Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works and I love all things tech.
Speaker 1: And listener Carl Ludwig asked that I do an episode
Speaker 1: about the various components of a high end audio system.
Speaker 1: That's a tall order. So there are a few technological
Speaker 1: topics that are kind of mine fields, right, things that
Speaker 1: have a lot of very strong opposing opinions. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's any issue in tech where the real
Speaker 1: fanatics of that technology have as many fundamental disagreements as
Speaker 1: those in the high end audio equipment field. It's it's
Speaker 1: got elements of mysticism in there, because it's all about experience,
Speaker 1: you know this, this idea of the audio experience. Their
Speaker 1: devotees of audio systems, who will argue to the grave
Speaker 1: that the most important components are the speakers. For example,
Speaker 1: they'll say, the speakers are absolutely where you have to
Speaker 1: spend the most attention and time and money to get
Speaker 1: the right ones. Others will say, no, no, no, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: The most important piece of equipment in a high end
Speaker 1: audio system is the pre amplifier. You've got to have
Speaker 1: the best pre amp or else everything else is going
Speaker 1: to be a shambles. Then there are others who will say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's the source audio, the CD player or the turntable
Speaker 1: that's the most important component. And you get these arguments.
Speaker 1: If you go to any high end audio forum, you
Speaker 1: will see what I'm talking about. And then there's gonna
Speaker 1: be some audio files who will say this, this particular
Speaker 1: system I built, it's superior to all others, and it
Speaker 1: has these incredibly expensive components that create the most amazing
Speaker 1: listening experience you will ever have. And then others will
Speaker 1: say the system you put together is garbage, and the
Speaker 1: arguments you make are without merit. Here's a good system
Speaker 1: that I put together for a fraction of the cost,
Speaker 1: and it's much better, and the arguments continue. So what
Speaker 1: I'm getting at is that the experience of hearing a
Speaker 1: sound is actually incredibly subjective. You know, you might think
Speaker 1: of it, well, a sound is a physical phenomenon, right,
Speaker 1: sound is vibration, So how can it be subjective? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a physical phenomenon, But the way we perceive
Speaker 1: it ultimately is by processing the information in the gray
Speaker 1: matter in our skulls. Our brains do that last step
Speaker 1: for the experience of sound. We take in sound as
Speaker 1: a physical thing, but we process it as a mental thing,
Speaker 1: and therein lies the problem. It is possible for two
Speaker 1: different people to have to them two different experiences listening
Speaker 1: to the same sound system. To one person it might
Speaker 1: sound perfect, and to the other it might not sound perfect.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean one person's right and one person
Speaker 1: is wrong. For each person that might be the true answer.
Speaker 1: And it also gets really tricky because audio files use
Speaker 1: really kind of vague language to describe sound. They want
Speaker 1: a listening experience to be as close to the being
Speaker 1: present at the recording session as possible, for example, although
Speaker 1: these days that gets harder and harder to do because
Speaker 1: there's so much post production in music that there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as a recording session kind of experience for
Speaker 1: some of that music. But let's say it's a symphonic piece,
Speaker 1: you know, classical music, it might mean that an audiophile
Speaker 1: wants to be able to make a clear distinction between
Speaker 1: individual instruments, and they'll talk about sound having quality is
Speaker 1: like warmth or brightness, and being able to create a space,
Speaker 1: a spatial quality to the music. And these are interesting terms,
Speaker 1: like if you experience the sound, you might say, well,
Speaker 1: I get what they're saying, but there's not really a
Speaker 1: quantitative way two express those ideas in many in many cases,
Speaker 1: so it almost becomes a spiritual experience, and thus it
Speaker 1: becomes very complicated to talk about the technology. Now that
Speaker 1: being said, audio component manufacturers have a product they want
Speaker 1: to sell, and selling and experience is pretty hard to
Speaker 1: do unless you can convince a customer to come in
Speaker 1: for a demonstration and to sit through a demonstration that
Speaker 1: includes lots of different variables and to kind of come
Speaker 1: to that conclusion of this particular high end audio system
Speaker 1: is the one for me because it produces the sound
Speaker 1: that I feel is superior. So since that's not possible
Speaker 1: with everyone, a lot of component manufacturers will focus instead
Speaker 1: on numbers. So numbers. You know, we were comfortable with numbers,
Speaker 1: and typically we say the higher the number is, the
Speaker 1: better the thing is, right, The more megapixels that camera has,
Speaker 1: the better the camera is. Right. Not necessarily the same
Speaker 1: is true with high end audio equipment. You'll start to
Speaker 1: see numbers being bandied around for all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 1: but that does not necessarily tell you how good it
Speaker 1: will sound to you. This, by the way, makes me
Speaker 1: think of a famous scene in the comedy This is
Speaker 1: Spinal Tap, where the character Nigel Toughness explains to his
Speaker 1: his documentarian that his martial stack amplifier has dials that
Speaker 1: go up to eleven. And he says, most bands use
Speaker 1: equipment that maxes out at ten, which means if they
Speaker 1: need something extra and they're already at ten, there's nowhere
Speaker 1: else to go. But he can go up to eleven,
Speaker 1: so he can go one more than they can. And
Speaker 1: then that documentary in character called Marty de burgh E, says, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you just make ten louder and make ten
Speaker 1: the top number? And then Nigel's responses these go to eleven.
