The power of pessimistic expectations to alter the future?

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To be honest, I found this article by Tali Sharot a little dull until I read:

“The problem with pessimistic expectations, such as those of the clinically depressed, is that they have the power to alter the future; negative expectations shape outcomes in a negative way. How do expectations change reality?

To answer this question my colleague, cognitive neuroscientist Sara Bengtsson, devised an experiment in which she manipulated positive and negative expectations of students while their brains were scanned and tested their performance on cognitive tasks. To induce expectations of success, she primed college students with words such as smart, intelligent and clever just before asking them to perform a test. To induce expectations of failure, she primed them with words like stupid and ignorant. The students performed better after being primed with an affirmative message.”

The idea that negative expectations can shape outcomes in a negative way upsets the idea of the necessity of pessimism or at least tempered realism. In other words, could what would otherwise be a constructive effort to create a positive effect be upset by negative expectations preceding the effort?

If this is true it places even greater importance on prior expectation and outlook. It’s all too easy to say, “Well, I probably won’t be able to improve my golf game, but I’m going to try.” and then contend that the statement constitutes a realistic outlook that’s supported by the willingness to put forth an honest effort. That statement doesn’t feel pessimistic to the person who made it (me).

This all seems like more support for Dr, Seligman’s advice to make the narrative more positive, and to use that positivity and the beginning of the narrative.

The power of pessimistic expectations to alter the future?

Revisionist History is Alive & Well at Golf Digest

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Question: Did Martha Burk, who wrote a letter to Augusta in 2002 and led a protest in 2003, help or hurt the cause?

Answer: I think Burk set back the process by years.

Sometimes a troubling bit of revisionism can reside in a single sentence. The question quoted above was posed by Golf Digest. The answer was provided by Golf Digest Editor, Marcia Chambers. As is often the case with revisionism, I have every confidence most readers will have missed it, or at least will wonder how it could possibly be relevant.

Chamber’s response revises history by her use of the word, process. Her sentence makes it appear that prior to Martha Burk there was a process in place at Augusta National to admit women members. This would be analogous to the contention that Rosa Parks set back the process pf racial desegregation by refusing to sit in the back of the bus in Alabama back in 1955.

Quite simply, organizations, whether golf clubs or municipal transit companies, do not like to be told what to do.

As I grow older, even small examples of revisionism are troubling to me. It’s easy for me to imagine a young person reading Chambers’ quote and imagining Burk as a common rabble-rouser just out to make trouble.

The PGA Tour’s history does not allow for much leeway when it comes to issues of equality. The end of its Caucasian Clause came in the year of my birth, 1961. It feels real to me since its stain continued into my own time.

Too long ago for you?

In 1984, Shoal Creek Country Club hosted the PGA Championship. At the time, the club had no black members. It is stunning to think that the PGA of 1984 wasn’t savvy enough to be aware of that fact at the time. If that’s easy enough to forgive, how can we forget that when 1990 rolled around the PGA again awarded Shoal Creek with its most prestigious tournament?

Though six years had passed, there were still no black members at Shoal Creek.

Fortunately, the Martha Burks of that time and place were not silent: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference threatened a boycott and sponsors like IBM pulled millions of dollars of commercial advertising from the broadcast. In a matter of weeks, Shoal Creek hastily accepted a local black businessman as an honorary member.

The only difference between Shoal Creek and Augusta National is muscle. In 1990, Shoal Creek feared both financial loss and a damaged reputation. Augusta did a simple calculation based upon the immense wealth of their brand and decided to weather what in the end was merely a bothersome squall of adverse of public opinion.

But know this:

Had Martha Burk stayed silent in 2002, today poor Condi Rice would probably be teeing it up at her local muny. The truth is Martha Burk started the very process Marcia Chambers now says she delayed.

Augusta National is a singularly magnificent golf course. Its co-founder, one of the great gentleman of sport this country has even known. But, its history is always complex and sometimes conflicted.

Marcia Chambers, by way of an implication, brought by a single word in one sentence, has only added to that complexity.

A comment from Martha Burk:

Thank you very much. The piece is a concise and very accurate frame, not only of Chambers’ statement but of the Shoal Creek situation and the response re ANGC. Maybe now that female members are allowed, the asterisk will be removed from the “official” PGA tour event list — an exception they carved our for Augusta in the wake of Shoal Creek when Augusta opened to African American men, but no women, contrary to the new PGA policy against race and sex discrimination. As you know, some clubs dropped out of the tour rather than admit women, but Augusta got to have it both ways.

As for Chambers, I am puzzled. She and I were in contact during the controversy, and she seemed to be entirely with me and what I was doing.  Her book, The Unplayable LIe, had called attention to the problem of sex discrimination in golf long before I got involved.

Again, thanks for an honest and straightforward critique.

Martha Burk

Revisionist History is Alive & Well at Golf Digest

Cognitive Optimism Versus Zen Wisdom: A Buddhist answer to cognitive persuasion and control

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This article by Andrea F. Polard Psy.D. got me thinking and feeling.

“Instead of trying to persuade ourselves to thinking positive, the Zen approach is to ask ourselves, ‘Who is it that needs persuasion?’ The idea is to question the way we experience ourselves and others before we even look at the particular negative thought or event. Zen questioning is there to find perspective. Usually we suffer unnecessarily because our perspective is very, very limited, namely the perspective of being a separate person. Our brain produces the illusion of separateness because it wishes to control the concrete world. While this is a fantastic survival strategy, it disconnects us from our community and from the expansive feeling of being related to everybody and everything. Once we get a sense of who we truly are, namely this being connected to the greater Being, we look at the particular, small experience with wisdom. We don’t have to take it so seriously anymore. Just looking at our inner experience from the perspective of Being causes us to relax and smile.”

