Amp upgrade with Canton speakers: Feasibility study

[square_wave]

True. I like tubes more than Transformers in the preamp.

For me, measurement comes second to musical satisfaction. I frankly dont care how something measures if it cant pass the most accurate measurement tool in the world the ear

 

[Asit]

Arj, Cranky and square_wave,

Thanks for your concern and the great on-going discussion. I really appreciate having differing kinds of views. Another thing I like to point out in addition that I do not think having a discussion like this is in any way going outside the topic of the thread. I did NOT want just to get names of a few amps, their prices and where they are available. If you notice carefully in the name of this thread, it has "Feasibility Study" included in it and this is exactly what I wanted. I feel we need more of this in this entire forum in general, so that the community at large can benefit.

Before joining this forum about a couple of years ago, I had very little idea about pre-amps, let alone passives although I have been listening to stereo separates for 25 years.

I am also not worried about having differing views. In my profession, I get that everyday. It just shows that the subject is very rich and there are many ways of looking at it, and at times all of them are correct, at least partially.

The way I see it is as follows:

If we are going the pre-power way, and consider something like the Stratos as the power amp, it's about 75% to 25% split in terms of price between the power amp and the passive pre. You all know I am not rich or anything, but am prepared to take a calculated gamble on the 25% expenditure. This is not something that cannot be repaired later on, although it would be perfect to get it correct the first time.

It is not a blind gamble, because I am taking inputs from real users (both in case of the Etesian and the Promitheus TVC). Although not a lot of input is available on the net on the Etesian (Sridhar, correct me if I am wrong), but hopefully I will get some input from actual user/s. On the Promitheus Audio, there are a number of users' reviews available on the net, it's a very popular brand (if any of you want to know about these links, I can provide it, because I have collected all of those in a file).

So basically all I am trying to do is to pick one of these two, or perhaps can add the Lyrita pre as a third option as both Cranky and Arj suggested. But very frankly, I was always very much aware of the Lyrita option (ROC among others owns one) but somehow have this notion that for a cleaner sound I had to go higher up in price. The reason I got interested in passives is that most people report that the sound is very clean and quiet. This is something I would enjoy very much perhaps even at the risk of sacrificing a bit on the soundstage, because from the reports on passives (even the MFAs) this is what I gathered.

I think this is my best shot at the pre/power. I am actually more open-minded than you could imagine -- I have no problem going the DIY way, but sitting in Kolkata and not myself being cut out to handle even a screw driver is not an encouraging starting point (let me remind you that I am very proud to be a theoretical/mathematical physicist). At some point I have to be practical.

If this does not work out, the Arcam integrated is there. It has a clean transparent and musical sound from what we have heard from dinyaar and particleman. May be I will lose out a bit on the fun part (dynamic range, muscle, speed and perhaps a bit of thinness in tonal quality in comparison to a decent power amp).

 

[arj]

Scientifically, the ear is a very poor tool as it is sensitive to only some aspects of sound (mostly based on evolutionary necessities so it is, for example much more tuned to direction and timing than timber), has a extremely limited bandwidth, and has not adapted at all to its environment.

Also, ears do not hear, your brain does. Ears, technically, are only transformers - they change air pressures into electrical pulses. Auditory perception is built in the brain, not the ears. Same with auditory memory. And all this is biology and physiology, not snake oil and mumbo jumbo. This is why hearing can recover from all but the most serious accidents, and unless the auditory nerve is snapped most people retain hearing till the bones inside the ear die. Also the reason that you can remember a friend's voice, without even hearing it. Hearing is not in your ears, it's between them.

Finally every ear is totally different. and so ius the expectation from the brain.

while ear "response curves" show that each person actually hears the same frequency at a different dB levels, in the end the match between the speakers in room response and that ears listening response is what gives a perfect match : Equal-loudness contour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I loved crankys analogy on the brain ...but did you mean Transducer instead of transformer ?

In the end one can treat ones system as a musical instrument or a scientific instrument or something in between

 

[arj]

The truth is, music is created by people, with emotions.

