The Dream PRS Amplifier Thread

I want a desktop-sized super portable amp with the original PRS tube amp sound signature.

See Yamaha's THR10X.
It's extremely portable yet sound incredible enough for practice and jamming.
I hope PRS guys make something like this with real tubes and Archon 25 sound signature and knobs.

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kawaivpc1 said:
I want a desktop-sized super portable amp with the original PRS tube amp sound signature.

See Yamaha's THR10X.
Click to expand...

Gosh I hope that never happens. Ever.

There's already enough Yamaha type junk on the market. Let Yamaha stick with that. They're a huge international conglomerate, and they do the stuff they do as well as it can be done. If that's what you need, you don't need PRS to do it.

And the original PRS tube amp signature comes from its tubes, its transformers, and its circuit design, not from a piece of transistor junk that models tube amp sounds and has tiny 2 inch speakers or whatever's in there. Have you seen the inside of one of PRS' high end amps? Have you heard the difference the hand-wiring makes? Have you checked out the transformers? Seen the parts? Checked out the speaker cabs made of pine, with modded Celestions?

I have. I've talked with Doug Sewell, I know the effort he puts into his design work.

That's what creates the tone. The real stuff. Down to the aluminum chassis with chassis-mounted tube sockets and hand wired transformers.

That's what can't possibly be duplicated in a little piece of Yamaha-style crapola.

Slapping a PRS logo and fancy faceplate on a crappy little transistor boombox thing with some modeled sounds does not a PRS amp make.

PRS' resources are far more limited than Yamaha's. They'd be wasted on a little piece of...well...I won't go there again; it's quite obvious what I think of those toys.

Let PRS continue to invest its resources into its much more advanced professional market, and push the high end envelope, not waste its efforts duplicating what's already been done badly by others.
 
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This Yamaha THR10X is already successful.
Listen to this demo by Ola Englund. This is more than good enough for making demos or practicing.

I'm against all digitally emulated amps from companies like Line 6, Blackstar, etc. They sound so fake, I agree.
But this THR10X is AA battery powered and sound this good.
You can carry this around anywhere... your van, airplane, etc.

It has a USB recording interface so you can record directly to your laptop anywhere.
If someone can make something like this with real tubes, it will be amazing...
 
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I have that Yamaha amp, it is most awesome for practice and sounds great as it is stereo.
The effects are great, but like Les mentioned it is not in Paul's best interest to make something like this.

Let PRS stick to what they do best, there are tons of small practice amp makers out there, I also have the Roland Microcube for guitar, and a slightly bigger cube for bass.
All three run on batteries which make it nice to play on my front deck/porch in the summer.
 
sergiodeblanc said:
Jeez... I thought this was "The Dream" thread, not the "Dream Crusher" thread.

Go on Kavaivpc1. Keep dreaming your dream.
Click to expand...

It's not impossible. One day you'll see this and regret your comment.
Wait till year 2020... you'll see a tablet device that has all the tube amp sounds in it.
 
I'm a person who is seriously wondering why all of the greatest amp emulation devices like Axe FX, Kemper come with 90's 2D graphic user interface.

One day, you'll see a tiny tablet with a touchscreen, advanced 3D android interface, true analog amp sound emulation of hundreds of amps, a 1/4 guitar input, its own Class D amp, 1/4 600W powered outputs for cabinets and monitors.
It will run on its own lithium battery that has ten times longer battery life than current lithium batteries.
Then people will start to forget about primitive big amp heads and cabinets....

I hope we can see Paul's name on that device.
 
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rugerpc said:
Just like CDs and mpegs forever killed the analog 12" record and record players...

Oh wait, they didn't.

Never mind.
Click to expand...

Digital technology killed vinyls when HDtracks.com (www.hdtracks.com) came out.
They sell 24bit 192kHz full resolution lossless recordings directly from recording studios.
This 24bit 192kHz lossless recordings can be played by digital to analog converters such as Benchmark DAC2.
http://benchmarkmedia.com/collections/digital-to-analog-audio-converter

24bit 192kHz FLAC files played through Benchmark DAC2 to Sennheiser HD800 headphone sound much better than Vinyl.
http://en-us.sennheiser.com/dynamic-headphones-high-end-around-ear-hd-800

Update your information....
What surprises me on this forum is there are many people who don't try to search and just believe what they already know..
There are at least few thousands of people working in audiophile device industry. They spend their whole lives to make analog sounding devices. And yet there are people who have never heard about them and claim vinyl is still the best and technology has done nothing to replace it...