I’m all for keeping my thoughts and feelings in perspective relative to the world around me. Where her article starts to give me pause is when she writes, “…there is no evidence that our thoughts are at the top of a hierarchy inside the brain.” They sure aren’t. Feelings of fear trumps logic when it comes to someone who fears flying. And, rage has no need for ideas. No matter where our thoughts reside within the brain’s hierarchy, these most troublesome feelings and emotions reside near the bottom but that doesn’t mean they’re not hugely powerful. That’s why a cat, even though it lacks a fully developed frontal lobe, can still be desperately fearful and amazingly enraged (sometimes all at once).

What Pollard seems to ignore is that most of the problems of the relentless pessimist flow from a relentless blending of negative thoughts and feelings. It’s very hard to have a thought that matters without an awareness of a corresponding feeling. In the same way, we are usually quite able to correlate a feeling to a thought.

Geez, I love a good massage.

Keeping realism from becoming runaway pessimism is a matter of managing thoughts and feelings.

Both are affected by the world around me, there’s no doubt.

But only I can find the balance point between the world and what I think and feel.

Cognitive Optimism Versus Zen Wisdom: A Buddhist answer to cognitive persuasion and control

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

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In his book, Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman advises readers to minimize negative thoughts rather than trying to increase the number of positive thoughts.

This gave me the idea to make a list of the negative ideas that are floating around my head.

Negative ideas are slippery little devils. They often masquerade as neutral or realistic ideas rather than the overtly negative forces they truly are:

1) I’m getting too old to accomplish very much.2) I’ve wasted some precious opportunities (ones I could not afford to waste).3) I rely too much (in the professional realm) on other people doing things or failing to do them.4) One (or more) of my current projects seems destined to cost me rather than make money.

One of my old pals, Little Stevie, used to quote an old timer he knew: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”

I always liked that quote. The truth is that I’ve never (as an adult) felt limited by my age. Oh sure, I imagine that my age could possibly get in the way if I ever had to look for a new job, but it wouldn’t be a brick wall. Obviously, this too old feeling is pretty standard stuff. In the end, the reality of aging is what it is.Thinking about it is a genuine waste of time and energy.

Bemoaning a missed opportunity is standard issue what if stuff. Whether the opportunities were truly missed or whether another equally valid and possibly rewarding course was chosen is purely academic. The past is past.

Reliance on others is a hard one. It can true and also hard to change. I do rely on the judgments of others when it comes to my profession. Someone else pulls most of the strings. That reality flows from decisions made long ago. Still, no one attains true autonomy even though everyone says they want it.

Projects cost time and money. Even if they don’t cost actual money, time is simply money in another form. I have a friend who is terrified of trying something new (when it comes to business, especially) because he’s afraid his efforts are likely to come to nothing. Even before I cataloged my daily negativism I used his monumental resistance as motivation not to give in to his self defeatist example. In the end, I fear standing still even more than slipping backward so all of my projects are all systems go.

Most books never get published.

Most businesses fail.

But, the only certainty is that which comes from an effort never made.

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

Bowers & Wilkins A5 review

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Back in the old days high end audio products had funny little niggles. Preamps would pop when you changed inputs. Volume potentiometers often miss-tracked until they hit their sweet spot somewhere around of after noon. When I was young and foolish I asked a designer why this was true. He told me that high end products were designed to sound good. Then, once a design sounded good a little grudging attention could be paid to getting rid of niggles, at least those niggles that could be corrected without affecting the sound.
This 20th century preamble is needed to discuss the 21st century Bowers & Wilkins A5 AirPlay speaker. The A5 is quite small (a little larger than a toaster) and very stylish looking. Once out of the box I found it looking quite at home perched on a shelf that is just a little higher than ear level when I’m seated on the sofa. Bowers & Wilkins has a set-up app that got the A5 integrated into my wireless system without delay.
The Good: The good thing about the A5 is how it sounds. It is nothing short of amazing in terms of its ability to generate significant and relatively effortless sounding SPLs. I’m sure matching drivers and enclosures to amplifiers has proven to be a genuine boon to the designers at Bowers & Wilkins. Vocals are especially good, significantly better than other Wi-Fi speakers I have used of similar size. Anyone who expects more fundamental musicality than the A5 can create has unreasonable expectations. The A5 sounds superb with all kinds of music.
The Not Quite as Good: Using the A5 ties you to AirPlay and that’s being tied to a work in progress that may never get much better. AirPlay is designed to allow disparate playback systems (TVs, speakers, etc.) to function with iTunes. Now, iTunes is the 800 pound gorilla and even though I have all of my music cataloged there, as a playback manager, iTunes is lacking. 
For example, if I start a track playing on my MacBook Pro and decide to play the selection through the Bowers & Wilkins A5 I need to be very careful. Why? Because AirPlay may decide to ramp up the volume to maximum when I select the A5 for playback. Interestingly, when I use AirPlay on an isomething  (iPod? iPhone? iPad?) it always wisely reduces the volume when it connects to the A5. Worse, and everyone is free to blame this on my Wi-Fi system, the system momentarily cuts out when the MacBook or the iPhone is engaged in any other processor-intense activity (like checking my email). Lastly, and this should be taken as evidence of AirPlay’s work in progress status, when my phone rings the music stops (whether I want it to or not) and does not resume at the end of the call.
When I first learned Bowers & Wilkins was going to be making products like the A5 I was excited. I knew B&W would be willing to do the engineering heavy lifting needed to make a product that brought high end sound to 21st century expectations of convenience and interconnection. I expected Bowers & Wilkins to build something that would go head to head with Sonos and do them one better. But, while the A5 betters Sonos in musical fidelity it is significantly less advanced than Sonos when it comes to control and convenience. That’s a problem because by its nature the A5 is a convenience product. I’m sure designing and executing a Sonos-like interface would have been a huge undertaking for Bowers & Wilkins. Then again, they are a company with a unique capacity (among high end companies) for such an effort.
That’s my challenge to Bowers & Wilkins: Keep everything that’s great about the A5 but develop your own interface and do it better than Sonos.
The A5 is worth the effort.
Bowers & Wilkins A5 review

