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High End Myth Glossary.

Disclaimer:
Many of the glossary terms bellow are entered with little or no comments. Large comments might require large space and time investment. If anyone reading this glossary is offended, than I'll keep you a company as well. Every myth-paragraph bellow adds a price to the audiocomponent only without substantial improvements and "upgrades" to your system.

Feel free to add to the list bellow:

1. Cables' price should be arround 10...20% of the whole system i.e if the system costs $100k than $10...20k should be for interconnects and speaker cables.

2. Directional signal cables.

3. Zero Negative Feedback.

4. $10k 10Wpc amps.

5. No need for larger output power. Place compact system speaker into the plywood horn enclosure and use SET 1W/ch.

6. Tube watts v.s. SS watts.

7. CD-players or digital separates over $1.5k(Analogue sources stay somewhere next to but not to the same degree for example $10k cartridges)

8. Audiable differences in .3dB or in .5%THD v.s. .001%THD.

9. Auditioning of audio furniture.

10. Stereophile or other oriented magazines one-person "expert reviews"

11. $5000 Mark Levinson amp looks like it should sound excellent...

12. $12k CD-player reads CD with greater precision.

13. tubes $900/matched pr

14. amp stands $600/pr.

15. microphonic-free chasis, power interconnects and speaker wires. tubes and transistors can certainly be added as well.

16. wire reactance influence on audio freequencies.

17. Nirvana speaker wire has substantially less reactance than Home Depot.

18. S/N ratings of CD-player(larger than CD's dynamic range 16bit = only 60dB!)

P.S. I would be also glad to see Worst-of section in forums here.
128x128marakanetz
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz OP
5,473 posts
 
Sean,
Most of the such recievers are built on OP-Amps that by definition have humangous gain and thus need huge neg. feedback to correct distortions. Most of these chips(used in consumer audio products) are produced in China and do have terrible characteristics far different from catalogue specified. A feedback at the same time can't be infinite and should be carefully selected so such unit will not go to oscillations...

By definition it's far more easier to produce a transistor with clean and linear characteristics(or tube) than OP-amp. A good OP-amp has much larger tolerance in its IO characteristics than a good transistor(or tube) by all logical terms but designing and building an audio component is much simplier and faster and so cheaper using OP-Amps, however there are many successfull audio-components in today's high resolution audio equipment built on OP-Amps: compact phonostages such as NAD PP1, Michell ISO by Tom Evans; preamps such as McCormack RLD, McCormack Micro Line Drive; poweramps such as Audio Research D series have input and driving circuitries using OP-Amps.

Gregm,

To understand measurements that everyone HEARS you should know ALL electronic parameters of at least audio amplification equipment. Challenge yourself and many secrets will be uncovered for you...
rex
245 posts
 
Audiophile Core Myth: If I can't hear the difference between X and Y, no one else can either. Anyone who says he can is delusional or terminally stupid.

Corollary: If I have an EE degree (or wish people to think I do), my opinions cannot be questioned.
themadmilkman
182 posts
 
Oh, that is too true, Rex.

Also, Marakanetz-- I'm curious about your "Zero Negative Feedback." Please do illuminate me, as I am a fan of no feedback designs.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz OP
5,473 posts
 
Themadmilkman,
First you need to know what feedback is and than you will easy understand what is negative feedback.

Theoretically and in general, the gain of an amplification device such as transistor tube or OP-Amp is very high and non linear. In order to eliminate a possibility of self-oscillations i.e. instability of such tne negative feedback mandatory should be applied.
themadmilkman
182 posts
 
I've had feedback explained to me well enough, but here is my real question.

I'm a fan of BAT's solid state amps. They are balanced, no-feedback designs. I understand the need for negative feedback with tubes and op-amps, but what about with a MOSFET based amplifier?

Just curious to hear your response.

BTW-- I also prefer speakers with stable impedances, which lessens the swings caused by the high output impedances typical of zero-feedback designs.
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