Trough Line News.

I am not in the main someone who enjoys opera, and earlier I was not quite ready for the seven o’clock start for the Welsh National Opera production live on Radio Three of one of Handel’s!

Baroque opera is no more my taste than Italian Verismo!

But it was a very good relay. So not quite being my cup of tea I thought it would make a candidate for an experiment!

Get the same relay on the internet from the Radio Three website ...

It may surprise few that there was only one aspect where the Trough Line working on ancient technological systems was improved on with the digital stream - that being signal noise!

As VHF signal noise is usually steady, like analogue tape hiss, it is soon forgotten ...

How have have we come in the last fifty years? Less than the marketeers would have us believe in my view.

ATB from George

George, great blog 

Yes the lossy web radio feed will have lower noise, almost certainly lower harmonic distortion, a greater audio frequency response etc... but ultimately it does rely on psychoacoustic modelling for the compression and reconstruction as well as the challenges of natural digital to analogue conversion... and so to my ears lossy web radio does loose out to VHF FM transmissions, although both use very different but ultimately complex technologies under the covers. However to me lossy compression and data reduction is a fantastic technology and is so impressive in how it works, and we take it for granted. But ultimately when it comes down to it can get in the way of an absorbing critical listen... and to some extent its effectiveness varies from one person to another... It's a statistical thing....

Therefore thank goodness for the UK's aging PCM distributed analogue VHF FM services...and when/if BBC web radio introduces lossless FLAC, which I hear might be on the cards, then we might have a suitable challenger to the VHF FM service... but until then..

Simon

Dear Simon,

If the BBC do a FLAC stream then of course the whole situation will be altered, but in the meantime, I am glad that I have got the old Trough Line[s] going again. 

An annual ritual in this house is to listen to the Cenotaph Service on Remembrance Sunday.

It always makes me cry ...

ATB from George

Nice update George thanks for posting.Is the Troughline with the fault going back to One Thing for an overhaul? Hope so as you could have one for back up.

I agree with your comments about how far we have come with new equipment in terms of sound compared with some vintage equipment.A prime example is what is considered the ultimate tuner the Marantz 10 b which incorporated valves.I think they made a loss on every one sold as it was so over engineered.They still command high 2nd hand prices not bad for a tuner which came out in the early 70's.

Also concur with your comments about inefficient speakers on the B@W thread.Give me 91 d.b + sensitive designs any day.I used to run Acoustic Energy A.E 1' s and the sound was always sounded slightly strained as they where 85 dB sensitive.It was only when I changed to some 92 dB Focal floorstanders Profil 77 from 1998 did  I realise just how constipated the A.E' s where.

The Focals are so easy on the ear at all volume levels.Unlike the A.E' s where you had to crank them up.As for high SPL levels A mate who is running 7 watt SET monoblocks into Focals and they can do the loud thing if needed.Can't wait for the arrival of your Leak Poweramp.

Wishing you a fine Sunday of radio bliss.

ATB Ian

Dear Ian,

Now all that is left is the March Past ...

Yes, the Trough Line with the fault in the mains transformer is currently being repaired. It should be rebuilt on Tuesday. It is the better sounding of the pair. More slender in tone, as intended rather than modified as the one I am using at the moment. Still excellent, but I prefer the intended original tone of the unmodified one. Of course the repair puts back the time when I can afford to get a valve amplifier! 

And in any case this will be as a parallel set to run beside the NAP 100. 

Yesterday I discovered Miklos Perenyi - the Hungarian cellist - on the strength of Simon in Suffolk’s recommendation and found a wonderful youtube film of him playing the Bach Cello Suites. I started a thread on it in the Music Room. 

Now I must get on and get round the usual weekend things!

ATB from George

Ian, ultimate tuner? This is what many consider it to be, Icom R9500, a snip at just shy of £11k. Not sure it goes to well with my Naim however.

Thanks Simon it certainly looks pretty serious.Never heard of the company is it American?

Ian,  I am sure Simon won't mind if I butt in. 

Moderated Post: Commercial link removed.

 Tony thanks, Ian, Icom is a major worldwide communication radio systems manufacturer and is HQ'd in Japan.

Simon

Yikes that big tuner

 Makes the Trough Line look rather simple!

I have learned a trick for making the black part of the fascia look new again. Black waterproof marker pen - several layers.

ATB from George

The Icon tuner looks more like a piece of laboratory equipment !

Talk about busy with all those buttons.Give me the calmness of the O1,02,101 

You can't beat the black marker pen George.I have a LP 12 with a black plinth and its worked wonders where bits are a bit scuffed.

Simon can you throw any light on the Icon tuner ?  I am intrigued.

Oops! Sorry, Richard. I should  have known better by now.

amateur radio company, I wonder what frequencies it covers, does it include fm stereo or are you likely to get super clear morse code through your Naim?

Ian, Icom produce professional radio equipment for the Avionics, Landmobile, Marine and Communications industries, in addition as Dayjay says they have a subset of the company that produces radio equipment for Amateur radio.

The R9500 is a professional wide band monitoring tuner. The intended market would be more for government monitoring stations or equivalent rather than I suspect hifi enthusiasts.. 

Its frequencies are continuous between  0.005-3335MHz. It's modes are SSB, AM, FM (WFM), CW, FSK and P25 modes. Technically the FM we use for broadcast radio on the 88 to 108 MHz band is referred to as WFM, which means wide frequency modulation. This is to allow extended frequency bandwidth to contain the stereo information. However I don't believe the R9500 has a stereo decoder in built, and so if the case is similar to George's Trough Line in that sense..oh yes CW is carrier wave, used for Dayjay's morse....

Simon

Thanks Simon.Would you say Icom would be off the radar to the audiophile community ?

In terms of present tuner production I only think of Magnam Dynalab as tuner specialists.All the past greats seem to be 2 nd hand buys.Day Sequara' s,The Marantz 10 b,Yamaha CT 7000 and of cause the Troughlines.

For styling I have always loved the Quad FM 4.

Ian, completely yes... my inclusion here, slightly tongue in cheek, was to point what  some consider to be one of the best radio receivers in the world ...but more from the world of communications and not the narrower world of hifi..   And after all most hifi/audiophile tuners have only the tiny 88 to 108 MHz (W)FM broadcast band to contend with.

In my experience the Audiophile community tend not to consider professional equipment. Such as equipment often has other considerations to contend with than absolute sound quality. Indeed Richard Dane mentioned recently about a special  Naim 250.2 built for the BBC that was more about reliability and interoperability with differing speaker loads and leads rather than absolute sound quality.

Simon

Just one more day till the Trough Line is rebuilt properly. After work tomorrow a phone call will determine the success [or otherwise] of the enterprise! Major surgery on an old patient is always a risk ... Fingers crossed!

I am like a child on Christmas Eve!

ATB from George

No need to worry George.If One Thing Audio where doctors they would be consultants in elderly care.

Hope your old girl comes back ready for another 20 years of radio heaven; if we get that f.m switch off timetable wise.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

It’s alive again!

I’ll collect it on Saturday!

Best wishes from George

Very good.

The waiting is character building!

I don’t need to explain how pleased I am though!!!

I expect that the quality will be even better than before, as even an intermittent failure can indicate that when it actually was running it was probably not as fine as it might be.

Best wishes from George

Alive and kicking! It has a new old stock mains transformer, which must be one of the very few anywhere in the World that had never been fitted!

And it is a bit tight sounding just now. Give it a few hours and it will be sweet again!

The evening concert on Radio Three is Jazz, which is far from my favourite style ...

Tomorrow when we have some decent light, I’ll take some pictures of the work. It looks superb!

The voltage selector is no longer useful, but could be connected up if the tuner ever went to the USA, which in my lifetime it never will!

Nice one One Thing!

ATB from George

Very pleased for you George, always nice when there is an enforced wait for something pleasant.  Enjoy

It is warming up in front my very eyes! 

Thanks for your comment, which is true. I had hopes and they are being met! hopes that it would be even finer than before, which it is ...

ATB from George

I'm waiting for the photo, then. Enjoy