Therefore, it has to be in the middle. How much in the middle, is a hot topic. Every sound we hear can be plotted on three axes of time, amplitude and frequency. It is imperative that to reproduce the original 'event' as closely as possible, the playback must be able to deliver all three simultaneously and without any non-linearity. Sadly, even after millions of dollars of research, 20,000 dollar speaker cables and billions of worth of sold and purchased audio equipment later, we are unable to attain this no matter what the price.

An excellent post..audiophile and philosopher !

Couldnt agree more here. in the end it is about Right brain/left brain.

If i could give it a different spin, Music is created by predominantly right brained musicians..and listened to by all sorts of people. the predominantly left brain think they want preciseness and measurements..while the right brained want only music ( ?). most of us lie in various shades between the two. of course what is right or wrong can only decided by the person themselves...there is no law or standards in musical enjoyment!

so we try to measure music and evaluate enjoyment and think and hope we have got somewhere.

Again for some it is the end state which is important and some enjoy the journey more !

Thanks for the additional info on the Fletcher-Munson curves...i agree the values may be wrong but the principle of hearing varying across frequencies as well as people still holds and that explains to some extent why listening and the "ear" will always be subjective.

 

[dinyaar]

Hi,
One word for cranky and his recent posts- SIMPLY SUPERB.

This is one of the best threads to participate in anyway and cranky really has made it special.Bang on for the search for the ultimate revealing, transparent, accurate set up. Most of 'your' loved music (the recordings) starts sounding flawed. Reaches a point when u start listening to stuff that 'sounds good' not really the music that one really likes. Its like a friend (elderly chap) told me just the other day about a life without colour being most boring. Colouration of sound is essential to truly enjoy music and accused me of now enjoying the systems and not the music!
Rgds

 

[square_wave]

Hi Cranky,
Very entertaining and informative posts. Thank you.

Some reasons why I hold the ear in high regard :


The ear and its related mechanisms are the only tools we possess to listen to music. Hence this poor tool with all its limited capabilities need to be given the highest importance in the absence of a super bionic ear which we unfortunately do not possess. Remove this poor tool from a human and all this super hi-tech super measuring listening equipment will vanish because they do not have any other use or function.


When I listen to unamplified live music with my tool - ear (which I do quite a bit), they do sound very different from most highly regarded super measuring audio equipment. They actually resemble very musical sounding gear which falls into SET and tube category and sometimes gear which have been designed not just by some measurement freak but by musicians who knows how to tune by ear also. For me that is real. I think they are measuring the wrong things or they are not measuring everything that is important. They still have not really figured it out. Otherwise all similar measuring equipment should sound the same but they do sound oceans apart.
One can only claim to be an Objectivist in audio if he is certain that everything is black and white logic in audio which it is unfortunately not.

Equipment with low distortion is exceedingly difficult to listen to only if you feed it bad recordings and if your room is bad. Otherwise it sounds just fine. I have heard some very so-called super measuring equipment in good rooms sounding half as good as some less expensive gear tuned by ear. These have been auditioned with good recordings. I think the second category equipment had lower distortion because my ear had very less processing to do and relaxed to music exactly how it relaxes when I hear live un-amplified music. So my logic tells me the second system is truer irrespective of what the measurements of some things tell me.

I believe gear designed with sound engineering principles and then tuned with a musicians ear is the way to go. Specs and measurements are okay as long it sounds like MUSIC, else the spec sheet goes into the garbage along with the gear.

 

[Asit]

Hi all,

I am a bit confused about the recent discussions, to say the least. I also find them self-contradictory. With all due respect to more knowledgeable people, I shall in the following pose a few questions.

I hope I am not offending anybody, but the subject of audio electronics can best be described as an empirical implementation of some technology. In basic science, a system is describable by a complete set of parameters. When one talks of an amplifier for example, are there a similar set of parameters reasonably complete that describes the amplifier? I do NOT think so.

I agree with Cranky and others that measurements are important, but which measurements? Do they provide us with the complete picture about the characteristics of an amp? A resounding NO!

