Topic: Stock FR2LE vs. Busman T-Mod FR2LE true side by side comparison

[digifish_music]

I am not going to name names... But here is a preamp made by a VERY well known company the graph in Blue is my preamp the graph in purple is the "well known" preamp what one would you rather own? Don't get me wrong I am not trying to sell preamps.. But sometimes graphs can be a good thing.
Chris

While I agree with you, I think this graph is a little sneaky in that it extents to 10? to 90 kHz...but -22? dB at 20 kHz is a little droopy and I do record bats from time to time, so I will take the blue

[Church-Audio]

I am not going to name names... But here is a preamp made by a VERY well known company the graph in Blue is my preamp the graph in purple is the "well known" preamp what one would you rather own? Don't get me wrong I am not trying to sell preamps.. But sometimes graphs can be a good thing.
Chris

While I agree with you, I think this graph is a little sneaky in that it extents to 10? to 90 kHz...but -22? dB at 20 kHz is a little droopy and I do record bats from time to time, so I will take the blue

Its not sneaky I measure all of my preamps from 20hz to 90k so I can see if there is any oscillation issues. The purple line even at 20k is down almost 22db! Yikes..

[Ozpeter]

I've always been surprised in my relatively short membership here to see how much mods are discussed but how little their actual validity is discussed.  It's good to see some consideration being given to it here.

Could I throw in another line of thought?  That is, perhaps we need to consider what end result we're looking for here.  Do people buy modified versions of gear so that they can feel confident that what they are using is the best?   Is it so that when they play their recordings to other people, the listeners will be more impressed by the recording to noticable degree than they would otherwise?  Is it because they prefer the sound of the modified unit, regardless of whether it's actually more or less high fidelity?

I think it's necessary to specify the objective before getting too deep into the pros and cons and considerations of measurement vs subjective evaluation.  If you're simply going for what you personally like, then of course the measurements might be irrelevant.

My take on the whole thing is that most of the gear discussed here reaches levels of audio accuracy such that making any improvement suffers from the law of diminishing returns.  The chances of clearly enhancing the record/play accuracy (in other words, we're not talking about taste but about correctness, probably measurable) of the equipment by a mod are slim.  There are examples of obviously poor designs out there - for instance the mic input of a Zoom H2 is obviously and inexplicably noisy - and if somebody came up with a mod of a unit like that to get rid of the noise, it would be blindingly obvious and would show clearly on test results.  Other mods probably produce very subtle changes, and given that in real world conditions, mic selection and placement etc will have a much bigger effect on the end result, one has to suspect that we're talking about owner satisfaction rather than practical outcome.  And of course owner satisfaction is something most of us here pour quite disproportional amounts of our hard earned cash into!

[SparkE!]

The idea isn't to test every unit and include a printout with the unit.  The idea is to test one unit before and after the mod.  The cost of the test is amortized across all of the sales.  This is the idea behind spec sheets.  You test one (or a small sample) and publish the results as being representative of the product you're selling.  This is basic marketing.  It would help sell units.

Sure but time is money and the cost of test time adds up fast.

I challenge anyone to quantify the difference between a v3 and a psp2.  And simple metrics like s/n or frequency response will not explain why one sounds 'better' (which is what really matters).  If these tests are so easy to do, someone please show us.

You're not serious are you?  Do you really think that engineers should redesign stuff without using any test equipment to quantify and verify the improvements that they are trying to achieve? As long as you are doing the tests (as any responsible audio engineer will do), it takes very little effort to document the results of those tests.  It will save you money in the long run and it gives you a way to quantitatively show the improvements you've made.

Again, this is a marketing issue.  It's just one more way to show your customer that your product is worth the money you charge.  5 minutes of bench time to do a test will pay for itself over and over and over again.  Like they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words.  Do the test once.  Publish the picture a 1000 times.  You'll sell more units as a result.

It sure is a marketing issue.. Specs and graphs have been used for years to dupe folks into making bad purchases.  If graphs and specs could tell us what sounds best, we could be a lot more objective and save a lot of time.

There are a lot of amplifiers with great specs that sound lousy.  Same for speakers.  Folks in the hifi world have laughed about that for many *decades*.  I'll bet we could fill a 25 page thread with stories of gear with great specs but lousy sound.

I'd venture the same can be said of pre-amps.  Just because it has great specs or a pretty graph doesn't mean it sounds better than an m148, psp2 or v3.  Or how about microphones?  There sure are a lot of them with great specs.  Maybe I should sell my MGs, Schoeps and DPAs and replace them all with a cheap multi-pattern from my local guitar center?  The specs sure look great.

In comp tests comparing the v3 a/d to v3 > r09, the r09 was very often preferred.  What tests, SPECIFICALLY, would quantify why that is the case?

If you figure out how to do a test that shows why an m148, v3 or psp2 sounds so good, we're all ears.  But until then, it just seems like random venting about testing.   Don't insist this can be easily meaningfully tested when you cannot tell us how.  Simplistic graphs of frequency response or noise floor are of limited interest when considering the big picture of 'what sounds best'.

Tests for the sake of tests mean nothing.

There are so many fallacies in your logic that I'm not going to try to argue with you.  You obviously purchase electronics based on emotional factors.  I prefer to base my purchasing decisions on specifications and whether or not the vendor's spec sheets demonstrate a basic understanding of what the various specifications really mean.

