No commenting on your particular situation with your Alison's, but blown drivers are almost always blown due to too little power, not too much.Originally Posted by Buddhabreath
An amp that is being overdriven into clipping, is much more likely to blow a driver, than a driver being driven by a bit too much power.
This blows speakers:
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
The porting of a speaker does not necessarily relate to the amount of power required. It's much more related to the efficiency of the entire speaker system.
Many Horn loaded speakers, or single driver speakers, for example, can driven from ridiculously low power amps.
And low impedance speakers need high current amps, not just high power.
30 watt Pass Labs amps can drive speaker loads that are almost dead shorts. But try to drive the same load with some high powered class D amp, and you'll fill your room with smoke.
Last edited by simon moon; 05-26-2020 at 07:41 PM.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
^^^
^^^ Thanks, that very well may have been the case. I know the Carver magnetic field amp I was using at the time was said (documented) to have a unique clipping eliminator circuit that pulls the amp out of clipping should you overload your amplifier. So I don’t know and certainly don’t have the expertise to judge what happened. Regardless I still love Carver amps and have a beautiful vintage specimen to drive my main speakers to this day. I once took it to a local technician, a knowledgeable old-timer who opened it up took a look, laughed with glee and said “This thing is built like a brick shit-house!”.
^^^ I can attest to that: years ago a friend of mine had a big old pair of Klipsch Klipschorns and was able to drive them loudly from my boom box which I believe was something like 10 watts!
Last edited by Buddhabreath; 05-26-2020 at 07:51 PM.
My receiver has Class D amps which have high power MOSFETs as output drivers. This is my second Pioneer Elite, but this new one with the MOSFETs is now specified for 4 Ohm speakers. 35 years ago I had a Hafler DH100 with high power MOSFETs and it was solid, but not efficient. This receiver may not be a true Class D, I’m not sure what the architecture is called but it time modulates a waveform like a shaped pulse which has a collapsed spectrum.The porting of a speaker does not necessarily relate to the amount of power required. It's much more related to the efficiency of the entire speaker system.
Many Horn loaded speakers, or single driver speakers, for example, can driven from ridiculously low power amps.
I've heard these Avantgarde Acoustics, driven to extremely loud levels, with vanishingly low distortion, with 8 watt single ended tube amps. They are 107 db w 1 watt/1 meter efficient.
And low impedance speakers need high current amps, not just high power.
30 watt Pass Labs amps can drive speaker loads that are almost dead shorts. But try to drive the same load with some high powered class D amp, and you'll fill your room with smoke.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
Back in the 90s, after auditioning, I was going to buy a 100W amp, which was plenty of power to power my speakers and fill the room it would be in. Just for kicks I auditioned a 250W amp from the same manufacturer. I was blown away by how much better the 250W sounded. Cleaner, more immediate, brighter, whatever. Needless to say I purchased the 250W amp.
So...
This just happened (more fodder for the analog vs CD debate?).
I am listening to a lot of music recently, almost all digital, and my dog has been laying in my listening room with me.
I put on the CD of Lark's Tongue (40th anniversary), and the percussion begins, and my dog continues to lay there with no interest, as she has been for the past hour (through prog, jazz, classical recordings). I pause the CD.
I put a copy of my vinyl on for my own comparison (they were both sitting in a stack near my equipment because my artist girlfriend is painting the cover on the wall), the low level surface noise begins, still no interest from my dog, but then the percussion begins, and my dog immediately wakes up, stares at the speakers, gives a low level growl, and cocks her head. She then left the room.
I thought for a second, that maybe she was hearing something ultrasonic that was not present on the CD, but nothing bothered her until the music started, and besides, vinyl isn't supposed to contain ultrasonic frequencies. Did the vinyl sound more real to her? It sure has more depth in the soundstage than the CD.
I will try to repeat this with another CD and vinyl recording with different music and see if she has the same reaction, if I can get her back in the room.
And before anyone starts in on me being a 'vinyl cult member', the vast majority of my music listening is CD and hi res files.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
^^ On early CD versions of older recordings, drum hits in particular had less of a springy snap, more of a dull thud. Especially the kick and the snare. The drum sound we're all used to now, created by compensating for the thudiness, never actually restored the springiness. So even recent recordings don't have as natural a drum sound.
BTW: the primary way I listen to vinyl is recorded in 24/96 Hi-Res, so I can clean up the pops and clicks with Izotope RX7. I see that as no different than when I recorded my records to cassette back in the day, then listened exclusively to the tapes.