Bower & Wilkins P7 Headphone Review

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I really thought my long term reference headphones were safe from the new kid on the block, the Bowers & Wilkins P7. Sometimes safety is an illusion.
 
I was prepared to be impressed by the P7, don’t get me wrong. The truth is I’ve never heard a B&W product that wasn’t impressive. But, headphones can be very tricky. Those little drivers are just so dang close to the ears. Plus, you’re literally wearing an entire speaker system on your head.
 
Face it. There’s a lot that can go wrong. It’s easy to build headphones that sound impressive, but it’s very difficult to create headphones that sound musical. Impressive is easy because headphones always enjoy two advantages. First, the amount of air the transducers have to move is very small. Second, that small air space is defined by the designers of the headphones who know if the resulting product will be an open, closed or in-ear design. Contrast this with the designer of a speaker system who has no idea about the size, shape or construction of the room where the system will be used. All of this makes it easy to build headphones that sound impressive.
 
The problem is that it’s music that we’re after. And, because the system is on our heads, comfort. At first, the P7 reminded me the sport seats in a BMW M3. They felt snug and a little constricting. After a while they became more comfortable as the leather ear cups broke in. I do wish the cable were longer (without the extension), that it didn’t have controls wired into it, and was based soley on a quarter inch TRS connector (or something even better…hint). Indeed, reviewers are always wanting more and better. It’s a universal constant.
The musical presentation of the P7 is exceptionally tidy. They are stunningly and totally neutral from top to bottom and this can create an initial impression that they’re slightly airless. They’re not. They are dazzlingly revealing of source material which makes them as musical as any headphone I’ve ever heard. They are part reviewer’s reference and part trusted friend to music lovers. Let’s get down to some examples. “I feel like going home” is an old Charlie Rich song (yes, Charlie Rich). The song got new life and a superb treatment by Brendan Croker on the 1990cult-favorite, Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time. It is a classic country song with the vocal front and center. The P7 conveys the fullness of Croker’s strong yet plaintive voice and retrieves every detail of Mark Knopfler’s superb guitar accompaniment. Songs like these that are not too densely produced and feature a voice and a single guitar yet have a powerful bass line can sound congested. The P7 let the track breathe effortlessly; with the lingering sound of both voice and guitar so clearly and delicately captured. The bass is tight, pitch-perfect and wonderfully extended.
Again, simply dazzling.
 
Recreation of acoustic space is always a challenge for headphone simply because there’s so little space inside the ear pieces. Of course, acoustic space is actually a product of the recording process and it’s something that is not always there to be retrieved. Many times analog recordings of days gone by captured more of that space and sometimes the magic survived the transfer to CD. That is surely the case with Celedonio Romero’s sublime version of “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” from his CD An Evening of Guitar Music. This hard-to-find Delos CD was recorded in analog in 1986. The last days of analog lead to some very good CD transfers. The analog recordists knew the room was a part of the music and so they made sure the listener could experience it. Acoustic space is fragile and easy lost. The P7s convey that sense of space perfectly and it can be heard in the transients that come with the plucking of the strings and the sustained, woody resonance of the guitar. As an aside, I always advise listeners to choose one recording that features a solo stringed instrument as their first evaluation tool. Choose music you love and that’s recorded sensibly and learn its sound and magic. There’s no better way to check for essential musicality and essential musicality is what the Bowers & Wilkins P7 are all about. 

 I confess I had my doubts B&W could hit the ball out of the park especially at such a modest price point, but they have. Ever the audiophile, I can’t help but wonder if they have their sights on something even more ambitious, that perhaps the P7 is a kind of warning shot for something even better? While I await for that inspiration to take hold at B&W, I’ll be enjoying my P7s. It’s quite hard for me to imagine headphones I would enjoy more than the P7 but I still hope Bowers & Wilkins is busy working on it.
Bower & Wilkins P7 Headphone Review

Review of the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus

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For me, vacuum tube electronics have always represented a compromise but probably not in the way you would think. I believe that solid state amplification can equal the sound of vacuum tubes, but usually with a significant consequence of price. Simply put, dollar for dollar, one can garner more music with tubes than with transistors. As always there is a downside and with tubes it is often manifested in a loss of power, at least relative to the majority of the solid state offerings of today.

Audion made their name in the high end some years back with a lovely 300B mono amp called the Silver Night. Its arrival in many ways pre echoed the single-ended mania wrought by our high end compatriots in Japan. Throughout the fervent SE era there were a thoughtful few who kept asking one very key question: Where are the loudspeakers that are well suited to these amplifiers offering but a single digit of wattage? There was no viable answer. Oh, there were a few audio psychos with VOTs and a few more with a pair of Klipsch out in their garage, but no one really wanted to hear those speakers. Later of course the Lowther name was hopefully revived, but again the result was usually disappointing.

