Paul's Posts — 06 June 2012
By Paul McGowan
In yesterday’s post about the preamp conundrum many of you correctly pointed out that what I was referring to is called an integrated amplifier but perhaps missed my point. The day of the preamp as a separate is long over and while there are multiple ways to address the issue: adding amps to all preamps or preamps to all amps (for two quick examples) – we need to look at the bigger issue at hand.
The bigger issue is separates themselves. I have long advocated for the demise of the separates category altogether. Why? Because separates only came about in response to the crap large scale hifi manufacturers were making in the early days (PS included). There were a number of technical reasons why it may have been difficult at the time to integrate all the functions of a preamp, amp and radio tuner but that is no longer the case and hasn’t been for years now.
Separates equal many things: independent choice and clutter among them. As Audiophiles we like the idea of mixing and matching separates to get the performance we want – as practical humans I think we prefer neat, tidy and elegant.
I am proposing to you that technically separates need not exist – that in fact without all the interconnecting paraphernalia they require between boxes – we’d be better off without them.
The preamp conundrum points out that existing integrated amps are still compromised accumulations of separates and therefore are irrelevant to our discussion. Integrateds should be better – yet they represent compromise not sueriority. That’s just plain lazy.
Technically separates shouldn’t be required. We should demand more.
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robertawillisjr
What is your proposal?
Paul McGowan
That we as a community accept the idea that separates are ok – but not needed technically. The myth that separates are, by definition, better than integrateds is simply no longer true and in fact the opposite argument probably is closer to the truth.
gizze
I agree.
I bought into Meridians DSP speakers a few years back and love the uncluttered nature of dac, pre amp, dsp crossovers, power amps and speakers all in the one box.
My wife likes it even more!
I have been thoroughly impressed with your PerfectWave Dac too, but owning a Meridian DSP system I can’t find a way to justify it in the system.
I would love to see slimmed down version with digital out, allowing your filters to apodise and upscale etc.
Almost like a PerfectWave Player rather than DAC. But that is from a purely selfish perspective of course.
Or maybe consider some PS Audio Active speakers?
PerfectWave DAC into Active speakers could be a cracking combo, that even the fussiest of wives would probably allow! haha
I ran a Cinepro 3k6 into some Dunlavy Audio Labs speakers from a Meridian 508.24 for a while, no pre amp, just the CD and power, and that was truly stunning.
Paul McGowan
Thanks – I’d love to have a complete PS system and perhaps someday ……
nomad1812
Paul…actions speak louder than words…so why not a quality intergrated from PS Audio.
NAD have got the ball rolling with their C390DD and at $2.5k….is THE value for money intergrated currently. I have heard it via a mac mini directly into quality floor standing 2 ways. In a word WOW!!! (or is that an acronym)
Now if there was something like the C390DD that does everything in the digital domain…including digital speaker crossover and room correction (aka DEQX)….all at a realistic price…..that would be a sensational “bit of kit”.
One day soon…..Rob
Paul McGowan
Perhaps. In fact PS made the very first high-end integrated and introduced Audiophiles to the concept. Perhaps it’s time to do it again. One big question that never gets answered is preamp with amp or amp with preamp. Might seem the same but not really – as our friend Ivan Berger pointed out earlier.
petewilson
For a variety of reasons, I prefer to stick a stereo power amp near each of my two loudspeakers, and use the bi-amping facility of the speakers.
This reduces the amount of expensive, highly visible, speaker wire; reduces the impedance of the wamp-speaker connections; lets me get (eg) 500W per channel by using a reasonably-proced 250W/channel amplifier, and 1000W total, for a lot less money and bulk than a 1000W amp (no, I’ve not looked at Class D, ever since the Sinclair X10 and X20
And these days, the ‘preamp’ needs to do digital processing as well as listen to analog tape and disk, and I prefer to have some room/speaker correction in the box (since it’s already doing a lot of DSP) (I know that it’s *better* to fix the room and buy better speakers, but the speakers are quite good and there are other pressures on the room – so ameliorative room correction is much better than nothing).
So I’m happy with the dis-integrated approach
– P
Paul McGowan
Ahh, but to have a different point of view is what the spice of life is all about!
Mike48
I understand your technical points and agree. I am not so sure how the idea works in the marketplace.
Your proposal, if widely adopted, would cut into the revenue of the cable companies considerably. Since (I am told) they provide the fattest margins for dealers and a great deal of advertisement for magazines, I would expect some resistance on those fronts. Also, there would be far fewer items for reviewers to review.
On a more technical front, even PS benefits from technical developments — if not every year, at least every few years. An integrated system (transport/DAC/preamp/amp) would mean a bigger chunk of change from the user every time he wanted to upgrade, wouldn’t it?
Personally, I have thought of reducing the number of boxes, but haven’t wanted to lose the flexibility of upgrading only some part.
