Any recommendations internal speaker wire?

[BillWojo]

It might be logical in your head Jeff but it makes zero sense to me or anyone else that I know.
Here's the thing Jeff. IF you can hear the difference than it CAN be measured!
Even things like separation, dynamics, whatever it is that you feel has changed can be measured.
Any modification that you feel has changed the output of your amp going to the speakers will have made changes to the electrical signals feeding the drivers. I think even YOU have to agree to that. Without changes to the signal feeding the speakers there will be no change in the sound.
Now how to test? Record a song before modifications and record the same song after modifications. Levels must be precisely matched and the recorded signal should be taken directly from the speaker terminals. Now invert one of the recordings and add them together. At this point, two identical recordings will totally cancel each other out and the output will have no signal at all. If there are differences in the signals, only the differences will be found in the output signals.
This is very much like what Bob Carver did during the "Carver Challenge" presented to him by a major stereo publication. He took one of his SS amps and voiced it exactly like a very expensive tube amp. Pissed a lot pf folks off. He simply compared the signal going into the tube amp to the signal coming out. The difference he dubbed the "Transfer Function". He built a simple filter in his SS amp to emulate the "Transfer Function" of the tube amp. All in less than 24 hours in his motel room at a big trade show.
It was A/B compared to the big expensive tube amp (Conrad Johnson I believe) by a panel of audiophiles selected by the magazine at the trade show and to the magazines credit the report was published. Like I said, it pissed a lot of folks off when some fairly inexpensive SS amps could be voiced exactly like some top of the line tube amps. Now there is a man who is an audio legend, like him or not.

So tell us again how paralleling resistors messes up the signals, so far you have answered me several times and have just danced around it.

Jeff, any outlandish claims that you make WILL be questioned.

There are folks new to audio that read this board and they need to build there knowledge on a firm foundation, not some outlandish claims that can't be substantiated other than by "I can hear it, really I can folks!".

BillWojo

[bowtie427ss]

IF you can hear the difference than it CAN be measured!

If we know what to measure, and how. We're not quite there yet. There's this pesky property of sound called "timbre". It ain't so easily measured.

Not trying to give you a hard time Bill, just trying to illustrate that the parameters of sound are not as "black and white" simple as they're often represented.

I'd like to see the measurement of what a seasoned guitarist who can blindly tell the difference between a pre-wwII, and post-wwII Martin acoustic guitar hears, and how such a measurement would be obtained.

[LowOhms]

It might be logical in your head Jeff but it makes zero sense to me or anyone else that I know.
Here's the thing Jeff. IF you can hear the difference than it CAN be measured!
Even things like separation, dynamics, whatever it is that you feel has changed can be measured.
Any modification that you feel has changed the output of your amp going to the speakers will have made changes to the electrical signals feeding the drivers. I think even YOU have to agree to that. Without changes to the signal feeding the speakers there will be no change in the sound.
Now how to test? Record a song before modifications and record the same song after modifications. Levels must be precisely matched and the recorded signal should be taken directly from the speaker terminals. Now invert one of the recordings and add them together. At this point, two identical recordings will totally cancel each other out and the output will have no signal at all. If there are differences in the signals, only the differences will be found in the output signals.
This is very much like what Bob Carver did during the "Carver Challenge" presented to him by a major stereo publication. He took one of his SS amps and voiced it exactly like a very expensive tube amp. Pissed a lot pf folks off. He simply compared the signal going into the tube amp to the signal coming out. The difference he dubbed the "Transfer Function". He built a simple filter in his SS amp to emulate the "Transfer Function" of the tube amp. All in less than 24 hours in his motel room at a big trade show.
It was A/B compared to the big expensive tube amp (Conrad Johnson I believe) by a panel of audiophiles selected by the magazine at the trade show and to the magazines credit the report was published. Like I said, it pissed a lot of folks off when some fairly inexpensive SS amps could be voiced exactly like some top of the line tube amps. Now there is a man who is an audio legend, like him or not.

So tell us again how paralleling resistors messes up the signals, so far you have answered me several times and have just danced around it.

Jeff, any outlandish claims that you make WILL be questioned.

There are folks new to audio that read this board and they need to build there knowledge on a firm foundation, not some outlandish claims that can't be substantiated other than by "I can hear it, really I can folks!".

BillWojo

Hi Bill,

I really don't want to sound, or come across as an ELITEST, but the realm of equipment you inhabit, and speak of, is , in my opinion, more MIDDLE FI than highest-end in audio.

You talk of solid state amps like a Carver, or a Conrad Johnson tube amp, or a McIntosh 40 mono tube amp.

Bill, I would NEVER, for a moment, use such equipment in my system.

I have written that 99.9% of the amps FAIL at being great on ALTECS. I stand by that.

That got people mad, but its the truth as I know it.

There are TWO really great amps one can own, buy from a manufacturer in 2017, and be DONE with amplification. They are, in solid state, the Spectral DMA-200 and in tube, the Serious Stereo 2A3 DC amp. Both are close to $20K.

Comparisons done between a Carver and a Conrad Johnson are NOT of interest what so ever to me. I'd NEVER use either, or be happy with them. I want more fidelity than what they offer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I am not an EE, ( to my advantage, certain times, me thinks ) so I am uncomfortable " explaining things " I may hear, on a public Forum, in precise EE terms. But I will give this a try ....since you wanna press me continuously.

The " plate" resistor, on the triode stage, develops a SIGNAL that gets passed on to the next stage. The signal is coupled to the next stage one of three ways, (1) directly, (2) through a transformer, or (3) through a coupling capacitor....citing the very best -to- very worst ways of preserving the signal.

