Thursday, January 20, 2011

Vol. II No. 6

From my experience of audio electronics, it appears that the audio signal path goes through many resistors, transistors, diodes, and capacitors, and is at every point correlated to “chassis ground.” The signal consists of one electrical pole while the chassis constitutes the other pole.

Let’s say you had a light bulb in the component. One terminal from the bulb would connect to the signal energy and the other terminal would be wired to the chassis. I’m saying this just for illustration.

What this seems to imply is that the music being processed by the component is not confined to the signal path. Instead, the entire component is vibrating.

So let’s consider a singer singing into a microphone connected to an amplifier and then to speakers. The mic transmits an electrical replica of the sound of her voice to the amplifier. Her voice emanates more loudly from the speakers because the amplifier provides leverage and energy to the circuit including the speakers.

What I don’t like is that the sound of her voice is distributed throughout the circuitry of the amplifier, and in that way it loses clarity. All that circuitry is like, if you’ll allow the term, a tone sink.

Somehow the tradition has always maintained that audio reproduction technology is not itself a musical instrument. Consider the dull thud of a speaker cone if you flick it with your finger and the distributive over-complexity of amp circuits that makes them more suited to generating white noise than the richness of tone of, say, a fine, well-tuned acoustic piano.

For better amplification, simplify the circuitry and mount it on a massive chassis, ideally bolted to a reinforced concrete wall or floor.



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