Holographic imaging


Hi folks, is the so called holographic imaging with many tube amplifiers an artifact? With solid state one only hears "holographic imaging" if that is in the recording, but with many tube amps you can hear it all the time. So solid state fails in this department? Or are those tube amps not telling the truth?

Chris
dazzdax
Tvad,

Thank you for a civil response. I honestly don’t know what the answer is regarding the issue of having to provide proof that something works other than just listening to the results. The fact is that I have been able to accomplish a great deal of work that has been done virtually in the dark (thanks to the inability of test equipment to point to the problem).
I can attribute this only to my decision years ago to follow a theory I came up with that associated what I was hearing to what I understood to be the actions of the amplifier circuit I was listening to.

The subtle misplacement of objects (in my sonic image) seemed to be caused by very slight alterations in phase but enough to matter when “projected” over a large area (stage). I seemed to have locked on to this concept that this was the mechanism for a lack of pinpoint focus that would be able to discern the difference between background singers as separate individuals. Their exact placement in the “projection” was totally reliant on the ability of the amplifier to pass the signal including the tiniest phase information needed to reconstruct the vector-based acoustic image. The simple act of triangulating the apparent location of objects would easily be scattered by a circuit that was not velocity stabilized. You would hear a general location for a given object but you could not pinpoint it as you would in real life.

The difference between listening to a real performance in front of you and an electronically reproduced performance is the medium. One is AIR and the other is AIR stored in an electrical format. As I have tried to explain – if you tamper with the electrical format before you convert it back to acoustic output. You have essentially tampered with the “stored” air medium. In this case any change in electrical velocity is proportional to changes in the “stored” air velocity. You therefore get the sensation that the sound objects in the reconstructed “projection” are moving slightly toward or away from you. This is recognized by the listener as “out of focus” or “bloated” but the proper technical term is Doppler interference.

Roger
Well, you go incommunicado for four days and a good deal happens. I have had the advantage of hearing at least 7 stages of the development of Roger's capability to "tighten up" Doppler shifts. While this trip has been expensive and often irritating, where I am now in terms of great realism in reproduced music is something I will never regret having taken this long path. Roger's theory has proven correct in my experience.

All that I can really attest to is that Roger has told me he increased a tighter clamp on the signal by tighter Doppler correction, what I hear is greatly improved in its realism. Many times I have thought certainly there could be no further improvement only to be proven wrong later.

I do know that Roger has leased test equipment to assess the benefits of his improvements only to see nothing in the measurements but obvious benefits in what you hear. I have always thought that it is ridiculous to suggest that if instruments don't measure it that it doesn't exist. What it indicates is the sensitivity of the ear. I grant that we can be deceived, but typically we are not, and thankfully so as we would not have survived in this dangerous world.

I have been largely responsible for "awakening" Roger to AVM and IsoClean fuses as I am always tweaking and sometimes with success. If some don't hear the benefits of these tweaks, it is of no concern to me, but Roger has.

I really think that I merely suggested that if one really wants to hear a holographic image you needed to LISTEN to the H-Cat amp especially with the H-Cat line stage in front of it with its WTC set correctly.

If you don't like what you hear, I am sorry you don't share my experience.
One further thought. I would challenge any of you to defend in theory and in measurement what you judge to be a superior amp or the one you own. And please don't say it is low in THD, or worse yet the lowest in THD! I have heard amps with low THD versus those with somewhat higher distortion. None of the lowest were very distinguished and would get my money.

Last year at the RMAF Stereophile gave seminars on amps showing the Boulder had quite low THD and reacted well to loads put on it. Another unnamed amp did poorly on THD. I innocently asked whether the unnamed amp's designer thought THD was a design concern. Everyone looked at me as thought I was profane. I left the room as no one was interested in sound.
Roger,

“The Doppler detectors used in H-CAT require close to 200db of gain.” Huh, huh…… that’s an amplification factor of 100000000000. On a 1 V scale you are talking about a tenth of a nano-volt to produce a 1 Volt output and typical outputs. And you obviously only require a micro fraction of a volt for correction right? This is very interesting stuff indeed.

Everyone is entitled, at least here in the U.S.A., to the opportunity to earn a buck and you certainly are no different. But please give your audience a little more credit as some of us are educated enough to see right through your convoluted explanations and deceiving use of the English and pseudo-scientific descriptive language.

This is not a condemnation on your design and its sonic benefits but rather on the charlatan like marketing and communication practices.

I'm not surprised that Norm finds the H-Cat's processing appealing, as I have used/tried the same "process" in my reference system. "Multi-Tap Delay" circuits have been around since the 70's; there's nothing new here. Sorry to burst your bubble but this sham has gone on far too long in my honest opinion!

If I'm off base here than please explain your breakthrough (without devolving the proprietary details of course) in scientific terms commonly used for communication and explanation of acoustic or psychoacoustic phenomena in terms of Physics and Electrical Engineering in audio design.

Again, I believe that Multi-Tap Delay processors" are valid in their psychoacoustic effects and enhancements but I can not respect your convoluted explanations; simply state that it's a "Proprietary Process" and offer no explanation as others have suggested; rather than keep trying to swirl and convolute pseudo-scientific gibberish in a science-fiction type of way; please give some of us some credit as some of us not only possesses advance degrees in Physics but also in electrical engineering; and understand a thing or two about Spatial Audio and Psychoacoustic processing.

Is your process patented? Is it "patent pending"? I would like to see if you have submitted your breakthrough to the patent office; if you have then please send me the number as I would like to review it. I run across many "patent pending" statements in my business only to find out that it was never submitted nor was it ever intended to be submitted. Not for legal or financial reasons but rather for lacking any new technical discovery or breaking new ground.

You know how the old saying goes.... "If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck......"

By the way, the million dollar question...... Just to play along with you in your theoretical world......How do you correct and compensate for something that you can not measure????? It would seem to me that a circuit smart enough to compensate for these so call velocity, I mean "Doppler Effect" errors would need some sort of a "sense" circuit with predefined threshold triggers..... But then again maybe I’m just being logical and scientific about this whole matter!!!!!!