Clueless>>Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe.
Ah yes, but this just isn't one of those times my friend!
Marco |
Bring your friend here to A'gon, and don't tell him where you're taking him. When you get him here, lead him in and just close the door behind you and walk away. What we're going to do to him ain't going to be very pretty, but when you see him again he won't be saying any nasty things about tubes no more. Gumbei, fire up those hot pokers! Tubegroover, start sharpening the rotating blades! Mattybumpkin, hoist up that big-ass Krell monoblock up over the strapdown "Table of Enlightenment" and make sure to plug it in so it's good and hot by the time we need it. Ya gotta get it hot this time Bumpkin! Last time you warmed it up with that Enya crap and you couldn't even keep your tea warm on it (about all it's good for anyway) - Listen, cue up some Tool or Slayer on repeat till he gets him here.....I wanna be able to cook sausages on that puppy!!! Don't you worry none Aggielaw, you're friend is going to be singing the praises of tubes, or he ain't going to be singing ever again, we'll see to it! Oh, and someone tell that Jiwitn to stay home with all his begging for mercy and blubberin' and all....it's just embarrasing!
Marco |
In certain circles Gunbei is known as "The Rectifier". He came by that name from his fondness for a technique he calls the "GZ34 suppository". He's 'rectified' some pathetically misguided fans of SS to become card-carrying tube-lovers. He has a 100% success rate using his that technique ever since he was able to keep the tubes wired up and glowing! Those GZ34's get mighty hot!
....be afraid, be VERY afraid.....
Marco
Marco |
Gunbei, ya got that? Slappy's next in line! He'll be a tough nut to crack cause he's onto all this horse shit big time! He must be silenced.....with extreme prejudice! It was only a matter of time before my faithful servant turned against me!
Marco
PS In all ernest, I do think the very first response to this thread by Amandarae is an excellent answer to the query. Bravo! I could not have said it better myself. If I weren't so full of piss and vinegar I wouldn't even bother responding! Like much of the crap that passes for intellegent discussion of 'important' matters on this and other product-oriented sites it is an endless thread of big boys/big toys, my tool's bigger than yours, my car goes faster.....I am beyond reproach, just a tier below God herself. Validate me and I will be your friend forever and will welcome you into to the kingdom of the wonderful world of ME where all the cars are very fast, all tools are huge, and the music sounds like angels are right smack dab there in front of you! My world that is....or you can just stay where you are and always settle for second-best. You decide! |
In answer to Jitwitn's questions:
1. An 8X10 inch view camera consists of little more than a bellows, a metal (or wood) framework with some manual gears, a ground glass back and a lens. Whereas you break open an Nikon F5 and you will find all the neat little R&D wonderments of technology, jam packed into a state-of-the-art titanium body, sleak, streamlined and extremely ergonomic. Yet the 8X10 view camera costs just as much as the F5...some actually cost several times as much (though these days it is a dying format). Does one camera take "better" photographs???!!! Both are elegant and effective solutions. They are entirely different tools to accomplish a similar task in different ways. Use the tool you are most comfortable with to do the specific job you wish to achieve, just as you might choose a hammer at Home Depot. The hammer you choose may not be the one I prefer, but they'll both get the job done. The "better" part is entirely in the judgement of the beholder. Why does the tube gear cost as much as it does....cause it's all hand-made by elves in the Ukrane who need to support their very expensive cocaine habit. Those little fuckers got a union so solid it'd make Jimmy Hoffa rise from the dead!
2. Whether tube or SS, a SYSTEM should be carefully selected for the synergy between all of the components as well as the expectations of the individual who will be using the system. It all goes back to the original answer to the thread which I so liked....to paraphrase; different strokes for different folks. Presumably you'd change the speakers because you prefered the sound of one set of components over another. Since when does being "reasonable" have anything remotely to do with being an Audiophile?!
Marco |
Schubertmaniac - let me assure you that I need no lessons in what each
of the two cameras are mostly used for. As Gunbei pointed out, you are
just illustrating my point. They are two entirely different tools used to
accomplish a similar task (making photographic images). Each has it's
own strengths and weaknesses. They can both make photographic
images but the (technical) results will be entirely different. Period. End
of story. Any judgements you care to impose on the two different tools
are entirely your own.