The Audion Sterling Stereo Plus is perhaps something of response to a longing for more power from a very simple tube design, and at a reasonable price. Its 18 watts comes from a single EI KT90 per channel. There is a single 6922 shared as a common input tube and a single 5687 driver, again shared by both channels. Unusually, there’s a prominent volume pot in the center of the faceplate, though the Sterling offers but one pair of inputs. The chassis, like that of the Silver Night, is of a pleasingly low profile and is quite a bit deeper than it is wide. The transformers are happily hidden from view by a similarly low profile transformer cover that is emblazoned with the Audion logo plate. The amplifier is solidly built, if not overbuilt, with a clean and efficient look about it. The rear panel connections are well done. My only quibble would be over the binding posts which, though sturdy enough, offer no method to tighten them down other than by hand. All in all, the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus is an attractive, one would almost say elegant, amplifier that you will be proud to display in your living or listening room.
A look inside the cleverly executed chassis reveals excellent construction techniques and layout. The transformer leads are neatly soldered directly to the output taps, no crimped on ring terminals here! The power transformer is a fairly large toroidal while the outputs are conventional EI designs. All in all, the internal construction of the Sterling is superb.
Early in my listening, I encountered but a single problem with the Audion. Occasionally, I would notice a fairly high pitched fluttering sound. Sometimes it was only audible when there was no music playing, but often it could be heard riding the music during quieter passages. I immediately suspected the 6922. Since I wasn’t using my preamp with the Audion in the system, I popped the top and removed one of the RAM Labs SLN 6922s out of the phono stage. Amazing. Not only was the Audion Sterling far more quiet, I found that the entire performance of the amplifier was improved. The background was now solid state black and the amplifier had a much better sense of large and small scale dynamics. The amplifier went from pleasant to musical with the substitution of but one tube. Ah, the joys of tube amplification! To borrow a phrase from Joni Mitchell, the Audion now sounded unfettered and alive. To put it simply, designing tube gear is sometimes an art, but testing tubes is always a science…and a science known and understood by a very few.
Still, as with any low powered tube amp there is always the question of whether there is enough power for the music’s needs. And, there’s also the mercurial KT90. This is a tube with a checkered past, somewhat in keeping with what I like to call the vacuum tube’s Second Coming. The KT90 was initially developed and marketed as a rebirth of the classic Genelex KT88, often referred to as the Gold Lion. Early KT90s were far from this, or even up to the standard of the 6550A and other octal based beam tube variants available at the time. Yes, it was more reliable than the Chinese KT88, but that’s not saying much. Worst of all was the fact that the KT90 just didn’t sound very good, a fact that was hard learned by many a hapless tube gear makers from Audio Research to VTL. The why of its poor sound is beyond my knowledge but there are a few in our industry who have offered interesting and well reasoned explanations.
Even with all of my suspicions about the musicality of of the KT90 I was determined to give the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus the full measure of my attention, if for no other reason that to find out if it was the tube or if it was the circuits that led to the less than satisfying results of the KT90. For the impatient among you I can say that it must have been the circuits. The Audion was one of the most enjoyable amps that I have ever used, but that’s a little too simple at this point in the review.
I have yet to address the issue of power, so I shall do so here: First of all, a watt’s a watt and don’t ever believe otherwise. All this nonsense about tube watts sounding more powerful is just a lot of wishful thinking from a bunch of tube newbies who don’t know enough to heed the wise man who said: “I have been foolish enough to think such thoughts, but wise enough to avoid saying them.” So, the Audion’s 18 watts a side are just that, no less and no more. The fact is that in my listening, with speakers ranging from ancient electrostats to modern low sensitivity mini-monitors, I always found that I had enough power to avoid having the amp sound strained. On the contrary, I found the Audion was always able to sound graceful and well controlled. At the limits of the its power delivery, it just flattens its presentation somewhat. This is apt proof of a well done tube design that recovers from clipping both quickly and without undue dramatics.
In the heart of its power range the Audion is a fine performer, particularly well suited to music which relies on a sense of acoustic space and instrumental timbre. It is a joy on both acoustic jazz and female vocals. The amplifier has a quick and light quality that makes it perfectly suited to a small system or a main system in a small room. The soundstage is wide but not always very deep. This is perhaps an inherent compromise of every stereo amplifier, but may also be the result of the shared input and driver tube. Again, this is hardly a fault that would be voiced if the Audion was partnered with appropriate gear and a reasonably sized room. As music gets more complex, either large scale symphonic work or massed voices, the Audion merely shifts gears, again letting the music compress just slightly.
Despite its modest power, the Audion sounds quite full range. Again, this speaks of thoughtful transformer design that is so often missing from lesser designs. The more simple the music, the more pure the signal, the more musical the Audion becomes. It beckons the listener not just to listen, but to feel the music and learn its message. So, it would appear that the previously perceived failings of the KT90 were more a result of mistakes by the amplifier designers than attributable to the tube itself. That the folks at Audion have succeeded where others have failed speaks well for their ingenuity and rekindles my interest in this oft’ maligned tube.
What is it about tube amps that make us love them, sometimes more than they deserve? Is there something about seeing the light from the power tubes and the knowing in our hearts and minds that we are literally seeing our music being amplified? Is there merely a consonance to their presentation that is simply beyond the quantification of our measurements, or are we just too foolish to know what we should be measuring? I’ve wrestled with these issues for decades, but have always come away without a confident answer. In the case of the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus I can say that its charm is more than superficial. Not only does it look the part, it delivers the musical goods. It has been a model of reliability (save for the bad 6922) and would appear likely to be a trouble free & faithful musical partner for years to come. Owing to the cathode-bias that obviate any need to adjust the KT90s over their lifetime, the Audion will also be a very easy amp to maintain. So, if you have heard most of the solid state amps at or near the $2000 price point and been disappointed you need to hear the Audion. If it’s elegance and music that you seek, you will find it in the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus.
Manufacturer’s comment from Audion
The Sterling Stereo Plus, KT88 power amplifier, has undergone a few changes since Paul’s original review. There have since been three incarnations, which have included a new larger chassis design. The footprint has remained roughly the same however the chassis is now taller allowing for larger mains and output transformers (of which we now wind in house. The chassis is made from military grade aluminium to improve sonic performance and aesthetics. The circuit too has changed in as much as we now use a pair of 6H23N tubes in the front, which now gives a better frequency response, in real terms better lows, tighter mids and stronger highs.
 