[Church-Audio]

In the end this is a very passionate subject with good points being made and a good discussion on audio is always cool in my book.. The last point I will make is this. What harm would come from providing test results? If there is no harm then why not do it? 

Chris

[SparkE!]

I've always been surprised in my relatively short membership here to see how much mods are discussed but how little their actual validity is discussed.  It's good to see some consideration being given to it here.

Could I throw in another line of thought?  That is, perhaps we need to consider what end result we're looking for here.  Do people buy modified versions of gear so that they can feel confident that what they are using is the best?   Is it so that when they play their recordings to other people, the listeners will be more impressed by the recording to noticable degree than they would otherwise?  Is it because they prefer the sound of the modified unit, regardless of whether it's actually more or less high fidelity?

I think it's necessary to specify the objective before getting too deep into the pros and cons and considerations of measurement vs subjective evaluation.  If you're simply going for what you personally like, then of course the measurements might be irrelevant.

My take on the whole thing is that most of the gear discussed here reaches levels of audio accuracy such that making any improvement suffers from the law of diminishing returns.  The chances of clearly enhancing the record/play accuracy (in other words, we're not talking about taste but about correctness, probably measurable) of the equipment by a mod are slim.  There are examples of obviously poor designs out there - for instance the mic input of a Zoom H2 is obviously and inexplicably noisy - and if somebody came up with a mod of a unit like that to get rid of the noise, it would be blindingly obvious and would show clearly on test results.  Other mods probably produce very subtle changes, and given that in real world conditions, mic selection and placement etc will have a much bigger effect on the end result, one has to suspect that we're talking about owner satisfaction rather than practical outcome.  And of course owner satisfaction is something most of us here pour quite disproportional amounts of our hard earned cash into!

Wow!  Welcome to the discussion.  I think you actually "get it" and I think you've summed up many of my thoughts on the subject quite well.

The most important thing to me is that there needs to be a reason for doing a mod if it is to be worth doing at all.  It needs to resolve some sort of deficiency in the original design.  If you can't even say what it is that you resolved, what logical person would buy your gear?

[it-goes-to-eleven]

If released without an NDA, most spec sheets and graphs are purely for marketing purposes.  Benchmarketing is the term.  And you do not share data which casts your product in an unfavorable light.

[SparkE!]

If released without an NDA, most spec sheets and graphs are purely for marketing purposes.  Benchmarketing is the term.  And you do not share data which casts your product in an unfavorable light.

Which begs the question why the purveyors of these mods are so unwilling to share their graphs.

[Will_S]

I've always been surprised in my relatively short membership here to see how much mods are discussed but how little their actual validity is discussed.  It's good to see some consideration being given to it here.

QFT!  Just look at the Marantz PMD661 thread (http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,112681.0/all.html).  So for as I know no one has even held one in their hands, let alone listened to it, but half the posts are about getting it modded by Oade or Busman.

Anyway, whether it be publishing specs or a comparison files of recordings made in a controlled environment, I think everyone benefits if an effort is made to more objectively represent the audible effects of a mod. So even without published specs, I can listen to this comparison and see just how much lower the noise floor is on one version vs. the other.

[digifish_music]

QFT!  Just look at the Marantz PMD661 thread (http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,112681.0/all.html).  So for as I know no one has even held one in their hands, let alone listened to it, but half the posts are about getting it modded by Oade or Busman.

...

...and that is indeed odd. There are a lot of odd things about this place, like no one seems to mod the SD700 series preamps, but then very few people seem to use the MixPre. The choice of mics (while they are nice) is also esoteric to this forum...

digifish

[newplanet7]

I think the whole thing with the 661 thread is that people are thinking of the 660
and how it had to be modded.

I know that is what I was referring to in my post about the 661.

H A W T!

Hopefully Busman will be up for modding this one too.
Or even better maybe it won't need a mod.

I love my busman 660 so this should be stellar.
I've been wanting to go balls deep into 24bit for a while.
This should do it for me.

Nice find and great thread.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

There are a lot of odd things about this place, like no one seems to mod the SD700 series preamps

Two words for that:  Cost + complexity

It ain't no ua5.  Plus it sounds great stock.

[willndmb]

i think everyone agrees that a mod is only as good as it sounds to your ears (and what you record)
myself - the fr2le mods i don't hear much difference in
the ua5 mods i did -  does that mean the ua5 mod is better ?? someone else might hear it the other way around

so can we get back to the topic and please post if you hear a difference and then if you can tell which samples go together
thanks

[it-goes-to-eleven]

so can we get back to the topic and please post if you hear a difference and then if you can tell which samples go together
thanks

I still can't download the samples.  Would someone please post a graph that shows the difference?

[Church-Audio]

so can we get back to the topic and please post if you hear a difference and then if you can tell which samples go together
thanks

I still can't download the samples.  Would someone please post a graph that shows the difference?

Nobody here is saying "GRAPHS" are all you need to judge a products viability.. What some of us are saying,  is no company out there makes changes to a product with out doing tests on it to see what the benefits are on the product. And yes I think part of the tests must be the use of your ears. But since sound is very subjective we also need measurements to fall back on and both measurements and listening test should present a very clear picture of the quality of the modifications being performed and prevent people from just spinning the wheel of parts substitution and calling it a day.

Chris