Magico / Spectral and Just what is this soullessness stuff anyway?
[See the Magico / Spectral room review in the last post]
What does it mean when a system is said to be soulless?
We will try here to describe ‘soul’ in some way better than the ‘know it when you hear it’ kind of way.
Can we design a system so that it will likely have soul? Or do we have to rely on that ‘miracle occurs’ luck that plays so large a part in high end audio these days?
The pat answer has been that tubes have soul and transistors do not. The technical specification junkies say, in a somewhat derogatory manner, it is the 2nd-order harmonic distortion of tubes that people call ‘soul’.
Certainly dropping a tube pre or amp into a system can often add soul – and a very few components like the Joule Electra amps and Audio Aero CD players *always* add a World of soul to any system [just hooked up the Audio Aero LaSource directly to the Edge Reference solid-state amps. Very soulful and very different than the Audio Note, or even Lamm, approach to tube-powered sound]
Some small part of soulful music may indeed have something to do with 2nd-order harmonics – but I believe that there are many technical aspects of tube sound that are more Real than what solid-state can typically reproduce. It is these technical feats that should give the solid-state folks some hope that someday that can match, and even surpass, what can be done with tube-based architectures.
What do we mean when we say a system has ‘soul’?
Essentially [love that word ;-0] it means that the emotional aspect of the music is readily accessible by the listener. In practice this usually means the emotional state that the musician is trying to convey through the music .. love, angst, suspense, release, anger, passion, etc. – often combinations of these and many emotions may be found throughout more complex [emotionally] pieces of music. When you realize that the number of possible emotions is a very large [uncountable finite if we are going to be picky] number – and that we have the capacity to vicariously experience and enjoy these emotions [even the bad ones. Horror movies anyone?] you can begin to understand why people LOVE to listen to music [and read and watch movies].
Soulless music reproduction systems, like that in the Magico / Spectral room at RMAF 2010, however, have little or no emotionally accessible component.
What technical aspects of musical reproduction are required to convey emotion?
After thinking about this for a long time – it appears that much of the emotional content [as opposed to the aesthetic content, an area where tubes also best solid-state] is found in the attack and decay of each note.
Suspense, for example, is the slight delay of the note relative to the beat of the music [which solid-state can do fine] combined with the swelling of the note in a somewhat more rapid manner so that the note at maximum SPL itself appears exactly on the beat.
It is [for sake of argument] the emotional importance assigned to the note attack / decay by the listener – the parts of the note that solid-state gets completely wrong [very slight exaggeration :-)] -that tubes [can] do well, that makes tubes able to convey emotional content so much more competently than solid-state.
In Conclusion
So, yeah, seems like systems have to rely on tubes have no soul.. But there is no immediately obvious reason why SS cannot someday surpass tubes. It is quite a challenge – but maybe, if these SS guys can get it into their heads that music has soul [emotion] and audio reproduction equipment should be able convey this to the listener [and that harmonic distortion is almost completely meaningless in the context of music (as opposed to ‘sound’)] then maybe they will get to fracking work and make SS amplification a Real contender in this hobby.
many aspect of sound is relation of amplfier design with speaker design and i do not say solidstate sound problem solve with pairing it with match speaker but many problems in macro scale refer to matching of speaker and amplifier.
🙂
regards
Amir
Hi Amir,
Yes, you could well be 100% right. If not for the fact that it would be slap in the face [and a comment on their laziness and comfort with the status-quo] of all solid-state amp designers, and perhaps a gross over-simplification, one could say that ALL SS amp problems are with the output transformer stage and the inability of SS amps to drive 99% of the speakers out there [where by DRIVE I do NOT mean ‘throw watts at’, which they all do, but to *control* the speaker and make its output isomorphic with the amplifiers input].
Oops, that was kind of a long sentence…
It is the similarity between bad digital and bad SS that got me wondering and inspired me to write some of the extremely speculative text about SS input-matching capabilities being limited to discrete linear patches – but output transformer design weaknesses is probably a much better place for us to attach blame for our SS woes.
So, yeah, easy to drive speakers paired with the best SS capable of decent micro-dynamics are most of the way there [but not quite. Try SS on Avantgarde speakers for example. Say 1st watt Pass Labs. It’ll be tuneful and good – but not very capable of emotional content delivery].
And Kharma speakers, which I think you are also referring to, are an interesting exception: they are hard to drive but they are naturally capable of communicating emotion [and uniquely, in my experience. Sonus Faber speakers are naturally sweet sounding – but not really emotional] – so their demands on the amplifier are somewhat relaxed with respect to requiring tube amps to sound soulful.
