Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>normanstrong <normanstrong@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>I don't know about deaf elephants, but apparently the designer of the
>>ST120 didn't think his amp sounded bad--or he wouldn't have put it on
>>the market. Additionally, since the ST120 sold briskly, I would have
>>to assume that its faults were not immediately evident to customers.
>>
>>BTW, was the ST120 a Hafler design?
>
>I don't know if it was a Hafler design or not. It has some interesting
>little tricks to it, like the huge inductor wound around a capacitor can
>that is used on the output in an attempt to keep the thing stable and some
>biasing goofiness to avoid using a bipolar supply with a push-pull output
>stage.
I don't know how it could NOT have been a Hafler design.
>I do know that David Hafler does use it as an example of one of the bad
>early power amp designs.
I've never heard of him saying that. It's true that they weren't very reliable.
But I've never heard a demonstration of "bad sound" of a ST-120 that was
functioning.
>The thing is that the ST120, when compared with the tube amps of the
>era, sounded very bright and forward (probably because of all the high
>order harmonics).
Maybe they had high frequency content and the turntables of that era loved to
mistrack and show off their frequency response errors through a full bandwidth
device?
This seemed like a good thing to a lot of people back
>then, but it's the sort of thing that eventually gave solid state
>electronics a bad name. It took some listening, though, for people to
>realize what was going on, because they were being presented with a set
>of distortions that they weren't used to listening to.
>
>This is always the case. When the Edison phonograph came out, many people
>said that it was just like listening to the performer right there in the
>room, it was so accurate. It took people a few years to get used to the
>sound and understand the deficiencies.
>
>The same thing happens every time there is a revolutionary change in
>design. It happened with solid state electronics and it happened with
>digital audio and it's happening right now with perceptual encoding systems.
>It takes people a while to recognize what they are listening to.
>--scott
I think you overstate the case. As far as I'm concerned cd playback hasn't
improved at all. Of course, production has always varied all over the map ....
lp a case in point.
Codecs (DCC) were shown to be transparent to cd at the very beginning. Sure
data-reduction is subject to mis-use but when was any technology or method free
from producer-error?
And familiarity and experience doesn't stop from making new mistakes.
By this logic many people now argue as if ALL tubed equipment and lp were free
from defect.
But in general I am of the opinion that the oral history about the transition
to solid state and digital and data reduction having major dislocations in
quality significantly overstates the case and has contributed to the extant
urban legends about it.
It's kind of like those stories my parents told me about weather hardships when
they were young. It IS true that my father DID have to walk through deep snow
to get to school while I had a school bus.
Of course, he did this by walking to a country school about a half-mile away
from the log house but he did it with his older sister who also became the
schoolteacher. And when the snow was too deep and it was too cold (Northern
Minnesota -30 deg) nobody showed up.
On the other hand, I had to stand outside in -30 deg temp for a half hour
waiting for the bus.
IME the "tough" old days are mostly just a psychological trick. Like Boot-Camp
it gets "harder" with each retelling.
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>normanstrong <normanstrong@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>I don't know about deaf elephants, but apparently the designer of the
>>ST120 didn't think his amp sounded bad--or he wouldn't have put it on
>>the market. Additionally, since the ST120 sold briskly, I would have
>>to assume that its faults were not immediately evident to customers.
>>
>>BTW, was the ST120 a Hafler design?
>
>I don't know if it was a Hafler design or not. It has some interesting
>little tricks to it, like the huge inductor wound around a capacitor can
>that is used on the output in an attempt to keep the thing stable and some
>biasing goofiness to avoid using a bipolar supply with a push-pull output
>stage.
I don't know how it could NOT have been a Hafler design.
>I do know that David Hafler does use it as an example of one of the bad
>early power amp designs.
I've never heard of him saying that. It's true that they weren't very reliable.
But I've never heard a demonstration of "bad sound" of a ST-120 that was
functioning.
>The thing is that the ST120, when compared with the tube amps of the
>era, sounded very bright and forward (probably because of all the high
>order harmonics).
Maybe they had high frequency content and the turntables of that era loved to
mistrack and show off their frequency response errors through a full bandwidth
device?
This seemed like a good thing to a lot of people back
>then, but it's the sort of thing that eventually gave solid state
>electronics a bad name. It took some listening, though, for people to
>realize what was going on, because they were being presented with a set
>of distortions that they weren't used to listening to.
>
>This is always the case. When the Edison phonograph came out, many people
>said that it was just like listening to the performer right there in the
>room, it was so accurate. It took people a few years to get used to the
>sound and understand the deficiencies.
>
>The same thing happens every time there is a revolutionary change in
>design. It happened with solid state electronics and it happened with
>digital audio and it's happening right now with perceptual encoding systems.
>It takes people a while to recognize what they are listening to.
>--scott
I think you overstate the case. As far as I'm concerned cd playback hasn't
improved at all. Of course, production has always varied all over the map ....
lp a case in point.
Codecs (DCC) were shown to be transparent to cd at the very beginning. Sure
data-reduction is subject to mis-use but when was any technology or method free
from producer-error?
And familiarity and experience doesn't stop from making new mistakes.
By this logic many people now argue as if ALL tubed equipment and lp were free
from defect.
But in general I am of the opinion that the oral history about the transition
to solid state and digital and data reduction having major dislocations in
quality significantly overstates the case and has contributed to the extant
urban legends about it.
It's kind of like those stories my parents told me about weather hardships when
they were young. It IS true that my father DID have to walk through deep snow
to get to school while I had a school bus.
Of course, he did this by walking to a country school about a half-mile away
from the log house but he did it with his older sister who also became the
schoolteacher. And when the snow was too deep and it was too cold (Northern
Minnesota -30 deg) nobody showed up.
On the other hand, I had to stand outside in -30 deg temp for a half hour
waiting for the bus.
IME the "tough" old days are mostly just a psychological trick. Like Boot-Camp
it gets "harder" with each retelling.
f0Oc.146756$OB3.115181@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
/home.indy.net/~gregdunn/dynaco/components/ST120/
/home.insightbb.com/~dunn.greg/ST120/serv1.jpg
/home.insightbb.com/~dunn.greg/ST120/schem2.jpg
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