As far as which camera is "better", your illustration regarding
one yielding a finer, tighter grained sharper image, vs the other having a
grainier result.....well using that as a basis of saying one tool is better
than the other is just as stinky a pile of horse shit as the assertion that
tube gear is better than solid state. For my ears, and the way I like to
hear my music, I prefer tubes. But for me to say one is
"better" than the other is as ridiculous as the assertion that
an 8X10 camera is "better" than a 35mm. By the way, I've
seen astounding "artful" images done in 35mm format, and
even pinhole camera format, and I've also seen remarkable journalistic
images that were made when there was no 35mm available, on much
larger and more awkward cameras. Again, if your judgement is that
tighter grain and sharper images are superior than those that exhibit
grain that is simply one persons opinion which may or may not be
shared by others. Just as this tube vs SS debate may yield a similar split
in opinions, there is no one single solution that is
"better"....they're just different. "Better" exists
only in the individuals mind.
Marco
PS I think you must have meant Zone VI camera and not Zone VII as I
know of no such thing as a Zone VII camera. Indeed a wooden field
camera may be less expensive than a 35mm. I don't use field cameras
so am not familiar with their pricing, but I can tell you that a good studio
camera like a Sinar will equal or exceed the price of most 35mm
cameras. The Sinar is just as stone simple as I described, while the
35mm is packed with modern technology. That was the parrallell I was
trying to illustrate. Also, an 8X10 will not yield any "pixels per square
inch" nor will any film camera determine how many pixels per square
inch that you may record the image that it produces in. I'm assuming
you were referring to a tighter grain structure when you said that since
PPI is strictly a digital term and refers to digital image files. |
Slappy is spot-on KT88. There are a whole butt-load (whoops, hope I didn't offend you there) of SS-loving Audiophiles out there who are anything but irritated by there SS systems. You seem to mistake YOUR opinion for EVERYONE's opinion, and even more dangerous, for fact. That said, I happen to agree with your opinion regarding tube gear and the naievety (where's the spell-check when you need it?) of the general public towards it. I don't know if tubes were panhandled to the public by the sales-people you so readily lump into a pigeon-hole in the floor of an outhouse, whether it would be as widely accepted as you might think. I think the maintenance issues would keep it from being so embraced. Most folks just don't want to fuss with the stuff, they just want to get their pretty metal box home, hook it up and plug it in (for some, that's a bit too much), and walk away while the 200-disk player spits out song-after-song. I don't think hearing tubes is going to change that for most. Just my opinion though...
OK, now I'll go wash my hands with strong soap after typing all those nasty and offensive posts. After that I'll stay after and compose an essay why the use of offensive language should be confined to local bars and brothels. Send me your address KT88 and I'll send you a copy. Please, in the mean time, accept my most humble appologies and let me assure you that it will most certainly happen again.....I just can't help it....somebody, get me a doctor!
Marco |
Hey Gunbei, your Dallas friend is absolutely correct; more pixels does NOT a better image make. I've recently given into the digital realm in my own profession as it is a necessary tool these days. I purchased a Nikon D2H at the end of the year to facilitate a portrait project I've been working on. The D2H is the recent state-of-the-art 35mm digital/pro SLR with a new technology used on the chip (Nikons first proprietory technology - they'd been using Sony chips before this). In spite of its sacarafice in pixel count to accomodate faster shooting speeds (and a more spontaneous capability) the images I've produced are both sharper and tighter when upsampled than either the D1X or the D100, both of which have higher pixel counts (D1X is a 5mp camera, D100 is a 6mp, while the new D2H is only a 4mp camera). The quality of the D2H images are more film-like (Analogue if you will) then either the D1X or the D100. To relate that more directly to Audio gear, this would be like someone judging the gear JUST by the numbers. In the case of the cameras it is better to just user your two eyes to make a more informed decision, and with the audio gear, as we all should know by now, use your own ears.
Marco
PS I still prefer an image produced on film over one produced on any digital camera, yet, as in audio, they are coming pretty darn close to one another! I know if I showed most folks some of the images produced with the D2H....or a Canon 1DS....or some of the larger format digital backs I use on jobs, that most people would not be able to tell the difference, and some would even consider digital 'superior' in the remarkable apparent sharpness and detail in renders. Yet, like audio, some of the beauty lost may be in the transitions between the tones, and how smooth (natural) those transitions occur. |
Ahmen Slappy! Fuck broccoli!!! Brussel Sprouts have it all over broccoli! Anyone who thinks otherwise ought to have their head examined! Whoops, perhaps we should move this discussion over to "Vegigon". I hear the listings are free right now, and you can buy a head of lettuce for .53 cents (+3.3% for PayPal). They got those hybrid weird-ass veggies there too, like broccoliflower. Look, if you really must have a broccoli-like vegatable, I say just spring for the real thing and get the broccoli. Synergy is critical among vegatables....mix that broccoli up with some baked-alaska desert and you'll be farting up a storm till sunrise and sending your girlfriend running for the hills. Fuck broccoli I say. Go for the Analog taste of Brussel Sprouts.....and have the Baked Alaska anyway! Let the dudes with the Krell gear boil their broccoli on those heat fins and live a lonely pathetic solitary life in their fetid stench, redolent of the horrific lack of synergy in their intestines!
