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A Tiny History of Hi-Fi

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 8:29 pm
by rtsyrtsy

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 7:09 am
by mozilla
Uy! Ano 'to?

The enduring classic of this era is the well-loved Dynaco Stereo 70, with over 500,000 in production over 30 years. Although the circuit of this amplifier is hardly sophisticated or even particularly linear, a carefully-restored Stereo 70 still sounds better than many high-end amplifiers made today!
:twisted:

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 9:11 am
by joe3rp
That is why Master Rivoe...alias Kondo of Makati... E"B"R - Magician looka-alike...hardly touches the circuit!

As everyone agrees....Rene knows tubes!

Idol!

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 9:31 am
by rtsyrtsy
Here are my favorite tidbits for those with limited time to read through the article:

The major advancements of the Thirties came from the movie industry...The Hollywood studios were vertically integrated businesses, with each studio owning their own chain of theaters. This meant the studio controlled everything from the performer, to the microphone, to the auditorium, and everything in between.


And to think I "abandoned" home theater for good ole 2 channel stereo! I'm an ingrate!

The introduction of the Western Electric 300A and 300B direct-heated power triode, RCA 45, 50, and 2A3 directly-heated power triodes, and RCA 27, 56, 76, 6P5, 6J5, and 6SN7 family of indirectly-heated triodes. Sixty years later, these devices continue to be the lowest distortion amplifying elements ever made. No pentode, bipolar transistor, JFET, or MOSFET has ever approached the distortion performance of mid-Thirties triodes. In addition to low distortion in the absolute sense, the distortion spectra of triodes is favorable, with a rapid fall-off of the upper harmonics.


Umm, this ain't news, right? :D

One day, just maybe, we'll see a modern speaker with a copper pole piece and an Alnico or electro-magnet. This would be very interesting and would combine the virtues of the Thirties, Fifties, and Nineties all in one driver.


Attention Dai-Ichi!

the era from the early Fifties to the mid-Sixties represents a high-water mark for musical and technical broadcast quality, which has never been equalled before or since


Anybody locally doing this?

The "Establishment" Stereophile you see today bears no resemblance in style or content to the sassy, funny, and contrarian earlier magazine.


Who has copies of these really old Stereophiles? I'd be very interested in reading them. :D

Walt Jung's important article about capacitor sonics in Audio Amateur. This article put "passive" components under the microscope for the first time, and surprise, they turned out to be a major source of subjective coloration. Capacitors have easily measured differences in Dielectric Absorption (DA) and Dissipation Factor (DF). Teflon, polypropylene, and polycarbonate are best, and electrolytic, ceramics, and solid tantalums are the worst.


These days, it's a choice between solid-foil Polypropylene or exotic Silver/Oil caps if you want the best sound. Yes, they may cost as much as the tweeter itself, and it'll be worth it. Much more cost-effective than messing with cables.


DIYers, thoughts?

The home-theater boom of the Nineties underlines this. These gadgets don't play music at all; they measure well and all that, but music? It's like there's a hidden MP3 processor in there, stripping away 90% of the content, leaving behind a music-like shell with nothing in it. I have no clue how the home-theater people do it, but music has a real struggle getting through these things. Dialog, sound effects, car crashes, phaser blasts, you bet. Music? Nope.


Amen!

Like ancient Gaul, the audio market has split into three parts: home-theater (the bread and butter for almost every dealer), high-end (for true believers in the glossy magazines), and last but certainly least in terms of market share, equipment optimized for music playback.


Where do you belong?

This is where well publicized regional hifi shows can make a real difference. Another idea would be adult-education classes through local community colleges, similar to existing classes in Wine Appreciation or Gourmet Cooking. There's no reason that music-appreciation classes in Quality Audio couldn't be offered in the same way, with advanced classes offering hands-on instruction in kit-building. All you have to do is connect music lovers with genuine high fidelity, show them it doesn't have to cost absurd prices or turn the home into an engineering lab, and they'll figure out the rest.


Anything Pinoydiophiles can do towards this end?

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 9:48 am
by mozilla
rtsyrtsy wrote:Here are my favorite tidbits for those with limited time to read through the article:

the era from the early Fifties to the mid-Sixties represents a high-water mark for musical and technical broadcast quality, which has never been equalled before or since



Just as I said in another thread. In the golden years of audio, people were more concerned about music rather than today's trend towards "hifi" and marketing choochoo!

BTW, did someone say that at the forefront of this was the BBC! :twisted: :twisted: Fire away!!! :lol:

Golden "Age"of Audio

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 10:21 am
by ichabod
Yes, you can say that again Grant! We should be busier about the music than "hifying" our way through. If you guys don't mind, I have a post wrongly entered on page one on the question "forward or laid back."

According to Herb Reichert, the golden age of audio was during the tube era. Kaya ako "Dynaco" na rin. Pero teka, trans ata yung mabili ko sa ebay. Mali ata. Sige nalang preamp naman ay "valves" pa rin. I likethe term better, and it's the British way of putting it.

Someone overhears a conversation about "tubes." And he eargerly blurts out: "I know about tubes, that's from Jersey to New York." No mi quero seriouso this time!

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 11:40 am
by mozilla
Bai, don't forget tube blouse! :twisted:

"tube blouse"

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 12:32 pm
by ichabod
Why of course, that's more analogue and romantic to behold!

Grant, don't start it here, please. It's enough to know everything about audio, the "tube hose" este blouse pala is for the imagination!!!

