It takes music to open up a tube preamp/amp

Newbee, I accept all criticism. I do not think I have denigrated anyone. My tone may not sit well with you or any number of participants for that matter, but I am used to rhubarb. Insofar as your dire warnings go, I thank you for kindly pointing out the fact that some comeuppance may be expected. Difference vs. no difference is all well and good. How one reaches the point where one can tell is the issue. Since I have gotten back to audio a few years ago, the strangest turnaround in beliefs that I have encountered is of this sort: the equipment is very sensitive, prone to great differences caused by the faintest external vibration, by break-in, warm-up, skin effect, etc., while the human ear/brain processor is such a marvellously stable system that any single individual, at any given time, can pick-up on subtle variations by casual listening. I see it in a very different way. As sure as humour affects the tone of my pronouncements on this fine site, it affects everyone listening to reproduced music through a sound system. That is just one unavoidable variable. If you believe that warming-up a tube amp by playing music makes your system sound better, go ahead; you certainly don't need my permission. If one puts this out as a statement and asks for corroboration, don't blame someone for providing contrary opinion. Like a few others on this site, you can decide that I am a nabob of negativism and a nasty, self-absorbed, uninformed, naysayer and curmudgeon and swear-off all of my posts. Since I don't get paid to write these bothersome answers, I will not lose much sleep. So long.

Pbb: I will corroborate the observation. Furthermore, I will say that the reason that pbb can not hear this is because he doesn't hear as well as some other people, or rather, because the ear is merely the mechanism, his mind does not hear as well as some other people; he is not as receptive to musical meaning as others. In other words, like in all disciplines of knowledge, there exists a hierarchy of perception and knowledge therefrom-derived is state specific; meaning that those at lower perceptive abilities deny anything higher - pbb's radical subjective position above, notwithstanding its implicit performative error - while those higher see all those levels from whence they traveled through. To admit that there may be a place to go in his mind beyong mechanistic, scientific materialist assumptions, would, of course, entail potential change, and for the materialist-attached that is a potential within themselves that can not be tolerated (hence, the stone the witch tone from nowhere).

Argue for your limitations, regardless of your cognitive agility, and sure enough they are yours.

You are no nay sayer, pbb, but why don't you pick on someone your own size?

I actually thought pbb's post was kind of funny... I guess I'm to big and cocky to take it as a slam. As I stated above I really don't take these debates very seriously anymore. If this is a psychoacoustics effect that is almost cooler in some respect sort of a safe narcotic. Hey maybe tubes are telepathic :^) The reason for my original post was that I'm in disbelief of my own ears! Kids have no problem chalking things up to magic ... too bad we grow up...

ASA once again your writing and, I guess, thinking, is way beyond my comprehension. Most of your posts as far as I can tell are written in this stream of consciousness language. Briefly put: what the hell are you saying? Sorry if I upset your touchy-feely-higher-plane-and-mental-state side, at least Btrvalik understood that I was not taking aim at him in any personal way. I will not bore you with the heat and kitchen thing as you have bored me with the picking a size thing. Btrvalik you are a good man. I hope you enjoy your system as much as I do mine, and that it doesn't get in the way of the music. Damn it, now I have to look for an audio Guru...

Oh pbb, don't be a spoiled sport; talking about heat in the kitchen and then running away, as in, feigning I don't understand (with more stone the witch, looking for comrades as you go). It's interesting that your original posts were, basically, that other people are deluded in what they hear and they don't understand, and then when someone says you don't hear well enough to hear it, you feign lack of understanding. Interesting tactic...

The tactic is your Guru. I've sat around for months listening to your smart mind swoop down with your scientific materialist assumptions, telling everyone that they are deluded (read: irrational) to hear anything beyond what those assumptions limit you too, and I thought it was about time to call you on it.

If you want to say now that it was all fun, then OK.

btrv: if you doubt what you see, then see some more and then perhaps you will know, or know that it was only "magic" and that pbb is correct. Remember, however, as much as pbb cites wishfulness for "magic" as a delusional origin for twl's perceptions, the assumptions that he brings - that what you and twl experienced can not be real - are just as much a bias that leads towards not seeing what is.

It is a subtle thing, admittedly, that some tube systems seem to sound better with music driven through them rather than just glowing and sitting there. Its almost like when you first discover that different quality juice coming out of the wall late at night makes a difference (which, er, as you recall some years ago people of pbb's bent also accused of being a deluded perception, and then wires after that, and then after that...). I can't hear the effect in my lesser second system - even though its got $20K thrown at it - so I can understand why someone would doubt this position (and quite apart from scientific materialist attachments and their distortions of perception; pbb, see Kuhn, Popper, Freyerabend...). In my better system, and mostly with analog as twl points out, I hear it and the phenomenon is consistent over time (which is how, er, empiric experiments are conducted). Its not magic, but if your system isn't to that point, or, like pbb, your "brain" isn't (your initial inquiry, Btrv, although the brain matter itself is not what hears, but the mind willing to hear), then I can not confirm or convince you through language or thinking. You must conduct that experiment - or now, re-conduct it - to see if it is true or not. The "what is" has it rigged that way...

twl, slap me with a wet noodle. A few months ago I chided you for engaging the priests of scientism and here I am right back in there! Oh well, its the protector thing.