How close to the real thing?

Better yet , how many KT88's would one need for 500 watts necessary for the real thing ?

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How close are we to the real thing?

Since I listen exclusively to classical, I find this subject fascinating.

The truth is: we are very far. Why? - Because audio and acoustics are still treated as an art, not a science. I think that audio is now in the same stages as medicine was in the Middle Ages: we know the basics (anatomy), but the remedies are still experimental. A trepanation is made to extract madness; blood letting is supposed to be the cure for many illnesses. Our amps, cables or speakers are tweaked in the same empirical way.

Sound engineers and other people along the music production line DO NOT scientifically aim at achieving an exact reproduction of the acoustic sound; instead, they mainly make sure that the recording sounds nice, and they all use different microphones, monitors, consoles, room sizes, etc.

On the listener's end, we all use different amps, speakers, and our rooms all have different acoustics.

If there was a real willingness to achieve the sound of the real thing, the whole process would have strict standards: microphones, amplifiers, consoles, cables, loudspeakers, rooms, etc. would have ideal specifications. Listeners who can afford would be able to reproduce these specifications at home - if necessary going as far as building a room to the exact specifications.

The Middle Ages ended 600 years ago. Let's hope we won't have to wait that long for audio to be close to the real thing. All what it takes, is one producer setting up a recording standard that can be replicated at home.

Weseixas...
KT88's? UT or Triode?

Hi Kirkus, that one is easy! Its the same issue of when you hear a really good digital recording, one that is really convincing. What would it sound like it had been done analog?

The whole experience here comes down to one of expectation and intent. If you *know* that the system is underpar (maybe its only a table radio) *then* you don't have much expectation of it. But if its a real high end system- it had better bring home the bacon, because it has some high expectation attached.

I heard a system across the hall from me at THE Show about 10 years ago, maybe a little more. It was Joni Mitchell, singing with a full orchestra. It had been recorded by Sony, digitally, in 6 channels. The system was entirely solid state. The format was a digital reel to reel, 1/2" wide. I really did not hear the system, it was only the experience of the music.

So what would it have been like if it was 2" analog with my amps on each speaker? Hey, maybe it would have been better. We'll never know. I can say this though- if that system/recording does the job for you, if somehow it manages to sound *real* than that is worth paying attention to.

I have never said that feedback should be eschewed- all I have done is point out what it does. Now if you are reading between the lines, you will also see that I have also been pointing to how things can be dealt with. I'll give you a couple of examples. FWIW, these are all on the cutting edge of the art.

1) since feedback is bad, build tube or transistor amps without,
2) since the evil of feedback has a particular cause (propagation delay), build circuits that gets around this problem. Then you can have all the feedback you want.

There are people who are doing both, or at least are approaching both. Nelson Pass is one, Spectron is another. I think there are some class D amps out there that do some timing things to get around this issue too. And of course there are all the zero feedback tube amps out there...

Kirkus, thank you: your statements, "it takes just ONE instance of having experienced reproduced sound as being real" and "been dumbfounded by amazing experiences from really crappy stuff, and also underwhelmed by my experiences with some really beautiful machinery", is precisely where I'm coming from. My particular angle, "obsession", etc, for many years has been to work out, and am now repeating myself, what the HELL IS going on!! I have been attempting this essentially by the process of elimination, and for me the answer is (drum roll ...) the glib statement, Everything Matters! I've found unless one becomes totally anal (sorry!) about the whole kit and kaboodle, or you fluke it to some degree, then it won't happen, it won't be "real"!

To whip out yet another analogy -- love those things :-) -- take a typical commercial passenger aircraft. To me, the audio industry is full of people who say, for example, it's all about the engines, you've gotta have turbines using this very special metal, and the fuel lines going to them have to be made out a really esoteric plastic, don't worry about the wings or landing gear, any old stuff will do. Another says, no, no, no, it's all about the cockpit, unless you get this set up perfectly it's hopeless, what's used in the rest of the airframe is pretty irrelevant ...

Would you fly in a plane designed or maintained by these people? No, I don't think so ... and for me that's what it's all about in hifi too, to get the experience of a system sounding "real" each and every time you listen to it, you have to fussy about EVERYTHING ...

Frank