Re: [ARSCLIST] Stereo records.

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "phillip holmes" <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Robert Hodge" <rjhodge@xxxxxxx>
> > And reproduced through a pair of 3 inch speakers 10 inches apart at each
> > booth. 70 volt lines.
> > AARGH !
> This is THE HIGH END with many retro audiophiles.  The movement started in
> Japan, home of ultra collecting and obscurity.  Someone, probably a QC
guy,
> who, eaten up with kaizen and W. Edward Deming hero worship, went to the
> source of all things quality, Western Electric.  I mean that--they pretty
> much invented statistical process control, even though it wasn't called
that
> back then.  You have to imagine the pressure of laying transoceanic lines
> with repeaters that have to be perfect, or it's your ass (horse head in
your
> bed)!  The cat's meow for these ultra retro guys:  Alnico V full range
> drivers, driven by single ended amps (class A, one tube, preferably 300b,
> 2a3 or 45).  Some even are resurrecting field coils.  Come to think of it,
a
> Japanese company, Audio Note, produces a moving coil cartridge with a
field
> coil in lieu of a permanent magnet.  I think it sells for $15,000 and you
> have to run extra wires to your cartridge.  The single ended full range
> setups do have a midrange magic about them, but that would be because they
> don't have any treble or bass, and I do mean NO treble or bass.  Just
> imagine listening to everything on those little review speakers built into
> the R2R decks.  But, they sure do sound good with 78s.
>
Two thoughts...
1) The whole point of using tube amplifiers is the fact that what distortion
they do create is much more pleasant to listen to than the distortion
of solid-state amplifiers (in fact, it may be that tube amps need to
be driven slightly into distortion to produce their desired sound!).
As a blues harmonica player, I WANT an overdriven, distorted sound...
and, as a result, have to use small tube amps (I can overdrive my
only solid-state amp, but the results grate on my nerves!). I would
assume this is because an overdriven tube amp produces a distorted
waveform, but NOT one resembling a square wave (tubes approach
cut-off gradually)...while an overdriven tranistor simply goes
so far and no farther, producing pseudo-square wave output?!

2) It would seem to me that if field coils are being used as they
once were (they were also the filter chokes for the B+ supply)...
using them would lead to problems with audible hum? Of course, for
$15,000 they could afford to provide a filtered-DC supply for the
field coil(s)...

Steven C. Barr