If the list of measurements is complete, there would no need for auditioning, no need for such forums around the world, no need for my asking all of you what you think of this amp with that speaker and so on.

We do ultimately rely on hearing and yes with our ears. It is just a way of saying, for example we say we taste food through our tongue but the process goes deeper than that, but that's stating the obvious, isn't it?

I agree with statements that the audio equipment better reproduce the signal as is fed to them without colorations and with a low noise floor. But you yourself have concluded that such a system is far from achievable.

As later pointed out by Cranky, one needs a balance of all things, some hearing, some measurement data, some talk on actual quality of parts being used etc. And that's all we are trying to do here, isn't it?

I have not understood at all why the musical instruments are the ones introducing distortions, as stated by Cranky above. As far as I am concerned, it is a wrong notion. All sound is composed of several frequencies. Any signal that transmits energy has to be a wave-packet (comprising of several 'pure' waves) travelling with what is called the group velocity. A musical sound is comprised of a fundamental frequency and several harmonics. Of course there are good instruments and bad instruments. A bad instrument will perhaps have some overtones which are not the harmonics. And all instruments ( I would not comment on the electronic ones) are built consistent with the basic work on resonance by Helmholz. Even for piano, which is tuned according to the ideas of 'Equal Temperament' and hence cannot maintain the consonance and triad relations (they can maintain only the octaves), many western musicians and composers are now tuning their pianos once for each particular compositions so that a harmonic scale can be maintained.

In the end, I thank everybody for such a stimulating discussion, but again ask you to think about the proposition I made in my last post. Do you guys think it makes sense?

 

[Rem]

.......... still goes on

Asit Can you write your previous post in RED FONT may be they would heed

Wonderful discussion though I did not understand everything lol

 

[spirovious]

Canton BS for 10k(mrp24k?) @ The Shop ,Andheri,Mumbai.
He is saling onkyo DVDP DVSP302 for 3.5k.

 

[arj]

I agree with Cranky and others that measurements are important, but which measurements? Do they provide us with the complete picture about the characteristics of an amp? A resounding NO!

If the list of measurements is complete, there would no need for auditioning, no need for such forums around the world, no need for my asking all of you what you think of this amp with that speaker and so on.

Actually we still dont know What to measure.
but again some things cannot be measured. measuring impact of music which is an emotion is like measuring the effect of an Aroma or measuring Love !But do we know waht to measure ? No

eg many (y)ears back there used to be debate on digital cables and the differences due to it or whether it were all the same....it was one of the controversies util one "discovered" jitter and which was measurable and which brought about differences in tonality. Now we do understand it since we know what jitter is. but at one time it was ignored and was a classic Objectivist Vs Subjectivist debate !

 

[Asit]

Cranky, let me try to explain my discontent as briefly as I can. In the initial parts of your recent posts, if I understood you correctly, you seemed to have dismissed completely the hearing part on the basis of its subjectivity. This obviously I cannot agree with completely (Then in a later post, you talked about a balance between hearing and scientific measurements etc.).

Music and appreciation of music is NOT as subjective as it is made out to be.
I have done a bit of work in these things as I have mentioned elsewhere and I tend to think that all music that I have heard originate from a few basic natural requirements: a tonic, notions of octave, consonance (1st-5th relationaship) and major and minor triads (1st-3rd relationships). Even in Western classical music, melody plays a paramount role based on the above basic relationships of notes. Even in harmony, sometimes counterpoints are used. Now if you analyse these basic melodic structures, you discover some kind of universality in music and its appreciation. Sure tastes differ, but basically it's not all that different.

From the above point of view, I will value generally what an Italian or anybody else would find as musical. This is a statistical statement, to be taken as an average trend, with obvious fluctuations from person to person.

So when a large number of people find something worthwhile, how can I dismiss that completely? In the direct context of this thread, this is very important, because I am not in a position to audition neither the Stratos, nor any of the pres. I have two choices: either I do NOT buy anything without auditioning myself, then may be I will end up not having an upgrade at all; or I buy something based on the weighted opinions of users around the world, opinions from this thread, feasibility of the solution itself (like you have raised about a relatively cheap tvc solution, and I think that is a very very relevant point, thanks), and whatever scientific measurements available, all put together.