Hope things are well with you!
Take care,
-Mike
I think you have to be extremely careful with your metaphors, people are bound to take you seriously on the SS straight lines and tube curves. I think what you are trying to say is that good tube amplifiers are simply more accurate. An accurately amplified signal should also contain all the fine nuances that make up a great performance and create an emotional impact.
Good point, umea101.
I have now seriously demarked the metaphor area zone…
Well, on further thought, maybe I’ll just excise that part out to the Maybe Someday Yeah Right bit bucket.
Thanks for your post!
-Mike
My friends say my JBL TOWERS with a big Technics amp (i dont think it has tubes) rock with soul. Could that be the beer influencing their decisions?
Mike
about matching i should say my idea is not about ability of an amplifier in driving a speaker.
good driving speaker is the first step of good sound but the main subject is comunicating amplifier with speaker.
speaker driver response to an amplifier design will produce the final sonic result that i think is very complex subject and is very variable.
I think each speaker driver will produce variable macro result with a different amplifier design type thought about micro linearity i have less hope to see larger scale variation in the final result.
regards
Amir
Hi Your Rich Uncle…
Well, as we all know, the best beer often comes in what can only be considered to be, with which any casual observer would have to agree, tubes, albeit Upside-down Tubes. So you may not have realized it at the time, but certainly, yes, your listening sessions are tube powered and have soul baby…
🙂
The previous post about DRUG-like systems did indeed include the possibility of traditional methods [e.g. beer] of adding soul to our music playback sessions. It has the added benefits that you don’t even need a stereo in order for it to work…any source of music will do, it’s inexpensive, and can be found on nearly very corner. The downside is that it can cause belching, distracting from the music experience, and one has to find a way to dispose of all those empties.
Thanks for your post 🙂
-Mike
Hi Amir,
I am not sure what you are referring to with respect to ‘amplifier design’. Do you mean BJT versus MOSFETS-based etc. designs – which I guess includes 300B versus 211 versus 6C33C versus etc. tube-based designs? Do you mean for a given type of amp – class D for example – that the circuit design used is the primary influence on the sound? [I think you are studying for your EE degree, or E tech degree [much more interesting, having taken EE classes myself which taught me nothing about building amps :-)], right? and so I think you must be thinking about circuit designl
Certainly the amp-speaker interface is the most important aspect of any system – but I like to try and ignore the technical aspects of the amp design – if that is what you are referring to – and focus on the quality of the amp vis-a-vis the goal we are using the amp to try and achieve.
For example, as we know [per our long threads after CES about micro-dynamics], the vast majority of amplifiers are terrible at reproducing music no matter which speaker is used, but very good at making loud impressive noises – so if we are going to build a Muscle system then these are the amps we would want to use… otherwise we would not.
Of course, we do want our music to be loud and impressive when called for… and we call upon our music-capable amps to do double duty. I prefer to think of this as the quality of the amps as opposed to their design… mostly because every amp has a different design, so there is no conceptual leverage gained by thinking about the design as opposed to the results of the design, and the categorization and measurement of those results, which is an incredibly rich conceptualization. Or perhaps I really did misunderstand what you are saying…
Anyway, glad to see you here…
Take care,
-Mike
I am new to this ultra-high world having entered it via an attraction, shall I say life-long adiction to the heart and soul of music..all music..but especially and now that I am somewhat removed from pop culture, live classical organ and orchestra heavily weighted to Bach and the French Symphonic Organ and the Romantics Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart and Mozart…the usual suspects all of which led to the Wilson X-2 and the subsequent upgrade and now the unanticipated search for associated components to bring out the best in them..especially the magic of orchestral strings..fullness, smoothness, and the detail of separate instruments and players. Though what follows is definitely NOT of the electronic sophistication of previous comments and can be succinctly stated in the preceding words of nmea101, which I qoute below, I continue:
“I think you [Mike] have to be extremely careful with your metaphors…. I think what you are trying to say is that good tube amplifiers are simply more accurate. An accurately amplified signal should also contain all the fine nuances that make up a great performance and create an emotional impact.”
I [Jim-Encinitas] second that and seem on a collision course with the Ongaku I heard in the Audio Federation Boulder showroom driving a pair of Marten Supremes a couple weeks ago and then again, after a slow warmup on the Marten Coltrane’s in the RMAF. They were starting to come really alive to my ear by the end of the second day and the synergy with associated components was just beginning to bloom by Saturday night when I had to leave.
