#grace 707

[audio-luddite]

Flotsam and jetsam.

My obsessive checking of classified ads can lead to darkish moments. I sold my Sony 2251 Turntable a long time ago. It is good and rare and I have seen mine pop up on rolling seascape of on-line listings twice. Both were oh dear moments. What went wrong? Has it failed? Is it not in a happy home?

The first was the person I sold it to apparently having a bad turn in his health and offering it for a lot less than he paid for it. I almost got in touch, but no my time with it was past. There are a couple out there and they command good prices. I hoped it was to go to a good new home.

Recently I saw it again. Actually I saw a photo of it as just the tonearm was for sale. It was the Grace 707 from back in the day of high compliance 45khz cartridges for quadraphonic. I did not see it as a parting out, but the Sony originally had an SME 3009 tone arm and the arm board was drilled out for that. If an aficionado had it they may have recognized that and wanted to restore it to an SME. At least that is the story I tell myself. Why else sell just the tonearm?

I have to be really careful. My system has a nice balance and I like where its at. My one itch is a MOSFET power amp. At least I tell myself that. Oh and if a Beogram 4002 came up for a good price I would be hard pressed to resist. I recently saw a Mosfet amp for sale for a hot number. The company that made it rode high for awhile, but is now gone. I have not been able to find a definitive schematic as I always look at those.

I am not mentioning where or the brand as I do not want someone grabbing it before I have convinced myself to not get it. This always makes me feel doubt. Still working on that.

I found photos of the interior which evolved over a few years. Apparent that the large power supply is shared by both sides which is a strike against it. There is lots of room to add capacitors, and a bridge rectifier which is a tick in the good side box. But apparently there is a large circuit board on the power supply on later versions for mysterious reasons. Regulation? Some kind of protection system? If I could get a schematic that described it that would really help. If I bought it I would have to split the power supply as that does really help the image clarity.

And if you dig back through the old day reviews as I do you may find reference to FET haze. I assume it is rather like tube haze and FETs are always being compared to the vacuum tube. Vacuum tubes do add something not in the recording. Call it haze or mist or space whatever it is not quite right.

Audiophile neurosis.

My ARC preamp signal path is all FET where it is not a 6DJ8 tube. That works fine for me.

Old school transistors are still used, and every mosfet amplifier I have looked at still has those in critical places. And there are many respected power amps with no FETS anywhere inside. See I have almost convinced myself.

[audio-luddite]

The Classified AD swamp.

The ground is sticky for sure.

I regularly peruse / troll several online listings. If I won the lottery I would be a collector. I would have a few cool preamps, but mostly turntables. Some are sculptures. Some are amazing mechanical devices. Many actually play records well.

In the last week I saw two that made me twitchy. One was way under priced and while I was still seriously thinking about it was sold. A Bang and Olufsen 8000. Gorgeous sleek and high performance. The description was it had a function problem, but the fix was obvious to me. Cheap at under 200 bucks. But like I said it got jumped on.

The other one was today. A JVC turntable. The price was pretty much what it was worth at just under 800 bucks. It was one of a very rare breed with electro-mechanical tone arm damping and tracking force. Sony made something similar called Biotracer. They go for a lot more. Technological tours-de-force at the very end of the first Vinyl era.

I keep looking as my Big Sony fails to sell at what I thought was a fair price. I see another of a similar but not quite as good model selling for $1300. I started out at $1200. Dropped it to $900 then still no joy. I want to keep my finger on what these things go for. That $1300 listing is a specialist store. They can wait I guess.

Still if my expectations are of the "what is he smoking" type other people are far more crazy. Dual was a big name in the 70's and lasted until the 90's intact. They made some good stuff. My first turntable was a Dual. I saw one listed locally at $800 bucks which is far more than the best one they ever made I think is worth. Typically they run around $200 bucks for a good one. Perhaps there are serious collectors out there, but they must be smoking something.

I often see a listing in one place like Craigslist for a thing and another wanted listing in another place. Sometimes its in the same listing. I suspect some people list a thing for sale then use a burner account to put a wanted listing up to create demand.

That JVC TT is being looked for in Ontario while it is listed for sale here on the West Coast. I am thinking about telling the guy...maybe.

