#SAE preamp

[audio-luddite]

Audio Demi-gods and Hi-Fi.

At least one personality I check out does not like the term Audiophile. There is a definite sneer to his use of that word. He uses Hi-Fi often.

I like that term. High Fidelity means exactly that. A high degree of accuracy and precision in reproducing music signals. It avoids the conceit of being an audiophile as well as reduces the weight of opinion. Another way to think about that is it is for the "testing people".

The idea of accuracy is codified by low distortion and noise, not by liking the sound. It was that the early designers were pursuing. Not a particular voice. The voice was on the recording.

In the 1950s to 1970s the hobby was about Hi-Fi.

The early designers of Hi-Fi audio equipment were legends. They mentored a second generation that climbed even higher. But as things developed low test figures were relatively easy to get under lab conditions. Things got more complicated.

David Hafler founded the Dynaco and the Hafler brands. He designed the Tube amplifiers that still influence the hobby today by their relatively huge numbers out in the wild. Later he hired some of the second generation of brilliant designers for doing transistor designs.

Stewart Hegeman worked for many companies including Dynaco and Harman Kardon and was the designer of the still coveted Citation tube amps. He also designed speakers and tuners. His Citation II tube amp is probably the best classic (late 1950s) vacuum tube design out in the wild.

William Zane Johnson was Audio Research. He kept the Vacuum tube banner flying after it was abandoned by everyone else. His SP3 series preamps were the state of the art in the 1970s. His D76 amplifier series sealed his place in audio Olympus. He preferred the results, the voice, he got with tubes though as FET ideas became better he drifted.

Arguably it was WZJ who nurtured the culture of the audiophile. He got the hi-fi test numbers, but many people just preferred the sound he got. (Include me there)

Those guys were the big names.

The second generation was evolving. Bob Carver invented BIG transistor amps with Phase Linear by using gangs of the biggest transistors he could find. He was originally a numbers guy. Later he proved he could make one of his not expensive transistor amps sound exactly like an expensive high end amp by fiddling with components to create a voice.

James Bongiorno left his mark on the Dynaco 400, the big SAE amps, the Ampzilla, and several other products that had in common big power and amazing fidelity. Great numbers.

Nelson Pass worked for several companies and left a trail of products that some people buy just because he had a hand in it. He is still kicking around in the mountains of California doing interesting things with transistors. He became a champion of good distortion. If you like it, it is good. Numbers don't matter.

I think this maps a migration of taste from being accurate to having a voice you prefer. In the same way the job of reviewers drifted from running tests on a piece to listening and judging. Publications were founded specifically because of that. Stereophile was founded by J Gordon Holt for exactly that reason. Later "The Absolute Sound" was founded by Harry Pearson because he felt JGH was compromised by the need to advertise in his magazine. Opinions became paramount.

I do not want to simplify the Hi-Fi problem too much. Lab tests can show two devices give exactly the same results. Those two devices can then sound different. One side of the argument says this proves tests mean nothing. The other rightly claim the conditions are different. Once you know it is good choose by preference.

I am an engineer. I gotta know why.

I own two radically different amplifiers. One is a high power full complementary symmetry transistor amplifier with global negative feedback designed in the early 1970s and modified a bit. The other is a legitimate high end medium power ARC Tube amplifier with FETs and power vacuum tubes running as triodes. It too has negative feedback. It is absolutely stock. (Well except for some test point access)

They are both high end, and high fidelity. They actually sound similar in the most general sense. They are pretty accurate. But they also have subtle differences in voice and textures. I go on and on about the differences, I seldom emphasize how small these things are. That is because, yes I am an audiophile and I notice this stuff.

Audiophiles can get fooled by trickery and salesmanship. So it is not an extension or a refinement of Hi-Fi. It is not better than Hi-Fi. It is a different perspective. If it tests bad it is bad.

What was I actually trying to say?

PS***

I should note that obviously I am talking about the North American Hi-Fi world. That is what I know. Very few products came across that ocean. In the old days. Those I know about are from the UK. Quad speakers, and electronics. SME tone arms. Some turntables. Oh and that DECCA phono cartridge. All were niche items. Oh and very good.

[homeaudiosunday]

@#^&^ RARE Scientific Audio Electronics SAE P102 Preamplifier Preamp Control AMP https://ift.tt/2YySYZb

[effectsdatabase]

Weekly overview (2017, week 48): 4 new brands and 24 new pedals

4 new brands

Bassics

Gold Dust Pedal Co.

Immigrant

SAE Effects

24 new effects

Bassics BPA-1 Pre-Amplifier for Bass Guitars

Buffalo FX Stiletto Fuzz

Caline Music CP-41 Ghost Train - Reverb Delay

Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl HiFi - Chorus/Vibrato

ChiralityAudio Splinter Overdrive

Darkglass Electronics Alpha Omicron - Bass Preamp/OD

Death By Audio Exit Index - Analog Warped Tremolo & Distortion

Gold Dust Pedal Co. Wood Face Fuzz

Holowon Effects Alt Switch

Immigrant Tone Bender MkI

Immigrant Tone Bender MkII Pro

Kent Pedals The Tranny

Magnetic Effects Tone Bender MkI

Mid-Fi Electronics Magick I - Overdrive

Pelican NoiseWorks / Spruce Effects Pelitaur Ge - Germanium Pelitaur

SAE Effects White Flag Deluxe

SoloDallas The Storm

Strymon Ojai R30 - Low Profile High Current DC Power Supply

Tym Guitars Boosterizer

Tym Guitars Distorteder

Tym Guitars Fuzzerator

Tym Guitars Overdriverer

Zoom 3000 - Advanced Guitar Effects Processor

Zoom multi effects Player 3000B - Advanced Bass Effects Processor

1 new article

[review] Positive Grid BIAS Distortion - Tone Match Distortion Pedal (by LievenDV)