This signal developed by the tube and its plate resistor, is a function of the resistor's composition, and it's Ohmic VALUE, as to how it sounds, at the circuit's output. In an optimized circuit, when TWO resistors are placed in parallel, if there is ANY ohmic difference, between them, it produces an audible SKEW to the sonics, assuming one is listening on the BEST of implementations.

Lets say, someone wanted a 150K plate resistor, effective value, and wanted to parallel TWO resistors to get 150K. They could take a 100K and a 200 K resistor, and combine them in parallel, to get 150 K. Of course, the two resistors would have different characteristics, and it would SKEW the resultant signal to the input of the next stage.

The PROPER way to do this paralleling, is to use two 300K resistors, as closely matched to each other as humanly possible, and one R won't fight or skew the other. They are totally equal value Rs, that are developing the two signals as ONE signal. By definition, the resultant signal will have a oneness, that can not be gotten with 100K and 200K paralleled.

In a transparent high end system, closely matching paralleled Rs is always audible, and the measuring tool of choice, is always ones ears. I am pretty sure, you, and certainly MOST EEs are naive as to what can be measured ....verses what can be heard.

My original Mentor, Mr. Fulton, was using a 2 GHZ scope in the early 1980s, and what he saw just blew him away. With a typical EE, say, a "mah" trained type, this would be lost. The typical EE has a HARD time Bill, thinking out of the box, they are trained not to do so. Thats just the way it is. Audio is not pure science Bill. and there is NO substitute for listening, in the end.

Back to paralleling , look up the MFA Luminescense Preamp, that was Messers Moore and Frankilin, I guess from the 1970s-80s. A TOP performing rig, with I believe paralleled plate resistors. Go on line and look up Thorsten Loesch schematics, as I have seen more than one on line, with him, an EE, suggesting equal value paralleled resistors.

I personally know of two USA high end tube amplifier builders, who routinely employ multiple paralleled very-EQUAL value resistors, in one circuit location, when they are going for the ultimate possible results, sonically.

This seemingly is new to you, but not to others Bill.

Respectfully discussed and submitted , for anyone to see...and intelligently, fairly, discern for themselves.


Jeff Medwin .........Low Ohms

[BillWojo]

bowtie, your the last person I would argue with but if there is a difference listening to the speakers than the signal is different, even if by a minuscule amount.
If we can "listen to galaxies" light years away, I would think that something that we could actually hear could be measured. We may not "understand" what we have measured, that part I can agree on. But I'm sure that the "difference" could be isolated.
Timber would be a slight shift in the frequency at certain points or the intensity of the frequency. That is easily measured.

BillWojo

[Old Guy]

No disrespect intended, but trusting someone who says I can hear it and you can't sounds too much like a religious cult to me.

[Elitopus1]

Now everyone drink some of this koolaid!

[LowOhms]

No disrespect intended, but trusting someone who says I can hear it and you can't sounds too much like a religious cult to me.

Respectfully, young guy, don't you dare TWIST what I have said, please.

I never ONCE made such a claim of " you can't"..

You, or anyone else with normal hearing, can discern ALL of this, EASILY, IF we were all listening on the same transparent and well set up system.

"IF" is a BIG word my Daddy used to say.

The system STARTS with having good wire, transfer function, the SUBJECT of this thread. Without it, you are lost !! At the get-go ! Actually, everything is important .


Jeff.... Low Ohms.

[Elitopus1]

Non of this audio crap is worth it unless you are having fun with it. I think that starts with a good sense of humor

[mattvandyke]

"There are TWO really great amps one can own, buy from a manufacturer in 2017, and be DONE with amplification. They are, in solid state, the Spectral DMA-200 and in Tube the Serious Stereo 2A3 DC amp. Both are close to $20K.

Comparisons done between a Carver and a Conrad Johnson are NOT of interest what so ever to me. I'd NEVER use either, or be happy with them. I want more fidelity than what they offer."

Jeff based on your quote above, you need to find a site that only has people that would spend $20K on the 2 amps that are the best in your mind. Many of us would never spend $20K on an amp (even those of us that could potentially afford it). We have Mac amp, Conrad Johnson and extremely high respected audio industry amps that we love and use to listen to music and enjoy immensely. Calling our equipment as not up to grade is immature and wrong. If your an superior audiophile then spread your word at the other sites. We've all heard it more than once and it's getting really really old. Repeating yourself does not make your unique statements any more valid.

As a side note, I did buy the wiring that you recommended and rewired my internal speaker wiring on my Altec Model 19's. Your wiring proposal made sense to me and I did it. I didn't notice any difference but still felt it was worth the try and glad I did it for the experience.

I truly love this website and respect all of the input and knowledge from almost all the folks that contribute here and hope that we can all get back to adding value about Altec speakers and components and enjoying our hobby.

Matt

[bowtie427ss]

bowtie, your the last person I would argue with but if there is a difference listening to the speakers than the signal is different, even if by a minuscule amount.
If we can "listen to galaxies" light years away, I would think that something that we could actually hear could be measured. We may not "understand" what we have measured, that part I can agree on. But I'm sure that the "difference" could be isolated.
Timber would be a slight shift in the frequency at certain points or the intensity of the frequency. That is easily measured.

BillWojo

Surely we can measure many aspects of a signal, and it's envelope, attack and decay, time domain, etc, and variations in timbre may change any or all of these parameters. But, in their sum total they are not fully representative of all that is "timbre".

We have come a long way in audio, particularly in the last couple decades where measurement and analysis that was once only available to the industry itself can now be set up in the home of any motivated enthusiast. But, from my perspective audio has not yet reached the final frontier. Maybe Nelson Pass will get us there.