You can even listen to vinyl sound on the go with new Sony ZX2:

Need reference in-ear-monitors?
Get this:
http://www.jhaudio.com/product/sirens-layla
 
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kawaivpc1 said:
Update your information....
What surprises me on this forum is there are many people who don't try to search and just believe what they already know..
There are at least few thousands of people working in audiophile device industry. They spend their whole lives to make analog sounding devices.
Click to expand...

I'll caution you AGAIN not to comment on members as persons. Do not assume what members do and don't know and whether they research topics or not. Debate my words, do not cast inferences on me as a person. If you cannot separate what someone is saying from who you project them to be, it would be best not to comment at all.

***

The people you are talking about are doing exactly that, working on making digital devices sound analog enough to replace them yeah, their whole lives.

Not there yet, or they'd all be working on something else.

Update your information. Vinyl is making a comeback because of the digital failures. Turntable sales are on the rise, not decline. TUBE audio amps and pre-amps command and get high dollar.
 
I have had so many versions of Sennheiser headphones, I've lost count. I'm a big fan.

However, I find that I can actually hear the faults of noise cancelling technology as it currently exists. First of all, there is the mic that must 'hear' the noise the circuitry must cancel. The dynamic range and frequency response is not good enough to cancel everything my ear can hear. I can also sense the lag, as short as it is. I can hear the hiss.

Noise cancellation technology is a good example of an immature digital effort.

The best solution is to use the best earphones you can afford and reduce unwanted noise by physical isolation of the unwanted sources.
 
Their noise cancelling headphone costs $200 or less. That's like Roland micro cube amp compared to Mesa Mark V.
The HD800S in the video costs $1699.
It has the widest sound stage in headphone's history on the earth.
Axel Grell of Sennheiser is as smart as Paul in manufacturing audio devices.

They sound much more detailed than vinyl, of course.
 
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I actually use HD tracks often, to buy current album releases. I use them with Amarra, a digital program that sounds a lot better than iTunes, though it uses iTunes as a library engine, the audio is the Amarra engine.

And I have advanced D/A conversion that sounds very good, from Universal Audio.

But I know how analog sounds, because I worked in the analog studio world for many years, and I still like records. I still like analog tape. You can like both mediums for what they do well, and frankly, you can dislike both mediums for what they don't do well at all, namely, sound exactly like live music.

No one is fooled by even the finest hi fi or studio system, whether the system is analog or digital, into thinking that there's a live band in the room. You can go down the hall, and you'll even recognize the difference between live performance and a recording.

We are still in a primitive state when it comes to sound reproduction, and that isn't surprising considering that it's only been about 90-ish years since electrical recording (as opposed to using a megaphone to move a needle on a wax cylinder) got started.

Thus we use primitive speaker systems with multiple round drivers that are only mild improvements over what was available 60 years ago, we use brick wall filters to reduce the Nyqvist Effect, and we are still living in a 24 bit, 192KHz world when the potential of digital resolution is greater but most systems aren't up to recording at higher sampling rates or bit lengths. We are still using microphones whose designs stem from the 1930s, and early post WWII mics that are now nearly 70 years old are prized recording tools.

So...nothing's perfect. And it probably never will be.

We live with - and enjoy - the imperfections in the recording process. But there's a long way to go to get things really right, and to be able to reproduce the sound and impact of a live performance in any style of music.

There are a lot of reasons why analog systems of both recording and reproduction can sound far more detailed than digital, including the ability to resolve and record ultra high frequencies, but these systems - I've used them - are very, very expensive.
 
kawaivpc1 said:
Their noise cancelling headphone costs $200 or less. That's like Roland micro cube amp compared to Mesa Mark V.
The HD800S in the video costs $1699.
It has the widest sound stage in headphone's history on the earth.
Axel Grell of Sennheiser is as smart as Paul in manufacturing audio devices.

If you haven't heard them, don't comment on them.
They sound much more detailed than vinyl, of course.
Click to expand...

I've heard the Sennheisers you are referring to, the HD800. They're great. So are lots of other high end cans.

They can't sound more detailed than vinyl, because their job is to reproduce whatever's on the recording or coming out of the mixing buss.