Overviews of the previous weeks: http://bit.ly/1IWSBXM

Discuss these updates at the forum: http://bit.ly/2jJlwZE

from Effects Database http://bit.ly/2icUdGR

[sienna-notes-blog]

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3.5mm 4pole TRRS Re-Zero Balanced 16 Core OCC Silver Mixed Earphone Cable For Senheiser HD25 HD650 HD600 HD580 HD525 LN005832

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Boya BY-MM1 Camera Video Microphone with Phone Video Rig Stabilizer,Smartphone Microfone for iPhone/Canon Nikon DSLR/Smooth Q

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SmallRig 15mm Aluminum Alloy Camera Rail Rod System with M12 Female / Inner Thread 15cm 6 Inch Long - 1050 (Pack of 2)

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their explanation

his response http://gerfidawma1987.blogspot.com/2018/08/323.html

Aug 26th, 2018

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[ben-media-n-stuff]

Recording to Tape Project

Introduction

During week 5 of this Trimester in AUS230, we had a chance to get together in groups and spend an entire day at Soundpark Studios in Northcote. The goal was to finish recording a track with a band called Palmerslum on tape within 7 hours on the day.

Palmerslum

The band consisted of a guitarist/vocalist, another guitarist, a bassist along with a drummer. They’ve sent over a demo with a song called, Grey Street for us to listen to and analyze the sound they were going for.

The track can be found by clicking here.

Difference between Soundpark & SAE Recordings

Before I continue this blog, I would say the signal flow did throw me off a little bit compared to the usual signal flow at the studios in SAE. There was a huge amount of outboard gear which is candy land for any gear head out there, along with that we also didn’t use the console as we normally do at SAE. Instead we only used the console’s preamps, along with some Neve preamps and the API preamps. The workflow was definitely a change of scenery, as not all of the microphones were connected to the desk allowing gain/pad/phase changes in one place. The Neve and API preamps were located underneath the desk, so at least we didn’t have to run across the room whenever the gain needed to be lowered. Along with that, the patchbay also went full on spaghetti town since signal was going everywhere.

Although the work flow was different, after a little bit of guidance and understanding, things did work the same as any other studio sessions I’ve had. There definitely were a bunch of changes compared to the studio at SAE, but the signal flow did make sense after understanding how things were done there. As someone that mixes primarily in the box, it was a little difficult to follow with signal outputting everywhere on the patchbay, and it did take me a while to get used to it.

Adding on to that, Soundpark Studios also had multiple acoustically treated recording rooms built into one studio, while the studios at SAE had one recording space for one console/studio. It allows flexibility and recording different sources of instruments at once without bleeding. The different recording rooms also provided different sounds, so instead of completely switching studio rooms, the studio room remained the same while different recording rooms could be used simultaneously. 

It was definitely a good change of scenery, I feel that having the chance to record at Soundpark Studios definitely did teach us that not all studios are the same and as straight forward. 

The Tape Machine

The tape machine was the main part of this recording (as seen on the title of this blog), it was definitely bigger than I expected it to be. It also looked rather old, even though it was in pristine condition, it didn’t look like something you’ll see lying around in a music store these days, there were also lots of moving parts on the machine which I’d say given time they’d slowly wear themselves out. 

To my knowledge, no big manufacturer has built new machines for years, which is fair considering most studio setups consist of audio interfaces which allows you to record straight to Pro Tools. Along with that, there are also multiple tape machine emulator plug-ins out there for that analogue warm tape sound.

It had big bulky fast forward, rewind, play, stop and record buttons on the top of the machine. Along with around 15 VU metres (if I remember correctly), to show signal coming into the tape machine for recording. The tape itself was also rather heavy weighing around 2.5~5kg at least, which loads onto the machine.

Surprisingly it didn’t look out of place at all at the studio, but it did look like something you’ll find as an easter egg onboard the millennium falcon in the Star Wars franchise. 

During the session, we routed signal from our preamps to the tape machine and then send it back to Pro Tools for digital recording.

The Session 

To begin with, the band arrived an entire hour early to setup which threw us off schedule for a bit. Considering it was our first time at Soundpark Studios, we didn’t exactly have much time to go over signal flow and outboard gear so it was a bit hectic at the beginning. 

That being said, we were all quite professional about it and stuck to our roles, setting up anything that we knew how to setup. The teamwork that day was amazing, even though we were all under time pressure and didn’t want the band to dawdle around waiting for too long. We did what we could and made sure the band was comfortable and getting ready to record as soon as possible. Surprisingly, the breaks taken were very minimal as well to ensure the session ran as smoothly as possible.

Keeping a calm and cool head also did help with the session, asking for assistance when needed instead of guessing and slowing everything down. 

As said earlier, there were very minimal breaks taken. Everyone in the group contributed on the day, taking turns on setting up microphones, working the patchbay, and taking turns at the desk operating Pro Tools. 

Needless to say, the session went quite smoothly aside from a few bumps in the first hour.