Internally we use better quality components now and offer a good upgrade path, which has recently changed from a 5 tier path to just 3 new classes (Insignia, Excelsior and Signature Reference) which is now being phased in over the next few months.
 
Listening wise the KT88 is a good all round performer. We use JJ KT88’s which we have found to give the best performance/ price ratio. Sonically very detailed with good bass and top end. The 18 watts output remains unchanged, and in pure class A, we have found that this amp can be used with many speakers, even those with lower efficiencies.
 
We have recently launched a newer version of the Audion Sterling plus known as the Audion Super Sterling, using the KT120 tubes, delivering 24 watts per channel in class A. The KT120 is an interesting tube in that it is sonically a cross between the sweeter EL34 and the more durable power house of the KT88,
 
We will soon be celebrating our 30th Anniversary so look out for our new amps coming later this year in celebration of that.
Graeme Holland
Review of the Audion Sterling Stereo Plus

1994 High End Amp Designers Round Table Discussion

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Back in 1994, I moderated a discussion of high end amplifier designers:

Amplifiers have always been the products that have made icons of audio designers and engineers. Companies like Krell, Threshold, Audio Research, and VTL have, in a way, helped to define this industry. For a number of reasons, amplifiers are easy to view as being the most significant link in the electronic aspect of the audio chain. The Linnies tell us that the source, be it LP or CD, is the most significant qualitative link of the audio chain. Many meter-dulled objectivists would have you save money on electronics while spending freely on speakers.

What do I think?

To be truthful, I don’t know. My basic belief is that amplifiers are the most critical (note avoidance of the word important) device in the audio chain. The amplifier is literally and figuratively caught in the middle. It cannot reproduce more than the upstream components pass on to it, nor can it control or drive the loudspeaker to a level that is beyond the latter’s electromechanical potential. Further, it is the only device in the chain that has to deal with a potentially wild and varying electrical load, in other words, the typical audiophile speaker.

So, there, in the dark, sits the lonely amplifier designer. All the while asking himself, “What kind of load will my baby have to drive?,” “What if bipolars really were the way to go?,” “Will this single-ended craze last?” TAO is all about observations. The observations in my reviews and articles are purposefully limited to descriptions of the musical potential of the audio gear I evaluate. And while my technical competence may actually be somewhat greater in reality than I let on in print, I still believe that mine should be largely a non-technical presence.

Still, technical issues are of great interest to me particularly as they concern amplifier design and philosophy. So, I sat down and did some pondering. What questions can I come up with that will tend to reveal the thought process that goes into a successful amplifier design? What’s more, who will answer them?

The respondents to my questions are some of the best audio minds I know. Some of their names will be well known to you. Others may be new to you.

They are:

Kevin Halverson / Muse Electronics

John Kovacich / Pointsource Audio 

Eric Lauchli / Coda Technologies

Paul McGowan / Genesis Technologies 

Nelson Pass / Pass Laboratories

At the outset, I’d like to thank all of these guys for their willingness to take part in this humble survey, and for simply taking the time to respond to my questions.

The Round Table will be divided over three issues with each designer answering the same two questions in each installment.

Here are the questions for this issue:

Question 1: In amplifier design, science never really separates itself from art. To what degree are your design decisions based upon what you can hear versus what you can measure?

Question 2: As a follow-up to the first question, if you could only make three measurements of a design’s electrical performance what would they be and why?

QUESTION 1

Kevin Halverson As for the question about which skill (art or science) is most important in the design of hi-fi amplifiers, I would have to answer science. This is not to say that art does not play a strong role in my designs. If, for example, I find during listening that an aspect of what I’m hearing is either better or worse, no amount of artistic knowledge would do anything to assist me in understanding the phenomenon. Similarly, no amount of science will do anything to enhance my listening skills. If, by your question, you are suggesting that there is a fundamental conflict between what one hears and what one measures, I would reply that there is not, provided that one knows where and most importantly how to look (measure).

John Kovacich Since it’s quite easy to create audio equipment that has good specifications, there is no reason not to at least try and design amps and other products that look good on paper. Unfortunately, specifications and what you hear don’t always go together. In other words, a product can spec-out very well and still sound poor. Of course, we have to ask ourselves, does the product truly sound bad or is it simply revealing problems in the rest of the system that a lesser amp would obscure? For instance, some people believe that tube amplifiers sound superior to solid state because they are better in design, and their poor specs don’t mean anything. Other people feel that tube amps sound better because they create a pleasant sound. The key word being, create. Mainstream designers generally design for specs and then assume that their products will sound good.