Not having done the exhaustive comparisons that seem, probably rightly, to have established tubes as the holy grail, but believing sufficiently in “probably rightly” to be about to put My money where THEIR (tubed afficionados) mouth is based on the reality that the most supreme sounds that I have yet heard, including RMAF, were from partially or totally tube-based systems, let me weigh in briefly on tube vs SS using an ANALOGY
[WARNING: Analogies can be even more dangerous than metaphors, the latter callling on wit and the imagination whereas analogies tend to claim the legitimacy of rational, scientific methods – of empircal thinking]
Music, voice, and moving visual images emanate in a continuum that can be digitally captured (1/0) in sampled segments where the captured segment size (sample size) varies, as does the frequency (sample rate). It stands to reason that as the technology advances to accommodate increases in data capture and storage capacity, and throughput, and as sensors advance to correspond exactly to the character of the human eye and ear (setting aside the transmission lines and characters of the human nervous system) it will become possible to recreate sounds and images (and moving images, which are more analogous to sounds in that they are associated with motion) that humans perceive exactly as if “live.” And this explains why Robert Lee of Acoustic Zen, Audio Federation Partner, believes his personally developed tweeter combined with other speaker components in his reasonably priced line iscapable of playing back up to 95% what he hears in live violin, not 100% though he says, only because “I didn’t make the microphone”. He relies on the TRUTH of his 40 years playing the violin as a member of and in attendance at live performances continually.
ANALOGY: Analogy drawn from digital photographyh. Prior to digitally converting its 30-million plus historical fingerprint card files including the likes of John Dillinger, et.al and contemplating retiring all actual fingerprint cards, old and new, FBI forensic analysts insisted that there was more data in the actual card print than could be captured photographically or digitally with existing technology. More than a decade ago – early 90’s actually, over a several year period during which digital photography technology advanced, and because digital imaging technology apparently can and did and continues to surpass the ability of the human eye to see within a limited field of vision, the FBI accepted and adopted digital fingerprint technology even granting that certain characteristics of the “live” print associated with a person’s pores and other physical nuances of the print that went beyond the visible even highly magnified (requiring more pixels than were possible at the time or even today, perhaps). So for IAFIS (Integrated, Automated Fingerprint Identification System) implementation was accomplished with a presumed adequate digitized image standard but the FBI still saved (and sent to West Virginia via the auspices of millions of $$ in earmarks from Senator Byrd to build the storage facility there) all existing and newly created fingerprint cards, (a tour will take you to Al Capone’s card and John Dillinger’s card) just in case and for when technology got so good as to make the cards obsolete.
I think the analogy applies in that analog sound capture devices and photographic image capture devices, subject to limitations of microphones and lens (ears and eyes), capture and convey “data” that is faced with the same conversion challenges. In addition, however, I believe that, due to the limitations of the human eye and its field of vision etc., it is probable that sound, and especially large orchestral sounds in performing venues pose challenges of information size, given the combination of data density per microsecond as well as delta speed and change that continue to defy the digital world and do so far more than do still photographs. [What is the audio equivalent of a 12 mega pixel camera? A 30 megapixel camera? what is enough? When will the audio world get there?] But it takes a discriminating ear, one trained in live performance, to know the live standard. Otherwises pseudo standards arise. God bless America says the audio industry. We will shape the public’s tastes to what we can make, and then through advertising and cleverness convert America to what sells food…large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt, served up with attractive packaging and portioned into just what everybody likes be it Cinnabuns, chicken tenders with sauce, toffee peanuts, and In-N-Out Burgers. (yes, the “secret” sauce and those buns do have sugar!
I’ve come to believe, but only as I’ve increased attendance at live orchestral concerts, that high-end analogue/tube gear can at its best improve on the best that Analogue to Digital Conversion can do in today’s SS market and so am about to wade in..or feels more like jump off a cliff with a tube amp purchase for the X-2s. My association with Audio Federation, Mike and Neli’s commitment, compassion, personalized manner and blog site and yes even RMAF demo, bear sole responsibility. I’m enjoying every step in this stage of the journey and can’t wait to get to the destination, be it interim or final: As in all things, “You get what you settle for.” (Thelma and Louise, movie, 1991 Louise Sawyer/Susan Sarandon speaking of husbands.)
Dear Mike
amplifier design structure parameters like output impedance (frequency curve), it’s non linearity versus power and frequency , it’s negative feedback and … all communicate with speaker impedance and the result is very variable.