Catman's Analog Musings

[Guest Muon N']

Yes, but a long time back now.

[Grant Slack]

On 07/12/2019 at 10:27 AM, catman said:

Has anyone ever experienced 'listening fatigue'?

 

G'day all, this is a very interesting one to me.  A few of my audio sources that sound superb to me at the start, end up  sounding in the long term,  contributing to 'listening fatigue' that in the end makes me feel like not listening to those program sources ever again! 

 

Usually they tend to be peaky or bright and yet sound impressive initially but eventually very wearing!  It is interesting isn't it?  Have others experienced such similar listening 'fatigue'?  Regards, Felix.   

Hello Felix,

 

I certainly have! But strangely, when I go back to the gear often enough, it disappears. Listening fatigue fatigue?

 

cheers

Grant

[catman]

Just gimme some truth!

 

G'day all, John Lennon had it right with the general sentiments in this song, I think.  I for one as an Aspie, have very little tolerance for any kind of deception yet I know that the  world is full of it and it continues to expand despite the truth being all too obvious!  Sometimes I can only shake my head. 

 

One may ask but what does this have to do with audio?  Well it does!  As most people know, I have a lot of phono stages and most of them are excellent, all of them subtly different in sound quality, but all worthy of ownership. 

 

I do admit to building  one that was just badly designed, but all of the ones I've bought were portrayed as high quality and most of them are indeed excellent and I'm proud to own, except maybe one. 

 

It is actually 'acceptably' good to my ears, but is vastly overrated and not worth the asking price (in my opinion).  It even has pretension to be truly 'high end'.  Given its unique design it should be truly excellent, but as a phono stage, listening to it leaves me feeling a little 'meh'.  A recent round of published and accurate test results mostly reveals what I have long suspected.  The really sad thing in my opinion, is that this phono stage 'does' have its fans, yet as an example of good competent design it mostly fails, in my humble opinion.  To make matters worse there are test results on the manufacturers website that are at complete odds with other accurate published test data. 

 

Thence my ' just gimme some truth' comment.  Is there no real truth in this world?  Maybe not in the business world!  Regards, Felix.        

Edited December 10, 2019 by catman
Spelling.

[catman]

Why is 'sound quality', such a rabbit hole?

 

G'day all, at least for me, phono preamps?  Perhaps because they are so easily changed!  My power amps and line preamps stay the same, and sonically I am happy with them but phono preamps are an entirely different matter.  For the moment anyway my favourite MM phono stages are my ESP P06 (DIY) and my Rothwell Simplex, and possibly the Rothwell Simplex gets the edge maybe because it is a fully discrete transistor unit.  It just has a certain sweet/musical/ open/fresh sound about it and I love it! 

 

Yet I often find myself rotating phono stages.  Why do I do it?  Regards, Felix.   

[MLXXX]

21 minutes ago, catman said:

Yet I often find myself rotating phono stages.  Why do I do it? 

Possibly because it is hard to retain a memory of how something sounds, and possibly because how something sounds can depend on one's mood at the time of listening.

 

Have you ever tried making recordings of the same track of a vinyl disc as amplified by a range of different phono preamps?

 

Listening to playbacks of the various recordings could make it easier to decide which phono stage you prefer.  (At least for the particular track that was chosen for the test!  And for the particular cartridge.)

[almikel]

12 hours ago, catman said:

Yet I often find myself rotating phono stages.  Why do I do it?

because "that's your thing" - which is fine

I haven't changed a component in my setup since 2015 or so, but I muck with EQ occasionally, and every change is discernible, just not necessarily better or worse, only "different"...

...I take a pragmatic view, and firmly believe in the maxim "best is the enemy of good" - and I'm happy with good - YMMV.

 

Mike

[Guest Muon N']

Synergy with the rest of the chain will often dictate how well a given component...like a phono stage....will perform, no component acts on It's own, it is part of a larger circuit, the system in It's entirety.