So they sound only as detailed as the source. Vinyl can sound as detailed as digital, and sometimes more so because:

1. Analog has no brick wall filtering. It is capable of a wider frequency response than current digital offerings.

2. Analog IS the waveform, not a stepped approximation of the waveform that has its gaps between steps estimated and filled in by the D/A converter.

The drawback of analog is NOT resolution; it is noise. A very good, quiet, analog recording is certainly the sonic equivalent of a good digital recording, and maybe better. But most reproduction equipment has a higher noise floor.

So do you want the digital steps, with their brick wall filter and approximated waveform, or do you prefer a little noise as with analog?

Neither is perfect.

The job of a headphone is to reproduce the source in high fidelity. That is, highly faithful to the sound coming out of the reproduction device. That's all. Good ones do a better job than crappy ones.

However, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this thread.
 
LSchefman said:
I've heard the Sennheisers you are referring to, the HD800. They're great. So are lots of other high end cans.

They can't sound more detailed than vinyl, because their job is to reproduce whatever's on the recording or coming out of the mixing buss.

So they sound only as detailed as the source. Vinyl can sound as detailed as digital, and sometimes more so because:

1. Analog has no brick wall filtering. It is capable of a wider frequency response than current digital offerings.

2. Analog IS the waveform, not a stepped approximation of the waveform that has its gaps between steps estimated and filled in by the D/A converter.

The drawback of analog is NOT resolution; it is noise. A very good, quiet, analog recording is certainly the sonic equivalent of a good digital recording, and maybe better. But most reproduction equipment has a higher noise floor.

So do you want the digital steps, with their brick wall filter and approximated waveform, or do you prefer a little noise as with analog?

Neither is perfect.

The job of a headphone is to reproduce the source in high fidelity. That is, highly faithful to the sound coming out of the reproduction device. That's all. Good ones do a better job than crappy ones.

However, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this thread.
Click to expand...


I was starting to make a post on this point, but Les beat me to it. I can't improve on Les' explanation except to summerize. The headphones are the final transducer. Their job is to faithfully reproduce the signal they are fed regardless of the source. They cannot be more detailed than their source. Quite the opposite actually.
 
rugerpc said:
I was starting to make a post on this point, but Les beat me to it. I can't improve on Les' explanation except to summerize. The headphones are the final transducer. Their job is to faithfully reproduce the signal they are fed regardless of the source. They cannot be more detailed than their source. Quite the opposite actually.
Click to expand...

Precisely. Anyone who doesn't understand that needs to brush up on their audio facts.

Someone who doesn't understand the differences between analog and digital reproduction can learn what the limitations of each medium are. Neither is perfect; though I think analog is more perfect, I record digitally because it offers me the advantage of being able to quickly edit to meet clients' picture changes, and I need a lot less synchronization hardware to run picture and audio at the same time.

There are advantage and disadvantages, but when we are talking about amplifiers, the sonic edge definitely goes to analog amps.
 
LSchefman said:
I've heard the Sennheisers you are referring to, the HD800. They're great. So are lots of other high end cans.

They can't sound more detailed than vinyl, because their job is to reproduce whatever's on the recording or coming out of the mixing buss.

So they sound only as detailed as the source. Vinyl can sound as detailed as digital, and sometimes more so because:

1. Analog has no brick wall filtering. It is capable of a wider frequency response than current digital offerings.

2. Analog IS the waveform, not a stepped approximation of the waveform that has its gaps between steps estimated and filled in by the D/A converter.

The drawback of analog is NOT resolution; it is noise. A very good, quiet, analog recording is certainly the sonic equivalent of a good digital recording, and maybe better. But most reproduction equipment has a higher noise floor.

So do you want the digital steps, with their brick wall filter and approximated waveform, or do you prefer a little noise as with analog?

Neither is perfect.

The job of a headphone is to reproduce the source in high fidelity. That is, highly faithful to the sound coming out of the reproduction device. That's all. Good ones do a better job than crappy ones.

However, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this thread.
Click to expand...


You're not reading my comments.
I have mentioned that you have to use 24bit 192kHz lossless sources from HDtracks.com (www.hdtracks.com) and a digital-to-analog converter from Benchmark Media (http://benchmarkmedia.com/collections/digital-to-analog-audio-converter) or Teac UD 503 with Sennheiser HD800.
When you use them together, virtually there's no difference between them and vinyl.

"The original Benchmark DAC1 has been used to master many Grammy-winning and chart-topping records. It is hard to imagine that even better performance has been squeezed out of that box, but the DAC2 HGC does that."
 
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