Marco |
That's hilarious KT88...."Annoying and Refreshing"!! Well, I don't think I'll be selling any widgets or consumables with that logo. Chew Doublemint Gum for an Annoying and Refreshing break from your day! I'm glad at least you find some redeaming virtue to them.
Hey, no worries on my part, and I completely understand that you are offended by my language. I really just use it for humor and emphasis. Some folks actually find it amusing. Some, like yourself, do object to it. My wife finds it rather crass and offensive too...........so I get it, and no, I am not offended nor annoyed that it offends you, and am glad that you speak up about it. It's funny, but I don't speak that way at all, or even remotely like that. I do like to write that way....it is another side of me I guess a repressed side. I really ought to get some analasys for this! I sure think it provides some comic relief from some otherwise stone-serious threads about the importance of the Emperors New System.
I do have this to say about your comparison of this infringement of your personal rules of etiquette (cultivated and refined by, no doubt, wisdom beyond my grasp), to smoking a cigarette in public: There is a world of difference. With a cigarette you'd have the choice to breath in the smoke, or leave the room, and presumably not have the same access to what should be a public place. Here it is completely YOUR choice to click on my post and read it. You may adjust your expecations accordingly, as you might with any other member of this forum to either read my posts, which frequently cross over lines you may find offensive, or skip over them altogether if you are offended by them. Though they may push the boundries of forum guidelines, I think the posts are ultimately utterly benign and only serve to emphasize a point and or bring a smile to some, but certainly NOT to everyone. I also humbly think that there is an underlying message to many of my posts that may have some value to some, and some of my posts are just as grey and dismally to the point many others I read here. But if you want one more of those audiophiles in a grey flannel suit and tie that looks and writes the same as 87% of the rest of them .....look elsewhere. Do not read my posts. They are clearly identified with my user ID "jax2". It's really that simple. I take no offense that you don't appreciate my writing, and I'm sure you are not alone. There are many members here who's posts I avoid for one reason or another. If I don't know someone, and start reading a post, and something rubs me the wrong way about it, I doubt very much I'd take the time to read it, much less to look at other posts by the same person.
Peace back atcha' Kt88!
Marco |
Clueless - I am deeply offended by your remarks. Yet I'm curiously refreshed as well. In fact, I'm getting a tingling in my loins reading it over again, and yet again! Could you expand on the "glowing phallus" part?!
Marco |
Kt88 - Yes, I took it that way......I really was amused by it, I was not making fun of you for having made the comment...I really thought it was a very funny oxymoron. I end every post with my name, Marco, and you are welcome to use it rather than call me "jax2". FYI I like an occasional beer, but am far more partial to red wine. I think Slappy's comment was made in a spirit of comradery (I don't work on cars much either, but do all my own work on my motorcycles...I can usually figure out cars, but prefer two wheels to four). I also prefer tubes, but have heard some pretty amazing SS systems that have their own merits, I just prefer those that tubes offer better and have not heard any SS gear that sounds that way. Slappy, I don't know about curves and 2nd order harmonic distortion (I do know what they are, but I don't care much beyond that), but I do know what I like to hear. I never really gave a rat's-a.....oh god, there I go again...must be Terrets Syndrome.....I simply don't care what the numbers, graphs and bars say...my ears keep drawing me back to tubes. If I listened to more intensely dynamic music I may be swayed to the SS side, but it is pretty rare that I my listening leans in that direction. Was that better Kt88? The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Tubes rule! Everyone should like tubes best! That's it, simple and to the point. Polite and succinct. Everyone oughta' like me now. Don't rock the boat. Tubes are the best thing that ever happened to the the high end! Many people say so, and so do I. If you don't like it well then Screw...er, well you can just go jump in a lake. Fuckin'A Bubba! Damn straight.....oh hell, I'm hopeless! Cat piss, dung heap, fart, poop. You gotta love the tubes man! I got tubes. If God has a high-end system, you know it's gotta be tubes all the way! If Jesus were to come back for that second coming, the first thing he'd do would be to get himself a tube-based system. Buddha too, in fact I know Buddha was talking about going from push/pull to SET a few years back. I think his system is up on AudioAsylum but he may not have had time to update it. I wouldn't let my dog listen to an SS system! Once I brought an SS system into the house just to try it out and my dog ran away...couldn't find her for four days. The bitch had packed her bowls and moved on down to the tube room in the high-end shop down on Roosevelt. Told me she wouldn't come back till I got rid of that SS boat anchor! Those dogs can hear things we humans can't even dream about hearing. I don't know about you folks, but I'd sure like to hear some more polarizing views on the subject......Brussel sprouts anyone?