Speaker 1: It's a very silly scene, but it illustrates my point.
Speaker 1: Some companies will cite numbers in a way that sounds
Speaker 1: meaningful but may not actually make a real difference in
Speaker 1: the experience of listening to audio. Another element that makes
Speaker 1: it hard to sell audio components is that there's been
Speaker 1: a major shift, specifically in the last decade, where we've
Speaker 1: seen the the real focus of the audio experience skew
Speaker 1: heavily toward convenience over fidelity. By that, I mean it
Speaker 1: is wicked convenient to be able to carry an entire
Speaker 1: music library around on a portable device and listen wherever
Speaker 1: you go, or more commonly these days, you're using a
Speaker 1: device to log into a music streaming service and then
Speaker 1: listen on demand to practically any song you can think of,
Speaker 1: though in reality, obviously you only have access to whatever
Speaker 1: music labels that service has made agreements with, So you
Speaker 1: might think of a song and look for and find out, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's not available on this service. But you get what
Speaker 1: I mean. You can have thousands, hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: songs available to you, and it's all through this portable device.
Speaker 1: The audio experience just needs to be good enough. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be fantastic. It just has to have
Speaker 1: enough fidelity where the convenience is the most important factor.
Speaker 1: Now audio files. People who truly strive to get that
Speaker 1: that amazing audio reproduction experience, they shudder at the thought
Speaker 1: of this because to them, the idea of listening to
Speaker 1: music that's in a lossy format over an inner connection
Speaker 1: SAPs the audio of its character and its depth, And
Speaker 1: these days, audio systems, those high end audio systems are
Speaker 1: becoming more of a niche market than ever before. And
Speaker 1: the luxury systems were always a niche market because they're
Speaker 1: incredibly expensive. You know, you're talking about thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: per component. But even the mid range market stuff, the
Speaker 1: stuff that was in the hundreds of dollars, that's becoming
Speaker 1: more of a niche market because there are fewer people
Speaker 1: who want to collect music physical media of music, and
Speaker 1: want to have a big sound system. Not that there
Speaker 1: aren't any, but there are fewer of them. So in
Speaker 1: this episode, I am not going to give you a
Speaker 1: checklist of specific brand names and models that you need
Speaker 1: to go out and buy if you want to build
Speaker 1: a dream audio system, because what sounds great to me
Speaker 1: might not sound great to you, and it would be
Speaker 1: a disservice. This reminds us that the experience of hearing
Speaker 1: something is dependent not just on a physical phenomena, but
Speaker 1: mental processing, and goodness knows, the way I process information
Speaker 1: in my brain is whackadoodle crazy. But what I can
Speaker 1: do is walk through the various parts of a typical
Speaker 1: high end audio system and talk about what each one does.
Speaker 1: And I do think it's possible for the quality of
Speaker 1: the sound produced by a system to change just by
Speaker 1: swapping out a component or two. Now, some might make
Speaker 1: a much more noticeable impact than others. Some might be
Speaker 1: subtle enough to go largely unnoticed. And while you might
Speaker 1: get better performance from a certain type of high end
Speaker 1: product than a less costly version, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: necessarily true across the board. I don't think higher price
Speaker 1: always equals better quality. Again, it's subjective. So in some cases,
Speaker 1: you might find that a system that is relatively inexpensive
Speaker 1: is producing an experience that you find particularly compelling. That's
Speaker 1: the wonderful thing about it. Of course, the opposite. It's
Speaker 1: also true. You might find that a really expensive system
Speaker 1: is the one that genuinely sounds the best to you,
Speaker 1: in which case you have some important decisions to make.
Speaker 1: All right, So, let's say that you want to put
Speaker 1: together an audio system, and you're not going to go
Speaker 1: out and buy a cheap all in one system. You're
Speaker 1: not going to buy an off the shelf stereo system
Speaker 1: all in one thing. You want something with more modularity.
Speaker 1: Maybe you want to create the best possible experience according
Speaker 1: to your preferences. Maybe you also want the option to
Speaker 1: replace modular parts with upgrades when you can afford them.
Speaker 1: So you might say, well, based on my budget, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna buy an amplifier and all these other components, but
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go with the amplifier that would be
Speaker 1: my first choice. It's too expensive. I'll go with a
Speaker 1: lower cost version, and then maybe later when I've saved
Speaker 1: up money, I'll swap that out. Because if it's a
Speaker 1: modular system, you can do that. You can take one
Speaker 1: piece out and replace it with another one. It's also
Speaker 1: easier to make repairs. If something breaks and you've identified
Speaker 1: which part of the chain is the broken one, you
Speaker 1: can disconnect that and then go and get it fixed. Basically,
Speaker 1: your audio system will consist of these parts. You've got
Speaker 1: your sound sources. These are the components that are creating
Speaker 1: the signals that go through the rest of the system.
