2.1 speaker system

 

The link posted above is interesting. I am not an over the top fanatic about audio gear. I am into it, but not to the point of spending thousands of dollars on speaker cables. I can safely say that the article is very misleading in it's bashing of audio's more sensitive issues. Hyperlitz cables do make a difference and so does bi-wiring. That can be proven easily. Hyperlitz wires vary in diameter throughout the stands and this allows  the spectrum of audio frequencies to travel along the wire best suited for that frequency. What this does is keep your impedance stable through the wire throughout the audio spectrum.

Stable impedance is very important in any wire that carries varying frequencies. Another words, the wire should not be editorializing the signal at all. Hyperlitz and wire purity and very important in this regard.

 

Bi-wiring is very effective as well. The frequencies above and below the crossover point say in a 2 way speaker system will separate and thus keeping the high frequencies directed to the high frequency transducer and the low frequencies directed to the low frequency transducer.

This keeps the low frequency signals out of the wire on route to the high frequency transducer. This produces a more stable signal with less harmonic distortion.

 

The matter of tubes is very real indeed. They have a sound signature that bi-polar transistors don't have. For one thing. Bi-polar transistors are current gain devices and tubes are voltage gain devices.

There are semi-conductors that closely mimic tubes and they are known as Field Effect Transistors (FET's). These devices are very similar in sound characteristics as tubes. Many manufacturers employ FET's instead of tubes to get that "tube" like sound. In general Bi-Polar transistors tend to be more linear but they produce even order harmonics, (well some amps more so than others) and even order harmonics are not as easy on the ear as odd order harmonic distortions which are produced by FET's and tubes. Tubes if done right have a very natural sound (lack of second order distotions) in the mid to high frequencies and they clip slowly as well. This slow clipping is not as evident as the hard clipping that occurs in bi-polar devices, thus less noticeable to the ear. Hard clipping makes thing sound very harsh. That's why a lot of transitor gear sounds so hard when the volume is turned up too high. Whatever the set-up and there are many, proper circuit design and matching of either tube or semi-conductor is critical. There is so much to this science and there are a lot of so called engineers out there that pooh pooh the whole audio thing. I know first hand that the differences are very real. It's just a matter of being smart and knowing where to draw the line. Most cheep gear employs a method known as feedback to keep circuits stable. Feed back blurs images and messes up the sound stage and adds distortion called IM Distortion or Intermediate Harmonic Distortion which is very nasty on the ears. There is a lot of scientific garble here that would take me too long to type. I know the differences exist. I can hear them.