I have three TTs and really need to rehome two of them. I cannot use them all. The Phazer is boss. The Sony is very good, but not as good. The Harman Kardon is really good, but I have space for only one TT in the steam powered system. I have about $500 bucks into it and it works well. They are listed on Ebay for about $300 bucks for a "parts" unit and $1300 bucks for a nice TOTL unit. Mine is not TOTL. I would take anything over $700 for it, but.... There are lots of parts around. They are rare as fully operational units.

[audio-luddite]

Disrespected preamps

Hard opinions are common in the Audiophile world.  Slavish devotion to conclusions of the golden ears makes things difficult or easy depending.  Good stuff can cost less.  I like that.

Over the past weekend I saw an ad for an Audio Research SP9 preamp for just over 1000 bucks.  I own an AR SP 12 which when new was an economy version of one of the best.  Economy being a relative term.  When much AR stuff cost 4k that one was 1k (40 years ago) so imagine what in today's dollars it would cost.

The SP 12 was not the best so in its day was not considered worth looking at.  The SP9 was looked at and at least one golden ear had trouble with it.  It was good, but not good enough and less good than the other AR units in the stable. Both were disrespected in their time.

I learned that the number sequence did not follow release dates.  The SP 12 predated the SP9 by several years for example.

I like the SP 12.  It is all tube and uses ECC88 aka 6DJ8 tubes which are radio frequency double triodes. It is far better than the older AR units like the SP3s that used 12AX7s audio frequency tubes. That tube is really common and is used in the Dynaco PAS3s and many others. Those SP3 guys FYI cost at least 3k in operating condition as they are “classic.”

I am rambling.

My one peeve with my SP12 is the styling.  I have an original version with black knobs.  It was restyled to have nice shiny aluminum knobs to look like newer versions so it looks old.  Well it is old.  The SP9 is as good or better, and looks prettier.

The ad for the SP9 appeared in a local shop I use.  So I started to look the beast up.  I found it was not liked by Mr J. Gordon Holt of “Stereophile” magazine in 1987.  Colleagues there, to be fair, also reviewed it and found it wanting too. (JGH was the boss after all) It was not as good as the SP11 which came out earlier. I am sure it hurt sales a bit audiophiles being part lemming and all. Turns out that later in a blind test they could not tell it from the SP11 they preferred.  Lots of excuses were put up.  Lets just agree there were differences.

OK now I am getting to my 2 points.  First is both AR units are built with first class parts.  Construction is almost MilSpec if not better. They both have stupid low distortion and all measured numbers are quite impressive.  The things they critiqued are really small and subtle. That they had trouble finding those differences in an unfamiliar set up at a convention is forgivable. The specs are amazing. Do specs mean so little?

The second point is weirder.  I got a copy of the manual and the circuit diagram.  The SP9 (and the SP11) are hybrids with both FETs and tubes. (ECC88s).  The weird thing is the SP9 phono input had almost 600 pf of capacitance.  It was actually voiced to suit moving coil phono cartridges.  That kind of load on moving magnet types is horrid.  The AT 440 Mla for example needs to see no more than 150 pf, less is better or it sounds really bad.  Almost any MM type will ring with that high a load. You can remove those capacitors or put in others so it can be fixed.  But nevertheless the unit was voiced to suit what Audio Research Inc thought the users would prefer to use. Hmmm I could rant on that!

Subsequently the unit was updated to a Mk 2 then a Mk3 to “address” some issues and the complaints were reduced.  Finally they swapped from Russian to Chinese Tubes, or was it the other way round, and then got a belated seal of approval from later reviewers.  OK all that means it was still a pretty good unit and probably better than my SP12.

It really bothers me that the perfect sound of the vacuum tube will change with brands.

I offered a swap deal to the shop.  My Sony Turntable with the Grace Arm straight for the SP9.  They said no.  They found a bunch of Ebay listings for $500 and $600 bucks US bucks.  I referred them to an add nearby for a similar unit with a stock arm for 1500 CDN.  I figure mine is worth 1500 to 2000 which is more than the asking price of the preamp. It is not a barn find I have had it since 1977. I have the factory packing and box. To be sure it is a business. They probably gave the seller 700 or 800 and want to make good margin.  I was thinking that they could sell my TT for almost 2k and make almost triple the money they spent on the AR. I am almost relieved he said no.