Speaker 1: It's the origin point for the signal. So in a
Speaker 1: digital system, you can talk about CD player. With an
Speaker 1: analog system, it might be a turntable, it could be
Speaker 1: other sources as well, and you can have hybrid systems
Speaker 1: where it's both digital and analog systems. That's totally possible.
Speaker 1: Then you have things like amplifiers, pre amplifiers and receivers.
Speaker 1: These take in signals from a sound source and then
Speaker 1: they send that signal onto speakers. And you might say, well,
Speaker 1: why would you why would you have an in between component,
Speaker 1: Because general logic says the more components you put in
Speaker 1: between an origin and its destination, the more opportunities there
Speaker 1: are two we can a signal. Well, it's because for
Speaker 1: a speaker to work, to drive the drivers inside a speaker,
Speaker 1: to make those speaker diaphragms vibrate properly to reproduce sound,
Speaker 1: you need to have a stronger signal than what these
Speaker 1: origin sources can create. The signals, the electric signals they
Speaker 1: create are too weak to drive that speaker on their own.
Speaker 1: So an amplifier's job is to take that incoming signal
Speaker 1: and amplify it, to boost it without introducing any noise,
Speaker 1: if possible, so to to replicate that signal as precisely
Speaker 1: as possible, but at a greater amplitude, and then send
Speaker 1: that onto the speakers. Then, of course you have the speakers.
Speaker 1: That's the component that actually creates the vibrations that we
Speaker 1: experience the sound. They have the drivers inside the vibrate,
Speaker 1: they take in the incoming electric signal, and then through
Speaker 1: electro magnets caused the diaphragms inside the speaker drivers to
Speaker 1: move in and out. Laterally, that causes air molecules to move,
Speaker 1: of which propagates a sound. And then, of course, between
Speaker 1: all of these components, you have your various interconnects or cables,
Speaker 1: and the cables carry the signal from one part of
Speaker 1: the system to the next part of the system, and
Speaker 1: each of those parts are important to some extent, and
Speaker 1: it's also important to remember that a sound system made
Speaker 1: up of components is really only going to perform as
Speaker 1: well as the weakest part of the system. So you
Speaker 1: might have a killer amplification system, you might have really
Speaker 1: sweet speakers, but then you've got a super cheap vinyl turntable,
Speaker 1: and the signal that vinyl turntable is going to supply
Speaker 1: to the rest of that system might not be very good.
Speaker 1: You might get a lot of noise in there. That
Speaker 1: means you're gonna get an amazing reproduction of a crappy
Speaker 1: audio signal. Likewise, you might have a phenomenal turntable that
Speaker 1: creates a really clear, fantastic signal and you've got great amplifiers,
Speaker 1: they take that signal and they boost it up reliably.
Speaker 1: But then you've got really weedy speakers and the sound
Speaker 1: you get is really tenny, and there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of base, and it's not truly representative of what the
Speaker 1: rest of the system could do if there were better
Speaker 1: speakers attached to it. And also note that when I
Speaker 1: say better, I don't necessarily mean more expensive. Sometimes budget
Speaker 1: or mid cost components can perform just as well or
Speaker 1: better than the super high end stuff. It all depends
Speaker 1: upon the full system. Now this isn't just me dismissing
Speaker 1: luxury products. There have been numerous tests, many of them
Speaker 1: blind studies, that have demonstrated that, at least with certain components,
Speaker 1: listeners are unable to identify which one is supposedly the
Speaker 1: top performing piece of equipment with a regularity that suggests
Speaker 1: that it was better than just by chance alone. So
Speaker 1: in other words, you could have a test where you've
Speaker 1: got three different amplifiers, let's say, and you have one
Speaker 1: that's a really high end luxury amplifier, you've got one
Speaker 1: that's a mid range one that's a budget and you
Speaker 1: might find through your test thing that people are just
Speaker 1: not reliably able to identify the luxury component with a
Speaker 1: lot of them. A lot of these tests, I see
Speaker 1: that whatever is the lowest price piece of equipment, people
Speaker 1: tend to be able to point at that and say
Speaker 1: that's just not as good as these other ones. So
Speaker 1: there is there is a point where performance will drop
Speaker 1: off if the component was not made with good materials
Speaker 1: and and good engineering. But there can be times where
Speaker 1: something that is supposed to be a super high performing
Speaker 1: piece isn't distinguishable from a mid range component, for example.
Speaker 1: And again it's a subjective experience. It may very well
Speaker 1: be that to one person the luxury piece of equipment
Speaker 1: does create a better sound, to another person that just doesn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in other cases it may just be people saying
Speaker 1: I can't really tell the difference, so I'm just going
Speaker 1: to kind of guess. So it's hard to say. Now
Speaker 1: we've got all that ambiguity out the way. When we
Speaker 1: come back, I'll start breaking down the individual components more closely.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start with those source components, as those are the
Speaker 1: ones providing the signal sent to the rest of the system.
