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Re: Out of curiosity

I will have to look up the patent. The Lavardin site has the usual audiophilia vagueness. But lets assume for a moment that their claims are true. That the memory effect causes SS "shrill and mechanical" sound (during sighted listening of course. For some bizarre reason, unsighted listening dramatically reduces this once clearly audible effect to near or total inaudibility) not found in tubes. Well, that is both good and bad news IMHO. The good news is that they should easily be able to demonstrate the audible superiority of their amplifiers (at low levels of course. At any decent level that I listen at, those 48 watts will be clipping severely. I doubt that this circuitry allows graceful clipping like tubes, thermal memory-less or not. The Cordell example may be extreme, but very real http://www.cordellaudio.com/rmaf/workshop5.shtml )
The bad news is, all the reviews/reviewers that I have seen comparing to sound of ultra special SS amp X (tripath, non NFB, etc, etc) to tubes, remarking how similar they sound, will become highly suspect, because they should all be inflicted with this memory effect.
Does the Creek not suffer from thermal memory? Does it have the same, unique type circuitry, just unpatented? Or does it not? If so, why does it then not sound "shrill and mechanical". Or does it?

DN - Having worked for some large audio companies, people would be surprised (I know I certainly was) how few (if any) of the employees and engineers at these large companies are audio enthusiasts. To most I have met it is simply a fun job and in their free time they're hotroding their cars or something else. If the employees are not genuinely interested in their field, then how can they make good sounding products? The answer most often is: They don't.

I don't see the relevance here. The qualifications for the Ferrari F1 race team engineers are best engineers, not best car enthusiasts. The qualifications for the Yamaha Motogp team engineers are best engineers, not best motorcycle enthusiasts. I can't see where passion is mandatory, or else musicians would be making the best stereo electronic components, not engineers..and we know this is not the case at all. It certainly helps to have a keen ear for music when judging a component, but I'm sure large companies can have those too, or better yet entire listening panels like Toole does at giant Harman Int'l.

DN - This is one reason why smaller companies like Creek or Arcam tend to produce better sounding products, because they genuinely care and are listeners themselves.

The "better sounding" is an assumption I would rather not make.

DN - I agree, there are instances where people claim to hear a difference when in fact none is made. However from my listening experiences which started in my teens, I try to keep an open mind and ear to what people can perceive because I would rather not spend my time trying to disprove what 9 out of 10 people thought they heard but discover and understand what that 1 in 10 did hear.

When I attain absolute perfection in my speakers/room/interface so it is no longer the overwhelming factor, like that 1 in 10 person has, then I will likewise start paying the utmost attention to what that 1 in 10 is hearing in their amplifiers, cables, source.......

cheers,

AJ

The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky

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