[MLXXX]

11 hours ago, Muon N' said:

Synergy with the rest of the chain will often dictate how well a given component...like a phono stage....will perform, no component acts on It's own, it is part of a larger circuit, the system in It's entirety.

Certainly -- and I think this is well known as an important issue for magnetic cartridge preamps -- a variation in the load impedance for a magnetic cartridge can potentially make a noticeable audible difference in the frequency response performance of the cartridge.   (This is without worrying about anything further along in the reproduction chain that might further modify the frequency response.)

 

So we are looking at the impedance of the connecting cable to the input of the phono preamp, and the input impedance of the phono preamp itself, as potentially being very important for achieving a nominally flat response.

 

I guess though (and this may be the type of point you're making here, Muon)  that if the rest of the system tilted the frequency response, then one might wish to counteract that by deliberately making the phono preamp tilt the frequency response in the opposite direction.

Edited December 14, 2019 by MLXXX

[catman]

OPA2134 'sound'....another test!

 

G'day all, I've often mused about this in other threads, and the other evening I tried an experiment.  My excellent Akitika DIY phono stage uses NE5532 and NE5534's so I decided to change all of the NE5532's to OPA2134's.  Being dual op amps with standard pinouts replacement was straightforward.  Actually in a sense, I was 'killing two birds with one stone' as I needed to sort out my existing stocks of OPA2134's so the whole evaluation was completely worthwhile.

 

So what was the result?  As it turned out, not a lot.  Most performance parameters (such as noise), were essentially equivalent!  However if the OPA2134 has a 'sound', or perhaps more correctly a 'sonic character', I would call it, 'refined....in the nicest possible way'!  It does sound nice to my ears, and that quality is perhaps a strong point, apart from being a very well engineered component overall!  Regards, Felix.   

[Guest Muon N']

In my CD player I found the sound of OPA2134 very different to NE5532, and OPA2406 while closer to OPA2134 better than both of them, for me NE5532 sounded inferior to both.

 

They all have their own individual sonic character.

[almikel]

On 15/12/2019 at 6:58 PM, catman said:

G'day all, I've often mused about this in other threads, and the other evening I tried an experiment.  My excellent Akitika DIY phono stage uses NE5532 and NE5534's so I decided to change all of the NE5532's to OPA2134's.  Being dual op amps with standard pinouts replacement was straightforward.  Actually in a sense, I was 'killing two birds with one stone' as I needed to sort out my existing stocks of OPA2134's so the whole evaluation was completely worthwhile.

 

Keep in mind that the NE5532's have been around longer than the OPA2134 and OPA2406 - it's not surprising the OPA's perform better...even though the OPA's are also "old" now.

 

The NE5532 was the mainstay of dual opamps for "audio" applications for decades - a big step up from the TL072, but both are ancient history now...the NE5532 is/was a solid performer and has been deployed in the millions across audio equipment (likely billions).

 

I remember building my first phono stage - an Electronics Australia David Tilbrook design back in the mid 1980's using NE5534AN single op amps - the low noise version of the NE5534.

 

I'm not across the history, but I can only assume the NE5532s were being used before that (early 1980s or before).

When did the OPA2134 get released?

On 15/12/2019 at 7:04 PM, Muon N' said:

In my CD player I found the sound of OPA2134 very different to NE5532, and OPA2406 while closer to OPA2134 better than both of them, for me NE5532 sounded inferior to both.

Nice.

With everything surface mounted these days, without specialist equipment you can't "roll" your op amps in gear you've purchased like the old days...and even in the old days, the opamps would likely be hard soldered...

 

@Muon N'...interested - when you replaced the 5532s in your CDP did you insert an IC socket to hot swap or solder the new op-amps directly?

 

cheers

Mike

[catman]

G'day Mike, of my most used DIY phono stages, my ESP P06 and much more recent hifisonix phono stage, that particular one is designed around and uses NE5534's (single op amps) and actually sounds excellent, quiet and sonically superb, but the design is actually excellent, and that probably helps too. 

 

My DIY ESP P06 actually uses the combination of an OPA2134 and an LM4562 and is extremely quiet and sounds great to my ears anyway.  Overall I think that although like dated now the NE55xx series still sets the standard for excellence!  Regards, Felix.    

 

[Guest Muon N']

2 hours ago, almikel said:

when you replaced the 5532s in your CDP did you insert an IC socket to hot swap or solder the new op-amps directly?

Removed the NE5532's and put in sockets, did the same for the TDA1541A (now a TDA1541A S1 single crown),  and the SAA7220P/B (now a nos reclock module in It's place).

 

Yeah, the NE5532's are very old, but still used in a lot of commercial gear especially main stream. I'm only using the first half of the dual Op-Amps (OPA2406).

[almikel]

4 hours ago, catman said:

that particular one is designed around and uses NE5534's (single op amps) and actually sounds excellent,

have you tried the NE5534AN?

I've no idea if  they're even available anymore...it's literally been decades since I bought an op-amp - I'm sure there's plenty of new single op-amps just like the step up from NA5532 to OPA2134

 

2 hours ago, Muon N' said:

Removed the NE5532's and put in sockets, did the same for the TDA1541A (now a TDA1541A S1 single crown),  and the SAA7220P/B (now a nos reclock module in It's place).

 

Yeah, the NE5532's are very old, but still used in a lot of commercial gear especially main stream. I'm only using the first half of the dual Op-Amps (OPA2406).

I should pop the lid on my old Marantz 67SE CD player to see what's inside.

 

Mike

[catman]

Old Christmas records and memories over the years.

 

G'day all, during the Christmas Season I trot out my collection of Christmas records and give them all a play.  Quite a few I've bought second hand. and a few are our own purchased when we first acquired a 'family stereogram' back around 1967, our old PYE, complete with a BSR 'record player' and a heavy tracking ceramic cartridge.  Oh the memories! 

 

Despite the playback gear those records still sound pretty good, even now!  Any other memories or comments?  Regards, Felix.       

[audiofeline]

I find Christmas music very annoying and trite.  However, Phil Spector's Christmas album is great, about the best Christmas music I've heard (the CD's about $10).  The Beach Boys Christmas album is bearable, given that I don't usually warm to that band.  Putumayo Presents - A Jazz & Blues Christmas CD was a nice find last year, it contains music from the era when r+b was r+b - B.B. King, Charles Brown, Ray Charles, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, etc.  And Mrs.Feline's gift last year of a Verve Unmixed Christmas compilation jazz CD was also nice (I'm less fond of the companion (re-)Mixed disk), and helps make this time of the year bearable (Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald,  Billie Holiday, Jimmy Smith, Nina Simone. Dinah Washington, etc).

.

 

  

 

I do have to admit a Christmas phobia I have - and it's a realistic one.  Christmas lunch is at my sister-in-law's every year, and her favourite album of all time is A Very Mariah (Carey) Christmas.  It is played on repeat all day, at a reasonable volume, often with my sister-in-law singing extremely badly along with it (her singing deteriorates during the course of the day as well).  If anyone turns the volume down or requests something else a tantrum results.  I hope other people are not subjected to this torture on what should be an enjoyable day.

 

[catman]

Useful but rare features on phono stages.

 

G'day all, rummaging through my phono stage 'junk box' tonight I found my rarely used Lucid Labs 'Catalyst' and put it into operation.  It is a real shame that it was sadly in production for a relatively short period as it was/is an excellent MM phono stage.  The 'Catalyst' has in my mind anyway, two very useful but seemingly rare features. 

 

Switchable between zero and 100 pf input capacitance (through two way headers), and high quality op amp sockets.  The supplied NE5532's are fine, but I opted to change mine to OPA2134's.  It's easy to do with sockets.  AT phono cartridge aficionados will find the ability to change the input capacitance very useful indeed.  Very thoughtful design and a very nice phono stage circuit too.  Regards, Felix.       

