[Jukebox-list] Audio question

[Ron Rich]

Jimmy,
  Thanks for your opinion--that is pretty much the same as I thought--but with my bad ears, I was just wondering what I could have been missing all these years--
  On the "B" button--diga check with the usuall suspects---and don't forget Victory Glass--they sometimes have stuff like that--
  Ron Rich

Jimmy Day <recordhound at verizon.net> wrote:
  I'm not much of a "talker" in here, but I do "listen". Anyway, couldn't 
help but add my dollars' worth here (inflation, you know).

This discussion about "high fidelity". The classic definition of the 
"perfect amplifier" is "straight wire with gain". Any "colorization", etc. 
such as warm tube sound, warm vinyl sound, is deviating from the perfect 
amplifier. Straight wire with gain.

Personally, I hear no difference between tube and solid-state amplifiers. 
Audio is audio. Tubes do distort differently, but distortion of ANY kind, 
second-harmonic, intermodulation, whatever, is a definite no-no in ANY true 
high fidelity system. I see audiophiles go ape over certain audio tubes 
because of their plate structure. Especially these 12AX7 tubes. Shrug. 
These are low-level amplifier tubes. I put a set of EH 6973s in the Seeburg 
Q and compared them with the RCA type - and durn if "I" could tell which 
sounded better. Or worse. The EH (Russian) tubes have a smaller plate 
structure. I sold some old audio tubes on eBay and had dozens of emails 
inquiring the shape of the getter. And special capacitors and resistors 
that give a resonant clarity to the audio. Does the color of a wire's 
insulation affect it's sonic characteristics? And are audio gurus still 
using magic markers to darken the edges of a CD in the belief that this will 
eliminate reflected RF and improve the fidelity? It's an interesting study 
in human psychology.

The weakest links in any analog audio reproducing system are the 
transducers; the microphone that converts sound energy to electrical energy, 
the cutter head, playback pickup, and speaker system, that converts 
electrical to mechanical.

Some say that a 20w tube amp puts out more power than a 20w solid-state 
amplifier. Sure. So maybe that means that a 1000w space heater uses less 
electricity than a 1000w electric iron. They both give a warm feeling.

And what is it with these single-end triode power amplifiers? Oxygen-free 
speaker cables? We had a home theater system installed in one of our 
houses, and the installer said we must use special gold-plated speaker 
connectors, lest we degrade our audio quality. When I asked him about the 
hundreds of connections inside the amplifier that were soldered with (GASP) 
tin/lead solder, he had no answer.

As for our old jukeboxes - probably the most important thing, next to 
reliablity, was that they sound good. And loud. Every jukebox I have ever 
heard sounded very good, even my RO 424 with its germanium amp. Good 
needles, good records, adjusted correctly, they all sound good.

And that's my $'s worth!

Now back to work on the DS100...and I still need a "B" keyboard button... 

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