Last edited by progmatist; 06-04-2020 at 07:03 PM.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Was the vinyl an analog recording? Or is it the HD Digital converted to vinyl. It’s very difficult for vinyl to reproduce the dynamic range of uncompressed (amplitude) high dynamic range. If the playback from vinyl is purely wideband analog, then intermodulation distortion can occur outside the range of human hearing.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
I believe that is because early ADCs only oversampled 2 to one. And thus they used anti aliasing filters that had ringing in the high frequencies. Today a one bit (up or down compared to the previous sample in a 2nd order control loop) makes decisions at 64 or 128 million bps. Those decisions are combined in a near perfect FIR to samples at 24 bits 96 KHz for example. Effectively there is next no filtering impact on the signal. However, whatever was done on the original recordings may get undone, if not equivalently redone.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
The CD is the 40th anniversary reissue , and the vinyl is the original UK release (in extremely good condition).
The percussion I was referring to, is the opening (not drums), percussion. African thump piano, and bells and such that begin side one. No drums yet.
But as I previously stated, these instruments on the vinyl sound like they are coming substantially further behind the speakers than the CD. Without loss of detail or clarity.
Maybe my dog was picking up on this increased depth, and thought the sound was outside the room in the neighbor's yard.
Despite liking (overall) digital more than vinyl, one thing I think vinyl still does better than digital, is imaging and soundstage.
^ it was the distortion
^ It was the backwards masking. Subliminal shit. I think the masked phrase through that section says "I hope you choke on your Alpo."
Not a speck of cereal.
Well I think I figured out why that is. First vinyl is closer to mono compared to digital because the separation between channels is perfect with digital. However to get the benefit of separation, one needs to use headphones or have stereo speakers faced at the listener with narrow horizontal dispersion like planar arrays. Speakers with wide horizontal dispersion create Intra-aural distortion. Polk has a new wide bandwidth speaker that cancels that distortion. Ironically vinyl playback has less separation and that means both ears are hearing the same image, the same way. So I wonder if one compares listens to the CD and vinyl with headphones, how would it sound different. Headphones don’t have interaural distortion.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
In the early 80s, my audio engineering class took a field trip to a store which sold studio equipment. When they guy was demonstrating a half track stereo mastering tape recorder, he stopped it and started playing it backwards. I said it was to find subliminal messages, which cracked up everyone else in the class. At the time, that whole "backwards masking" controversy was at its peak.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
All percussion instruments with a sharp attack suffer the same dulling of attack.....with varying degrees of subtlety of course. Drums specifically would be the most blatantly obvious.
That refers back to the primary difference between CD quality digital, and pretty much everything else. In higher quality: 1) The mix as a whole sounds more open and transparent. The reverb in particular sounds lighter, airier and more free flowing throughout the mix. 2) Every instrument is better able to cut through the mix, without overly dominating the mix. And as you point out, every instrument is better able to separate into its own position within the mix.
When comparing the quality of recordings, or types of recordings, what I listen to more than anything else is the reverb. The characteristics of the reverb and the way it presents itself in the mix speaks volumes.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
In the above when are referring to vinyl playback, CD playback or higher quality playback?
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
I refer to all analog and Hi-Res being higher in quality than CD quality.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
That’s your opinion, but I would never say all, especially if you are including all vinyl in all analog. Vinyl Playback is limited in channel separation, noise floor. Although for CD the limitation for me is the mastering and new recordings with great mastering sound better on CD. Converting older analog or digital recordings to CD is problematic. I am not enthralled with listening to Steve Wilson’s needle drop provided in High Res.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
yeah, those never did anything for me. I'd rather listen to the digital stereo remix.
Since the 80s, people have been so enamored by the utter lack of surface noise and tape hiss on CDs, they totally miss what else is missing. Another one of my opinions
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
The vinyl audio process (from master tape to the turntable output) adds a lot of nice stuff to the audio in the process, like the very appreciated sound stage widening and depth. Nothing to do with a real sound stage (compared to the analogue master tape) but very pleasing to listen too...
My Progressive Workshop at http://soundcloud.com/hfxx
Even with modern recordings using modern mastering techniques, there's something to be said for the vinyl version. The limitations of the vinyl format prevent brickwalling the music to death, as it easily can be on digital formats. Doing so would make the record unplayable.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
I’m sorry, but that makes no sense. You said I think that an analog signal which exceeded linearity in the record making process prevents hard limiting. But at the same time you state brick walling makes the record unplayable. I know that many vinyl versions have started with a digital source. I know that there techniques analog and digital which will compress amplitudes that are not brick wall. At the end of the day, no matter what the format is, it can be extremely good or extremely bad.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
Here's a visual representation of what I'm talking about. Here's a clip from Kaipa's latest, recorded from the vinyl:
Here's the same clip ripped from the CD:
It's easy to see how a stylus trying to follow the lower waveform carved into a groove would be problematic. It'd be like trying to play a saw blade.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
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