Terry Franklin
Paul,
I guess you could call me a Nuevo-phile. A few years ago I upgraded from a NAD C-162 preamp to your GCP along with the GCPS. The NAD was “integrated” with phono-stage and headphone amp. I knew the GCP had no phono-stage but was mildly shocked when it came with no headphone amp. I even sent you an email, and at the time you set me straight on why it did not have one. Thus I started down the road (I thought) from being the country bumpkin that just fell off the turnip truck to the Cabernet Sauvignon sipping sophisticate that I am today. Now you are telling me to demand more? Actually I did and was made to feel like I knew nothing about building high level preamps. Demanding more can get your feelings hurt!
To be honest I like my separates. You should like my separates too. I count 8-9 to PS Audio Power cords in my system which includes one AC-12 and five AC-10s.
Paul McGowan
Thanks Terry and I do appreciate the business and the results – so this set of posts is certainly not self serving – but still, I stress that many out there labor under the mistaken notion that separates aRE – by definition – better. They may be now but that’s only because we haven’t accepted the paradigm shift that’ll come soon enough.
Terry Franklin
I look forward to seeing the integrated music server with optional ice-maker.
Steve Parry
I am not sure eliminating one interconnect and power cord warrants this. Quality integrateds are not cheap, and the good ones may not save much shelf space. It may be a more costly purchase when some prefer to ease into upgrades. Finally, the amp speaker match can really matter, and with an integrated new speakers may require a new integrated, rather than just an amp. I continue to try to eliminate the preamp from my chain when volume control is possible otherwise, but so far that has not sounded as good to me, in a few instances.
Paul McGowan
You are right Steve but technically we should be able to build amps that control speakers – any speaker – perfectly and yet as an industry we simply don’t. That’s not right.
Terry Franklin
I suppose in the camera world there is a similar occurrence. When I bought my first 35mm camera, zoom lenses were an anathema. They were not sharp and no self respecting photographer would consider owning one. Now they are standard issue and fixed focal lenses are now the rarity. However I still wonder if resolution was sacrificed for convenience. In the not so distant past, fixed focal lenses were still sharper than zooms. I do not know if that is still the case. However I hope this is not the end result for the new wunder integrated audio systems.
Paul McGowan
As a Canon fan I can tell you that their best quality zooms match their fixed focal lengths for most reviewers and certainly to my eye at identical FL’s. They’ve come a long way.
audiofilodigital.com
Ehem, can anybody explain me why in 99% of the shows the monoblocks (poweramps) are put so far away from “the load” (speakers) ? A possible answer: To show them (! ) and sell expensive cable loudspeaker cables. Commercial sinergy? Ah, that’s for sure !
Can anybody tell me to where so many ‘separated components’ have taken this (supposed to be) pursuit for the perfect-reproduction of the recorded signal ?
Can anybody explain where is the problem to put the poweramplifiers beside the loudspeaker (which is a wilder load compared to a poweramp input for a preamp or DAC with well designed output circuitry ?
Can anybody explain in what technical aspect a ‘passive loudspeaker’ is better than a well designed active one with its 2 (minimum) mono-amplifiers per channel connected directly to the drivers and designed specifically to power those specific speakers ?
The answer is just “pure commercial interest” which keeps joined (really?) a market that, because of such absurd offer of more and more products is totally atomized and dying: there is no business for so many companies. And no, more new products in every show don´t mean that the market is alive: at the present time such infinite number of most-of-the-same-products-but-with-different-beautiful-chassis can hardly survive… you would be surprised if you could know the number of those HiEnd firms whose owners are earning their lives with other true business. A pure egocentric hobby for most of them. Naives… they remain there until they decide they have lost enough money. Then, back to their own real business.
Now imagine an active loudspeaker with its 2 poweramps designed specifically to feed those 2 selected drivers (there are dozens of them in true professional audio). Each poweramp has only to manage a specific range of frequencies. No loudspeaker cables. Those active loudspeakers connected, through a simple pair of XLR cables, to a good DAC with volume control. Don’t worry: audiophiles can still discuss about what kind of volume control is better: in the analog or digital domain ? The DAC receives the signal vía WiFi no cables again. So, at the end, a simple server, a DAC, 1 pair of XLR cables to the active loudspeakers and… voilá, more money to invest on less but better (sinergistic) products.
But no, I guess that spending the money on matching different expensive poweramps with a pair of old passive loudspeakers (and wasting expensive watts into heat within those passive crossovers) is much more interesting in order to get the best sound (i.e. the sound that we like this month according to our mood) for the next coming 6 months. Once we got tired of that sound, we can change the loudspeaker cable, or the poweramp, or… oh, yes, we have so much money to spend and so many products to try and then put then apart… just that is almost a hobby itself !