Conclusion

It was a rather fun experience being able to work with tape, although it was only our first time and I’m not completely masterful at it, it’s nice to say at least I know the basics of it and how it works. It was also great being able to record at a different studio, learning how the signal flow works there, and recording at the massive recording space that Soundpark Studios have.

It also gave a bit of a real life feel to it, challenging us to work under time pressure, making sure the band feels welcome and being professional in a studio environment.

[audio-luddite]

Influencer

We had some errands to run with our granddaughter. She is growing out of her skates. A very Canadian problem. So we picked her up went to the skate shop and spent a bit of cash. Upon returning her home I noticed there were a lot of records lying on the counter. There were those flat thin LP shipping boxes in the recycling bin. Amazon and Ebay have been busy.

My son-in-law has got the vinyl bug hard. Bwahaha my plan has worked. Even though his setup is my "B Team" it is not bad by any means. The weakest link is the old SAE Preamp. Now he just needs to chase the upgrade path. I can guide him.

He works long shifts and by Friday is very tired. So this Saturday afternoon he was asleep with two of his kids bookending his spot on the couch. So I could not talk to him about music. We will have a lot to discuss when he is rested.

The B Team is: Harman KardonCitation 12, SAE MK XXX Preamp, Harman Kardon ST5 linear turntable, Signets TK7E pickup, Large Advent speakers.

My A team is better.

[audio-luddite]

The B team is on line.

I set up the extra stereo at my daughter's place yesterday.

Harman Kardon ST 5 Rabco turntable.

SAE Mark 30 Preamp

Harman Kardon Citation 12 Amplifier.

Signet TK7E with an ATN12s stylus. (Fancy)

Advent A3 refurbished speakers.

I sounds OK.

The speakers are not placed ideally, but it is a start. There is a certain risk that the kids may hurt the turntable, but I warned the big sister to not play with it as it can break. Please tell your brothers(here is hoping). My girl and her hubby had gone to a party and my wife and I were babysitting the brood. I had no time to explain the details of operation as they rushed out the door. I told them to read the manual (RTFM) for the TT and that the preamp switches everything on. Simple as can be.

The HK ST 5 has a few quirks. You do not touch the tone arm even though it is manual. There is a guide bar for that. Easy to learn, but do not violate that rule.

I played a couple of LPs I brought. They sounded fine.

I have more room in my house and they have something to play records on. They even have records.

The whole system is not yet high end, but damn close. It could be duplicated for around $2k. That is not much given people spend that much and more on phono cartridges that distort nicely.

[audio-luddite]

Things lead to other things.

I have a full "B team" stereo that has been sitting in the corner for a few years. I pulled it out and swept the dust off. The Harman Kardon Citation 12 had some work a few weeks ago, but the rest had been idle.

The rest are:

A pair of Large Advent A3 speakers that I rebuilt as they had been blown. Nice Walnut veneer boxes. The boxes cost 20 bucks. The repair cost more.

A SAE Mark 30 (XXX) preamplifier.

A Harman Kardon ST 5 linear tracking turntable.

As a set they are a reasonable system from the 1970s bumping up against high end. Double Advents were considered entry level high end by Harry Pearson of TAS.

The mission was to see if it all still worked.

In the Advent rebuild I replaced the old cross over capacitor with a new Polyester film type and recalled I had a problem as Solen sent the wrong size. They made it good, but I dint recall if I had put the correct ones in or not. So I got out the screw driver and pulled the woofers off to check. You know the wires from the cross over to the filter are very thin. Hey the wire in the inductor is thin.

The woofer that needed a full rebuild was hooked in backwards so I had to confirm polarity with the famous small battery check. And yes I did it right. The Capacitor was 12microfarad and the factory used both 12 and 13 so Ok that is fine for a 6db/octave type. I put the thing back together.

Next was to drag out the turntable, preamp, and some wire I had lying about to fire the beast up. Those speakers are heavy and the citation 12 is not light even though it is a fraction of the ARC Cl60's mass.

The ST5 was also quite heavy. It follows rule one of good stuff, heavy is good. I mounted my Signets Tk7e Cartridge in it. It has an ATN 12S stylus which fits the old body.

I hooked it all up and saw no smoke or heard horrible sounds of electrical failure. Nice and quiet. Put on a record. Sounded thin. The Citation has to warm up but errr. OK I had the speakers out of phase, the battery test again. Naked wires are sometimes hard to see what is plus or minus. Swapped that and it was better. Let it run and it got better.

I did not set them up in the "ideal" position for Advents, that was not the goal. The sound had traces of quality for sure. It was the "B Team" after all.

Two things struck me. My speakers are far more open sounding and have far better Bass. In the day the Advent was noted for good Bass. But it also predated the Thiele - Small equations by a decade. It was a seat of the pants design by one of the gurus of the age Henry Kloss.

The Advents have a ten inch woofer, my speakers have 8 inches. Mine are vented, the Advents are sealed. I had math on my side.

I plan on doing an extended loan to my son-in-law. As he gets familiar with good sound and buys his own I will get these sold.

As I did a couple more albums I think it hit a plateau and sounded fine. The 70s were not bad even in the cheap seats. Some progress was made since.

Until you hear better it is probably good enough. And that question of what is better still lingers around.

[audio-luddite]

Solid Stuff.

Lets talk about transistors. There are many types and methods and there have been many products made with them. It is rather silly to lump them all into one bin and complain.