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2003 1:56 pm
by mozilla
Ok bai, I will confine my comments to the ST-70 a.k.a. Sexy Tramp LOL! :lol:

Hmmm..I wonder if I get her some tube blouse, este, tube sox pala. :twisted:

PostPosted: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:13 am
by johnmarc0
...and speakers followed the lead of AR and KLH ...


Hey I still own a KLH, I thought this speaker was totally forgotten!

PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:05 pm
by m_shoe_maker
rtsyrtsy wrote:
The "Establishment" Stereophile you see today bears no resemblance in style or content to the sassy, funny, and contrarian earlier magazine.


Who has copies of these really old Stereophiles? I'd be very interested in reading them. :D


You should try reading The Absolute Sound magazines when there were still small pocketbooks! Specifically, the first ones that came out in just Black and White paper. :P No colored advertisements to mar the thinking of the reviewers. :)

These were the days when TAS was still considered "underground" material, not to mention still credible. During those days, you could read a Reviewer bluntly saying bad things about products that sound bad.

It was really funny because during those days, reviewers were free to express their real feelings about a certain product. You should see their harsh adjectives :P and unethical way to bastardize a manufacturer. :P I loved it! :lol:

That's why good early stuff were "Gold Standards" rather than today's "Flavor of the Month", whether it sounded good or bad.

Today, its easy to be in the list of "Recommended Components". Give free samples, not to mention a lot of advertisements to the magazine.

If only Konka would advertise at Stereophile and TAS, I'm sure it will be considered under the recommended list. Knowing gullible audiophiles, Konkas would sell like pancakes. :lol:

PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 9:32 am
by rtsyrtsy
Can anyone spare such old copies for a couple of days? :D

PostPosted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 7:00 am
by vintage_dog
mozilla wrote:
rtsyrtsy wrote:Here are my favorite tidbits for those with limited time to read through the article:

the era from the early Fifties to the mid-Sixties represents a high-water mark for musical and technical broadcast quality, which has never been equalled before or since



Just as I said in another thread. In the golden years of audio, people were more concerned about music rather than today's trend towards "hifi" and marketing choochoo!


I guess that's how I really got hooked into vintage amps...they are very musical, perhaps not as accurate and "hifi" as my other SET amps, but just so involving..
on some lazy evenings where i just want to lounge and enjoy the music...i pull out one of my "classic" amps and just fire them away :)

when i have a small group of non-audiophile friends drop by, i usually have one of my lovely EL84 PP amp play the music at the background; and when i want to awe them on imaging, transparency, etc....i have them listen to my SETs. :)

PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 10:09 am
by av_phile
Based on that article, it appaears that the concept of High Fidelity or Hi-Fi traces its roots all the way bacl almost from the very beginneing. I though it was exclusively a 60s term. In the process, every new pioneering development was greeted as a milestone in the march to Hi-Fi nirvana. The objectives were clear: captiure a muisical performance as faithfully as possible and reproduce it as faithfully as possible in the homes. That faithfulness to the original is called fidelity to the original, hence the name. And for me. that is all that matters in plunging into this hobby.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 6:01 am
by FASTBACK
Oops I made a duplicate thread at the audio section, silly me. Sorry po.

Here's my link:

http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/tinyhistory1.html

http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/tinyhistory2.html

Image

PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:45 am
by sandawa
The "Establishment" Stereophile you see today bears no resemblance in style or content to the sassy, funny, and contrarian earlier magazine.


Who has copies of these really old Stereophiles? I'd be very interested in reading them. :D

Finally, a comment I was waiting for. I've had copies of old Stereophiles and was surprised about five years ago, after not checking out newer copies for about a decade, to find the new ones very different from the originals I used to read back in the '80s.

The old Stereophile was more like TAS in content - fearless, critical and objective - while the new ones are worse than the old Stereo Review, High Fidelity, or Audio. The high-end gears are still there but it's quite obvious, it now favors the advertisers more than its readers.

PostPosted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 4:45 pm
by av_phile
I think they've learned that advertising dollars can bring them more often to the bank to deposit than being pro-consumers with fearless objective reviews.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:34 pm
by planarribbon
ah, eto na po... i got my intro to audiophilia because i ran into a stray copy of "the absolute sound" when it was still a "reader's digest" - style magazine format. they had ads, then, but you could tell that customer satisfaction outweighed advertising dollars.
even then, though, you could tell harry pearson's (he was still editor) deep contempt and disappointment with the way stereophile was (do i dare say the phrase?) selling out. and then, afterward, ayun, harry pearson left the editorial duties, and TAS is slowly going the way of commercialization. hay, the temptations of the flesh rule us all. ngayon, no one, it seems, can hardly say a critical word, much less a critical review, for fear of offending the advertisers.

tama nga si billy joel "honesty is such a lonely word. every one is so untrue."

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:44 pm
by sandawa
i agree with you. i still have old copies of TAS when it was Reader's Digest size and like Stereophile, it now looks more like the British hifi mags that show a lot of colors and biases. unfortunately, my old TAS files, roughly two-year copies when i was a subscriber, were eaten by termites in my farm house here in Davao.

still i have a few copies of the old small-size but fearless TAS (early to mid 90s), including the issues that trashed Oracle Delphi, Audio Note's Ongaku, as well as other hi-end brands. it was nice to read TAS back then, especially when their staffers exchange insulting letters with the manufacturers/distributors (who lent them the units for review). in other words, walang patawad!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:08 pm
by JackD201
Mods please move to Tech Archive. Tnx guys!