2. amps-preamps
  3. 140029-80294

Does anyone care to ask an amplifier designer a technical question? My door is open.

I closed the cable and fuse thread because the trolls were making a mess of things. I hope they dont find me here.

I design Tube and Solid State power amps and preamps for Music Reference. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, have trained my ears keenly to hear frequency response differences, distortion and pretty good at guessing SPL. Ive spent 40 years doing that as a tech, store owner, and designer.
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Perhaps someone would like to ask a question about how one designs a successfull amplifier? What determines damping factor and what damping factor does besides damping the woofer. There is an entirely different, I feel better way to look at damping and call it Regulation , which is 1/damping.

I like to tell true stories of my experience with others in this industry.

I have started a school which you can visit at http://berkeleyhifischool.com/ There you can see some of my presentations.

On YouTube go to the Music Reference channel to see how to design and build your own tube linestage. The series has over 200,000 views. You have to hit the video tab to see all.

I am not here to advertise for MR. Soon I will be making and posting more videos on YouTube. I don’t make any money off the videos, I just want to share knowledge and I hope others will share knowledge. Asking a good question is actually a display of your knowledge because you know enough to formulate a decent question.

Starting in January I plan to make these videos and post them on the HiFi school site and hosted on a new YouTube channel belonging to the school.


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fleschler
2,021 posts
 
Okay, does atmasphere believe that power cables can make huge differences in an amplifier’s sonic performance and why?

I’m not picking a fight, I just don’t understand the rationale behind what is so obvious to many audiophiles and my personal experiences with testing cables on high end equipment (limited to about 2 dozen systems). Is it because our equipment is all faulty due to poor design or poor implementation?

Is Caelin Gabriel wrong to suggest that the first 2 meters of wire connecting the equipment is the most important compared to the upstream wiring?

Does most of the EMI come from the equipment and not from in the air contamination?

These are relevant questions, especially for me, a non-engineer. Only one of my friends is a manufacturer, the others are famous mastering engineers so most of my friends are non-technically knowledgeable audiophiles.
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,518 posts
 
No, Mr. Gabriel is not completely wrong and makes some good points. Yes, your points are reasonable. Perhaps this is just not the place to go there. I may disagree with the OPs opinions on cords and caps etc...but he started this thread for a different reason in general and I respect that. I also appreciate his desire to answer questions and share knowledge. It’s OK to have different experiences and opinions and let them rest for the greater good of the thread.
jafox
1,465 posts
 
Thank you for the responses above.  The preamp is Aria WV5, the last design by Michael Elliot of Counterpoint 10 years ago.  The last thing I want to do is to put anything else in the line such as a transformer.

My experience has been that the most sensitive cable in the system is the IC from line stage and amp, where I was using ARC, BAT, Aesthetix, Counterpoint, Wolcott and CAT.  Just putting some cheap 4-5m RCA IC here is going to destroy much of what my system can achieve with a good IC here.  And so why not just use one leg of the XLR cable when I have a single-ended amp?  I just thought it might be a good idea to not just float the negative line.
prof
3,479 posts
 
Mr. Gabriel Claimed:
 
“As stated in #1 the local current and electromagnetic effects directly affect the sonic performance of the component.”




Then you’d the no it would be a cinch for Gabriel to supply measured results showing the output of an audio device is changed when using his cables.

Funny how that is conspicuously missing.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Prof uses the measurement canard which is as old as it gets and is well proven to be ineffective when it comes to human hearing at it's limits - which is the subject at hand.

Interestingly enough, his entire job rides on doing things that are either unmeasurable or so close to being unmeasurable that it is not worth bothering to try.

Hoisted by his own petard. (modern translation: he blew himself up)
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