Now the point about musical instruments:
I would not call the presence of harmonics in a musical instrument as distortion. Actually they play almost a paramount role in music, on top of that that is nature at work for you, you do not get a pure tone in nature. For example in Sitar and other instruments, there are strings attached to the side of the instrument called the sympathetic strings which are there precisely to produce harmonics and sympathetic vibration. Music will NOT be music without them. When a tanpura is tuned to Pa- Sa - Sa - Sa, if it's tuned properly you should hear other frequencies. I can explain my view when you visit us in Kolkata in more detail.

What happens in an amp, is a different thing. Corresponding to a a pure note (obviously approximated, because such a thing does not really exist), when amplified the output gives not just that input frequency, but in addition a few other lower harmonics. That is obviously distortion, because it was not there in the first place. Obviously this becomes more complex when a real sound with a combination of frequencies are used. I do not need to tell you this part, you know all about it.

I'll give you those links tonight late or tomorrow, because they are in a different computer I do not have access to at the moment. But mostly they are users' comments and from non-technical people. Some are from pro reviews like the one from enjoythemusic.com, another one is from stereophile staff vote for the best budget product of the year and so.

 

[Asit]

Cranky, my sincere apologies for responding late due to a combination of reasons: marriage reception invitation last night, Internet connection not working from home etc. I am actually at the office now for some work and also taking this opportunity to post.

Wow!!! That's all I can say looking at your next to last post. Let me apologise again to have you worked up so much. We are not in a legal issue here and you do not have to prove anything. Just your statement is good enough for me.

Now as I said before I thought (may be wrongly) you did not want to consider other people's views at all on a product. That's all I was complaining about. My view is that there is no harm in using such views as an weighted input provided one is got other inputs to back it up, like a bit of everything else. If you look at my last three mails, I guess now it be clear.

See I do not want to consider something based ONLY on other people's opinion. But in my situation, when I am not able to audition most of the gear I am interested in, I wanted to take as much input as is available and then make my decision. Even the choice of the Stratos as one of the frontrunners was arrived at following this procedure.

Let me now give you some of the links I discovered (there are others in S_W's posts):

AudiogoN Reviews: Promitheus Audio Transformer Volume Control Ref 4 Preamplifier

Amp/Preamp Asylum - REVIEW: Promitheus Audio TVC Signature Preamplifier (SS) - [email protected] - October 18, 2008 at 00:48:49

Promitheus Audio TVC SE Less Really Is More Review By Nels Ferre

Promitheus TVC passive preamp anyone?

[Review] Malaysian Promitheus Vs First Music Preamp update - ZeroGain Forum

[Review] Malaysian Promitheus Dual Mono Reference TVC preamp [Archive] - ZeroGain Forum

stereophile: Past Votes

http://www.promitheusaudio.com/stereophilerecommendcomponents.pdf

playStereo Audio Shop | Promitheus Audio TVC Reference Passive Transformer Preamplifier

The last one is a seller's site. In my ignorant view, this site perhaps has some technically wrong statements. Check it out.

Also, Promitheus Audio at their own website has some technical discussion about TVCs:
FAQ for transformer volume contr

Now on to the music part:

I do not think there is any disagreements between us here. Only thing is that I would not like to call the harmonics present in the sounds of a musical instrument (including voice) distortions. They produce what is called "joari" in the voice or in the music instruments. I have three tanpuras, and I have to regularly get them serviced to maintain the "joari". Without that, it's impossible to tune these instruments to your satisfaction, because when not in top condition, you hear dissonant notes (not harmonics) messing up the tuning. Actually, I did learn how to do the "joari" for tanpuras before I went abroad. All these years I was abroad, I carried along two tanpuras with me, and I had to maintain them in top condition by myself. Getting strings was not a problem abroad.

