Let's forget about being politically correct

I am going to lift my imposed self ban on posting at Audiogon to respond to this thread.

Saying that in general tube preamps are better than SS preamps to me really has no meaning. My example of this would be when I got my Ayre K-3x w/phono stage preamp. Before, I was using a Sonic Frontiers 3SE preamp (the best tube preamp SF ever made) and a seperate pur tube phono stage (made by Cursio Electronics out of San Jose, CA). The SF3SE had upgraded Brimar tubes in it, and I liked the piece very much.

However, I brought the Ayre K-3x into my system, and all I can say is WOW! The K-3x with phono was a significangly better linestage in my system than the SF3SE. It was also a much better phono stage than my pure tube phono preamp. What does this tell me??? This tells me it is meaningless to make the generalization that tubes are better than SS for preamps. One must listen for themselves and make that decision on a case by case basis.

Getting into abstract philosophy of science and music rhetoric is an interesting endeavor. And I can tell Asa has studied a lot of philosophy primarilly because one of my majors is in philosophy. But where the rubber meets the metal, one must make a determination for themselves.

Before I made this preamp move to the K-3x, I had friends and 'experts' tell me there was no way is hell that the K-3x could outperform the SF3SE. They also said that the K-3x phono would in no way out perform a pure tube phono stage... Go figure...

Funny thing is that if someone with a good ear were blind folded and listened to my system, they would probably think it had at least 1 tube component. My system does sound more like tubes than SS. I have friends who are tube freaks (and hate SS) that love the sound of my system.

So much of listening to music is subjective. We all hear a little differently. Some of us cannot hear altogether. We all have mostly different systems more or less. We all have different rooms. And recordings... People tend to forget that the music they hear from a system first goes from the artist into a mic through wires into a mixer device of sorts into some sort of medium writer then onto some sort of medium which is then transposed/copied onto another medium which we play in our systems. If you really want to get technical, our music systems will never be able to actually portray music because science tells us that due to the vast difference in nature between music projected from an instrument and music projected from a speaker. There is a great article that was in Stereophile on this subject:

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?78

I try to always write from experience and not from the theoretical. I strongly feel that following generalizations in audio like gosphel is not a good thing. It is like reading the specifications of a manual and thinking you know how a piece sounds. I personally have no idea how any piece would sound in my system until I put it in my system.

This is the difference between experience and the theoretical. One can theorize about anything, but in the end, one is not going to really learn anything until a person has experience. Philosophy and rhetoric (and advise) only get us so far. One can read books all day about music and listening to music. But this does not give us any experience with music. You have to do the listening if you want to experience music. We have to try out different things in our respective systems if we are going to learn about them and how components/cables/cords can influence the end sound of our systems.

And in a way, Audiophiles are scientist. Through a lot of trial and error we build our systems to sound better and better (hopefully). This last judgement may be somewhat subjective, but science is a lot ways IS SUBJECTIVE. Especially when related to the human body. I like pointing out that Nutritionalists love to debate about what is a good diet for us (see Mr. Atkins). The operation of the human body is still a mystery to science in a lot of ways, and only likely stories have described certain things. Scientific explanations themselves are likely stories that are surpassed by more likely stories when more accurate data has been obtained. Audiophiles are scientists of sorts... scientists that are have a very small test group making the experiments and judgements. It may not be like black and white number theory, but it is better than putting change in a spring wound meter and assuming that you are going to get your full 30 min for putting in two quarters. (On a side note, it took some 10 year old kid to do an experiment for a science fair on the old spring wound parking meters to see if actually one got the amount of time they had paid for. The meters he experimented on deviated so much (from exact time) it caused such a scare in the city (I think some folks sued class action), that all meters were replaced with digital ones. This pretty much set a trend for the entire US. No 'adult' or 'expert' initiated the childs experiments although as adults we are the ones that pay seriously for parking.) Go figure...

KF

Asa: Yes I was playing a fool's role. I did not say you are
indifferent to "science". I am saying that "science", in a positive way, is just one way to view the world. Its world view is different in content then say a worldview of a
shaman in some far away place in a far away time. But the
fundalmental purpose of each nonetheless is the same. To grasp the "Other".

"Science" is a two edge sword because it tries to demystify the "Unknowing" by objectifying the "other". Yet at the same time by just his "objectification" of the "other" , "science" has created a system in which the "other" is no longer of relevance, only Man himself has meaning. Or so he thinks. Yet Man still seeks the "other", but only through the opaque pane of rationalism called "science" ie. the materialism created through his , as you call it "the manipulation into forms". To put it crassly, the more you want, the more you are in search of the "other". And Materialism is never going to get you there.