Speaker 1: Some would argue, and I would probably be among them,
Speaker 1: that this is probably the most important component of the
Speaker 1: sound system, because again, if your audio source is sending
Speaker 1: out a crappy signal for whatever reason, it really doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how good the rest of the components are. You
Speaker 1: can't improve a crappy signal. Really, you're going to get
Speaker 1: a subpar experience. You might be able to have some
Speaker 1: noise correction and some other elements worked in with those components,
Speaker 1: but ultimately you want that original signal to be as
Speaker 1: good as possible. So generally speaking, we can divide all
Speaker 1: of these audio sources into two broad categories. You've got
Speaker 1: analog that would be stuff like a turntable or an
Speaker 1: analog cassette deck. Analog components don't require any signal processing
Speaker 1: apart from amplification to drive us as speakers. And then
Speaker 1: you have digital. Digital components include stuff like compact disc
Speaker 1: players or DVD audio players. These components require something called
Speaker 1: a digital to analog converter to take that digital information
Speaker 1: and change it into an analog signal. Now, the reason
Speaker 1: for this is the nature of analog versus digital and
Speaker 1: analog signal is continuous. Think of it as a sign wave.
Speaker 1: All right, it's one continuous line. It's got peaks and
Speaker 1: Scott valleys, but it's uninterrupted. That's analog. Digital is really
Speaker 1: more of a series of instances, almost like snapshots, right,
Speaker 1: we call those samples. So you take a sound and
Speaker 1: you take samples, snapshots of that sound at a specific interval,
Speaker 1: and you that could be thousands and thousands of times
Speaker 1: per second, but it's not continuous. It's almost like animation
Speaker 1: if you think of cells and animation. It's a series
Speaker 1: of images and when you play it back at a
Speaker 1: certain speed, it appears to be seamless movement. Well, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like that, except we're talking about snapshots of data,
Speaker 1: and when you play them back at proper speed, then
Speaker 1: it can simulate a seamless sign wave. But you still
Speaker 1: have to take one more step. You still have to
Speaker 1: take that digital information and turn it into an analog signal.
Speaker 1: It's not truly an analog wave, no matter how many
Speaker 1: times you're sampling a sound per second, It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many samples you have, it's not an analog wave.
Speaker 1: So technically, you take a digital to audio converter and
Speaker 1: they take this fixed point value, this set a fixed
Speaker 1: point values that represent a sound and they translate that
Speaker 1: into a physical variable voltage. So, uh, this continuously variable
Speaker 1: signal is something that the rest of the system can handle.
Speaker 1: So many c D players, in fact, a lot of
Speaker 1: consumer CD players, especially the stuff that's not meant to
Speaker 1: go in high end audio systems, have an integrated digital
Speaker 1: to audio converter included in their design. It's part of
Speaker 1: the system. So if you've ever had just a regular
Speaker 1: CD player or home audio system that's connected to speakers,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking I didn't need anything special, well, it's
Speaker 1: because the d a C, the digital audio converter, was
Speaker 1: built directly into the product. But if you're a super
Speaker 1: audio file you can essue that stuff. You could say, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go with that. I'm gonna go with
Speaker 1: a standalone d a C device, So you would connect
Speaker 1: your digital store, which for CDs that would probably be
Speaker 1: a transport. A transport is technically it's essentially a CD player.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't have a d A C. So it's
Speaker 1: a CD player. It can read the data off the disk,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have the digital to audio converters. So
Speaker 1: if you hooked up this kind of CD player to speakers,
Speaker 1: nothing would happen. You would need the digital to audio
Speaker 1: converter in between those. Uh so it's it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like a CD player that's missing apart and the standalone
Speaker 1: D a C would convert that incoming digital signal into
Speaker 1: an analog one and send that along the rest of
Speaker 1: the system to the amplifier and then ultimately to the speakers.
Speaker 1: Another potential source of digital signal is a computer system. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't just have CD players and DVD players. In fact,
Speaker 1: fewer and fewer people are using those for their audio.
Speaker 1: A lot more people are using computers. I talked about
Speaker 1: that earlier with the convenience argument. We store a lot
Speaker 1: of music and digital file formats these days. The quality
Speaker 1: of audio you're gonna get from a digital file largely
Speaker 1: depends upon the type of file you're using. There are
Speaker 1: lots of different file formats, some of which use heavy
Speaker 1: compression and uh file types like MP three those are
Speaker 1: lossy formats. So in order to compress file sizes, and
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of that is to make the more manageable, right,
Speaker 1: to shrink the file size down so they're easier to
Speaker 1: store and to pull up and and send in order
Speaker 1: to make that happen to compress that information, what the
Speaker 1: format does is essentially a ditches digital information that makes
Speaker 1: up part of that sound. Now, in theory, the compression
Speaker 1: algorithms are eliminating frequencies that we would otherwise be unable
Speaker 1: to hear, So, in other words, it's just trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of superfluous information that we would never perceive
Speaker 1: in the first place. The range of human hearing is limited.
Speaker 1: Typically we describe it as being between twenty hurts and
Speaker 1: twin d thousand hurts. Those frequencies mark the edges of
Speaker 1: human hearing for the for the average person, anything below
Speaker 1: twenty hurts or above twenty thou hurts for nearly everyone
Speaker 1: is imperceptible. So one way you can reduce a sound
Speaker 1: file size is you look for any data that references
Speaker 1: frequencies that are outside the range of human hearing, and
Speaker 1: you say, well, I don't need it because there's no
Speaker 1: way to perceive it, so get rid of it. Dump it.
Speaker 1: If there are two or more instruments that are playing
Speaker 1: and one is slightly louder than the other, or significantly
Speaker 1: louder than the other, we often can't hear the softer one. Uh,
Speaker 1: if there's a really loud sound, we typically cannot hear
Speaker 1: the sound immediately following that. It's just a quality of
Speaker 1: human hearing. So again, a compression algorithm might say, well,
Speaker 1: here's the sound, and it's amplitude as such that the
Speaker 1: listeners never going to hear this next sound that is
Speaker 1: in the file, So we're gonna dump that too. Right again,
Speaker 1: if you can't perceive it, why would you save it?
Speaker 1: That's the the logic behind us. But this can actually
Speaker 1: change the quality of the sound we hear, even if
Speaker 1: it isn't in a direct way. So one thing that
Speaker 1: could happen is you could have a really you know,
Speaker 1: low bit rate for this kind of compression, and then
Speaker 1: you end up creating a a pretty lossy file. Your
Speaker 1: your file is going to be smaller, but the fidelity
Speaker 1: is going to be very low to the point where
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to hear it. Moreover, compression algorithms
Speaker 1: tend to reduce dynamics, so we call dynamics would be
Speaker 1: the description of the difference between the softest and the
Speaker 1: loudest sounds in a recording, and uh, compression tends to
Speaker 1: squish all that in a bit so that your loudest
Speaker 1: loud sounds and your softest soft sounds are closer together.
Speaker 1: You have less dynamic range. And because more of us
Speaker 1: listen to digital music and have sort of moved away
Speaker 1: from analog sources, music itself has moved away from creating
Speaker 1: songs with really great dynamic range. We see musicians focusing
Speaker 1: on ranges that have less dynamics in them. We're seeing
Speaker 1: music produced with that smaller dynamic range from the very start,
Speaker 1: Why would you craft something with great dynamic complexity if
Speaker 1: no one's ever going to hear it, Because they're listening
Speaker 1: to a compressed digital stream over the internet. So it's
Speaker 1: actually changing the way people make and record music, not
Speaker 1: just store it and play it back. But then they're
Speaker 1: also lossless file formats. These are digital files that preserve
Speaker 1: all the information from a recorded session. Then the quality
Speaker 1: of your listening session is dependent upon three main factors.
Speaker 1: The equipment that was used to make the original recording.
Speaker 1: That's going to be important. Also, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: you could argue the actual performance of whatever it was
Speaker 1: that's gonna make a difference, But we're talking about reproducing
Speaker 1: that performance. So the equipment used to make the recording
Speaker 1: is important, the equipment used to convert that recording into
Speaker 1: a digital format is important, and the equipment you're using
Speaker 1: to listen to that recording is important. Lossy formats depend
Speaker 1: on those things too, but they also depend upon the
Speaker 1: compression algorithms. That adds yet another factor that can affect
Speaker 1: the sound quality. So what makes a great analog or
Speaker 1: digital source component? Well, again, that comes down to subjective preferences.
Speaker 1: So with turntables, there are different drive systems that audio
Speaker 1: files argue over endlessly. So is a belt drive better
Speaker 1: than a direct drive, a friction drive where you've got
Speaker 1: an element that's pressed up against the platter on the
Speaker 1: turntable and when the element turns, it causes the turntable
Speaker 1: to turn. Or is it a belt drive where you
Speaker 1: have a belt wrapped around the turntable or another piece
Speaker 1: that's in contact with the turntable and the belt provides
Speaker 1: the rotational motion. There are arguments back and forth over
Speaker 1: which one is superior, and they're they're pros and cons
Speaker 1: to both. But I covered all of that in the
Speaker 1: Turntable History episodes I did a while back. So the
Speaker 1: answer really comes down to it depends on the turntable,
Speaker 1: And another factor that impacts audio quality is the cartridge
Speaker 1: on the turntable. The cartridge is the part of the
Speaker 1: the turntable, the record player if you will, that holds
Speaker 1: the stylus or needle of a turntable. It also holds
Speaker 1: the the mechanics inside that convert the vibrations of the
Speaker 1: needle into an electric signal. So the four basic types
Speaker 1: of cartridges are moving magnet, moving iron, moving coil, and
Speaker 1: then ceramic cartridges. But all of them are responsible for
Speaker 1: taking those physical vibrations and converting them into an electric
Speaker 1: signal that then gets passed on to the other components.
