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Class "A" sound, as related to Stereophile.


It's all about the sound.

It's all about sound, not how much it cost; when I got into "high end", I knew right off the bat I couldn't afford it, but I had to find one thing for sure; how do the various components sound in regard to Stereophile's classes, or ratings? In order to know this; I had to acquire the ability to identify "Stereophile's" class "A" class "B" and class "C" sounds, and the only way to do that was: first, subscribe to Stereophile, and next was to go to every high end audio salon within driving distance; there were 5 well stocked "high end" salons within driving distance. (Since I didn't take my wife, that created some problems)

After a few years of subscribing to Stereophile, plus auditioning equipment that Stereophile recommended, I knew the sound of those recommendations, and I absolutely concurred with them; "If you want to hear the music, you got to pay the piper". While that's true, it's possible to get class "A" sound with class "B" bucks or less.

At this moment, I am looking at 8 capacitors that cost $25 dollars each, plus 2 mono blocks with an instant resale value of 6K. Once I take the covers off and go in with my soldering iron, these mono blocks are worth a resell of O; my mission must be a success. After a successful mission, the resell is still 0; but those mono blocks will deliver class "A" or "A"+ sound, and that's some sweet music.

I have to visualize and hear music in my head before I can modify a component to deliver class "A" sound; but that's the only way for me to get what has become a necessity.

The pressure someone is under when they modify, is great, but the rewards are glorious. On these mono blocks, they are too small for the huge capacitors, therefore I have to figure a way to make the case larger. My reward is "sound" with absolutely no relation to money. I often wander if someone with a fat bankroll can identify the sound, or only how much they paid for each piece.


Happy listening.

orpheus10
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 
Almost forgot, something else that may completely invalidate my opinions. I'm a "source first" believer, so I allocate the largest part of my budget to sources, quite a bit less to amplification and just a wee bit to speakers.

 Overall, I am much more sensitive to the electronic types of distortions that one hears in streamers, CD players, phono stages, amps and preamps than I am to loudspeaker distortions. So even if loudspeaker distortions are an order - or two - of magnitude greater than those of electronics, I can somehow tune those out better.

This is not to suggest that finer speakers will not improve a system if they match with the other components.

orpheus10 OP
5,988 posts
 

Viridian, there is no doubt about source first; I'm an electronics tech, that's what I did until I retired. Source first is a fact from a "scientific" point of view. The preamp takes what you give it, makes it bigger, passes that to the amp, which gives it to the speaker. If you gave the pre "crap" it's going to give bigger "crap" to the amp which gives fat "crap" to the speaker; some people claim that fat crap sounds good if it comes out of the right speaker.

With cartridges your only option, since you can't audition the cartridge, is to pay careful attention to the music the reviewer is using. If he likes the cartridge when using the (same music) you like, that's a good bet.

I wont even mention the cartridge I like, because it gets bad press on most from this forum, and I can understand that because type of music determines the cartridge best for whoever is buying it. Relative to everything else, the front end is expensive, if it's to be a good one, even when you make it better with "tweaks", the good tweaks aren't cheap.

Sota Star Saphire is my favorite. 1K in tweaks can give you a Rega P-3 that will run with the big dogs, like the Sota Star Saphire; that's a big dog in my league any way; No Great Dane's in my league.


Enjoy the music.
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
1,368 posts
 
Getting a little cranky in your old age aren't you viridian?
almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
...there is no doubt about source first; I’m an electronics tech, that’s what I did until I retired. Source first is a fact from a "scientific" point of view. The preamp takes what you give it, makes it bigger, passes that to the amp, which gives it to the speaker. If you gave the pre "crap" it’s going to give bigger "crap" to the amp which gives fat "crap" to the speaker; some people claim that fat crap sounds good if it comes out of the right speaker.
A lot of people feel that way, but I for one disagree. And regardless of what part of a system one considers to be most important, I would emphatically disagree that "source first is a fact from a ’scientific’ point of view."

What matters is not whether the crap is bigger or smaller. What matters is the ratio of signal-to-crap. And also, of course, the specific characteristics of the crap.

Also, the preamp doesn’t necessarily make anything bigger, as in many cases, especially if digital sources are being used, the volume control will be set such that the amplitude of what comes out of the preamp is less than the amplitude of what goes into it.

Also, while source first advocates frequently point out that downstream components cannot correct for the shortcomings of the source, they almost invariably fail to point out that it is also true that the source cannot correct for the shortcomings of the downstream components.

As I see it, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, regardless of where in the chain that link may be located.

Regards,
-- Al

orpheus10 OP
5,988 posts
 
Al, unless somebody just invented a digital preamp, I'm not aware of such a critter.  No matter what the source, it's analog to the preamp; that's the only way it works;  have you heard of a DAC; that stands for Digital to Analog Converter; but "fat crap" sounds good to some people, especially when you crank the bass to make it even fatter.
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