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