The Future of Audio Amplification

Many people see audio as a hobby and even believe (the same way as you believed in Santa Claus when you were little) on assuptions that you only can choose your personal system.

But the facts proof that almost all human beings cannot choose their own system the right way. And even this can be explained based on facts.

Sound and also music contains of many different aspects/properties of sound. When you are listening to your system most people can only distinguish 1 till 3 different aspects/properties of sound at the same time

But....when you want to make the best choices you need to be able to extract 8 different aspects/properties of sound with 1/10 of a second. There are not many people who have this level in insight.

This is why the whole world is doing audio by trail and error. It is based on the limitation in insight of human beings why it is still done by trial and error.

Many people who see audio as a hobby are their whole life busy with changing there system. They listen to it and often they focus on just one aspect/property of sound at the same time.

I give an example. (I had the same conversation with hundreds of people who see audio as their hobby)

You miss control and layering in the lowest frequencies. Most people will often try different cables to hope to solve the limitation they hear in the low frequencies.

After time they find a cable what gives a much better controled low freq. So they are happy and buy the cable what ’solved’ the problems.

They did choose this by trial and error. Based on the fact they they all have no idea which properties they took out by replaceing the cable for another one. Like they also have no idea which properties they brought in by the new cable.

And now you will read what sounds very familiar to you all. Because I saw the same kind of reaction hundreds of times before. After a few weeks they found out that the high frequencies are a lot less open than it was before.

So it all starts over again. And they will change one part for another one. It will never solve all your problems. Based on the fact that their choices will always be made by trial and error. So there never will be a real foundation.

The biggest limitation in audio is that most products do not own all apects/properties of sound. This means that they will always create a limitation in each single audio system you use them for.

It does not make sense which combination you will make, they will always create a limitation.

I spend a lot of time in research how our emotion works regarding music.

When you compare different amps who play in Class A, AB, D or G they still are different regarding the aspects/properties of sound. And most still are not able to reveal all the different aspects/properties of sound.

When you look inside the most new amps of all different brands. The facts proof that manufacturers are using cheaper parts these days. When a market is decreasing you need to find a way to make your products still profitable.

So they start to use cheaper parts, and this is what we see now in almost all new amps. When we audition them most of them create a very limited level in diversity (layering) in sound.

This means you can sit in your chair and even after 4 months you still have never felt any kind of emotion of your music. For us as music lovers it is sad to see that how poor most products are these days.

The manufacturers have not the insight and knowledge to create better products so more people would become interested in new audio products. When we go to an audio show I am with my 46 years of age one of the more young people overthere.

It is 5 before 12 and we are aware that something has to change. Trial and error is also responsible for the fact that audio is a decreasing market. The facts proof that the quality people can get by trial and error is very limited.

dear  guidocorona,

the truth is hard. But is needed to change something what is limited.

Electrolytic caps aren't famous for having exceptionally low ESR, but they're the only technology that's compact enough to provide the current capacity required. The sub-optimal ESR leads to internal heating of the capacitor. The heat dries them out, the ESR rises, that causes them to make more heat, they begin leaking electrically, and they eventually just short out and start frying silicon.

David Bernnig used a switching supply in his TF-10 preamp which was made in the early 1980s IIRC. I have a customer in town with one of those and it has the original filter caps in place- very much alive after all these years. He seems to have sorted it out- those filter caps run cold to the touch. The first statement in the above quote is false- electrolytics are the only technology that's compact enough to provide the **storage** capacity required, not current. 


SMPSs don't need a lot of capacity because the switching frequency is so much higher. This means that a much smaller capacitor can be employed than in a 60Hz supply. I know some SMPSs did have some problems in the early part of the 2000s, mostly on account of some Chinese caps that were failing not because of switching frequency so much as the parts were just plain defective.