynamic power (which for SETs is more likely relating to their overdrive characteristics...which us SET users try to minimize by choosing appropriate speakers in the first place).

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes...

A little light reading while you wait for tomorrow's installment of McGowan's hand waving red herring show. Note the noise floor for triodes and trannys as compared to the transistors: -30db difference (realize that's orders of magnitude better performance.)

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Pale Rider Seasoned Member Posts: 1271	Re: How Much power Is Enough Reply #38 - 02/25/13 at 17:30:21 Thanks for the link ski bum. Good read.
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Pale Rider

Seasoned Member

Posts: 1271

Re: How Much power Is Enough
Reply #39 - 02/27/13 at 16:10:54

Today's post, High Voltage, starts to get interesting around tubed amlification advantages:
Quote:

But if the device has a power supply of 300 volts, like many tubes do, then our linear region just went from 7.5 volts to 75 volts and that’s a lot of region in anyone’s book.

This is one of the reasons why all PS Audio products are so power supply intensive. Not only do we subscribe to bigger is better, but higher as well. Our typical operating voltage for our DACS and preamps is not the standard 24 to 30 volts, but 60 instead. This gives PS source products twice the linear region of most solid state devices – yet far lower than a tube would have.

From our perspective, if you can keep the signal you want well within the linear boundaries of the amplifying device, you’re fine – so 15 volts of linear region is far more than the maximum output signal is going to get to – hence we stick with that.

The additional linear region of a tube is wasted once you pass over a certain level. Wasted, that is, on linear performance – but valuable on another front – headroom in an amp.

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