[sdiy] now on to tubes

[Ralph]

Hi Theo, 

Take it from me as one of those 'high end boys'. See atma-sphere.com for what I do. 

Odd ordered harmonics are bad as they get used as loudness cues by the human ear, although generally harmonics of the 7th and well beyond. Translate this to mean: harshness. Smoother sounding amps will exhibit considerably less of the nasties beyond the 5th or 7th harmonic.

If there were only even orders exhibited by an amp it would be regarded as 'smooth', perhaps 'lush' but not harsh.

Just FWIW.

Thanks

-Ralph 


On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:22:57 +0100
"Theo" <t.hogers at home.nl> wrote:

> I know my view is not one popular with the high-end boys, but anyways.
> My 2 cnts:
> 
> Low order (up to 5th?) harmonics bearable (good?), higher order bad.
> Less harmonics is better.
> Odd/even highly irrelevant.
> 
> When listening to a mix, the summed waveform from all sounds playing is what
> distorts, not individual instruments.
> As a result there is little harmonic relation between the harmonics added by
> the distortion and the notes of the music.
> This is why the odd/even and 'anything but the 5th' theories holds true for
> guitar amps (and guitarist personal taste!)
> but for tube-fi home entertainment it's kind off bull.
> 
> Try playing a polysynth thru a distortion pedal.
> First play a monophonic line, then lay down some chords based on 3rd's  and
> 4th's
> You will see what I mean :)
> 
> Then again when listening to music normally you don't use a tube amp as a
> continues distortion effect.
> So distortion would only occur during the transients in the music.
> There is a lot of in-harmonics going on then anyways.
> The added harmonics helps instruments that causes the transient to stand out
> a bit more.
> 
> 
> Have fun
> Theo
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: anthony <aankrom at bluemarble.net>
> To: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:26 AM
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] now on to tubes
> 
> 
> > > Some of them are essentially the same guts as in the old favorites such
> as
> > > 6L6 - just with a top cap. Anyway, non-linearities are part of what
> gives
> > > tube amps their so called tube sound.
> >
> > I thought about that as I wrote that. The nice 2nd order distortion of say
> a
> > single-ended amp is a nonlinearity sure. Is it too simple to say even
> > harmonics = good, odd harmonics = bad? (I think I read somewhere once that
> > knocking out the 3rd harmonic and leaving in the evens and the rest of the
> > odds sounded good. Could just be because their magnitude is much less.
> Like
> > I really like how a 33% duty-cycle squarewave sounds, but not so much the
> > regular squarewave.) That's what I was thinking of. But that would be more
> a
> > matter of topology I'd think.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Ken
> > > _______________________________________________________________________
> > > Ken Stone   sasami at hotkey.net.au or sasami at cgs.synth.net
> > > Modular Synth PCBs for sale <http://www.blaze.net.au/~sasami/synth/>
> > > Australian Miniature Horses & Ponies <http://www.blaze.net.au/~sasami/>
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >