Meriln, this is one of the subjects that disturbs me in your description: your bring OTL consciousness to justify Berning and you bring all those foolish OTL people as witnesses to give credentials to Berning. We all know Doctor Gizmo and all know his view about the things and the reasons of his interest in the things. Read my article “Immediate Gratification by Surrogate Sonic Effects” at:
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=3611
Dr. Gizmo was not a fool but he knew that he writes for fools. So, his cherishing and blabbering the entertainable and hyper-selebrateable mediocrity was his routine, and it was not something that other might care or take under consideration. The late Terry Cain was in the same, or even in the more shattered boat. He was very pleasant guy personally but his results in Audio were beyond any rational criticism. Presumably his understanding of Sound and Audio methods were at the same level and It is no surprise that all “those” people crowded around the OTL world. I do not mean just the Gizmo and Terry but all that community of full-range drivers with sewer-pipe-horns, driven by some kind of Atmosphere OTL. I am not accidentally mention the Atmosphere amps – people involved with them should have ears cut, Still I do know a lot of people who do sing serenades to the Atmosphere OTL… The familiar serenades…. I would not even mention your comments about the “facts” that no one sell the Berning amps – it was openly cheap and you know it.
What was actually interesting in this thread were not your attempt to convince yourself publicly that Bernings is worthy amp but you posting your own thoughts about your amplification. I think if you did it initially I would eliminate many unnecessary posts. Still, as I can see it, - making amplifier that would make jazz to sound Gizmo impressive is as simple/primitive as to compete with the handicap athletes from local Special Olympic team.
I still do not feel comfortable with Berning idea and I relay do not see rational behind what David offers. He butters up people with fear of core saturation at LF but it is truely bogusness. There are zillion way to deal with the problem, block DC with a cap and use no gap-transformer for instance. I do not say that it is better solution for the “transformers fear” but it will sound like shit and at the same time have no “feared saturation”, think about it.
What I do say is that each conversion mechanism has own language and own intrusion into the fine, and in many instances mysterious, mechanism of sound organization. I do feel (and that feeling is NOT backed up by any evidences) that pulses modulator might be more intrusive and more disturbing “ceremony” then a transformer. A transformer has easy understandable, easy predictable and easy measurable boundaries - LF limitations. There are ways to deal with it (DSET one of them, BTW). Also, transformers (or DSETness) allow mitigating of demands. You might go for ambitious transformer or for DEST if your sonic objective, your room and the capacity of your acoustic system might accommodate those demands. Dose it mean that if you use no lower then 60hz capable speakers (most of the speakers out there) then you do not need Berning’s impedance matching as it would not stress low end? Sure, David Burning offers a very different approach but it has nothing to do with the fact of transformer absents, in fact I would not call David’s amplifiers as SET at all as they’re not truly triode amplifiers anymore.
I certainly am not saying that the Berning conversion is bad but I do say the David’s conversion is much more complicated in terms of sound transformations. David is preoccupied with pushing his Zero-Hysteresis hyperbola and it is very much possible that his design do have no hysteresis. So what? David, stresses juts one among dozens others measurable factors, and it is among those factors that we know. Do I have to remind you how many amplifiers sound out there where their designers have in this mind ONLY the lowest number of harmonic distortions?
You see, we do not hear distortions. Let me say it again, as it is very loaded statement: humans do not hear distortions. We do not register distortion but only hear ONLY the residue of mechanisms that create the distortions. I afraid that Mr. Berning’s ZOTL ideas have larger opportunities for exhibiting various electronic contamination of sound becose his conversion is MUCH more complex. Will those contaminations be shown on David’s Berning measurement tools? Ro answer this question it is necessary to look much further then “design concepts” and to use different assessing methodologies that would be serving the interests of Sound instead of the interests of design objectives….
BTW, the comments of some folks who reportedly heard Bernings amp as who found that it was juts a “good” Hi-Fi is a good illustration that to build an amp having only no-hysteresis objective is too undemanding objective to have.
I have a local guy here in Massachusetts: Dan Banquer. He is some kind amplifier designer that trying to make noise in the same level community where Bernings makes waves. Dan has a mental fixation that amplifier should not hase noise and all his metals capacity completely enslaved with this objective. I heard his amps in his home a few years back, and it is true – his amps have no noise; however it is all that his amps do as in any other aspects of music reproductions his amps demonstrate the intelligence of a refrigerator. When Dan Banquer played to me his amps and asked me what I think I told him, after which he kicked me out of his house – he juts did not know that he was doing a favor for me by aborting that session…
What I am trying to say? I am trying to deliver a thought that in a seriously sounding amplification there is a LOT OF MORE then absent of hysteresis-inspire distortions and hate of transformers. Your pointing to Berning amps was very good thing but I hardly see it as some kind of Pandora Box. Rather I see it as another entry in a long line of “opportunities”, the opportunities that might or might not burst though then a higher level then a Masonic secretive handshake …
Rgs, The Cat
"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche