What Hi-Fi’s audio improvement tricks

[AJM1981]

Yes, me too. And since my house is built of stone, with concrete floors laid on top of bedrock, the only vibrations I'll get will be when we have an earthquake in which case any anti vibration measures I take won't make a scrap of difference.

do you use the valves he writes about?

 

[JDL]

do you use the valves he writes about?

No not me. No valves. I had a valve amp for my bass guitar a while back. It was very expensive, did not sound anything like as good as my class AB solid state bass amp and was unreliable. Valves burn out far too quickly for my taste. To be honest I think they're a rich man's gimmick. No offence intended to valve lovers.

 

[AJM1981]

No not me. No valves. I had a valve amp for my bass guitar a while back. It was very expensive, did not sound anything like as good as my class AB solid state bass amp and was unreliable. Valves burn out far too quickly for my taste. To be honest I think they're a rich man's gimmick. No offence intended to valve lovers.

Would recommend to read his post thoroughly.

 

[JDL]

Would recommend to read his post thoroughly.

What do you mean. I can't find it now. All I remember was him saying valves will convert vibration into sound whereas solid state not to a noticeable degree.

 

[tones]

This article is a fine example of why I'd never subscribe to any hi-fi magazine.

 

[Friesiansam]

This article is a fine example of why I'd never subscribe to any hi-fi magazine.

I don't buy any magazines as everything you need to know can be found online. Just consider where you look for information carefully and, treat social media as a minefield, with a LOT of mines...

 

[Al ears]

I don't buy any magazines as everything you need to know can be found online. Just consider where you look for information carefully and, treat social media as a minefield, with a LOT of mines...

Very true. I don't buy magazines any more, certainly not for review purposes, that's pointless.
I do however value reviews of one or two people who's opinions generally reflect my thinking as to what is good hifi for me. There are only a couple who's views I would take into consideration if I was buying a new piece of equipment, which for the moment is unlikely.

 

[JDL]

Would recommend to read his post thoroughly.

I'm afraid I'm unable to decipher your answer here. You suggest I read an article more thoroughly. Are you willing to tell me, what you mean. Your answer here is perhaps 'cryptic', in the sense that I have no sense of what you mean.
I do not read magazines and I certainly don't believe anything I read hear or otherwise, without evidence to support whatever that might be, or if I happen to agree when it comes to subjective opinions, of which everyone is entitled to their view.
If you're willing to be a little more precise so that I may understand what you're getting at, I'd appreciate it. If not, no problem.

 

[AJM1981]

I'm afraid I'm unable to decipher your answer here. You suggest I read an article more thoroughly. Are you willing to tell me, what you mean. Your answer here is perhaps 'cryptic', in the sense that I have no sense of what you mean.

No, it is not about the article. It was about you quoting user Covenanter. I got the impression that your conclusions were a bit off from what he intended to write.

 

[JDL]

No, it is not about the article. It was about you quoting user Covenanter. I got the impression that your conclusions were a bit off from what he intended to write.

I'm sorry but I still don't understand you. "...quoting user Covenanter..."? My conclusions were a bit off from what he intended to write.
Forgive me but I wish you could just come out with it. Be specific. I am not easily offended and I am always willing to be corrected. I am a believer in truth and clarity. Please feel free to correct me explicitly.
Thanks

 

[tones]

The main audio improvement is to take a pinch of salt when reading the WhatHiFi reviews!

I personally would make that a largish bag of salt.

The question (to which I have no satisfactory answer) is, why do reviewers feel the need to write such obvious toss? I give them the benefit of the doubt in that I think many are true believers. There is an unfortunate tendency among humanity to think that, if you want it to be true, then it is true. I suspect that blindness to scientific fact is a well-established requirement for hi-fi reviewers.

I think it was Peter Walker of Quad who said that all amplifiers driven within their technical limitations will sound the same, so, when a person on another site wanted a "really rocking amp", I suggested he remove the diagonally-opposing feet...

P.S. Speaking of Peters, the best explanation of why these things "work" comes from Gordon Holt's classic Stereophile article on the strange gadgets of Peter Belt:

L'Affaire Belt

When I attended Britain's Heathrow Penta hi-fi show in September 1987, I had hoped to come back with big news about some breakthrough cartridge or preamp or loudspeaker system. I didn't. No, the talk of the Penta show was something called the "Belt Phenomenon," which may possibly be a...

www.stereophile.com

As Holt magnificently puts it:

Psychological tests in other areas of human perception—vision, touch, taste, smell—have proven how unreliable they are, and how much they can be influenced by expectation or suggestion. There's no reason to believe aural perception is the sole exception to this. I am sure this is why so many audiophiles still hear brashness and stridency in Japanese audio products five years after nearly all of them ceased to sound that way.