Transistors are actually quantum devices. They use fields and potentials and extra electrons or holes in the orbitals of solid materials. They make possible all those things we all associate with modern life. Your smart phone uses millions of transistors. Even the screen is an array of transistors controlling what you see. Such stuff would be physically impossible with vacuum tubes.

They go back pretty far you probably didn't know. Basically as old as vacuum tubes in theory. The Field effect transistor was first described in 1925 conceptually. The common Bipolar Junction type was demonstrated in 1947 and commercialized in the 1950s. The 6550 vacuum tube was also developed in the 1950s. The MOSFET was invented in 1959 and had many advantages especially in energy efficiency. All that real work was done at BELL Labs a private research lab owned by Bell Telephone.

In Audio the challenge was finding ways to control ever more power. Up until the late 1960s a powerful home amplifier was about 60 Watts. That was the best you could do with using either Tubes or Transistors. Very clever designers worked both ways. Harman Kardon and Dynaco both sold factory made and Kits of audio stuff as the interest was mostly in hobbyists. Both companies used tube and transistor methods and moved from one to the other as soon as they could. But they sold both tubes and Transistor equipment for some time.

Why did they change? They found transistors better. They liked the performance and manufacturing advantages. A stereo tube amplifier uses three big transformers. A transistor type needs one. Tube amplifiers use lethal voltages and are fragile. Transistors don't and aren't. And in the late 60s to early 70s transistors sounded better. Such was the opinion of the Original golden ear J Gordon Holt.

Tubes were "fuzzy" and obscured detail. Tubes had weak or muddy Bass. Transistors had clarity and speed and Power. One of the best amplifiers of that age was the Harman Kardon Citation 12. 60 Watts dual mono with quasi-complementary output transistors. Some people still say quasi is better than actual full complementary as you can properly match the transistors. That HK still sounds really good. Better than a newer Carver amp I have.

The age of the super amp was all transistor. SAE, Dynaco, Phase Linear all just added more transistors to the output and got 100, 200, 250, and then 350 Watts per channel. That followed the development of better transistors that could push more current and volts. People liked what they could do.

As in everything they were not perfect. Nothing is perfect. And today there is an avalanche of marketing and nonsense. This is best, that is best. Companies come and go. Old ways are rediscovered and called new.

Hey it is not over. People spend crazy money on the latest thing. It has a lot in common with joining a Cult. I refuse to drink the Kool Aid.

It took me a while to realize that it is not about best, or even better, just different. There are different things to hear. My lovely 1990s era tube amp has wonderful textures, but obscures tiny details I know are there. I miss them, but will forgive it for now.

I think I should just start calling it my winter amp. Toasty warm like a nice fire in the fireplace. It will rest in the summer, and I will get my tiny details back. Not about better.

There are obsolete technologies revived like tiny Single End Triode "Class A" amplifiers and big horn speakers. People can forgive flaws and limitations if they really want to. Hey I do. Old designs from the 1950s are recreated and people really like them. You can buy a brand new recreation of the Harman Kardon Citation I and II classic tube preamp and amp set. Just like the original only new parts. Old "Classic" equipment is lovingly restored to as new, but this returning to the roots still sounds like the 1950s. It wasn't that good people.

I have LPs that are pure analogue. Performance to professional tape to disc. They sound really good. I have LPs that were recorded digitally and they sound great too. I have really good CDs. So the newer technology is not automatically worse. Some is, but that is the production chain and often commercial pressures to "sound good on AM radio" like that Carly Simon LP I got.

You can build a justifiably high end system with transistors. It will sound great and be reliable. You do not have to apologize, and yes you can still socialize with the tube people.

[audio-luddite]

Basics 1.1 Brand Names.

I would like to point out that publications of all types generally do not describe reality. Car magazines discuss Ferraris as if everyone drove them to work or shopping. A very few people do, but they have a huge amount of money and arguably bad judgement as driving around the city in one is just out and out bragging and bad for a vehicle designed to go fast and that is all.

Audiophile magazines and pod casts and YouTube things that portray six figure turntables as even approaching a reasonable solution are full of it too. There is a lot of Ferrari level audio equipment out there.

I stopped reading that stuff a long time ago as it is not part of the real world. It often seems that audiophile stuff is ranked on the internet on price, rarity, and if it has USB connectivity. If you do a Google or Bing Search they will vomit up ads that questionable sources paid for.

I guess I am saying there is damn little useful information out there easy to access to guide you in this hobby. You will have a hard time finding out if there is just GOOD stuff out there. There is but it is behind big clouds of a dense smoke of exaggeration and simple lies.

There is gold, but you gotta dig. You have to know the difference between the gold and pyrite. Most companies making good stuff are relatively small. A few have been taken over by big companies and if left mostly alone can be depended upon. Others are really good at business, but the products are only popular as opposed to good. It helps to know some names.

Many have gone away. Some have come back or never left. There are fans and collectors that drive the prices up, but actually do not use the stuff. The most expensive car out there is too precious to drive and sits in a climate controlled shed. I saw a website for a collector of classic SAE equipment who just cannot use all that stuff. Very impressive, but it should be used, not photographed.

Some have a reputation better than they deserve. Some deserve a better reputation. Here is a trip down my memory lane. I was there.

In the early 70s there was a company called Acoustic Research. To its friends and fans it is just AR. It started out in Cambridge Mass in the 50s. It based its business on a revolutionary speaker design that allowed much better and smoother bass response. The AR-3 is a deserved classic. They kept making good stuff until the 80s and eventually petered out in buy outs and corporate BS. Another product they developed was the AR turntable. Simple, basic, well designed and good. Examples still change hands and can be modified to be pretty damn good by high end standards. A deserved good reputation and worth pursuing.

