[Brett Buck]

What bothers me about these threads is that are started and kept alive by people who think they know what is best for everyone else and, according to them, everyone else is not doing what is best.

  I started this one, and I am in no position to determine what is necessary for anyone else's happiness. I do know something about engineering, so, naturally, magic damper stones and speaker wire stands disturb me. They would disturb me equally if they were given away for free.

    If someone wants to post a rational engineering analysis or objective test on how AC power cord technology (or anything else) has improved some audio amplifier property in a practical way, I would be happy to admit I was wrong.

   But I don't give a flying tinker's d*mn what anyone buys or whether they have the "best" equipment.  No one has to justify their purchases to me. I prefer to buy things based on non-magical properties, myself. That's why I posted to the Van Alstine forum, instead of the Cable Burn-in forum.

 Sheesh!

    Brett

[BrianM]

BTW I don't exactly care if somebody's "been in the hobby for 30 years." Your ears could still suck for all I know. I'm a pro musician who can tell when A isn't 440 Hz. Is that going to change anyone's mind as to what I hear? Probably not. Point being, people seem to like being set in their ways regardless of how long they've been at this.

ad hominem much? The whole point of the blind testing is that _everybody_ is subject to expectation effects. I don't have perfect pitch, but I have good relative pitch. This "argument" here is essentially the "I have better ears than you, so shut up". Whatever. It's not actually an argument at all, and dovetails nicely with the later ad hominem.

Oh and one more thing: one grows weary of the line that people buy stuff "because it looks cool." First of all, it all looks cool. Second, you don't tend to enhance people's idea of your own intelligence when you assume everybody's really that stupid and superficial about what they buy.

First of all, it doesn't all look equally cool, and I'd be willing to bet every one of us (myself included) has used coolness of appearance as a factor in buying something before.

The second point  is an ad hominem: "I disagree with you, therefore you are stupid". Coming from someone whose idea of an argument is: "I have better ears than you and you are stupid", that's a bit rich, to put it mildly. And no, my point isn't that people are stupid. It's that people without technical backgrounds can be dazzled pretty easily with bogus technobabble.

Totoro, I can't really help it if you're going to misread and mischaracterize my statements, and put words in my mouth.

The first point you missed is that being in the hobby for 30 years is neither here nor there. It is not relevant in and of itself. I didn't mention perfect pitch to make the point that "I have better ears than you do." I mentioned it as another example of something that is neither here nor there, in these discussions. So actually you've got it backwards.

The second point you missed is that those who assume people buy stuff "because it looks cool" are the ones calling people stupid, essentially. Yes, everybody at one time or another factors in cool looks. Thta's very different from saying or implying that cool looks are the basis of an expensive audio purchase (i.e. a stupid way to decide).

I dunno, read more closely next time; I don't see any ad hominem. (For one thing, I didn't mention anyone in particular, was distilling various things I've read recently, and have not paid attention to who said exactly what.)

[BrianM]

Buying it because it looks cool?  Hey, I do that too.  I own a fancy Rolex.  It looks cool.  It almost tells time.  Its my one and only piece of jewelery.  I don't care of a Timex is more accurate.  I got it because I like it (and it gets the attention of sales clerks and such when they see it and provides better service I suspect). Besides, my late high end Sako actually disolved off my wrist, not nice.

Audio equipment is not jewelry.  Its first goal is to reproduce music.  My regret is that too many people confuse the jewelry aspect of the audio equipment with its musical performance potential.  I don't mind loosing sales to equipment that costs 10 - 100 times as much as ours, as long as it plays music too.  The problem is when the visual aspect of the equipment convinces people about its musical quality inappropriately.  Then I think they are getting screwed.

Frank Van Alstine

Frank, anyway the "uncoolness" of your stuff is overblown. A plain black machined aluminum faceplate with a power switch will always look cool. Ever hear of minimalism? Minimalism is cool. The gold-letter logo is "understated" if you like. Understated is cool, too.

That said when I ordered an amp from you I don't think I'd ever looked at a picture of one. But black boxes are cool. In fact I'm getting laid way more now that I have your....oh wait, I'm married. But I WOULD be!

[rustneversleeps]

>>>That's why I posted to the Van Alstine forum, instead of the Cable Burn-in forum.<<<<

Cable burn in is not totally without merit. I am in the RF business, we used to install RF related systems that transmit antenna pattern with different phase. We took readings when the cables were newly installed, then let it burn in for a day or so, and guess what, the reading changed, and we fine tune it again. We did connect all cabling in the same direction and from the same spool, to get the optimal phasing.

I am not sure how cable would affect the audio frequency.

For AC power purpose, we only worry about the current/gauge, and the NEC code.

[LightFire]

>>>That's why I posted to the Van Alstine forum, instead of the Cable Burn-in forum.<<<<

Cable burn in is not totally without merit. I am in the RF business, we used to install RF related systems that transmit antenna pattern with different phase. We took readings when the cables were newly installed, then let it burn in for a day or so, and guess what, the reading changed, and we fine tune it again. We did connect all cabling in the same direction and from the same spool, to get the optimal phasing.

I am not sure how cable would affect the audio frequency.

For AC power purpose, we only worry about the current/gauge, and the NEC code.

In RF (which consists if extremely high frequency and NOT ridiculously low audio frequency) any small change in the circuit configuration during operation can change the output (air humidity, components temperature, etc). That is probably what you experienced. And still is not because of a "burn in".

I used to work with Telex machines (obsolete today) and we used to conduct a burn in of 24 hours non stop on every machine produced. The objective of this burn in was NOT to make the machine work better, but to force any defective component to fail so we could repair it before sending to the clients.