Edited December 22, 2019 by catman
Grammar.

[catman]

Phono preamps:  when design 'flaws' actually sound great!

 

G'day all, over the Christmas period I've been playing a few records on my various systems mainly using my Rothwell Simplex but today I plugged in one of my DIY ESP P06's and immediately noticed one rather pleasant difference....the really strong but natural sounding lower bass, which seemed to add a very pleasant and punchy/dynamic quality to the sound.  The apparent bass 'weight' is mostly likely due to the acknowledged and well documented lower bass boost in the 'stock' ESP P06 RIAA curve.  Perhaps that might be considered a design 'flaw' of sorts, but it sure sounds good to my ears!  That is curious, in a sense.  Regards, Felix.

[audiofeline]

2 hours ago, catman said:

.. the acknowledged and well documented lower bass boost in the 'stock' ESP P06 RIAA curve...

Has there been a modification published to address this in the P06?

[catman]

G'day mate, well yes there is, but Rod Elliott actually states that it's sound is better because of it.  He suggests adding the ESP sub bass filter which heavily attenuates everything below 20 Hz if needed.  Regards, Felix.  

[catman]

A hypothetical question?

 

G'day all, firstly Happy New Year 2020 everybody!  Of late, I've wondered about this, how long (I presume through using and listening), how long it takes before you 'know' a given piece of gear?  Increasingly whilst one may get an impression reasonably quickly, it takes a 'lot' longer before you really 'know' it intimately.  Perhaps it is like so many things in life and eventually one might completely change opinion, in one direction of the other!  Any comments on this?  Regards, Felix.   

[andyr]

2 hours ago, catman said:

A hypothetical question?

 

G'day all, firstly Happy New Year 2020 everybody!

 

And I hope 2020 is good for you, Felix. 

 

2 hours ago, catman said:

 

Of late, I've wondered about this, how long (I presume through using and listening), how long it takes before you 'know' a given piece of gear?  Increasingly whilst one may get an impression reasonably quickly, it takes a 'lot' longer before you really 'know' it intimately.  Perhaps it is like so many things in life and eventually one might completely change opinion, in one direction of the other!  Any comments on this?  Regards, Felix.

 

 

I'm afraid I have absoloootely no idea what you are talking about when you say "know a given piece of gear"!!??

 

It's not something I have ever thought about - I guess my own focus is on what is it I have to do to improve my sound. 

 

Andy

 

[stevoz]

3 hours ago, andyr said:

 

I'm afraid I have absoloootely no idea what you are talking about when you say "know a given piece of gear"!!??

 

It's not something I have ever thought about - I guess my own focus is on what is it I have to do to improve my sound. 

 

Andy

 

 

I've been thinking how that concept could be defined. If someone asked me "Do you know your gear?", I'd probably say 'yeah, I know my gear' but like you, struggle with the concept of the question and I'd probably just be saying yes because it sounds better than saying 'no'.

 

Maybe 'knowing' a piece of gear is when one has discovered all of it's sonic secrets......when it no longer surprises you......and for some that is the point at which your focus kicks in Andy......improving one's sound!

 

Or maybe not.....

[catman]

G'day mate, I know myself that with time opinions change, sometimes radically, things like 'listening fatigue' for example.  Regards, Felix. 

 

[audiofeline]

6 hours ago, catman said:

...G'day all, firstly Happy New Year 2020 everybody! ...  

And to you as well, Felix.  I've enjoyed your reflections and expertise during the year, and look forward to more in 2020.  Hope it's a good year for you. 

 

Knowing your equipment?  I would think that it's when the newness of a device wears off, what were really enjoyable new and improved sounds start to be the norm, and when you sit down to listen and know what audio quality is going to be delivered and you focus on the music, with the new equipment no longer being in consciousness. 

 

(This is from a perspective of not swapping components around, and upgrades are not frequent; the definition may be different for those who like to swap components around in a system).