Marco
|
Diode-Why not just go for the real Champaign? Everyone knows all
those beers trying to taste like Champaingn are just wannabes! Spring
for the best and get the analog taste of REAL Champaign. Your friends
will admire you and, hey, the chicks really dig the tiny bubbles! I've had
some experience over the years comparing beer to Champaign....done
plenty of A/B/A testing just like Robert Harley suggests. I wouldn't
recommend doing such testing, if you haven't already, as I've discovered
Champaign and beer doesn't really go that well together. But let me tell
you, when it comes to bubbly beveredges, Champaign RULES. The
closest thing I've found is Pabst Blue Ribbon, but in the end Champaign
is still KING. Just my humble opinion, as well as being a bonified FACT.
Marco
...you too could be the proud owner of "the quality goes in before
the name goes on"......... -Tom Waits |
It is a very good point that opinions should be weighed against one's experience. My experience with SS has been limited to mostly very expensive boutique systems using the likes of ML and Krell amplification, thoughtfully assembled with good wires in decent listening rooms. To some of those systems I've had pretty extensive exposure. I have minimal experience listening to more esoteric SS gear though. My impressions of the better SS systems I have heard have suitably impressed me enough to keep my mind open, in spite of my recent humorous rant to the contrary (which was intended purely for entertainment). The more extensive experience I've had with an all ML system as well as a bi-amped Krell system has left me suitably impressed, but ultimately I found myself not nearly as engaged as with some of the better tube sytems I've heard and owned. I find my modest SET tube system at home more engaging than my friend's $50K Levinson system (which is no slouch by any means and has some really impressive merits). He also is more impressed by my far less expensive tube system and may switch over to tubes in the near future. His system is a master of detail and impact, but lacks the air, holgraphy and gentle grace of the SET system I prefer. I did not find his system fatiguing after prolonged listening and I have listened to it many times extensively. I've also recently owned a Pass Labs Aleph 5 which I enjoyed very much, but again, the qualities I did like about it are better expressed by tube gear. That said, in spite of being in this hobby over 20 years, I'd have to say that, considering all that is out there, my listening experiences have been quite limited in the range of possibilities. Therefore I hesitate to pass judgement so readily. Ultimately I still maintain, to each his own.
As far as film vs. digital I'll make sure to ask the next "good photographer" I meet to enlighten me on the subject.
Marco |
Hey Joncin, and breathrin-
Today's sermon will be on the wonders of the vacum tube.....
You hit the friggen jackpot with that combination as far as I'm concerned! It took me twenty years to figure that one out. I'd heard my friend's system which paired off some vintage Quad's with an old Dynaco ST-70 back in the early 80's and I would NEVER forget that sound. I just had the hardest time getting up and walking away from it and if his wife didn't kick me out I'd probably still be there listening to it. I settled for SS not wanting the hassle of tubes, and went with a BK amp which was actually pretty decent for SS at the time for a poor young photo assistant living in NYC. Many ears later and 3000 miles west of NY I was reborn by the exact same combination you mention: a Jolida 302B with Klipsch Forte II's! I shit you not good people! It was an inspired purchase by my recollection of that Quad/Dynaco system that I couldn't get out of my head, and boy was it an awakening. Damn Slappy, sorry, but I realize I'm starting to sound downright evangelical and I really don't mean to, but it was as if someone turned a light on! Acutally, I guess I do mean to....screw it....praise the glowing globes!!! I've since moved onward along the same path and have been stuck on SET for the past year and found my personal preference lies there. I've also stuck with Klipsch Heritage speakers and found nothing else I've tried or listened to offers more bang for the buck, which is amazing considering Paul Klipsch designed them back in the 50's and 60's! I also found Mike Sanders excellent Quicksilver amps provide similar value and combine brilliantly with the Klipsch speakers I came to love. Okay, enough preaching. I just got excited by the coincedence of being reborn by the same combination as brother John. Back to the fray, name-calling, bad-mouthing, brawling, bad manners and belching. Hey, Kt88, I didn't use any curse words......well, nothing really bad anyway.
Oh, and my mind remains wide open to the demonic persuasion of SS and the evil people who follow that satanic ritual. Yes, that is a joke.....But I still wouldn't let my dog listen to an SS system. Bahaahahaahaaha!
Marco |