[rustneversleeps]

It maybe so, but it has been field proven that the cable came off the same spool and connected to the same direction makes the system work better.

[rustneversleeps]

I've forgotten to mention that if the readings changed due to circuit configuration, temp and humidity changes, why did the system stablize after a day or two, since all those factors change through out the year? To us, once the cable got burned in, RF of course, the system runs and doesn't need frequent maintenance.

I've seen the evolution of this kind of system change from tubes to transistors then to micro circuitry over the decades, but the cabling remains the same.

[LightFire]

I've forgotten to mention that if the readings changed due to circuit configuration, temp and humidity changes, why did the system stablize after a day or two, since all those factors change through out the year? To us, once the cable got burned in, RF of course, the system runs and doesn't need frequent maintenance.

I've seen the evolution of this kind of system change from tubes to transistors then to micro circuitry over the decades, but the cabling remains the same.

Once you are working in this field. Why don't you research the topic in some reliable source that I am sure you have access to. And then come back here and explain it to us?

[rustneversleeps]

No scientific research has been done (that I know of) as far as why the antenna pattern becomes more stable in this field after cable get burned in a day or so. A lot of study has been done to determine the length of the cable for certain frequency for certain antenna patterns at max power and min VSWR, also the cable loss of certain cable. Our guess is after we reeled the cable (RG-214) off the spool, it may have flexed, by connecting them in the same direction helps keep the signal more in phase for our purpose, using the cable from the same spool just to keep things consistant.

Keep in mind that we are dealing with frequency phasing, more to do with time, it has nothing to do with audio, it has a lot to do with how the RF travels through the cable to the antenna and get transmitted out into the space at a certain pattern.

Now try to apply this to the audio frequency, doesn't audiophlake spend a lot of time talking about how the bass and treble frequency travel through their listening room and get to their ears drums?

[tbrooke]

This may go in the all amps sound the same topic but I was wondeirng about the effect of tubes. The AVA tube amps seem to cost about $1,000.00 more than the solid state but I wonder if there is a definite sonic difference that justifies the extra price and is there an explanation as to why they are sonically superior to solid state. I feel that the different circuitry and the tube themselves would have a definite effect on sound, at least much more than a power cord change but part of me also says amplifying a signal is amplifying a signal.

Tom

[avahifi]

Actually the Fet Valve Ultra 550 is $500 more than the comparable OmegaStar 440EXH amplifier with the same number of output devices and closest in power.  The Ultra hybrid requires three separate power supplies:  high voltage, high current for the output devices   high voltage low current multistage regulated for the tube B+ supplies, and low voltage high current regulated for the tube heaters.  The OmegaStar only needs a plus and minus supply for the whole works, plus of course regulated plus and minus low voltage for the small signal devices, but that is pretty simple and not expensive to do. Overall we don't think the Ultra amplifiers are bad deals.

Sonic differences:  at the summing node of a feedback loop, a solid state device typically has about a max of 2V overload capability (many less than 20 mV).  All other things being equal a tube in this application has about 200V of overload capability.  Of course all other things are not equal, such as trying to make the tube have a low output impedance and high drive current to properly charge and discharge the gate capacitance of the output mos-fets, but that is very well taken care of in our hybrid amplifiers by our patented fet valve transimpedance circuit design.  Can you hear the difference between the tube and solid state transient overload capability?  Probably.  We can measure the difference. Many people seem to like what they hear too.

Certainly we are NOT using vacuum tubes to get "tube sound" or golden glowing happy colorations.  That is mis-using tubes.  Our goal: don't screw up the source material, that's the best you can do until much more intelligent artificial intelligence circuits come along.

Frank Van Alstine

[Daygloworange]

Uhhh, sorry.....what was being debated again?....I was too busy listening to the MUSIC.....silly me!

[avahifi]

Gee Dayglow, I thought my last post was reasonably informative, but I guess you can ignore it if you want to.

Frank

[Daygloworange]

Frank,

I was referring to the earlier debate on cables and IC's. Just trying to gently remind everyone that at the end of the day, all this gear that people endlessly debate about are devices that are built, sold, purchased, connected, in the effort to convey MUSIC. I hope we can all agree on that!

Actually, I'm new on here Frank, but have been reading a while, and have enjoyed the knowledge I've gained from your many years of pursuing excellence in your field. Sometimes I could debate your opinions,( nothing wrong with that ) but I also truly believe that you are right in a lot of areas. BTW, although I'm pleased with my current set-up, I would love to hear your stuff. There are some people here trying to start a Toronto audio get together, so maybe the opportunity would arise that I eventually get to hear some of your products.

Cheers

[modular747]

Sonic differences:  at the summing node of a feedback loop, a solid state device typically has about a max of 2V overload capability (many less than 20 mV).  All other things being equal a tube in this application has about 200V of overload capability.  Of course all other things are not equal, such as trying to make the tube have a low output impedance and high drive current to properly charge and discharge the gate capacitance of the output mos-fets, but that is very well taken care of in our hybrid amplifiers by our patented fet valve transimpedance circuit design.  Can you hear the difference between the tube and solid state transient overload capability?  Probably.  We can measure the difference. Many people seem to like what they hear too.


Frank Van Alstine

I understand the theory of overloading the feedback loop but how often does this really happen in a properly designed SS amp, short of hard clipping?  In the case of the OmegaStar amps, this shouldn't occur at all with the "active feedback" design.  The sonic differences between the SS amps and the Ultra are subtle but apparent at all listening levels and have to be due to something other than feedback loop overload capability...