I dug out the Sony and will take some photos.  It will go on the Audiomart site by the end of the week asking for 1700 without a cartridge and 1900 with one.  Then if there is an SP9 out there still I will grab that.  Then I will sell the SP 12 to a hard core tuber.  There is one for sale right now for $1400 out of Ontario.  I should end up almost 2k to the good then.

[audio-luddite]

More on Phono Cartridges.

I cannot afford high end moving coils (MCs) so I have limited experience.  Certainly I think if I spent more on a turntable / cartridge / preamp than my house I would want it to be for a reason.  People believe things that aint true.  Look at politics.  Look at all the religions that preach peace and forgiveness while murdering “others”.

I deal with what I can afford or could afford when I bought it. 

Also I deal with my understanding of physics (pretty good actually) and mechanical construction of things (really good).

It is pretty amazing we can put and extract so much information on a plastic disk spinning around.  Really think about it.  The sound is encoded in microscopic wiggles squished into warm plastic that we stick a needle into.  That needle vibrates very little and from that electricity is generated. Then it is amplified up to 1000 times in a non-moving coil type and much more in a MC type.  That signal then goes into your main amplifier and out into the air.  Damn complicated.

So all this makes me cynical about MC superiority.  The better MCs need either far more electrical gain or funky pre-pre-amplifiers or passive transformers.  More stuff in the chain.

Finally there is this term euphonic.  That is where a system distorts in a nice way.  For example even harmonics sound pleasant like reverb and an airey halo around voices and instruments.  Tubes are known to do that and I have heard MC cartridges do as well to a degree.  They sound pleasant and sweet and it could contribute to their desirability.  Frankly the only way I could tell is if I got one rigged into my system, but I just don’t have the cash.  I have had a couple high output MCs and I did not care for them.

For that I do not think there is any information on my LPs that I am not getting off with my current hardware.  At best “better” hardware would alter the balance and timbre of tiny details.  It would take a lottery win and a lot of convincing for me to think it was worth getting that last few %.

A legitimate possibility relates to sampling theory.  That is where if a signal sampled at twice the highest frequency you target that will be reproduced adequately.  Adequately being the error functions are very small and not noticeable.  CD sampling was at 44kHz I recall as they wanted to record 22kHz adequately.  The extension is that if a Cartridge responds to 40kHz or more it is an easy ask for 20kHz ( young peoples hearing limit).  Apparently many MCs respond up to the 30s and 40s of kHz.

Back in the era of Quadraphonic records they required a response up to 45 kHz. That is what my Signets Tk7e was built for.  So no MC has frequency response over my old MM unit.  The Signet is old, but has a new stylus including the magnet structure, though not exactly the same type as original.  I paid for it what would be $1500 in today's money.  The current equivalent from what I understand is the AT 150 Mlx in its most expensive form.

Falling back to what I have now, I have been listening to a AT440 Mla.  It is still available from my usual source at a relatively affordable $400 USD. It is set up on a tangential turntable and I hear differences between it and the Signets.

The problem, if there is one, is the differences may be from the turntable rather than the cartridge.  It is likely to be the case.  These are small things I hear.  I can hear background vocals with both, but they are more clearly separated with 440.  It is better focused.  If I swap the cartridges I could find out what is happening, but it is a real bother.  Getting the Signets off the Grace 707 is a real pain.  Putting it on is worse. The difference may also be the type of tip. 

I am jealous of reviewers who get free samples and who’s job it is to play with them. I gotta spend my own money.

So if there is a conclusion I feel it is safe to say that you do not need a moving coil phono cartridge.  You can get the last iota of information off an LP with MM types.  Actually you may only see differences in slight color variations rather than anything ground breaking.

There are perfectly adequate MMs for less than 100 bucks.  There are noticeably better ones around $500.  Then it comes to taste and luck.  You may have the money to buy a $1500 cartridge and have a turntable good enough to let it sing.  Or you may find an old classic in a drawer.