A descendant of that vision was KLH speakers and eventually ADVENT. Good names for things up to the early 80s.

Another company from Framingham Mass. was BOSE. Started by an MIT professor he developed a speaker that used the walls of your room to reflect sound. The classic 901 had 9 small drivers per channel with one shooting forward and the rest aimed backward. It needed an inline equalizer to correct its poor frequency response. I think it is a poor design. Reviewers were careful to not offend but people who like it like it. Later they made strange and exotic small units that are best considered as equal to a nice clock radio. ( then also made a clock radio.)

They moved into automotive sound, low end consumer audio and public address systems. They are still in business now owned by MIT but nothing they make is high end. Nothing they ever made is high end or really even good by my standards.

Dynaco started in the late 50s and had a good run right through the 80s. They evolved into Halfer and then disappeared into bigger firms ESS and then Panor. Either of those first two brand names can be depended upon for good stuff. Recently both brands have been resuscitated and make a few good, but expensive things.

My big amplifier is a Dynaco.

Harman Kardon also started in the 50s. Mr Harman and Mr Kardon worked for a company called Bogen that made fairly respected electronics and speakers in the Eastern US. The HK Citation line of products was a sophisticated attempt at selling really good stuff for reasonable cost. Both HK and Dynaco sold their products as kits for a time to make it more accessible.

HK still exists as a division of Samsung. They had a weird journey through corporate buying and selling, but still kept a sense of purpose. Any HK product is worthy of respect if taken care of. The Citation 11 preamp and the Citation 12 amp were once SOTA. I have a Harman Kardon Citation 12 amplifier and an HK ST5 Rabco turntable.

Marantz is another firm from the East founded by a Saul Marantz in New York. They made a good reputation on high end stuff and quickly went through several new owners including Philips Corp from the Netherlands. The old stuff up to mid 70s is considered pretty good.

SAE was a California Company started in the 70s with an avowed purpose to make good solid stuff. The designs were from a James Bongiorno who became one of the audio engineering saints. His early SAE amplifiers and preamplifiers made the golden ears sit up and take notice. I have an SAE mk XXX preamp. It is a good solid unit and frankly under priced on the used market right now.

SAE went away, and are now back as a brand selling really big stuff. Amplifiers you could weld with. Not cheap by any means.

Insert angelic choir here.

Audio Research Corporation. Started in the 70s, still going strong but owned by Mcintosh since 2016. Founding visionary was William Zane Johnson another audio saint. A defender and promoter of vacuum tube electronics. I will safely say they never made anything less that great, and most things were SOTA when they came out. They were never inexpensive. There is a decent selection of good stuff for under two grand on the used market, but it gets crazy for the new stuff. My main preamp is an Audio Research SP-12.

There are two things about their stuff you have to be aware of. The first is they voiced the phono preamps to sound good with moving coil pickups starting around the SP9. The input capacitance is too high for most moving magnet or moving iron types. Easy to fix with solder. The second thing is they flirted with all solid state designs for a time. They used fabricated Operational Amplifier units in potted blocks. These units cannot be fixed if they fail. They failed in the market as the fans liked the warm glow of glass and felt betrayed. Eventually there was a compromise with "hybrid" designs. I lust after an SP-9 mk2/3 which is a hybrid.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are other brands and names. These are ones I have personal experience with and can vouch for the value of my opinion.

It is fun to hunt for stuff.

Don't forget to listen!

[audio-luddite]

Everything can be made better.

All audio equipment has flaws. Some are flaws in concept but usually execution. If you prefer the word weaknesses or foibles that is fine. The internoise is full of stories where some guy has rebuilt a classic unit with new or premium components. An example of that from a factory is the rebirth of the Citation one and two made in China but with top quality parts that did not exist in the 1950s. Still using a 70 year old circuit mind you.

Good technicians simply may want to fiddle. Poor technicians with basic skills like I am will fiddle too. A little bit of this and a bit of that and old becomes new.

I have not done wholesale replacements of premium resistors or fancy Russian oil and paper capacitors. I have replaced or bridged signal path capacitors with film types. I have split power supplies for separate left and right stereo channels in amplifiers. I have not changed anything in my ARC preamps except for vacuum tubes. Oh and spritzing them with contact cleaner. I did that.

I had an old preamp that used OPamps and came from designers that had left SAE years ago. In that one I dropped in a much larger capacitor in the power supply. That made a very significant difference in the Bass. Arguably it came from the factory with sufficient PS filtering. That simple change made a big difference. In some designer's minds a power supply capacitor is to filter out hum from the wall current. Once the hum is so many db down its fine. In others it is a reservoir of energy for the output.

But all manufacturers need to invest wisely in parts and components. If they think a given part is good enough then a better one is a waste of money. Some of the better products are just basic solid designs built well with all the tweaks done from the factory. Several good power amplifiers will split the power supply and otherwise be pretty plain. Rectifiers are not expensive but doubling the number of PS capacitors can be.

Then there are the conceptual flaws. Zero-feedback versus lots for example. Usually it is simple faith that fill-in-the-blank is the best. Experts in one method will cheerfully point out the problems with any other method. Well reasoned and backed up with plots and data and proof. Like that recent post I did about the ZOTL Amp where they proved that any tube amp using an output transformer is hopelessly compromised.