Now I have not heard Blues recently, but I am aware of usages of non-conventional melodies, or the ones that take a different or non-conventional route. Actually I perhaps would not call them as non-conventional as you would think. But more work is necessary on my part to understand their structures. You may be surprised to know that such non-conventional usage is not uncommon in Indian classical music, especially Karnatic music.

 

[Asit]

As I said before, BSNL broadband service has become very unpredictable from home. Yesterday morning it worked for a while and then was very intermittent. It's probably the modem malfunctioning (because the power indicator is going off very often). Have already bought another modem and hopefully today the BSNL people would come with it to hook it up. Anyway, sorry again for the late response.

Meanwhile, thanks Cranky for your efforts to unearth the facts about the Promitheus TVCs. I was just hoping you would unearth a bit more, but apparently not much technical data is available as you say. Did you look at the TVC FAQ at their site? Does that make sense?

Well, I guess I have narrowed my choice well enough between two passive pres and a power amp like the Stratos, and an integrated like the Arcam A 38.

It's my purchase and I have to take the plunge at some point. However, the question would always remain in my mind that whether an attenuator-based passive like the Etesian or the TVC-based passive pre like the Promitheus would theoretically be a better solution. Actually that was the point I was trying to understand.

Only one question at the end: Have I been asking the right questions of late? Or, in other words, has the feasibility study gone in the right direction?

Readers, feel free to comment honestly, I can take it.

 

[arj]

Asit, I can not put it as "technically" as Cranky..but more the components you introduce, the more "complex" your system gets and if you do not have intention of doing any Mix'n match an integerated is a better way to go ahead with !

it makes music much simpler to make..else you will be worried about which Interconnect to used between the pre and power very soon !

 

[dinyaar]

Hi Asit,
Have not heard the stratos so i just cant comment. But a simpler set up is preferred. The lesser chances of a screw up. Have limited experiences of passive pre s and someone like cranky is better for such technical info.

Arcam is a very good amplifier and so is the cd player. I cant think of a better integrated for 'my kind' of sound than this amp. Had the new CD 37 at my place till this morning and it is very different from any Arcam cdp i have heard or owned.

A friend of mine has been taking me around town in his quest for great sound and hence I really have music coming out of my ears.(am sick of rebecca pidgeon and marie black by now) May even land up in bangalore this weekend to check out the Emerald Physics if i cant manage to somehow give him the slip!! Have been hearing the Thiels,the 800 series B&W and the lovely dynas with some really high powered and regarded amps. More tomorrow. Its funny that even when u spend over 10L on a set up u are starting out with a list of compromises. Asit when i return home my small simple set up in a less than perfect room sounds very good albiet on a smaller scale compared to the huge CS3.7s or the 802s. Cant sing any more praises of an Arcam lest u guys feel i may be on their board!
Will catch this thread later.
Rgds

 

[square_wave]

I agree with Arj if you are going with a very expensive integrated (above 1.5lakh). He has a Leben CS-600. So I know where he is coming from.
A mass-market integrated which has huge margins-mark-up which retails around a lakh will in no way compete with a direct to customer - brand separates costing the same. The difference in sound quality will not be marginal.
Yes, you will need good interconnects

 

[Shuvc]

The technicalities of the posts in this thread have gone way over my head. However, I've still been glued to this most intriguing discussion.

The common refrain all along the thread has been - decide with your own ears. Having read about your understanding / perception levels, even I believe it is of paramount importance that you do so. And this is where you seem to be increasingly resigned to your fate to compromise, given the lack of equipment in Kolkata.

Here's my piece of humble practical advise.

A relative of mine recently bought a March 09 JetLite ticket , Kol - Blr for around Rs. 3000. I implore you - reserve around 10K of your budget for a return ticket. Please fly down to either of Bangalore/Mumbai on a weekend and audition for yourself. It may mean reducing your budget by 10K, but you would have heard and decided.

History indicates that you will possibly live with this amp purchase for maybe the next decade. Now weigh an additional 10K against that perspective. Won't it be worth every rupee?

 

[square_wave]

The technicalities of the posts in this thread have gone way over my head. However, I've still been glued to this most intriguing discussion.