Speaker 1: From what I've researched, the moving coil cartridges seem to
Speaker 1: be the darlings of audio files. Now this is outside
Speaker 1: of my area of expertise, but it was based upon
Speaker 1: the research I was doing. The styluss in an uh
Speaker 1: in A moving coil cartridge causes a cantilever to move
Speaker 1: a pair of coils back and forth over a stationary
Speaker 1: magnetic core. And the coils are conductive wire, right, so
Speaker 1: we know what that means. You move a conductive wire
Speaker 1: by a permanent magnet or vice versa, you move a
Speaker 1: permanent magnet by conductive coils, it induces current to flow
Speaker 1: or really and it induces a difference in voltage within
Speaker 1: those coils. And there's a pair of coils because you
Speaker 1: want to be able to create stereo, right, so one
Speaker 1: coil for each channel in a sound system with CD
Speaker 1: players or transports audio files will look to systems that
Speaker 1: minimize vibration, that operate quietly, and that use few errors
Speaker 1: while reading disks, and of course they look to digital
Speaker 1: audio converter systems that can convert digital signals to analog
Speaker 1: audio signals with as much accuracy as possible. And the
Speaker 1: quality of sound you get will also depend upon the
Speaker 1: physical media you're playing. If you're putting in a CD
Speaker 1: that's got a bunch of scratches on it, or you've
Speaker 1: got a worn down vinyl record that you put on
Speaker 1: a turntable, you're probably not going to get the ideal
Speaker 1: listening experience. Some systems have some error correction that can
Speaker 1: fix some things, that can jump over some of the
Speaker 1: scratches let's say on a on a CD, for example,
Speaker 1: but not everything does. And ultimately you're gonna want that
Speaker 1: physical media to be in as good shape as possible.
Speaker 1: You also want to make sure that your equipment isn't
Speaker 1: producing unreasonable wear and tear on that media. Next we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at the interconnects or cables, and then we'll
Speaker 1: talk about amplifiers, pre amplifiers and receivers as well as speakers.
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, cables.
Speaker 1: Time to talk about cables. So cables are important. You
Speaker 1: want good shielded cables. A shielded cable protects the electric
Speaker 1: signal from that's being carried by the cable from interference
Speaker 1: from electromagnetic interference. If you've ever had a poorly shielded
Speaker 1: cable like a headphone cable, you've probably heard interference like that.
Speaker 1: I remember I used to have a pair of really
Speaker 1: cheap speakers for a desktop computer, and whenever my phone
Speaker 1: would go off, if it was anywhere close to those cables,
Speaker 1: you would start getting this digital stuttering noises. Didate did
Speaker 1: it because the phone, when it was receiving a call,
Speaker 1: would generate this electromagnetic interference. So we get picked up
Speaker 1: by the cables and then sent on to the speaker
Speaker 1: as if it was a legitimate sound that my computer
Speaker 1: was trying to play. So you don't want that. You
Speaker 1: want good shielding around your your cables, and you want
Speaker 1: the cables to have really good solid connectors as well. Right,
Speaker 1: you want the part that you're plugging into the component
Speaker 1: to have a good connection with the rest of the cable,
Speaker 1: because if if it's a weak connection, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: get intermittent broadcast quality, like you're gonna get intermittent playability.
Speaker 1: So those are important. But when you when you get
Speaker 1: down to it, after that, the nature of cables starts
Speaker 1: to become another really contentious one. There are cables out
Speaker 1: there that are marketed as being superior to all others,
Speaker 1: largely because of the materials that are being used in
Speaker 1: the actual cable, like gold plated connectors, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But tests can tend to be inconclusive on this matter.