Audiophile designers generally design, then listen to the product with little concern for specs. Now, we have to ask ourselves two questions: Can they really hear any difference? Since none of these listening sessions are done in a double blind fashion, they are, from a purely scientific point of view, invalid. I have heard many differences between designs but could never reliably and consistently pick the superior design when denied the right to know which circuit I am listening to. Secondly, should the amp be transparent? Or, should it rather reflect the designer’s personal opinion of what the sound should be like? And, if the amp reflects the designer’s point of view, that point of view may or may not be consistent with your own.

Eric Lauchli Without a good technical understanding and adherence to reasonable measurement standards, a truly fine amplifier is unlikely to result. Having said this, number chasing can be and often is sonically disastrous. I must admit to using a considerable degree of intuition while designing, though this mental process is difficult to fully explain. An elusive but important concept seems to be design elegance. This is a characteristic of designs solutions which are both simple and powerful, while yielding overall circuits that can be said to be much more than the sum of their individual parts.

Paul McGowan This is awfully tough for an old goat like me to answer because so many of my decisions, both technical and sonic, are based on my years of experience in both realms. Where the specific knowledge comes from (for a given situation), meters or sonic experience, is not always clear.

As an example, my sonic experience tells me not to use a lot of global feedback because I know that it will typically make the amps sound bright and hard. There are also very good technical arguments against excessive feedback as well (TIM, SID). However, it would be the sonic experience that would lead me to pursue a low feedback approach.

Still, measuring is a tool that I use in virtually every design that I undertake. I measure so that I am sure not to stray too far in any one direction. I make sure that the THD hasn’t strayed too far under load. I look for ringing on the square wave under different conditions. I keep an eye on the damping factor (to make sure that there’s enough). I measure frequency response to make sure that there are no anomalies. I look to be sure that the noise floor is low enough, etc. Still, I rarely use my instruments as part of my basic design decisions.

For me, designing an amplifier starts out as a philosophical exercise and develops into a product when I can come up with enough simple and elegant solutions to the problems inherent in the chosen philosophy. Philosophically, most of my designs come out of a desire to correct a fundamental question or problem. The things that interest me are the most basic problems of amps that may entail a bit of new thinking. I get excited when I attack fundamental problems.

Nelson Pass I care so little about subjective versus objective arguments that this is all I offer: Listening is a measurement, and in high end audio is the most important measurement. Not all the art is in what you hear, and not all the science is in what you measure.

QUESTION 2

Kevin Halverson As for simply picking three measurements, I must admit that I would not allow a product to go to market if I were allowed only three measurements. Each and every product should be evaluated based upon several factors including: intended application, design expectations, and most importantly a typically elusive path whereby prior measurements lead to new discoveries. No two products will ever undergo the exact same regiment of tests. Rather, each product, having an individual character, will require a different approach in order for the designer to feel confident that all aspects of the product’s performance meet the intent. I might also add that I strongly endorse the use of blind listening tests. While these can be very humbling experiences, I always come away with a greater sense of understanding and validation.

John Kovacich I would make all the standard measurements, then I would make some special ones that I feel reflect the real world a little better. First, I would use a square wave, not a sine wave, at the input and I would use an actual loudspeaker or an equivalent circuit for the load. I would measure the level of each harmonic at the input and then at the output (their amplitude as well as their phase). This test would show how the amp does under complex signal as well as complex load conditions. Then I would use an actual piece of music as the source and a loudspeaker for the load. The test would consist of measuring the input and the output using a simple null test. This test would show how the amp is doing under the most realistic of conditions.

Eric Lauchli The direct, simple and inherently linear nature of our designs make ordinary THD measurements surprisingly useful, particularly at high frequencies and with a distortion waveform displayed for careful examination. High frequency square wave testing, especially into reactive loads, can reveal much about an amplifier’s stability and composure under transient conditions. A plot of output impedance against frequency and power level can help predict if an amp will remain stable and linear into any load.

Paul McGowan Frequency response, square wave performance, distortion. Frequency response: It has been my experience that as long as there are little to no restrictions in frequency response between 2Hz and 50kHz that the ear will not detect any anomalies. Square wave performance: This, to me, has proven to be extremely valuable. I can tell all kinds of things from an amplifier’s square wave performance. Ringing of the square wave is a key to a number of mistakes that an amp can make especially when a capacitive load is added to the output. A spike on the square wave’s leading edge can also spell big sonic trouble if not addressed. Typically, this relates to some feedback type problems. Also, the actual quality of the square wave is important in how gently it maintains its shape when the frequency rises, etc. Distortion: I use a spectrum analyzer to view distortion products. If the distortion rises over 0.1%, I get concerned. Another factor is the harmonic structure of the components. Odd order harmonics do sound worse than even order products.

1994 High End Amp Designers Round Table Discussion

The Legacy of my friend, Brooks Berdan: My REGA P3 / Sumiko Blue Point Special EVO

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I have a lot of fond memories of my old friend, Brooks Berdan. In my early days as a reviewer, he was always kind enough to loan me gear for review that would have been difficult to get my hands on otherwise.

Later, when I consulted to Music Reference and Muse Electronics I learned what a truly fantastic dealer Brooks was and how hard he worked for his customers. Brooks was an unusual dealer. He had a national reputation, but did virtually no business over the phone (let alone over the internet). Brooks was the rare dealer who wanted and even needed to know his customers before he would do business with them, let alone separate them from their money.