For self-styled golden ears to be claiming, and trying, to be "objective" is to deny reality, because perception is not like instrumentation. Everything we perceive is filtered through a judgmental process which embodies all of our previous related experiences, and the resulting judgment is as much beyond conscious control as a preference for chocolate over vanilla. We cannot will ourselves to feel what we do not feel. Thus, when perceptions are so indistinct as to be wide open to interpretation, we will tend to perceive what we want to perceive or expect to perceive or have been told that we should perceive. This, I believe, explains the reports that Peter Belt's devices work as claimed.
...

Despite heroic efforts to educate our population, the US (and, apparently, the UK) has been graduating scientific illiterates for more than 40 years. And where knowledge ends, superstition begins. Without any concepts of how scientific knowledge is gleaned from intuition, hypothesis, and meticulous investigation, or what it accepts today as truth, anything is possible. Without the anchor of science, we are free to drift from one idea to another, accepting or "keeping an open mind about" as many outrageous tenets as did the "superstitious natives" we used to scorn 50 years ago. (We still do, but it's unfashionable to admit it.) Many of our beliefs are based on nothing more than a very questionable personal conviction that, because something should be true, then it must be. (Traditional religion is the best example of this.) The notion that a belief should have at least some objective support is scorned as being "closed-minded," which has become a new epithet. In order to avoid that dread appellation, we are expected to pretend to be open to the possibility that today's flight of technofantasy may prove to be tomorrow's truth, no matter how unlikely. Well, I don't buy that.

 

[davidf]

I think it was Peter Walker of Quad who said that all amplifiers driven within their technical limitations will sound the same, so, when a person on another site wanted a "really rocking amp", I suggested he remove the diagonally-opposing feet...

To be fair, he probably said that about 50/60 years ago, and back then most amps were quite similar. Nowadays we have many different classes, as well as amplifiers designed to produced a particular sound.

 

[Friesiansam]

I personally would make that a largish bag of salt.

The question (to which I have no satisfactory answer) is, why do reviewers feel the need to write such obvious toss? I give them the benefit of the doubt in that I think many are true believers. There is an unfortunate tendency among humanity to think that, if you want it to be true, then it is true. I suspect that blindness to scientific fact is a well-established requirement for hi-fi reviewers.

I think it was Peter Walker of Quad who said that all amplifiers driven within their technical limitations will sound the same, so, when a person on another site wanted a "really rocking amp", I suggested he remove the diagonally-opposing feet...

P.S. Speaking of Peters, the best explanation of why these things "work" comes from Gordon Holt's classic Stereophile article on the strange gadgets of Peter Belt:

L'Affaire Belt

When I attended Britain's Heathrow Penta hi-fi show in September 1987, I had hoped to come back with big news about some breakthrough cartridge or preamp or loudspeaker system. I didn't. No, the talk of the Penta show was something called the "Belt Phenomenon," which may possibly be a...

www.stereophile.com

As Holt magnificently puts it:

Psychological tests in other areas of human perception—vision, touch, taste, smell—have proven how unreliable they are, and how much they can be influenced by expectation or suggestion. There's no reason to believe aural perception is the sole exception to this. I am sure this is why so many audiophiles still hear brashness and stridency in Japanese audio products five years after nearly all of them ceased to sound that way.

For self-styled golden ears to be claiming, and trying, to be "objective" is to deny reality, because perception is not like instrumentation. Everything we perceive is filtered through a judgmental process which embodies all of our previous related experiences, and the resulting judgment is as much beyond conscious control as a preference for chocolate over vanilla. We cannot will ourselves to feel what we do not feel. Thus, when perceptions are so indistinct as to be wide open to interpretation, we will tend to perceive what we want to perceive or expect to perceive or have been told that we should perceive. This, I believe, explains the reports that Peter Belt's devices work as claimed.
...

