What HiFi humiliation and QUAD discussion

[Brian]

I was digging up audio patents in the late 70's when I was in high school, in the days when the only place I could get a manufacturer's data sheets or application notes was from a manufacturer's book from a state library after making a request and waiting 20 minutes for them to unearth said book from whatever dungeon it was kept in. Back then I remember finding that Mesa-Boogie had a patent on a class A-B valve guitar amplifier, the amplifier was in production and was a known good one at that time. Then in the late 80's I would trade some local produce with the chief technician at the local hospital for datasheets, he had internet access (at work), that was cool, I didn't even have a computer, nor did anyone I knew.

Have you two ever tried valve amps? Just wondering what you think of them, do you think they are a relic of the past or do they have merit?

I am running a Chinese made valve amp approx 10W/channel that cost around $200 that I am happy with. I bought it because it was cheap and would give a base to experiment from, but it ended up being the best stereo amp I have owned. I am not an audiophile, so keep that in mind. Using a shotgun in my teens to control vermin and playing in rock bands for approx 15 years has caused slight damage to my hearing. Ironically, that damage makes me look for clarity in sound, rather than be oblivious to clarity.

[Fred]

With regards "the best audio system" it is very personal. If your goal is to hear it how they intend you to hear it it becomes cold and scientific.

Valve amps CAN be true to source, but most are not. Most valve amps introduce a large amount of 2nd harmonic distortion to the output. While this sounds nice (harmony) it isn't what the artist/producer was making at all.

They definitely have their place between a guitar and a microphone, but other than that they mostly have SEVERE limitations to their performance (not the splitting hairs type thing me and Dave are arguing about ;-) )

The main thing is : you are happy with it! If that is the case, you are winning ;-)

Let me put it another way :

You have the choice of two near identical corollas, one boring, stock, unmodified, cold starts perfectly etc, the other has an EMS that you built and tuned yourself and works better in some ways and worse in others. Which would you prefer to drive? That's how I see it. I like listening to music out of home built gear like I like driving MS cars :-)

Fred.

[AbeFM]

http://www.laurontech.com/specs/LT-PCI-104-CF-SPEC.pdf

Ah, yes, NerdCandy.

I've always thought I'd get rich making a 4-8 disc RAID5 array which took microSDs and put them into a CF slot.

But then I remembered I'm really lazy.