Brooks loved tube gear and faithfully represented Music Reference and RAM Tubes like no other dealer in the US. His loyalty had its perks. Very often, I would hand deliver his orders directly from Santa Barbara, especially when he was ordering a lot of tubes or a one-off product like a hand-made RM-9 Special Edition.

Of course, hanging with Brooks was a special pleasure. We could talk music, or gear, or motorcycles, or the challenges of making a marriage work, for hours at a time, and we usually did. Back in 2003, when I was going through my divorce, I dropped by Brooks’ shop one afternoon. I was giving him the summary version of where things were and mentioned, in passing, that it had become tough to write reviews since I hadn’t taken my analog rig when I had moved out of the house. Brooks looked up from what he was doing and asked me what I needed. I told him I could get along fine with a simple set up and that the Kuzma Stabi and Dynavector XL that was back in Santa Clarita were loaners from the distributor anyway.

Without a word, Brooks vanished into his storeroom and emerged with a boxed REGA P3 under his arm. Brooks asked me if I liked Sumiko Blue Point Special EVO. I told him I’d never been a huge fan of the original but had never heard the naked EVO version. “Well,” Brooks said, “try it. It’s a lot better than the old one. If you don’t like it you can always try something else.”

Up until that point, I figured Brooks was setting up the REGA for a customer, or as a demo, but I realized he was building it for me. “You know, Brooks, cash is a little tight right now; this whole divorce thing doesn’t come cheap.” Brooks shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, pay me when you can.”

For the next hour, Brooks lovingly set up the REGA and the Sumiko. He did his work with a level of care that would seldom be afforded to such modest gear, but that was Brooks. For him, it didn’t matter if he was setting up an SPj La Luce or a REGA. He always took his work very seriously.

When he was done I said, “Thank you, Brooksy; what do I owe you?” “Don’t worry about it, just send me what you can when you can.” “Brooks, come on, I’m not that hard up, what do I owe you?”

Grudgingly, Brooks got out his price sheets and said, “OK, my cost on this is like $600, so send me a check for $500 when you can. Make the check for more than that and I won’t cash it.” Then, Brooks looked at the REGA and said, “Divorce is hard. You know what I’d like to ask my ex? Was I really that bad?”

I don’t have a guess about what Brooks was like as a husband, but I know he was much more than a business associate to me, he was a friend. On that day, I had no intention of asking Brooks to help me out. It turned out I didn’t need to, Brooks was the kind of man to recognize a friend in need and would do what he could to to help.

The other day, I was thinking about that now-aged REGA, and how the decade had just flown by me like a breeze. I miss not playing many records these days. I listen to music every day, usually on my iPhone, occasionally on my small system at home. But, it has become the rare day when I have the time to play an LP and I miss the sound, the life and the pure joy of it. I’m sure the suspension on that old Sumiko has gotten a little dry and hard, but it still sounds great. Someday I may have to replace that cartridge but I don’t want to…

It was set up by the all-time master of analog, Brooks Berdan, and I’m proud to say he was a friend of mine.

The Legacy of my friend, Brooks Berdan: My REGA P3 / Sumiko Blue Point Special EVO

How to evaluate high end audio gear: Choosing reference recordings

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From time to time I get emails asking which recordings I have used when I write reviews and why. I usually keep this type of information to myself for my own odd reasons.

But in this case, I will relent: 

In the early 70s, before the term audiophile had come into common use, a recording was made that unknowingly adhered to every audiophile convention that are now the subject of so much of the hype that infects today’s audiophile labels. The record is Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon (Reprise RS 6376). First of all, this LP is among the last of the big label LPs that were lovingly pressed on only the finest vinyl. My pressing is pushing 30 years old, is free of pops and ticks, and tracks just as it did lo those many years ago. Here we have the most challenging registers of the female voice, trading focus with cello, clarinet, piano and more. Can you hear the shadings that make the clarinet stand clear from the voice? Do you hear the floor boards resonate beneath the cello? The truth is in the details, and this LP has a wealth of them. The recording is beyond reproach, and the compositions are sublime and timeless. The bad news? This baby will be very hard to find in decent condition.

Sorry for follow up one needle in a haystack LP with another, but this one is another LP that will become an essential part of your collection, if you can get a hold of a copy. It is the 1984 release by guitarist George Cromarty, Wind in the Heather (Dancing Cat Records {a division of Windham Hill} DC3001). This is an amazing collection of short solo guitar pieces. Each of the 13 original compositions are melodic masterpieces in their own right, and the recording is simply lucious…easily the finest recording of acoustic guitar that I have ever heard. The mastering was done by Bernie Grundman and you will never hear a cleaner pressing. Like the Mitchell LP, this LP is invaluable for listening to a system’s critical ability, or sometime unfortunate inability, to render both a natural sound space and retrieve the essence of the acoustical truth of the music. Does the guitar emanate from clear space, or does it seem bound to the speakers? Do the overtones of each note connect to the fundamental pitch of the note, or does one come from here and the other from a over there? Acoustic instruments demand coherence, and this is always a challenge for a multi-driver loudspeaker.

