Playground for practical listening exercises

[John]

I thought I would give this a try using my iPhone 8. Sorry there is no video as I was more concerned with the mic direction. Let me know your preference and I will reveal more about the difference later.

https://youtu.be/uhkcpBalF78 - A

https://youtu.be/PqGT1WFeWcs - B

[ThomasOK]

I prefer A. It seems to move better.

[Charlie1]

A for me too, for the same reason

Quite a big difference in sound with B being more open

Good sounding system John

[tokenbrit]

Triple A. B is limping along; A is the party bus.

[V.A.MKD]

I thought I would give this a try using my iPhone 8. Sorry there is no video as I was more concerned with the mic direction. Let me know your preference and I will reveal more about the difference later.

https://youtu.be/uhkcpBalF78 - A

https://youtu.be/PqGT1WFeWcs - B

A for me.

[John]

Curious how you think this one ranks with the others.

C - Look What You’ve Done
https://youtube.com/shorts/guYzEIR3yek?feature=share

[ThomasOK]

Clip C sounds pretty clear but I still like A better.

[John]

Thanks for those that listened. Hopefully we can get some more listens to C.

[lejonklou]

A > C > B

[tokenbrit]

Curious how you think this one ranks with the others.

C - Look What You’ve Done
https://youtube.com/shorts/guYzEIR3yek?feature=share

C timing seems off. Still A.

[Charlie1]

Still prefer A which is making more musical sense to me and more enjoyable

[John]

I’m throwing another into the mix, will explain later. Putting them all together here.

A - https://youtube.com/shorts/uhkcpBalF78?feature=share

B- https://youtube.com/shorts/PqGT1WFeWcs?feature=share

C- https://youtube.com/shorts/guYzEIR3yek?feature=share

D- https://youtube.com/shorts/zXddW7rABfw?feature=share

E- https://youtube.com/shorts/4l_zRrTqOuI?feature=share

[tokenbrit]

Not easy between A & D: D has a bit more drum-forward snap, but that moves the vocals back slightly.... Musically they seem very similar; maybe D just shades it. (I didn't go back to B or C)

[beck]

Anything other than A does not really work for me personally.........

[ThomasOK]

A is still the only one that moves well. D has a good sense of clarity but it might be a bit much. A combination of the two might be nice but I'll stick with A.

[John]

How about E? Promise, no more files.

[V.A.MKD]

I will stay with A. The others are ...

[Robert Lake]

The differences are to small to matter for me. Singing is a bit monotonic. But the drum play sounds better on B i my ears.

[John]

So I had my Exposure 19 line preamp, 13 phono preamp, 18 power amp and Lingo turned off for one week. From past experience I always felt they sounded better a few days after powering them back up after retuning from a long trip. I decided to experiment with that this week by making recordings over a period of time from power up to three days later. Each recording was made with the volume control in the same position on the preamp and the phone situated in the same spot. I played the 30 second cut once before making the recording and the system was not listened to prior to making the recording other than that 30 seconds before the recording.

A is a few minutes after powering up all the gear.
B is two hours later.
C is one day later
D is two days later
E is three days later.

The recording has from what I can hear, a bass drum, snare and cymbal, keyboard playing a melody, bass guitar and of course Joe Cocker singing.

[Charlie1]

I was told by a Nait owner here that the amp deteriorated after half an hour playing. I suppose this is a similar thing.

I felt my 12/BD160 got better the longer it was on last time I compared, but maybe I should double check.

I do think the recording should be made a similar time of day each time though since my systems seem to get worse later on in the day. Obviously, that doesn't work with 2-hours later clip.

Has your Exposure gear been serviced? Not suggesting this is the cause - I'm just curious.

[tpetsch]

All recorded at the same time of day?

[John]

All recorded at the same time of day?

10 am, 12:40pm, Friday - A and B
9:24am Saturday - C
7:32am Sunday - D
1:25pm Monday -E

Exposure gear original
Lingo recapped in the last few years.

[lejonklou]

So I had my Exposure 19 line preamp, 13 phono preamp, 18 power amp and Lingo turned off for one week. From past experience I always felt they sounded better a few days after powering them back up after retuning from a long trip. I decided to experiment with that this week by making recordings over a period of time from power up to three days later. Each recording was made with the volume control in the same position on the preamp and the phone situated in the same spot. I played the 30 second cut once before making the recording and the system was not listened to prior to making the recording other than that 30 seconds before the recording.

A is a few minutes after powering up all the gear.
B is two hours later.
C is one day later
D is two days later
E is three days later.

The recording has from what I can hear, a bass drum, snare and cymbal, keyboard playing a melody, bass guitar and of course Joe Cocker singing.

Thank you for an interesting comparison John!

Frankly I'm shocked by the differences. I find B much worse than A and that's just two hours of being switched on. What happens in one hour? Will it stay good long enough to hear one album before one needs to shut everything down and let it cool? How long does it have to cool before it's back to A?

[Defender]

thats interesting but it mirrors what I found out with my former Electrocompaniet Integrated Amp. I talked about that with one of the service technicians from Germany long time ago - he smiled at me and said he get this question very rarely - it has to do with powering up the transistors in the amp section.
At first a high current is flowing through the transistors (More class A power) than later the temperature controlling electronic lowers the current and keeps it constant but lower than during start up so after warm up it works with lower Class A power/current.

Not sure if Exposure amps deliver also a part of their power in Class A but that could be the reason.

[John]

Keep in mind that there were 4 components in this experiment that were shutdown for one week prior to the beginning of the test. A line stage preamp, a phono preamp, a power amp and a Lingo power supply.

I will likely do a future test isolating just the power amp. I posted these files out on a couple other forums and have gotten an overwhelming positive response for file B which were posted first initially with A.