It is a fun hobby. 

[audio-luddite]

Is Different Better?

I just got a new toy.

It is a turntable.  It is a Harman Kardon ST 5 Rabco linear tracker.

My main system is a Sony 2251 la / Grace 707 and Signet TK7E.  Direct drive and traditional pivoting arm and a very rare moving magnet cartridge.

Back in ancient times a few very serious tonearms were built with linear tracking. There are still some today.  Rabco was one in the 70′s and they had an elegant solution that used straight forward mechanics to drive the arm sideways.  It was very clever involving rollers on a shaft that acted sort of like a sailboat tacking.

Anyway HK liked it so much they bought the company.  They then combined their turntable with the Rabco arm and built a series of these things.  Audiophiles liked them but they were really hard to keep working.  The mechanics were complex which means when things break..... Many were flung from windows.

My friend at school had an ST8.  It was very cool, and for the life of me I cannot remember if it was before or after his Transcriptors Skeleton with an SME arm.  He had good things to say about it.  Take it as read that it was in heady company.

Every so often I punch in a search term to online audio markets and this time it was Harman Kardon in turntables and I got a hit.  Short story it is now mine for what I guess the guy paid the turntable repairman to get it cleaned up and running.  The person I got it from was not that clear on its workings and it was seriously out of adjustment.  I tweaked it to run straight and had some fun.

It is all metal and shiny.  Stainless steel and Aluminum.  One small light and two controls on-off, and up down.

Linear trackers have two advantages, very short arms and no anti-skate. Short arms mean low mass and better tracking. The theory is the cartridge tracks the record just like the cutting head that made the record.  If it were easy all turntables would be that way.  Hence it is not easy.

I have been looking for a linear turntable.  Sony and Technics have them, but they are consumer grade machines.  Rabco was high end and the HK series was intended as high end-ish.  The turntable is a belt drive, and is pretty good with decent torque. It is not dead quiet, but I think a cork mat will help there and one is on order.

I tripled the value of the unit by pulling off the generic Audio Technica cartridge and setting up an AT 440 Mla I had in my drawer.  That costs more than double what I paid for this HK turntable.  I got a copy of the manual off Vinyl Engine which helped me get the tracking right.  All that was left to do was listen to it.

I have a couple of records I like to torture cartridges with.

First was Emmylou Harris, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent town.  If a cartridge cannot track this record will kill it and eat it.  I had a Shure V15 III that went and hid in the corner on this one. In it’s era is was the king of tracking so they said. My Signets on the Grace arm and this 440 on the Rabco just play the music. I was hearing a few different things.  This is a hottish record.  Lots of sibilance and high frequency, but only cuz it is in the music.  Solid imaging which is a characteristic of linear trackers.  Slightly different bass sounds from drums and such.

Next was Leonard Cohen greatest hits from music on vinyl it has some deeply hidden information that I am still learning about.  It also had some subtle differences. More clearly separate harmonies from background tracks.  Rabco or 440?

Next was Famous Blue Raincoat.  I know this record by heart. Is anything missing, is anything new?  Again I think I heard differences in backing harmonies.  Some bass tones were different.

Up until now I had been disappointed with the 440 as it always sounded too hot to me.  I had it in another Grace 707 arm on my old belt drive turntable.  Apparently there is a breaking in phase, but that may be rationalization like the smell in a barn.  I found it fine in the HK. Not hot at all. Maybe it gets along well with the short HK arm.  It may also be responding to less picofarads in the phono wires.  This model allows you to add capacitors in the line to adjust impedance as its internal value is rather low.  That by itself may be why the 440 liked it.  Apparently too high capacitance can cause a rise in treble.

There are no conclusions.  That would mean some arbitrary goal was met of this being better or worse.  I found the AT 440 better than I remember it.  It likes the Rabco tonearm. I start thinking that I should see if the Signet Tk7 would like a shot in the Rabco.  Not yet, maybe never.   The Sony / Grace / Signet is my go to set up.  It is good and I am happy with it.  If there is a sound on an album it will find it.  Is HK Rabco 440 better?  No it is different.