But what, you may ask, about the non-acoustical truth? Find yourself (this will be much easier) a copy of the 1975 classic from Steely Dan, Katy Lied (ABC Records ABCD-846). Again, here we have audiophile sensibilities before audiophile pretensions. The back cover of the album notes not only the use of a Neumann VMS 70 lathe, but also advises strict adherence to the RIAA curve. Who says the ‘70s were an empty decade? This is great stuff, rock with wit and intelligence played by some of the hardcore studio guys of the era (including Rick Derringer, the late Jeffery Porcaro, and a pre sellout Larry Carlton). My friends, these guys could play. If your system is unable to play “Chain Lightning” with Derringer’s sharp & wicked guitar riffs and Porcaro’s thundering drum fills both loudly and with ease please resign as an audiophile and take up bowling.

Here’s something you can buy new that represents the state of the art in vinyl today. The artist is Sonny Landreth, bayou slide guitarist extraordinaire. The LP is called Outward Bound and you can buy a new pressing of this from none other than Classic Records (RTH1032-1), and while you can also get it on CD, why would you? For a modern rock recording, Outward Bound is dynamically challenging for a system. The players showcased here don’t spend much time tacking it easy. Mastering, once again is by Grundman, and while the pressing is good, it doesn’t measure up to the oldies that have discussed previously in this section. Again, this material needs to be recreated at full volume, yet always in complete control and with all of its original tonality and timbre intact.

The language of audio (and now video) is critical if we are to make ourselves understood. The bad news is that most of our vocabulary is borrowed from photography and other visual arts. Terms like imaging and focus really have no place in a audio, but they have become terms of art that we all use without thinking about them. Even the oft used term bright refers to brilliance of light rather than anything even remotely related to sound. Still, it’s just too late to buck the semantical system, so here are some notable CDs that I use. Please note that some of these will be easy to find, while some a bit rare.

A good starting place is Amazon.com as their search system allows you to find CDs by a number of different criteria from performer, piece of music, ensemble, label and catalog number. Tone, timbre and ambiance: Three tests, one CD One Minute and thirty-four seconds! The Cowboy Junkies / The Trinity Sessions (RCA 8568-2-R) Track 1: “Mining for Gold.” This classic traditional tune, sung a cappella by Margo Timmons will tell you more about what your system can and can’t do than any other minute and a half of recorded music can. It was recorded using the famed (notorious?) Calrec Ambisonic microphone in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. What you should hear, what you must hear, is the sense of the church’s physical size and space even before Timmons starts to sing. In the center of the space you should hear Timmons’ earthy, smoldering yet sweet voice at once anchored and yet floating in the center of the soundstage. Can you hear it? If you can you’re already most of the way there. If you can’t, well, “Houston. we have a problem.” Until you can get this most basic test right, your system will be stuck in neutral.

Midrange pitch precision and speed of attack and decay: Laurel Zucker & Susan Jolles / Images for Flute & Harp / Sonatine for flute & harp Victor Frost (1952-) (Cantilena Records 66016-2) Track 14 Moderato e deciso. Lots of luck finding this gem…it took me weeks to find it. The flute and harp cast their notes squarely on pitch and the interplay between the distinct voices create quite a challenge. Listen for any tendency for the flute to sound wispy or tonally dispersed. It is not a function of the recording. The harp’s strings start and stop quickly so any sense of slowness or muddying tells you that something bad is happening. As an aside, this is a truly fine piece of modern classical music in a sea of amusical junk. This CD is worth the trouble of finding it, and trouble you will have.

Small scale ambiance & image placement: Gabriel Fauré The Two Piano Quartets / The Ames Piano Quartet (Dorian DOR-90144). The entire CD is the very pinnacle of the genre in both performance and recording. A good system has to place each of the three string instruments in their own sound field with the piano well focused, yet expansive. A weak system will have the notes of the piano jumping (seeming to come from different positions as the pitch changes) and the strings may become crowded together or unnaturally spread out. Again, not the easiest CD to find, but it’s out there and in print.

Large scale ambiance & image placement: Brahms-Schoenberg Piano Quartet in G minor / Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Vox Cum Laude MCD 10018). Again, not an easy one to find but a treasure. To my knowledge, the only current release featuring Schoenberg’s orchestral transcription of this seminal piano work by Brahms at the height of his creative powers. The job of recreating the sense of a full orchestra in one’s listening room is at once irresistible and impossible. The scope and sweep of the dynamics are just too much, not to mention the sheer space and complexity that the music presents. Still, we must try: What we want here is a sense of size and majesty without strain. A great system will be able to approach this ideal and lower volume levels and the poor system won’t be able to get it right at any level. Listen also for a natural portrayal of shifts between the loud and the soft and everything in between. Any tendency to draw the presentation of the music toward the speakers, like light from a flashlight, is bad and is illustrative of a system that has reached its limits.

Dynamic shifts, tonal consistency & complexity: Beethoven-Liszt Piano Transcriptions Symphony No.6 / Glenn Gould (Sony SMK 52639). Want to hear Beethoven’s Pastorale symphony as if for the very first time? That’s what it’s like to hear this wonderful Lizst transcription of this sadly overplayed, yet marvelous piece. By giving a solo piano virtually all of the symphony’s themes, Liszt strips the melodies and harmonies of this piece bare. One can hear much further into the piece without all of the timbre and voices of the full orchestra. A system will also reveal if it has any problems recreating a sense of tonal complexity without a feeling or tendency toward confusion. Gould’s playing and the recording are beyond reproach. A superb system will keep the tonal nature of the piano consistent whether the notes are played fast or slow, loud or soft. How does your system capture these essentials?

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather a sampling of recordings I trust to ask and answer basic questions of essential system musicality.

How to evaluate high end audio gear: Choosing reference recordings