Finally there is the practice of voicing electronics. Adjust some part or other of the circuit to make it sound "right." When Bob Carver won his bet about making his cheap amp sound exactly like a premium amp it was a exercise in voicing. That you can do that means something other that accuracy and precision is driving preferences of reviewers.

Cost effectiveness drives the real world.

[audio-luddite]

Cleaning out the pots!

My preamp is 40 ish years old. Works fine and better than my previous 50 ish year old preamp. I had noticed some noise and strange behavior at some of the quieter volume settings. Scrrrtch Squeeek. My wife is always saying "turn it down." Classic dirt or corrosion in the potentiometers. (pots) (AKA volume controls)

The standard fix is contact cleaner. The only one I could find that was tried and true for electronics was Deoxit. Many blogs claimed many things about stuff from hardware and autoparts stores. Excuse me if I don't believe everything I see online.

Deoxit comes in several flavors and eBay or amazon will sell it to me for stupid money and free shipping (not including tax and duty). I found a real live local brick and mortar store that had it. It was a professional supply store as it only was open during the week and business hours.

I was able to get there over lunch hour and buy a can of Deoxit D5. Not cheap, but half what the online thieves wanted.

Next step was to pull the SP14 out of the rack and undo 8 machine screws on the top. Audio Research really builds things nicely. Neat cable runs, and almost pretty circuit boards. (SAE had the lock on really pretty circuit boards back in the day).

BUT

They did not build it with spray cleaning the pots and switches in mind. First thing is all the knob controls are soldered directly to a narrow PC board mounted upside down. Then the pots were very high end ALPS which are nice small SEALED boxes. They had some very small openings in a few almost impossible to get to places.

This is not going to be easy. It wasn't. I started with the top off and tried to maneuver the spray tube into what holes I could find. This aint working! Then I put the front facing down resting on those handles. (OH, that's what they're for!) The rotary selectors were pretty open so they got a good blast. Spray and twiddle the knobs for 20 or 30 seconds. Repeat.

I assumed (hoped) the holes in the ALPS pots (volume and balance) went into their guts and gave them a blast and twiddle and came back to repeat.

During this I observed something. There are some brass contact strips on the selectors that were brown. Dirt? So I got a Qtip and gave it a shot of cleaner and rubbed the strips. They were bright brass again. The Qtip was black. WTF? This was not corrosion. I cleaned them all off I could get to. I also rubbed a bit on a metal plate holding the power transformer to the side panel it was filthy too.

About the only thing I can figure is one of the previous owners was a smoker. Hey my mom smoked a bit and lived to her 90s. I have never taken up the habit nor my wife or our kids. I thought about how I could give the whole device a bath. Then no lets just do another round of blast and twiddle and hope those holes actually do go into the guts of the pots.

I also gave the rear RCA plugs a shot and worked at the insides with a cut off Qtip stick. There was a bit of stuff in there.

I put it back together and let it sit for an hour. I set all the knobs and selectors to where they had been and turned it back on. No smoke that's good. Fire up the Iphone through the CD player and let it run.

Now even though the IPhone was set to lossless and high resolution or whatever they call it, it is only fairly good, about the same as a CD. But only as good as a good CD. (I am a vinyl guy remember?) I heard a difference.

I try to always qualify my judgements between better and different. Things are often different, but not better. Better is always different. This was different, and I think significantly better. There was gunk on my controls and the cleaner cleaned it. It sounded smoother nicer cleaner, it was better.

So glad I did not hurt anything.

I really should zap the Amplifier input and the speaker wire connectors. Though I did give the binding posts a bit of a twist.

One of those "Ask Paul" things on PS audio mentioned that sometimes when people swap speaker cables they are better because working the binding posts at each end actually clears corrosion from the wires. Bare copper (or silver for "those guys") will corrode out in the air and normal humidity. I bought some new speaker wire some time ago. Heavier gauge but still just two conductor. It is a bit of a pain to run. Maybe I should do that and hit it with the cleaner at the same time.

Conclusion: If you have some old equipment with knobs and selectors giving it a clean really helps.

Thumbs up for Deoxit D5.

[audio-luddite]

Mega rabbit hole warning.

I have long beaten the dead horse of buying old good stuff as the way to get into the audio hobby. Crucial to that is finding the good stuff. If you are not as old as I am it is a bit harder. I remember the good stuff.

What if you don't. Too young to have been there. Too influenced by some blog or discussion stream. Lots of good reasons. But I found a rosetta stone to the past.

An example is the venerable Dynaco 400 family of big amplifiers. Google it and you will find lots for sale. You will find lots of comments. I will summarize them as "They were never very good and there were much better at the time..." I was there, and that is not what I remember.

I tripped over an archive. It has a great deal of back issues of old magazines as PDF files. One was several decades of "Stereophile" magazine. The Archive is now gone. Probably the lawyers got at it.

It was a huge rabbit hole. In it I found original reviews of early Dynaco stuff as well as old Audio Research stuff and Phase Linear back when they came out. I dug through late 60s and early to mid 70s issues to find references to the pieces I recall.

As a bit of background Stereophile was founded by J.G. Holt who was dissatisfied with equipment reviews that just looked at specification numbers and tests and not caring so much about the sound character. He was the original golden ear. It was a real mom and pop start up. It is still around.