Despite heroic efforts to educate our population, the US (and, apparently, the UK) has been graduating scientific illiterates for more than 40 years. And where knowledge ends, superstition begins. Without any concepts of how scientific knowledge is gleaned from intuition, hypothesis, and meticulous investigation, or what it accepts today as truth, anything is possible. Without the anchor of science, we are free to drift from one idea to another, accepting or "keeping an open mind about" as many outrageous tenets as did the "superstitious natives" we used to scorn 50 years ago. (We still do, but it's unfashionable to admit it.) Many of our beliefs are based on nothing more than a very questionable personal conviction that, because something should be true, then it must be. (Traditional religion is the best example of this.) The notion that a belief should have at least some objective support is scorned as being "closed-minded," which has become a new epithet. In order to avoid that dread appellation, we are expected to pretend to be open to the possibility that today's flight of technofantasy may prove to be tomorrow's truth, no matter how unlikely. Well, I don't buy that.

I suspect anyone with a decent level of intelligence, could come up with a crackpot idea to improve sound quality, write up a few hundred words worth of pseudoscience, then market the idea through shops like Futureshop, who seem to be adept at selling costly tripe to the gullible.

 

[JDL]

Maybe here somewhere below. Two threads about the same article with one user questioning if the writer was drunk and had to catch a deadline.

Nine easy ways to optimize audio quality

Ways to make my HiFi sound better...hmmmm... I did not know that! Listening in the dark? Listening late at night? Stopping playback of CD and then...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

CDs sound better when you play from beginning, versus playing from pause

Hmm ... this is a new one to me. What Hi-Fi says a CD sounds better if you play it from the beginning (or stop it then press play), versus playing it...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

I must admit that a heavy Rotel was the last I've used as a "decent" cd player, it was one of the first mass produced ones from the time the CD became the popular standard. It must have been focused around stabilization. But I remember it as a problematic player up to a degree that I preferred the simplest ones over it later on.

Now I rarely play any physical medium, I sporadically use a playstation 3 for super audio and blu ray.

I don't believe it will improve audio in any way. Maybe some players fiddle with the fan rotation speed doing that resulting in a quieter play back, otherwise I can not really make any sense out of it. It is also like the article is literally the only source.

What?

 

[JDL]

Would recommend to read his post thoroughly.

I did read it. What are you prattling on about. Maybe you should read it again. I've read enough of it thanks.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Keep it civil please, folks.

 

[JDL]

Very well.

 

[tones]

To be fair, he probably said that about 50/60 years ago, and back then most amps were quite similar. Nowadays we have many different classes, as well as amplifiers designed to produced a particular sound.

Point taken, and I confess that my knowledge of electronics doesn't extend much beyond the ability to spell the word correctly (most of the time anyway). However, some simple logical considerations would seem to me to prevail.

An amplifier is a device for taking a small electrical signal and making it sufficiently big to drive a speaker. This means that, no matter what the amplifier, they all will consist of certain individual electronic components of particular electronic values (resistance, capacitance, etc.), arranged in a particular manner to achieve this goal. There are limited ways to do this arrangement. None of these components has any sense of "musicality" - they are there because of their function.

Now there will be differences - amplifiers of high power output must be designed to facilitate this, and care must be taken in the design to avoid phenomena such as crosstalk, but other than that, it seems to me that Walker's observation must still hold true - all amplifiers driven within their design specifications must sound very much the same.

In 50-odd (very) years of listening to music, I've been through a few amplifiers, and I confess never to have heard great differences. In one example, I was told that my Quad 33 was a terrible pre-amp, and that it could be substantially improved by changing the circuit boards for superior more modern ones. So I bought some of these superior boards and tried them. I became an expert at rapid circuit board changing as I listened to the same piece of music over and over. And the difference? None. More precisely, absolutely none. So I kept the originals and sold the new ones.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

In my experience there are differences between amps - certainly not night and day, but enough to be worthy of consideration. The MFs are tauter and deeper in the bass than the preceding Arcams, for example.

 

[tones]

In my experience there are differences between amps - certainly not night and day, but enough to be worthy of consideration. The MFs are tauter and deeper in the bass than the preceding Arcams, for example.

Interesting, thank you. I struggle to comprehend how an amplifier circuit can make a deeper bass, but that may be my ignorance talking. Might it be merely that the amp is slightly more powerful, thereby causing the speaker cones to move with greater amplitude, producing more bass?