You, as a simple amateur, can put together the best wheels or tyres (?), the best (i.e. more famous) breaks, the most powerful motor you can afford at that moment (?), the most expensive steering wheel covered with leather brought from exotic countries… I’m wondering… is this the way the F1 cars are designed by engineers ? Or do they get the best results when designing those parts to work altogether with the best sinergy each other and, all of this, from the same team of engineers working hand with hand?
Well, at least going on with the typical buy&sell game you can always say: “Now, I should improve the…”. Funny ? It is for some buyers.
But, …Accurate sound? No. At all. A simple waste of money in separated luxury pieces for an average result. Good luck with that neverending story. Keep saving money for the next ‘toy” until you get bothered of its sound.
Paul McGowan
There’s no question that an active loudspeaker, properly designed, has major advantages over a passive loudspeaker because – as you point out – you can tailor it perfectly. There are two major problems to that approach: long interconnects are worse than long speaker cables and there’s a lot of market resistance to active speakers.
Solve those two problems and I have to agree.
oliver T. Finch
Till such time that perfection is not achieved in the sound of components getting rid of separates is not a good idea at all. Since perfection is an utopian dream separates will be a part of life like it or not. This is because people who are serious about their music like it to sound a certain way and this requires mixing and matching made necessary by the less than perfect sound of the components.An integrated component no matter how good cannot be everything to everyone unless perfect and perfection is not attainable in this world. Just a sorry fact of life but a fact never the less. Regards.
Ladderman
Paul, I am pleased to see someone else acknowledges that long interconnects to an amp and short speaker cables, are not the way to go. Tried it years ago and did not like results, re visited on the odd occasion with the same conclusions. My current system is tri amp with the amps within a metre of the pre and appropriate length speaker cables. Why send a low level signal a long distance and high level signal a short distance. I think I will have to stay with separates as I don’t think there are enough clients to make it viable for a manufacturer to produce a pre – electronic x’over – D/A converter and six channels of amp in one box.
Ladderman
Just spotted this on a report by Enjoy The Music “Perhaps the most 3D sound at THE Show.” Seems your 3D calssification is catching on.
audiofilodigital.com
“long interconnects to an amp and short speaker cables, are not the way to go”.
Then do not buy any recording… do you know the distance from microphones to their preamps in 99% of recordings ?
Sorry, you experience on this seems just anecdotic. Get a better preamp (about output specifications) with a good analog output section. True balanced, of course.
“Why send a low level signal a long distance and high level signal a short distance.”
Bufff… I was thinking of cartridges, milivolts and phono-preamps… Errr, sorry, back to your question: it is not the level of the signal the definitive factor but the kind of load (and its ‘behaviour’) at the other end. Sorry I recommend you to Google a bit about “impedance behaviour, etc. You will find some of them at the AES website.
“An integrated component no matter how good cannot be everything to everyone unless perfect and perfection is not attainable in this world.”
Sorry I was talking about “closer to” not about personal tastes (that’s the reality of the HiEnd demand). And separates are far away from that starting from the theory and finishing in the practical side. Note that, at the end, you are just buying the separate components that the mass Hi-End market is offering you: you follow the stream. …Mass market just based on the offer in the Hi-End market, of course.
I would recommend buying parts of different cars, put them together trying to get a good car. Good luck !
“long interconnects are worse than long speaker cables”.
a) Sorry, that’s not correct (it can be with a bad designed analog output, however).
Again have a look at the location of microphones and their amps in studio recordings.
But this is the best of all: you do not even need interconnect cables: the DAC doesn´t need to be so far away from the loudspeakers. Think different. Others are already doing it. Surely you can, too.
there’s a lot of market resistance to active speakers.
“Resistance” ? …or “ignorance” ?
I would recommend you to surf the internet beyond the typical and dying sites… even if they have the most beautiful pics of thousands of macho-products. End-users are already getting those systems by themselves and going beyond the typical and infinite absurd offer… Professional loudspeaker manufacturers already known about it and they thank HiEnd for not paying attention to that: an extra growing market for them !
Wishing you a big and wealthy bank account for mixing as many separate expensive components as the market offers you,
Victor
Ladderman
Should have realised I was going to get nailed for my casual comment about the length of interconnects v speaker cable. I am aware of the issues with the output impedance and the ability of pre amps and source equipment to drive amplifier inputs. As I have recently designed built and installed a sound system in our new church with a 50 metre run from the stage to the sound desk and returns back to the speaker management and amp rack. I am aware here also that this would not be possible without balanced lines. We have ended up with a good sound with the budget we had. Also as my home system is active and there are no crossover components between the amplifier output and the speaker voice coil, the load on the amp is very simple. The separate components I have chosen have been carefully selected to give me the sonic performance I like. The pre amp is not balanced but it fits my system well and I stick by my comments.