This goes on.  I will run some orchestral music on the HK.  I have one or two recorded old school that have imaging and clarity that the HK may drag out better than the Sony.  I have a lot of vinyl to go through, but I need to get that cork mat in here.

[audio-luddite]

tiny wiggles

It is amazing to think that so much music is embedded in wiggles in plastic disks. It is more fun to think that this 100 year old concept is coming back.  People have realized that quality and convenience are inversely proportional.  For the non-mathematical the more convenience the less good.  Think Mcdonalds burgers.

The most interesting and delicate part of this chain is the device that sits in the groove and reads the wiggles.  They can cost as little as 30 bucks and up to 1000 times more.  A good one usually costs 300 to 600 dollars today.  Some serious audiophiles think you must spend at least 10 times that before they let you in the club.  Tough crowd.

There are several methods used inside the phono Cartridge or pick up.  The most common is called moving iron or moving magnet.  Small pieces of iron or magnets connect to a tiny arm that has a very tiny diamond on the end that is the thing riding in the groove.  The second major method is the moving coil.  In that very tiny coils of wire are the moving part and the magnets are fixed in place. 

Almost all pickups have the diamond and the arm part. The diamond has several shapes preferred for certain perceived advantages.  The arm or cantilever is pretty straightforward and it varies in size and material.  Usually aluminum, they are also made from exotic metals and even sapphire.

The biggest differences internal to these devices is how the arm is connected to the rest of it.  Both the moving iron and moving coils use the relative motion of a coil of wire and a magnetic field to make a small electrical current.  That is what goes to the preamplifier and eventually through all the electronics to the air in the room. 

In some very expensive moving coils they are bonded directly to the arm and you have to send them back to the factory if you need to replace the diamond.  Often the working bits are inside the body and separate from the arm part.  Various manufacturers each have a method.

Shure uses a square metal tube that inserts into the cartridge body and the arm is embedded in this tube.  The vibrations get transmitted through the surface of the tube into the magnets and coils.  Grado has a kind of plate that the arm is attached to and it is held in contact with another plate that similarly has the magnets and coils.  Most manufacturers use some form of indirect connection. That makes replacing the diamond and arm relatively easy when it wears out.

My personal preference is Audio Technicas that bond teeny tiny magnets directly to the arm a few millimeters from the diamond.  The motion of the magnets is read by coils right there so it does not need any intermediate connections.  My main and favorite phono pickup is a relatively vintage Signet which was made by Audio Technica about 30 years ago.  I have found a source of new styli.  That is what the combined diamond and arm are called.

In very general terms being able to respond to a frequency double the highest frequency you listen to indicates that you will have very low distortion in that range.  The Signet was designed to respond to 45 khz back in the day when they took a shot a 4 channel sound using vinyl records.  They made it work too.  The band width of vinyl went reliably up to 45 khz.  It was a technological triumph and a commercial failure.

My Signet TK7E and my Grace 707 were both designed for 45 kz 4 channel systems.  They work really well together.

It is interesting that few moving magnet pick ups have bandwidth like that today.  Some do or come close.  Quite a few moving coil pick ups do have that kind of bandwidth which may be why they are preferred. That makes sense.  Unfortunately moving coils have very low output voltage, so you need special equipment to work with them and that can run thousands.  Getting a wide bandwidth Moving Magnet is a better solution in my mind.

The machine that makes the master records is a lathe.  It has a cutting head with strong motors like speaker voice coils driven by powerful amplification to cut the grooves in a lacquer master.  Later they made lathes that could cut directly into soft metal.  Apparently there were never very many of those and only one exists today that can be made operational.

It is a very mechanical process and amazing that it works so well.

[audio-luddite]

Gone Skating.

I am constantly amused by how personalities drive knowledge.  Some people are so rigid in their thinking.  I have been trying to dial in my turntable anti-skate.  I was looking for any tricks that may have been worked out in the past 30 years.

Old school I used listening to get close, but doing that now I found it was not looking right. My ears are getting old. I have a Grace 707 tone arm and it has a cute little pivoting weight thing for anti-skate.  On that there is a red line which I think corresponds to one gram of tracking force, but I do not recall which side of the line is one gram.