But "tauter"? - not presumably in the Tweety sense ( I taut I taw a puddy tat) . In what way tauter? You are saying that an bunch of electronic components not merely amplifies the original signal but endows it with a character other than that which a similar collection of electronic components in a different amplifier would provide. Don't get me wrong, I accept that this is what you experienced, but I have never heard such differences. This deafness to differences saves me a lot of money, so I never have to sing The Upgrading Song:

Dough for gear, that’s really dear
’Ray! From better up to best!
Me, for me, ‘cos I can hear
Far, far better than the rest
So, why needled, filled with dread?
La-tterly heard better, so
Tee-tering on new upgrade
Which shall bring us back to dough-oh-oh-oh

 

[podknocker]

In my experience, amps do sound different. It's impossible that all the thousands of amps out there will sound the same, using different quality components, with varying tolerances etc.

I bet if you listened to the same CD player through a valve amp and then a Class D amplifier, I'm sure there would be a noticable difference.

 

[JDL]

Maybe 50 years ago, many amplifiers on the market did sound pretty much the same. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just saying that if a particular amplifier 'expert' expressed that opinion then perhaps. We're all entitled to our views. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth.
However, in my opinion, now, today there certainly are differences in the sound put out by different amplifiers and that those differences are undoubtedly audibly discernable, certainly if one's 'ears' are practised at listening to those differences.
If all amplifiers were to sound more or less the same, why then, the sensible thing to do would be to buy the cheapest amplifiers available. Personally I think it's highly improbable that audible differences do not really exist between one amplifier and another.
The design and components used in various amplifiers aren't the same at all.
I've been through three amplifiers from the same manufacturer in the last six months and they all had differences. Subtle differences perhaps, but differences nevertheless.
Recently when I bought some speakers from a man with far more money than me and a much more expensive amplifier than my amplifier he played it, so that I could hear the speakers before I bought them. As it happens, I preferred the sound of my own amplifier over his far more expensive one.
I'm afraid I don't have a poem or an upgrade song, nevertheless we can all get along.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_10154385452764420]

For years and years, I've noticed that rock music for me sounds better at night. I listen to Classical in the day and rock at night. As far sitting in the dark. No not really, I don't like sitting in the dark.
My house is built on solid bed-rock, concrete floors, stone walls about .75 metres thick. No need to raise the cables. Excellent acoustics no vibrations of any sort. Just good vibes of the other kind man.

Me too! Classical calms in the day, rock fills the damp spaces!

 

[Al ears]

Me too! Classical calms in the day, rock fills the damp spaces!

I am a tad the other way around as Classical really needs to be listened to and I am too busy during the day to attentively listen.
Rock just needs to be felt!

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_10154385452764420]

Maybe 50 years ago, many amplifiers on the market did sound pretty much the same. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just saying that if a particular amplifier 'expert' expressed that opinion then perhaps. We're all entitled to our views. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth.
However, in my opinion, now, today there certainly are differences in the sound put out by different amplifiers and that those differences are undoubtedly audibly discernable, certainly if one's 'ears' are practised at listening to those differences.
If all amplifiers were to sound more or less the same, why then, the sensible thing to do would be to buy the cheapest amplifiers available. Personally I think it's highly improbable that audible differences do not really exist between one amplifier and another.
The design and components used in various amplifiers aren't the same at all.
I've been through three amplifiers from the same manufacturer in the last six months and they all had differences. Subtle differences perhaps, but differences nevertheless.
Recently when I bought some speakers from a man with far more money than me and a much more expensive amplifier than my amplifier he played it, so that I could hear the speakers before I bought them. As it happens, I preferred the sound of my own amplifier over his far more expensive one.
I'm afraid I don't have a poem or an upgrade song, nevertheless we can all get along.

Most amps these days use DSP, which is a three letter abbreviation for messing with the sound. If you listen without any form of processing, a good recording will likely sound dull in your listening room. Your speakers or headphones will have appealed to you or you will have taken someone else's word for it (reviews). 50year old amps had no DSP they relied on Damping, Equalisation and Maths. The linearity was often all over the place, and two amps could because of the components not being particularly consistent sound different if you swapped channels, and the same could be said of speaker cabinets and drivers. The more you paid the better they were (usually) Quad for example used only the linear part of the transistors and before that the KT-66 valves, and arranged the transformers the likes of Sansui, so they equalled out any none linearity. They were considered brilliant by some, and those that got used to the none linearity, thought quad dull and unexciting!