just the facts ma'am
www.iihr.uiowa.edu/~hml/people/kruger/Publications/ChipCenter/Resistors01.pdfobviously you wouldn't use these puppies in a critical circuit that will be then sent into an unfreindly environment (space,the antartic,inside a volcano ;D ) but like any other part used where the strengths are utilised-excells in pulse performance and ,time coherence- and not to weakness then just another tool in the arsenal just like a cap where one type is used for RF bypasses,another for power supply filtering and yet another type for inline signal coupling.to suggest one type totally sucks because it sucks in one area is misleading
also notice the statement of "noisy compared to..." in the above pdf file.Not "they make noise period" but "compared to"
Hell man,that could be said about any part ! There will always be something that campres better in a single area but that does not mean that part should then be declared a "super part" then used in ALL area of ciruit design work !
What about the lowly potentiometer ? Are we all running from the room from all that "noise" coming from a carbon based volume control ?
www.oemelectronics.se/upl/doc/Kolkomposit___Serie_CC_1.pdfwww.irctt.com/pdf_files/IBT.pdfwww.koaspeer.com/pdfs/RC_SS-263_R3.pdfnotice
ALL the above specify "pulse" performance which is a direct mechanism of the low incuctance and the low capacitance of the type.Flip that to "so WTF does that have to do with anything" and I respond "what is music if not a construct of pulses ?"
Test signals are steady state,music wanders all over the joint and from moment to moment can be anything from zero,just a bitr,full nuts then back to just a bit and ALL in an eyeblink so for me pulse response is a real biggy.
screw the "resistor A sounds better than resistor B" crap.I'm talking on TYPE not brand and for my money carbons work to good advantage in a dynamic circuit because they will pass the most information without time/phase smear and that is way more important than the goofy THD spec as being meaningful for serious music playback..
a good spot to inject the differences between "recording" and "listening"
there is no such thing as too much distortion on the recording side of the chain because anything IN the sound is PART of the sound so just another effect used to get a particular result.Yes there are dead flat zero (for our purposes anyway) distortion devices in the recording chain but those TOO are an "effect".
so initial accuracy is a non issue and why i would like to throttle those who make the claim "yeah well XXX is not important because you have no idea how many stages of X the music went through before cutting the disc" or "phase is not important because we don't know how many times the phase was changed during the recording process" and my answer is
IT DOES NOT MATTER !
Whatever the hell the recording engineer was trying to get down he did and used whatever tools were at hand regardless of "specs" as long as the device was
1-Bomb proof
2-Has zero external influence on the sonics i.e hum,buzz,RFI,etc
3-can handle the proper signal levels without clipping or overloading
4-Can properly drive the input of the next stage
So the fact that EQ is used,compression,echo,any damn thing is a zero factoid when discussing the MONITORING side of the chain because anything there is mean to be and it really is that simple
Flip to the playback and NOW we have our hands full !
we are not "creating" but trying to hear EXACTLY what has already been created and that places a much higher demand on the electronics because now any non linear distortions will change the original and make it something else !
we don't want to "warm it up" or "color it it a nice way" but we do want to retain any information already there and have the end result be a coherent representation of the original and that means phase and time have more importance than tonal accuracy so given the choice i will take warmed up over phase/time anomolies any day.at least the end will be a single coherent signal that "times" as it should.
In fact ALL your headphones and speakers are inaccurate by several orders of magnitude and if they weren't they would
all sound alike so that "tonal accuracy" dog won't hunt either
so there dammit
some 'real world' actual specs on applying to a circuit ?
www.ibselectronics.com/ibs/cmpnts/rgaco/catalog/K/K29-35.pdfand how about this often overlooked "fact"
"Thermal noise
The thermal noise of a resistor is equal to:
Vt = SQRT(4kTBR)
where:
Vt = the rms noise voltage
k = Boltzmann's constant
T = temperature(Kelvin)
B = noise bandwidth
R = resistance
Since the characteristics of thermal noise have a Gaussian probability density function, and the noise of the two separate sources is uncorrelated white noise, the total noise power is equal to the sum of the individual noise powers. If you model the individual resistors as noise generators, the output noise voltage will be equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the individual noise sources.
The above equation shows that the noise varies in direct proportion to the square root of the resistance, so if you take two resistors of half the value and square the square root and add them and take the square root of the sum, you end up with the exact same value as you would if you took the square root of a single resistor of twice the value. Therefore, the total noise remains the same.
In general, the thermal noise of any connection of passive elements is equal to the thermal noise that would result from the real part of the equivalent total impedance. If we are dealing with pure resistances, the thermal noise is equal to the thermal noise produced by an equivalent resistance. Therefore, the thermal noise of a 1K carbon resistor is the same as a 1K metal film; it is independent of material. The only way to reduce this noise is to reduce the resistance value. This is why you don't want those 10 Meg resistors on your input stage.."www.aikenamps.com/ResistorNoise.htmcant change facts to suit and those are the fact.the thermal noise is constant for a given "type" so it is far more important to work with reduced values than it is what particular type is used.So why all the BS about noisy carbons and why not just design lower impedance circuitry ?
Because Low-Z = $$$$$$ so far cheaper (and easier
) to design without regard for impedance until the final stage then populate everything with "mystery" metal films and tout the noise in the ad copy.
Harsh environs,critical circuits,medical gear where someone's life could be at risk if a resistor value "changed" because the gear got hot sitting on the dash,tuned circuits,extreme high gain circuits,digital circuits,portable gear-all should make one look for an alternative but for a controlled environment such as in the home and in the audio signal path a carbon comp is often the BEST choice
again,in my opinion
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