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In Reply to: Mikeyb et all, posted by drlowmu on March 14, 2007 at 12:05:46:
More ( and likely better ) SE amps get built by EE's than your little group. Do the numbers if you dare.Good Engineering is art. There is no other way to describe it. Your claim that only artists can build a good amp is just plain ignorant.
Follow Ups:
Hasn't been my experience at all.But I do see EEs devising CHEAPER ways to make amps....just not better. Been that way since the days of Bell Labs and WE. Those guys designed with no limits and all efforts of EEs since have been to make audio accessible to larger portions of the population through things like miniaturization and economy.
Better audio quality has NEVER been the goal of the engineers since.
The EE's are not at fault. Nor are the scientists. Engineers in all professions are tasked by their managers to innovate for competitive advantage only. The competitive advantage is demanded by the Sales and Marketing Staffs who must have some some way to bludgeon the customer's purchasing department, or the final consumer, who have both been sold on the idea that "cheaper is better". For the EE there is rarely enough time to pursue the limits of measurement analysis, looking for meaning in the grass of the spectrum analysis plot in front of him. Rarely will his engineering manager allow any sort of exploration into territories where mathematical analysis is less than bullet proof. All because that manager has to have performance metrics with which he can wrest a budget large enough to allow enough engineering hours just to do the minimum.... make it cheaper.You need only look at the path of Mackie Designs to see the difference between a visionary owner asking "why not?" and a corporate owner shouting "do not". Bell Labs and WE were one of the few instances where "why not" was the motto, in the engineering and science labs and, most importantly, in the rest of the corporate structure and final consumers.
Somewhere, it seems, that we lost an understanding of the *sharing* of music, well recorded and reproduced at home, can bring to our lives and others.We have been sold and marketeered a paradigm of excessive consumption: miniaturisation, 'improved' pseudo-convenience, fashionable (faddish) appearance, product churn-over. Music, and the equipment that replays it, has been turned into a fast-moving consumer item - appears temporarily fashionable / 'best', but is ultimately unsatisfying. Buy another - got to keep with the fashion / have the best. This is happening at the MP3 end of the market and in high-end audio (facilitated in part by the magazines). We temporarily satisfy short-term desires (thank you instant debt) only to suffer long-term dissatisfaction. Good for business and the economy though - keeps the ca$h, er debt, flowing.
Yes quality means different things to different people - from a (very basic) business POV, it is consistently meeting, perhaps exceeding, the needs and wants of customers. Problem is, the needs and wants of customers are so manipulated by sales and marketeers that we may have forgotten what is fundamentally important. Note: not all sales and marketing people do this!
As for 'best' engineers moving to the cutting edge etc, as discussed in other posts, there are many reasons why people do what they do - it does not just come down to technical ability. Money, family commitments, morals, ethics, health, lifestyle, and opportunity (there are many more). Some of the ‘best’ (whatever that means) will not be at the cutting edge; some of those who are not the best will be at the cutting edge. For moral and health reasons, I turned my back on what many would say was a great career – at the cutting edge, of sorts, to become a student - ideals and practicality need not be mutually exclusive... I digress; sorry.
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By and large, engineers are paid to design what 'the market' wants, which, unfortunately, is generally small and cheap. Except for TVs, of course, where bigger is better. 5 foot screens - what for???I do design my own tube audio gear for home use, so here the orientation (quality) is more important than price (within reason). Quality is, admittedly, a loose term, subject to wide interpretation. I have my own set of priorities, which include aesthetics as well as sound. Hence the reluctance to use an open frame 'pole pig' style power transformer and cheap open frame chokes.
Dave, you wrote:
Better audio quality has NEVER been the goal of the engineers since.You seem to differentiate between EE's hired to design audio and EE's doing it for themselves. Do you think there are no EE's building valve amps? I meant to refer to EE's building their own, and not industry led folks.
I do like your ref to WE/Bell and their results obtained( by EE's ) when operating with few financial constraints. These gentlemen were working on discovering the best audio. Do you really think that any sort of positive reputation would have been bestowed on them if they hired unskilled laborors?
Ultimately it's all about working to spec and budget. I know what my spec is, and it seems to be rather expensive( and heavy ) to achieve. I think the fault you describe is of the consumer and not the engineers. They're just following orders; they don't have any knowlege of the direction their work is actually taking us.
Hi.Given same conditions, whoever got more technical insight of the relevant disciplines should do a better job, artists or EE regardless.
Knowledge always helps. An artist can self-learn good tube knowledge to build a good sound amp without EE training.
in discussing this at present is we are thinking in arbitrary absolutes: EE vs. artisan. Thing is, to design and build a functioning SE amp one needs some degree of EE's knowledge. Conversely, EEs also need some degree of the artistic when making subjective decisions. These two broad dimensions will vary in strength and balance in each person.Examples:
Jeff & Dennis have read some texts though perhaps do not have the understanding required to consider and implement certain options the EEs may. OTOH, perhaps Jeff & Dennis have enough knowledge to design and builds a competent amp and then without the constraint of 'accepted approach' and through some creative experimentation have discovered an alternative approach to some aspects of design. They are still refining their approaches and can not fully explain them, yet they have been found to offer some promise...
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