Speaker 1: A well constructed cable, one that loses less of a
Speaker 1: signal due to resistance, tends to perform are in tests,
Speaker 1: which seems reasonable. Cables that are less well constructed tend
Speaker 1: to perform lower, again not a big surprise, but the
Speaker 1: differences are again largely subjective, and the prices for high
Speaker 1: end cables can get truly astronomical, like thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: for a cable that's a meter in length, especially if
Speaker 1: you start looking for cables that are longer. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you want to create a sound system where you're
Speaker 1: hooking up speakers throughout a large space. It can get
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive, very very quickly, because those cables get super
Speaker 1: super expensive, thousands of dollars for a cable. And also,
Speaker 1: there are analog and there are digital audio cables, but
Speaker 1: for your good audio system, like a Hi Fi audio system,
Speaker 1: you pretty much just need analog cables. Digital audio cables
Speaker 1: are mostly designed for theater systems to provide multiple channels
Speaker 1: so that you can get stuff like surround sound. But
Speaker 1: your typical audio recordings are more in the stereo world,
Speaker 1: not surround sound world, So you just need a cable
Speaker 1: that's going to provide really good stereo channels. Also, you
Speaker 1: may have heard about directional audio cables. Now, these are
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, cables that indicate which end should
Speaker 1: plug into a specific component, with the idea of the
Speaker 1: signal can travel better down one direction of the cable
Speaker 1: versus the opposite direction of the cable. So you might
Speaker 1: have a directional cable that says this end needs to
Speaker 1: plug into your source audio, and this other end needs
Speaker 1: to plug into your pre amplifier or amplifier. Now, based
Speaker 1: on my research, that claim largely seems unsupported. So in
Speaker 1: other words, it might be true, but I've seen no
Speaker 1: evidence to actually support that claim, and so I see
Speaker 1: no reason why anyone should seek out directional cables. The
Speaker 1: only time it matters is if the components you're connecting
Speaker 1: have proprietary fittings, like a proprietary port, which requires cables
Speaker 1: to be plugged in a specific way because there's no
Speaker 1: other way to do it. But typically you don't want
Speaker 1: to avoid that because one of the beauty, beautiful things
Speaker 1: I should say about having one of these audio systems
Speaker 1: is that modular approach where you can swap out components.
Speaker 1: But you can't really do that if you're using proprietary
Speaker 1: connectors like you, you'd have to stay within that same
Speaker 1: family of products because otherwise the cable you have would
Speaker 1: not plug into the component you're using. So you want
Speaker 1: to typically use components that have universal connectors, and most do.
Speaker 1: Now that we've got cables all the way, let's take
Speaker 1: a look at what I think of as the heart
Speaker 1: of a sound system. This would be the collection of
Speaker 1: components that can include a receiver, a tuner, amplifier, and
Speaker 1: a pre amplifier. Now I said can include because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of variations here. Not all systems are
Speaker 1: going to have all of these different components. So a
Speaker 1: tuner is a radio. The tuner is what allows you
Speaker 1: to tune into a specific radio frequency to pick up
Speaker 1: a different station. And the antenna of a radio will
Speaker 1: receive tons of different sign waves representing different radio signals.
Speaker 1: So the tuner tells the radio which of those sign
Speaker 1: waves to pay attention to and which wants to ignore,
Speaker 1: essentially ignore all the rest. Tuners use resonance to do this.
Speaker 1: The radio has a resonator that can be set for
Speaker 1: specific frequencies. That's by tuning the dial and at that
Speaker 1: specific frequency, the resonator resonates and amplifies that incoming signal,
Speaker 1: which is then processed and amplified further to go to
Speaker 1: the speakers and then you can listen to the radio.
Speaker 1: I've done episodes our radio work, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go into further detail here. Pre amplifiers and amplifiers take
Speaker 1: that incoming signal and then strengthen it to send out
Speaker 1: to speakers. A pre amplifier takes an incoming signal and
Speaker 1: boost it up to what you would call line signal
Speaker 1: strength and send that on to an amplifier for further amplification.
Speaker 1: So are pre amplifiers necessary? Could you just plug source
Speaker 1: components like CD players or turntable into an amplifier. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a contentious issue. Some pre amplifiers serve as switches,
Speaker 1: so you can plug in numerous components into the pre amplifier,
Speaker 1: which then connects to an amplifier to send a signal
Speaker 1: out to the speakers. And if you've got lots of
Speaker 1: different source components, that could be important. So you connect
Speaker 1: all the source components to the pre amplifier, use the
Speaker 1: pre amplifier to switch to the proper source component that
Speaker 1: you want to listen to. Let's say that you have
Speaker 1: just finished listening to a record and now you want
Speaker 1: to listen to a CD, so use the pre amplifier
Speaker 1: to switch from the vinyl turntable input to the c
Speaker 1: D input. Then you might need a pre amplifier, but
Speaker 1: some people argue again that the more components you put
Speaker 1: between the source and the speakers, the more opportunities you
Speaker 1: have to degrade the signals, so there's some truth to
Speaker 1: that as well. It could be that an extra step
Speaker 1: in the chain from turntable to speaker could introduce some errors. Receivers,
Speaker 1: by the way, are essentially amplifiers that also have the
Speaker 1: radio tuner incorporated in them. So you've got these various components.
Speaker 1: They're all meant to take that incoming signal, amplify it,
Speaker 1: and incented out to the speakers. And to make matters
Speaker 1: more complicated, there are different types of amplifiers. Their transistor
Speaker 1: based amplifiers which rely upon electronic components to amplify the signal.
Speaker 1: There are tube based amplifiers. They use good old fashioned
Speaker 1: vacuum tubes to amplify the signal. There are hybrid systems
Speaker 1: that use elements of both. Now, I've talked about amplification
Speaker 1: and other episodes too, so again I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: over it there. I'm already running long, so I don't
Speaker 1: have time to go into the science and technology behind amplification.
Speaker 1: But I have covered that in previous episodes, and there
Speaker 1: are audio files who will swear up and down that
Speaker 1: a tube system is superior to a transistor system. But
Speaker 1: I've also read about a lot of tests that are
Speaker 1: more inconclusive on that if the person listening has no idea,
Speaker 1: if he or she is hearing an audio recording produced
Speaker 1: with a a system using either tubes or transistors, and
Speaker 1: they're unable to tell the difference, then there's really no
Speaker 1: benefit from one versus the other. Um that's not saying
Speaker 1: that there's no difference at all. Again, some people might
Speaker 1: be able to perceive a difference, the others legitimately might not.
Speaker 1: It's all very subjective, so this does not also mean
Speaker 1: that all preampts, amplifiers, and receivers are equal. Some legitimately
Speaker 1: do a better job than others. Some may introduce errors
Speaker 1: in a signal which the speakers will then produce, and
Speaker 1: you will hear a reproduction of a recording that is
Speaker 1: not as accurate as you might like. But I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of tests that suggests that while there are differences,
Speaker 1: the brand and the cost are not necessarily indicators of quality.
Speaker 1: So in some cases, mid budget or even lower budget
Speaker 1: components received performance scores that rivaled or even outpaced more
Speaker 1: expensive equipment. So don't let a price tag fool you
Speaker 1: into thinking that because something costs more, it's automatically better.
Speaker 1: It might be better, but you won't know unless you
Speaker 1: go through to that demo room and us into a
Speaker 1: whole different audio set up configurations, and you're reasonably sure
Speaker 1: that no one's messing with any settings so that they
Speaker 1: guide you to the more expensive equipment. And even then,
Speaker 1: your perception can be influenced just by knowing which brand
Speaker 1: is in play or the sticker price of a particular component,
Speaker 1: Because perception is a funny thing. If you're told ahead
Speaker 1: of time this system you're about to hear is top
Speaker 1: of the line, you might perceive the music as being
Speaker 1: of a better quality than any of the other variations,
Speaker 1: even if there's no real discernible difference. It's just that
Speaker 1: you've added that mental expectation, and because of that, you
Speaker 1: do perceive it that way. So avoiding bias is really tricky,
Speaker 1: but also important if you want to, you know, not
Speaker 1: break the bank. The last piece of the audio system
Speaker 1: would be the speakers. So good speakers should be able
Speaker 1: to reproduce sounds across the range of human hearing. But
Speaker 1: that's pretty hard to do, particularly when you start getting
Speaker 1: into the very low frequencies. Reproducing base UH in an
Speaker 1: accurate way is tough. It's not hard to make big
Speaker 1: booming noises, it's just tough to do it in a
Speaker 1: way that is really accurate of the original sound. It
Speaker 1: requires really large speakers with big drivers that require a
Speaker 1: lot of power to move. Often you'll need something like
Speaker 1: a subwiffer that will have its own power source to
Speaker 1: help augment that incoming signal even more because the speaker
Speaker 1: it has to move is so heavy. Um, the driver
Speaker 1: inside is so heavy, so you need a lot more power. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are tons of different speakers out there in a
Speaker 1: huge array of price points, and just like all the
Speaker 1: other components, higher prices not necessarily mean a better experience.
Speaker 1: Now I realize I've been hammering that home quite a bit,
Speaker 1: but it's the most important piece of information I think
Speaker 1: you can have when you're decided to build out an
Speaker 1: audio system. Audio files can sometimes fall into a trap
Speaker 1: where they believe they get a superior experience because the
Speaker 1: pieces they're investing in are expensive or have more features
Speaker 1: than others, or sometimes they have fewer features than others,
Speaker 1: because some people say the more features you introduce, the
Speaker 1: more chances you have of introducing errors and signals. But
Speaker 1: if you visit any website that hosts discussions between audio files,
Speaker 1: you'll find a lot of dissent on pretty much every
Speaker 1: component within an audio system. So to me, that really
Speaker 1: brings it all home. You have to find the components
Speaker 1: that work correctly for the sound you want to experience.
Speaker 1: That's what is important. So that means actually going out
Speaker 1: and trying different demonstrations and finding the mix that works
Speaker 1: for you. And that's a lot of work, but if
Speaker 1: that's what's important to you, it's worth doing. And just
Speaker 1: remember that a system made up of components, while it
Speaker 1: is modular and you can upgrade a single piece, it's
Speaker 1: never going to sound better than the lowest performing part
Speaker 1: of that system. All right. That wraps up this exhaustive
Speaker 1: overview of audio systems, And obviously I could do full
Speaker 1: episodes about each of those different components and talking great
Speaker 1: or detail what they do and how they do it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I have done that with turntables, so maybe
Speaker 1: I'll do that with the other pieces in the future.
Speaker 1: Thank you Carl Ludvig for your suggestion. If any of
Speaker 1: you have other suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: write me an email the addresses tech Stuff at how
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