Shubert: I'm not sure if you heard, but today it was announced that, perhaps, a Russian mathematician had proved Poincare's Theorem. To do this he employed a mathematical device to "round" geometric space. In other words, in order to prove the postulate, an approximation device was used (actually, that device was already found earlier, but there were still some large "bumps" left on the solid; the newest device is an extension of that one, which removes the remaining large bumps; an approximation device used on an approximation). They say it will resolve many vexing Newtonian spatial problems in higher math, so that's a good thing - especially because the guy, if his peer group agrees that he's right, about two years from now, he'll get $2 million from the Clay Foundation, and undoubtedly the Field's Medal on top of that. BIG discovery - but, its still an approximation...

On the "Other" part: yes, science grasps what it can of the other. The problem is when one confuses the material with sentience, or being. Yes, science is anthropocentric - human centered - yet, not only in its reduction of human mind into a thing, but also non-human mind into meaninglessness, which is actually what I study. This, IMHO, is the biggest problem we, as a species, presently face. Its not about cognition, but about transcending an attachment to the power of cognition over the objectified "Other", in matter, in human mind as categorized as matter, and, in non-human being as categorized as a product-thing, as matter; and, its about a concurrent opening of empathic identification with being where "other" evaporates...

TOK, hello. You make some very good points, especially about the fact that the proof is in the subjective pudding. In other words, how can you describe the color purple to a blind man? The premise is that only experience is the final arbiter, for yourself. With that said, carrying that position to the extreme and saying that dialogue becomes radically relative because only listening will tell you the truth is, well, epistimologically unsound - to use some "philosophy" - because that position relativises all knowledge that is conveyed. In other words, although I say that words or math is an approximation, saying that does not reduce all such knowledge to a relativistic morasse (as Shubertmaniac was worried about above, and Immanuel Kant before him). And, I might add, by relativising all knowledege as equal, you negate dialogue, even the opinion, interestingly, that you just gave. As you might know, philosophically speaking, that is called a performative error, meaning that you give an opinion that all opinion is equal, so how can that opinion itself be truer?

So, I assume you must not believe that completely because you do offer your opinion as a basis for your belief: that based upon a comparison between one tube preamp and one SS pre you, impliedly, assert your position. However, a proper empiric experiment, at least one that is brought to a peer group, needs a higher sample rate in order to be valid.

But I can take your opinion without the empiric validity because, well, I have a personal context: I've read your posts and have the feel that you love music and have some pretty good ears (the Ayre IS a nice piece). Well, then, in that context, all I can say is that I'm glad that you have found happiness with the Ayre and its certainly not about dueling preamps here. What I would ask is that you keep your mind open to expanding your sample, say, to a AudioNote Kondo, or a Supratek, or a Joule (although that wouldn't be my personal recommendation in your situation), or a Callisto. Frankly, Brimars or no Brimars, I think you might hear something over time with the Supratek, or if you pulled it out. Again, glad that you are happy. Thank you for braving the breach with your thoughts.

Shubertmaniac, well said. I think it is important to try to maintain an appropriate balance between the scientific, the anectodal, and that emotional response with which we clumsily and perhaps inadequately try to ART(?)iculate, both expressively and receptively.

Asa, my mind is open. I would wholly agree that the Supratek is a killer preamp. A local friend of mine got one recently (one of my tube friends). I love the piece, and it works well in his system. One day he will bring it down to my system. And, I may even get one eventually. The Supratek is better than his other preamp which is a tube one and was made for him specially by a tube equipment designer (I cringe to think how much money he has in his old preamp).

I personally think that preamps are some of the hardest pieces for companies to do well. So many of them are not good at all... My opinion is that the preamp tends to be the component that puts the biggest sonic fingerprint on the end sound of the music. However, I also think that one badly matched AC cord in a system can totally screw up the sound as well...

I have had other tube preamps before, but I used the SF3SE and Ayre K-3x as comperable high dollar examples. I do know there are not too many preamps I would be happy with, and very few would make my short audition (should I have to come up with one: Hovland HP100, Ayre K-1x, Supratek preamps, and Niagra PL-L.

I even am very fond of tube amps. I have a friend who has the Tenors in an absolutely reference system, and the Tenors + the rest of his system totally blows me away. I once almost bought a pair of the Wolcotts, but when I brought them home their were technical problems (turned out something came unsodered). Anyway I returned them. They would have probably sounded pretty darn good heh heh. My only problem with tube amps is the cost of maintaining the tubes. The more power they can put out, usually the more tubes they have, and the more it costs to retube them. My 2 channel system is used for both HT and 2 channel so my two channel amp is left on 24/7 and gets a good workout. I would go through amp tubes fast.

KF