Musician describing the sound of amplifiers driving resistive vs reactive loads.

[Ar9Jim 6,056]

This is an interesting point of view on a subject.

Musicians use dummy loads with their amplifiers for doing recording without driving speakers to high volumes.

Resistive loads are known to make an amp sound flat and terrible. Reactive loads can simulate the sound of the amp sounding sweet, as if driving speakers during recording.

 

Consider that the common test in Hi Fi audio magazines and blogs, celebrate the best amplifier in resistive load measurement test.

 

This is why some of the best measuring products in test, can sound flat and sterile. It's about what sounds good. This is also why the 275 test poor running resistors, but performs great with loud speakers. "Why not just use a resistor for recording music"?, "Because the resistor sounds like garbage".  You may ask why hi fi companies are building for best resistive load measurements, while that is not the products application.  Its a good question. Why optimize a design to perform to a load standard so far removed from it's purpose?  Any thoughts? 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Ar9Jim

[AndrewJohn 8,184]

Hey @Ar9Jim. All these research reference points, blogs, videos, need to be collected in one place.

 

They are so revealing.  I wonder if instead of one-by-one posts, they could instead build more momentum in a common thread on "Testing Reactive Speaker Loads vs Static Resistor Loads.

 

I think the science here is critical, but the noise from the ASR's of the world dominate the discussion.

 

I'm pondering how we can help you / BobCarverCorp evangelize this more.

[BobTFM35 1,623]

@AndrewJohn @Ar9Jim That sounds like a good idea. What came to mind is something like "Recently Posted in - The Bob Carver Corporation Room" or maybe a separate vendor space that is always on top so that members and non members will see it when they come to the site. Only the vendor can post a new topic but others can only comment.

 

Just a thought.

 

 

[4krow 5,077]

I really didn't expect to like the sound from my computer speakers when listening, but was very surprised at the sound at the beginning. Not even being that big of a fan of many guitar works, this really caught me off guard. And yes, it had something to do with maybe the combination of harmonics, the delay and the distortion. The  later recordings were not at all impressive to me, but I could hear what they were going for. There is a different life present in this type of sound.

 Ok so how does that matter to the subject at hand? I will say that in my limited experience with such works, it usually just sounds more distorted than anything and quite annoying. Spikey and other things that only fit into heavy metal or something. No offense to those who love all that. This sound has heart. That is about all that I could really say as a difference. It is a touch of what I hear when using the Korg SP1 DHT in a preamp.

[John Smallwood 227]

In the new "Broadsword and the Beast" box set by Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson writes about Martin Barre using something called a "Power Soak" to enable him to use his Marshall amp in the studio while recording the album.  I think that's the same thing that you're writing about in this thread.

Edited September 10, 2023 by John Smallwood
missing word

[Yamacarver 664]

There's some kappa nines on eBay.

 

[Ar9Jim 6,056]

20 hours ago, Yamacarver said:

There's some kappa nines on eBay.

 

That brings another topic to the thread that is not very well understood in the audiophile realm.

Would you believe that the impedance dips were allowed remain in the Kappa 9s because they were intended for tube amplifiers. The Kappa 9s can be ran on fairly small tube amps. At the time, the Kappa nine was recommended for use with "vintage" (tube) amplifiers. 

"Nice wide voltage swing and lots of headroom" B. Carver, is the answer.  Actually a Black Magic 25 would power Kappa9s way better that many people could even comprehend. A search for Kappa 9 / tube amp has a lot of info.. People running smaller tube amps after burning up solid state. Not intuitive but true non the less.

 

Paul talks about tubes and Kappa 9s in the video. This is also not intuitive to the common audiophile beliefs in solid state, about an amplifier needing to double its output from 8 to 4 ohms in order to run difficult loads. Tube amps don't double as the impedance is reduced by half. Usually 8 and 4 ohm output is not much different. Bobs DC restorer makes them even better. 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Ar9Jim