The interweb thing has a range of opinions.  One popular one is Anti-skating is bullshit and you don't need it.  That is followed up by what can only be called flat earth arguments. The other is use an oscilloscope and test record. Neither of which I have.  I guess in a pinch a laptop could be used with several choices of software if you have a USB interface. (I do actually)

An interesting method is to use the center part of a record between the run out grooves and adjust the anti-skate so that the stylus drifts slowly to the center when it is not in a groove.  This is advocated by a very clever man who apparently builds high end cartridges with his own two hands.  His rational is somebody tried the rigorous approach and found the best compromise agreed with that test.  Thing is how slow is slowly?  He skipped that part.

There is a large cult of people who advocate using blank records to adjust anti-skate and I like that idea.  There are those that say the drag in the record grooves varies with the level of modulation so loud passages would require more force than soft, and you should set it to the soft level.  That means the test records are too much.

There are so many true things eh?

What is anti-skating? 

Its about vectors.  Wee little arrows and things showing which way things get pushed.  In a turntable pivoting tone arm the cartridge sits in the record groove which is tangent to the record circumference.  If you project that tangent line out the back of the cartridge it does not line up with the arm pivot usually by a lot.  So the friction of the tiny stylus in the groove is pulling on that line and creates what is called a moment about the pivot. Moment is the engineering term for what civilians and mechanics call torque. The magnitude of the moment is the drag on the stylus multiplied by the distance from the pivot of that line (vector).  That causes a rotation of the cartridge towards the center of the record.

( DJs rotating disks backwards the skating force is pushing outwards.)

The formula for the moment is T*G*C*L*Sin(theta).  T is the tracking force in grams. G is gravity. C is the friction coefficient. L is the length of the tone arm. Sin(theta) is the sine value of the angle (theta) between the tangent line and the line from the stylus to the arm pivot. ( G is required for rigor as grams are a measure of mass and not force, but if you want to calculate gram*mm as a moment I cannot stop you)

Anti-skate is the force applied to counter that rotation.  It is applied behind the pivot usually by a tiny weight. In the case of my tonearm the weight is very small so the moment must be very small so the friction in the groove must be really really small.

I found a clever idea that you can use a CD as a smooth surface to adjust anti-skate for the center of the record.  Adjust it until it does not move in or out.  I found at least one youtube video of a person who had a blank record and once it was adjusted anywhere it worked everywhere.  That makes sense as the tangent angle does vary but only a small amount over the range of the pivot and it is only that angle that changes.

Despite the guru status of the person I mentioned above having the Anti-skate adjusted so that it drifts in even slowly means that there is too much pressure on the inside wall of the groove.  If you accept that highly modulated grooves have more drag then during those passages there is even more pressure on the inside wall.  So you vary from too much to even more.

That would indicate you should adjust it so that it drifts outward VERY slowly.

The blank method may mean that you have a bit too little anti-skate if the friction in the groove is greater than a smooth side, the moment to center will be greater in proportion to that friction.  In defense I think the friction value must be pretty small as the other factors in the equation are rather large.

I like simple. I tried the CD trick and adjusted it and the tiny weight is out past the red line a bit, but I am tracking at 1.7 grams right now.  I played a record with good “ambience” and it sounded kinda spooky.

If I ever find a full blank side I will fiddle a bit more.  But my preference is to listen not fiddle.  I will not knock myself out over it.

[audio-luddite]

Good stuff for its time.

Aside from my speakers my audio system represents really good stuff for the late 1970′s to 1980′s.  The stuff of that era was not bad by today's standards, and is much better than consumer grade equipment of any era.  Some of these devices are collectable and that creates an artificial value for them.

Almost all the best stuff from then is now considered not that good now, or at least far surpassed. For several years the Audio Research SP3a1 was the best.  Several reviewers called it a straight wire with gain and it reigned from on high.  Today it is far less than that.  The RIAA phono equalization curve was off significantly which made it sound like many people expected a good thing to sound.

The SP3a1 is valuable as a collectors item.  I am sure the owners enjoy it.

Actually to that point last night I was listening to a Decca London recording from the 60′s and parts of that sounded brilliant other parts were crap.  The RIAA standard phono curve is an equalization put on vinyl records for various good reasons.  It is an extreme cut in the bass and a boost of the highs going into the vinyl and a boost of the bass and cut in the highs coming off.  Thing is up to the 1970′s it was not an actual standard.  I think that the recording I had was from before RIAA was adopted in the UK and that caused the full orchestra to go weird.

It was a London Geshwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  The Clarinet and Piano were really nice.  The full orchestra strings were shit.  This was a “Phase 4″ recording mixed down from 20 mike channels and that may also have been the problem.

Anyway all of my electronics date from the designs of 1970′s to mid 1980′s.  This was the peak era of tube versus transistor wars and the fundamental questions of what is good, and who should decide.  They were all considered good stuff then.

Stock version of my Dynaco 400 amp was a solid second then third tier machine with real or imagined flaws compared to the top tier.  In that time powerful amplifiers were just becoming possible. 

In the early 1970′s the best transistor amps were 60 watts per channel such as the HK Citation 12.  That is a lovely design with basically two completely separate monophonic amplifiers in one metal case.   I have one.  If you find one in working order it is a nice machine. They are repairable if sick. For a short while it was the best in several rankings.  Transistors were popular as they solved a lot of problems with tube amps specifically a lack of bass in available speakers.

Then tube amps struck back with more power by adding ranks of tubes and the discovery that more power sounds better.  Power is determined by volts times amps.  In tubes it is easy to drive volts by adjusting the output transformers as the circuit already had lots of volts.  Chaining together ranks of output tubes was fairly easy to get amps.

In transistors the output devices are basically attached directly to the speakers and they had not yet made available higher voltage transistors.  When those happened so did 200 and 350 Watts per channel machines.  When you listen to music at orchestral levels you are averaging maybe 2 to 5 Watts, but peaks are many times that.  The peaks are the key advantage with big amps.

A trumpet is capable of 130 db.  A quiet room is say 40 db.  The difference is 90 db which corresponds to a power ratio of 1,000,000,000 times. That is way more than even a huge amplifier.  But if you want the impact of a big drum you need as much power as you can get.  There are limits in that if you actually could get that many Watts it would probably liquefy your brain sometime after you went deaf.

Actually 90 db far exceeds the dynamic range of vinyl but is within the theoretical capability of CD and lossless digital with enough bits.

But more power sounds better.  The more pedestrian advice is buy the biggest amp you speakers are rated for.  I ignore that.  I have the biggest amp I could build and hope that I do not drop anything that makes my speakers smoke.  I do not use fuses even.  Making my electrons march down skinny wires that get warm is a compromise. I have been 40 years lucky to not cook any speakers yet.

Tubes are expensive and fragile so adding more and more is very expensive.  That was the fundamental battle.

I have had good tube amplifiers and enjoyed them, but they do have a voice and there are compromises. It all boils down to compromises.

If you chase numbers and specifications and that is all I feel sorry for you.  For myself I understand the limits of such and you have to restrain yourself.  I like listening to music I have owned for decades and hear new things, or at least things as I remember them.  I am amazed that I can listen to a recording I have not heard for 30 years and remember every song.

Last night I dusted of Ian Thomas’ “Glider” a strange and beautiful record.  The sound was amazing and clear and I truly enjoyed it with my old machines.

The battles are far from over and now include Mosfets and class A Amps in transistors and tube triodes and many other things. Switching amps are interesting and theoretically very capable.  Those are often called Class D with the D taken as digital, though there are not really that.

It is fun that many classic expensive designs can be bought as kits from China as patents and copyrights have expired.  I will troll those places and wonder if I really want one of those.  I like to build things.  Then I put on a record and relax.

Anyway it is interesting but you have to remember that this is all about enjoying the music. 

My current system:

Sony 2251 la turntable with a grace 707 arm and a Signet TK7E and a tweaked mat.

SAE MK 30 (III) preamp ( AR SP12 is sick)

Dynaco 416 black box tweaked as detailed on an earlier post.

Ordinary heavy gauge wires.

Funky Speakers that I designed and built based on concepts developed in the 1970s by Mr. Carlsson.