I was surprised by some of the reviews and the lists of recommended components from issue to issue. For example my first good system was a Dynaco PAT 5 preamp with a Stereo 400 amplifier feeding Advent Speakers. All of those were highly recommended. For a time the PAT 5 was better than the ARC SP3 preamp! The modified SP3a-1 just surpassed it when that came out later. My friend had an SP3 and sent it to ARC to be made into an SP3a-1 after I got my Pat 5. I later modified the PAT 5 when new FET op amps were issued. I can solder. They were in the race near the top.

The review of the Dynaco 400 compared it to the early Phase Linear 400 and 700 and it was better. They actually said it was one of the best amps at the time. There was one better amplifier in the ARC D76 tube amp. The Crown D150 and D300 were ok as well, but not quite as good to their ears.

Harman Kardon was in the game having the Citation 11, and 12 ranking very high until they were surpassed by the Dynacos. They even listed the old tube Dynaco Pas 3 preamp as a good second string alternative.

The Advent review was weird in that they just started out with oh look another bookshelf speaker, so boring. Then after a time they realized that there was nothing wrong with it. Eventually earned a listing in the good stuff gallery.

They also were the people who anointed SAE as an up and comer. They made a lot of companies successful and likely killed a few.

If you subscribed to the idea of how it sounded over the fancy numbers there was also "The Absolute Sound" magazine. It was expensive to subscribe to as they did not carry ads as that was corrupting. Early days they tried to not copy Stereophile, but yah they did.

I dug through about a dozen issues looking for specific brands and models from that era including my old Dynacos. They all had indexes on the first few pages, so that is all you need to find a particular thing. It was fun and nostalgic.

Bottom line is most people trolling old equipment reviews never heard the stuff or stuff in good shape. Old Capacitors lose their mojo and need refresh. There are better resistors and sometimes transistors pop. All that can be fixed. Much of that can be tweaked.

Be not afraid of old stuff or trolls.

[audio-luddite]

Am I a Hypocrite?

So I go and disparage the class of people called "Golden Ears" yet I quote or otherwise show respect for the old Absolute Sound (TAS) and Stereophile magazine. I hope I am not one.

I am "experienced" as I am old. I have seen and heard a lot of stuff. I have not had any formal training as an audiophile, but nobody does. You buy stuff to listen to music. You like music. You like good natural sound. Once you manage to get a good stereo you cannot help but compare other ones to it when you hear them.

I have found many things held precious by GEs are not easily defensible. Stereophile and Absolute Sound magazines liked or even loved the FMI 80 speaker back decades ago. It is better than crap, but the nicest thing I can say is it was deeply flawed. I know this from personal hands on experience. It was built from cheap parts and poorly made ( I had one apart ) and had distorted yet pleasant sound.

I could go on and on about wires and interconnects and well if you look back I have. Yes they affect sound, but it is from common and easy to identify electrical parameters, not mysterious new age crystal bullshit.

When I read old reviews it is for comparisons sake. I really respected the opinions of (TAS) until I could gain my own experience. You have to start somewhere. We are all only human and subject to confirmation bias and all that. But if you see or experience something that contradicts the GE's wisdom whom do you believe?

I suppose that part of the problem is the business depends on salesmen and experts driving people to buy stuff to pad the bottom line. They have a lot of products that do nothing. Ironically when I discovered the very real effect of a cork mat under an LP none of the local high end stereo stores had any. Oh you don't need those, you need this lovely $12,000 turntable!

You do not need power conditioners if you equipment has a proper power supply filter. You do not need spikes under your electronics. You do not need weird expensive wires anywhere. Simple plain cables and wires are fine. You DO need vibration dampers under Turntables, and cork mats.

I have said before and will again right here I have never heard any system in any showroom or home that sounds as good as mine.

My system has evolved over the years. I learned what works and what does not. I base everything on what I can hear. I use tribal knowledge or at least try it, but hearing is believing.

My backup SAE XXX preamp was once in the lower level of the audio pantheon. One of those Bongiorno things you know. With its companion Amplifier it was briefly among the best you could get. It was and I assume still is not as good as my ARC SP12. That was from a direct comparison one to the other. I suppose to be fair I should put it up against the SP14. That is not the point though. I try one and the other and pick what I prefer. I have to emphasize that. It is preference not absolute quality. I got no meters here, just ears.

I hear things and want to dig deeper. Right now I am in a strange place. I do not think there is any deeper to dig. Last night I was playing some stuff off my Iphone into my CD player into the system. I was trying to relax and wanted some background while I caught up on the news. Suddenly and to my surprise this one cut of a Puccini Opera struck me. It was so alive, and real. Big bombastic music to be sure, but it was really so good it penetrated my otherwise distracted mind. Listen to that for god's sake! That was from a digital file on my phone.

When I play LPs aside from wondering if they need a cleaning I just listen to them. There is no "if only" going on here. I know there is no more to get off the records. The only thing may be subtle presentation things. I know that my TT system pulls everything off an LP AND that the sound and balance are essentially identical to a CD of the same recording. I have several other phono cartridges that are more similar than different. That means we are so very close to the ideal. Whatever that is.

So no I am not a hypocrite. I say what I mean from what I hear.

[audio-luddite]

What's it worth?

That is always an interesting question.

This week there are two adds on Audiomart for pretty much the same thing.

In BC there is a set of Harman Kardon Citation 11, 12, 14 deluxe models. That is an Amplifier, a Preamplifier, and a tuner of 1970's vintage all in lovely wooden cases. Perfect if you are into that Danish teak wood furniture vibe. Price $2150 CDN.

photo from CAM add.

