Re: What's a transient?
- From: "Andre Jute" <fiultra@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 26 Apr 2006 05:53:49 -0700
Ian Iveson wrote:
I read quite often here about things people call "transients".
What are they, please? What have they got to do with valves?
Thanks,
Ian
A transient is just another stick for silicon slime to beat you around
the head with and demand that your amp be insanely powerful and
therefore transistorized. Voltage spikes can be noise, in which case
you don't want them, or music, in which case you do.
Play a good recording of Handel's Water Music. The fireworks are
transients. They make huge demands lasting microseconds on the amp's
power supply. A kettle drum or other "shot" input ditto. Check it out
on the scope. Power demand can easily rise from a few milliwatts to
several tens of watts, even at modest listening levels.
What transients have to do with valves is that you built a valve amp
for the sweetness of the sound and your direct emotional involvement in
it (the reasoning is the same for gaincloners and DIYers who build
Nelson Pass's Class A transistor designs). But if you stack up the
power supply and the tubes or devices in the necessary numbers and
topologies (PP, essential NFB) until you have 2000W (which when I put
it up for a lark on RAT was seriously accepted by the valve-bashers as
a reasonable target to shoot for...), your amp will no longer be sweet
and your emotional connection to the music will be mechanically
distanced -- but you will have a wonderful demo amp if you limit
yourself to the 1812 Overture, Water Music, fireworks, gamelan
orchestras and suchlike.
Perfect transients are a compromise too far.
HTH.
Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
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- What's a transient?
- From: Ian Iveson
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