The common refrain all along the thread has been - decide with your own ears. Having read about your understanding / perception levels, even I believe it is of paramount importance that you do so. And this is where you seem to be increasingly resigned to your fate to compromise, given the lack of equipment in Kolkata.

Here's my piece of humble practical advise.

A relative of mine recently bought a March 09 JetLite ticket , Kol - Blr for around Rs. 3000. I implore you - reserve around 10K of your budget for a return ticket. Please fly down to either of Bangalore/Mumbai on a weekend and audition for yourself. It may mean reducing your budget by 10K, but you would have heard and decided.

History indicates that you will possibly live with this amp purchase for maybe the next decade. Now weigh an additional 10K against that perspective. Won't it be worth every rupee?

Totally agree with Shvuc. Audition if you can

 

[Asit]

Hi everybody,

Apart from Shuvc whom I have seen once during a team-bhp Kolkata meet about a year and a half ago, I have not seen or known any of you. But the quality of the responses in their genuineness and sincerity has just been at a tremendous level, and I do not know how to thank you all enough for it.

At the end of the day, I do not think I can make much of a mistake with either the Stratos power amp or the Arcam int. amp. People who have recommended it have experience with tons of quality gear. The way I see it: we are now fine tuning the final answer.

In the middle of all this, Sridhar has kept himself quiet probably because one of the preferred and discussed solution is sold by ARN and he has some connection with ARN. He also has tremendous experience and has recommended (under my budget considerations) the Etesian + Stratos combo. And that's why I feel one cannot go too much wrong with that combo either.

So dinyaar, if you go to Bangalore next weekend for the Emaralds you are going to visit the ARN and can audition the Etesian+Stratos combo, and then can compare them with the Arcam A38. I know most probably the speakers will be different, however, still given your experience, you can probably still get some idea. Would you kindly do that for me?

Ya, Shuvc, I would really like to visit these places. Unfortunately, right now my son is in the middle of his CBSE 12 board exams. Once that is done, towards the end of this month, his competitive exams will start. Even though there will be less pressure after the board exams, I would not like to leave town until all these get over, given that my wife also works and is usually very busy.

Arj, I understand what you are saying. You said that before also. See everything has gone kind of against me. This is the year my son is going to graduate from high school, we have other commitments too and the dollar has lately become very unkind. On a better year, I would probably have gone with the RWA integrated with the battery power (how attractive), given the kind of reports it has.

 

[dinyaar]

There is only one problem with him going to bglore. His speakers wont accompany him so that element of chance remains. Plus its not some mainstream current speaker that can be easily arranged. But i totally agree with your suggestion shuvc.
Now what are 'good interconnects'? A good (in my book) Transparent music link super @ 700/800 USD may sound worse than my home cooked IC to his ears in his set up. Am not getting into snake oil theories at all here as thats done and dusted. Just yesterday in an audition of Arcam cd 37/Bryston 14BSST/BP 16 /Thiel CS 3.7 a (hand made IC with 15 year old kimber copper speaker wire, in different gauges for both live/ground, with tin foil as a screen and put in a nylon sleeve) sounded better and revealed more than some exotic cables that were tried. The reason this 'silly' experiment was tried was because my friend loves these cables that were made for him ages ago and insists on using them in his upgraded set up and i cant get him to think differently.An analog Amp/preamp connection is a high impedance interface therefore u want low measured capacitance. The IC acts as a capacitor in the signal path so the better the capacitor the better the IC. As against this an amplifier /speaker interface is a low impedance connection so u are looking at a low self inductance as a good speaker cable and u will not get rolled off highs. Get a decent gauge like 12 AWG and u will get a decent speaker cable for most set ups. Shield is important in the IC with the amount of RF floating around. Obviously the connectors used for both should be decent or else the purpose is defeated.
Once again i state that i believe in cables and have quite a few reputed cables but nowadays i find this cabling thing going over the top. Too much exotic materials/packaging is clouding the primary constants that can measure performance in the real world.
Rgds