Audion Ideas Guide

ISSUE 1 VOLUME I YEAR 1

Editorial

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The audio journalist responsible for this page has no opinion to offer. Like Julian Hirsch, he likes the sound of everything, even with speakers connected up to all of the outputs, and headphones plugged into the outlet on the front panel, playing into a 40% load for one hour with pink noise or Brazil 66. Also like Julie, this "journalist" enjoys the sound of early solid state from HH Scott, particularly its tuners.

Since audion is a term that describes a vacuum tube, one can only peculate the mindset of a person who would choose a picture of a tube preamplifier stage for the cover of Issue 1 &c. for a deeper understanding of the relevance of the audion approach in a post Factory age. No tubes to be found in A/G, but for four nuvistors.

Truth. I very rarely like the sound of any audio system other than my own. I have the very best loudspeakers extant and any capable amplifier connected to them will sound better than when connected to any other loudspeaker system.

Simple without limit.
           Although some loudspeakers come very close to the sound of a Quad and are
           more efficient than the ELS above sea level, there are none that bridge the gap.

Lucky is the person who finds a circuit that make the Quads sing, however . Any topology should be sufficient, or at least make appreciative noises, I suppose, but practically all solid state designs, except for a small group of quasi complementary and an even smaller group of complementaries, will get it wrong and be nastily noisy to boot. Many tube designs sag horribly where the Quads start to dig in, impedance wise, which is above 5k.

I suppose I am looking here for a editorial <fill-in> because I have little more to add to the substantial discussion of audio.

I cannot offer an opinion further. I await a better transducer. Perhaps it will be a resistive ladder that will sum and amplify a digital signal directly. Perhaps it will propel photons against a substrate to produce sound and a subtle light show in a darkened room.

I am otherwise quite satisfied that the amplifiers that exist, that I can listen to readily, are better than anything else in manufacture. They are often one of a kind, or in such low levels of production that they should be considered to be. Rare birds they are: Thermionic devices with polypropylene capacitors and low impedances. Only a tiny group of amplifiers have noise floors sufficiently quiet to let you hear a clear seventy decibel range (40 to 110dBa), if that's possible for you.

Thermionics and Polypropylene

A stringent observation of the rules of electronics, aided by components that have only recently entered manufacture, has permitted some designers to obtain performance plateaus with valves that solid state designers will never duplicate within reasonable limits. It is not possible to supply a solid state amplifier with a quiet fast capacity supply using electrolytic capacitors, and it would not make a difference anyhow. A properly implemented electrolytic supply will always exceed the speed requirements of a solid state device. Pushing electrons through a gate is slow, noisy work.

Film capacitor supplies are not an option for solid state, and there is no
electronic method to duplicate their characteristics, or rather, lack of.
(anon.)

It is worth noting that any topology that is designed with an electrolytic supply will be limited by it, and only a vanishingly small number of any amplifier extant is populated by film. The lower inherent noise of a thermionic valve, and the performance that it can deliver within its microphonic range makes it a better candidate for a film supply, in any case. A circuit in which a low noise tube has been accidentally sustituted, will obliterate any advantage offered by a film circuit and tubes that offer the preferred microphonic characteristic (and also matched for stereo) are vital to the success of a fast film supply. It is worth remembering that "low noise" tubes are exactly that: There is a calculated threshold, a dither, that is added to the noise floor of a tube to prevent oscillations that exist in all wide range tubes. Many valve amplifiers use low noise tubes because they supply a very satisfactory 50 decibels of range. Their use in a film based system obviates any advantage obtained, making the amplifier little more effective than its humbler, electrolytic-based brethren.

Everything else in audio is a source. Some sources are better than others. Vinyl is the best source for the sake of purity and simplicity, but digital audio, the PHILIPS system, as it can only be described, has always been sufficient for high resolution when implemented correctly. A terrible recording will sound bad, no matter how expensive a compact disc player is, and a crappy CD player with el-cheapo afterthought error correction will never sound as good as an AM radio.

***

I only listen to audio equipment to hear music. Stockhausen is my favorite composer of choice at the moment. I make this point about listening because most "audio journalists" listen to audio to hear where it can go and I find that aspect to be tedious. I enjoy well reproduced sound in part because it allows me to hear more clearly what an artist is trying to say.

Feel left out? MOR classics such as Greatest Hits will do, too..

ed.