Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

Stevenmj: I believe that most of what you mention has already been used in past and present designs (both tube and SS). You may want to go through the Tweaker's Asylum at AA and see what you can find on these concepts. I suspect that the "air" that you mention is really a type of re-verb that is most noticeable in quite a few tube designs which incorporate low to zero feedback and which may also stem from the types of tubes used in the designs (many small signal tubes types are somewhat microphonic, even those that test well, and may add to this sense of air/reverb). There are also quite a few tube designs in which you can "dial in" the feedback, though I am not aware of any SS designs with this feature off hand. Once again I am not a technical person, just your average theorist.

Stevenj, I cannot tell if your post is in jest, or you are sincere. If you are suggesting that lowering and raising the damping factor with a switch is a joke, I can assure you that it is not.

Controlling an amplifiers damping factor is not novel. The Wolcott Presence amplifiers have had this feature for two years. The user has easy access to a toggle switch for both high and low position, and a rotary knob that adjusts within each range. Adjustment of these controls provides performance changes that are not only easy to hear, but at the discretion of the listener.

The man who invented this product is an engineer who values specifications, but is also aware that the reproduction of music is an art as well. If it is of any interest to you, the switch changes the positive control feedback voltage internally, without affecting the load to the output transformer.

albert, i have a suspicion that stevemj's post *was*, in fact, in jest. ironic, that, as you show, it's actually what smart designers *do*. seems to me they know something *isn't* "technically perfect", as stevemj purports, if it in fact cannot accurately portray *the real event* of live music.

regards, doug s.

doug - I wasn't jesting. I was just musing. I'm not up to date on amplifier designs. So, it is interesting to hear that some of what I mentioned has been tried. There was an amplifier some time ago called "Ampzilla". It sounded different. The trick that amp's designer had used was to set the damping factor to one. Typically, this will increase the low end. With the advent of cheap powerful processors there maybe a lot of interesting possibilities. The processor looking at the music and dynamically fiddling with the an amplifiers characteristics. I'm gonna think about this a little.

Steve, funny you should bring up Jim Bongeorno's GAS Ampzilla. The reason that amp developed such a cult following in 1976/77, was because of just that reason (not because of the apes in the ads). It was highly listenable and had some very judicious tradeoffs that juggled between transient detail and a rounded loose and whompy bottom. Sounds like that Damping factor of 1 to me. Trying very hard for the tube sound again. Terrible amp for running electrostats even though it did handle low impedance loads very well. Why was that the case? dont know.
One thing I can say though, is that the ingrediants for good amp sound have remained the same for years.
1) Little use of negative feedback
2) Stiff Power Supply that can supply the current required to make the amp a TRUE voltage source regardless of load. The importance of the Supply can't be stressed enough. Its a fact that no amp can is gonna be better than the stuff travelling down the supply rails. I am not an EE, just what I have observed over time that has proved consistently true.......Frank