In QC (the other end of the country) is a Citation 11, and 12 in the metal box finish for $ 940 CDN. That's about where I think that should be if in fine electrical shape. Cleaned and checked and working correctly.

photo from CAM add.

In the mid 1970s this was close to SOTA for a short time. The 11 was just a notch below the tube god of the day the ARC SP3a. Lots of people swoon to 70s stuff. It is very good no debate.

Sonically they are a good set. Is one worth double the other? The tuner is OK, but.... The value of these things is what someone is willing to pay for it.

The real difference is the boxes. Really nice wood and nice to look at. Goes well with "modern wood" furniture. Relatively high WAF.

So what does one do? Are the boxes worth 1k? The vendor spent some TLC on the wood. If you are into nice wood nuf said.

I think the guy could be bargained down on the pretty set. Shipping is a cost and these are heavy if you gotta UPS them.

I recall seeing a Citation 12 for $350 bucks a few years ago. There was an 11 for about the same money. $700 the set. I would like to have an 11 to go with my 12 to make the set. I could dump my SAE. I am not going to bid on these. If I were a collector I might, but I aint.

For comparison there is a Citation 25 preamp on the US Audiomart for $200 USD. 20 years newer. It is probably "better", but how much is it worth? It has some phunky phono settings which is not a bad thing. The tribe thinks well of that one.

HK in the day was high end but not the SOTA.

[audio-luddite]

Ya let's talk about tubes.

It's on my mind.

I think I have had 6 different preamps in my past. Two were tube units.

My oldest was a DYI transistor breadboard preamp I built with my brother and put in a small box. It made sound and the volume control worked.

Next was a Dynaco PAT 5 op-amp unit kit. Later I upgraded the OP Amps to newer FETS. It was pretty good and I would like to see another to compare it to my current stuff. They just don't seem to be any out there. Then I sold it as I had to move across the continent.

Then I built a Vacuum Tube preamp using the circuit from the Audio Research SP3. Arguably it was less than great as my power supply was not that sophisticated, but it made sound and the volume control worked. The real SP3a was the SOTA for quite a while. I make no claims about mine. They go for crazy money now, but they are collectable and not even close to SOTA anymore.

Then I bought a solid state preamp that used some discrete bits and OP amps. I have the box, but would have to dig it out to recall the make and model#. It had a phono loading option which was pretty unusual. Later I cracked the case and bumped up the power supply caps and that really helped the Bass. Had that for 5 ish years.

Then I found a used Audio Research SP12 in a stereo shop. I had been relatively happy with the OP Amp thing, but I was charmed by the brand and figured it had to have improved over 9 generations. I traded OP Amps in for the ARC. It is my boss unit right now. It uses 5 vacuum tubes and has a regulated power supply and is well built.

SAE MK30. This is a solid state unit of really nice construction. The boards are pretty! Some were sold with clear plastic tops to show that off. It also had respected sound and made the reputation of SAE in combination with a nice medium power amp. I bought it when the old SP12 was being cranky and had a bad hum. It was cheap too. It is not bad at all.

When I was having the SP12 fixed the SAE was on duty and did fine. I think it is a good unit and has nice clear sound with great detail.

When the SP12 was fixed though....

Thing is the sound through the tubes has a nice character. You do not hear more but you hear different. I just like it. The test instruments say they are both really good. There are some things in the treble that the SAE does really well. But I like the SP12. This is all about likes you know.

I have been keeping an eye out for an ARC SP9 iii or an SP14. I almost made a deal on the latter just before the plague hit. Those are supposed to be "better". They may even be so.

As I praise tube tech I think it fair to look at what is available. Good tube units are EXPENSIVE. I guess I should say they are expensive to me. 2 or 3 kilobucks is a lot of money from my account. ( all is relative as I think that is a very reasonable price for a carbon fiber bicycle.)

If you are desperate to get into the vacuum rabbit hole what is the entry cost? The Dynaco PAS3 (or pas 2) is a very basic unit and is relatively common. They all need work unless someone just did an overhaul. New Caps, new tubes, new resistors, and many modifications may have been done. Current ads for those range from $500 to $900 bucks. The local used stereo emporium has one for $750. Opinions range from really nice to it is crap. Arguably a lot of that is due to actual condition. When it was new it was surpassed by many units almost all were solid state like the HK Citation 11.

One thing I note is it has only 2 tubes in the phono section, and that may cause issues as there is no buffer to the line level. There are 2 tubes in the line level and apparently there is limited gain and maybe impedance issues with some amplifiers. It was designed to work best with a small number of tube amps from the same company.

But it appears to be reliably the least expensive tube preamp option.

If you have a bit more money there are some small DYI units that can be had for $1200 to $1500 and those have a good reputation.

As you ascend the dollar ladder more appear, like used Conrad Johnson and Rouge Audio on Ebay. If you are brave there are some units made in China that are rip-offs of Conrad Johnson and others, but buyer beware. Component quality is questionable.

Bottom line it gets expensive fast. If you can spend $2K comfortably then the horizon broadens.

Newer stuff may only be "line level" which means no phono gain stage. As far as I am concerned I do not see the point. Vinyl rules!

I do not consider or care for tube power amps. They are just too expensive. The tubes need replacing far more often than preamps and those tubes are EXPENSIVE. For the least expensive decent tube amp you can get a solid powerful transistor amp. A tube preamp will give you all the character you need. Save money for LPs.