Talkin Sound 2 (conversation with Viren Bakshi of Lyrita Audio)
Hi All,
Following is a conversation with Viren Bakshi of Lyrita Audio
(www.lyrita-audio.com)
He makes fantastic Valve Amplifiers with Speakers system which are great
sounding with any kind of music ranging from Indian Classical to Jazz.
By this conversation I was trying to understand what are his design
concepts and his reasons for stepping away (and in some ways back) from
mainstream Amp design by going into Valves. Valve Amplifiers had always
captivated me from the time I was introduced to them, which was
basically from guitar players/magazines and other printed literature. It
was only when I actually got to play one (Marshall) in college I got the
equation of the Valve Amp and what it does to the guitar tone. So it was
the case when I experienced the Lyrita Audio’s Music System at a friends
place and I heard valve amps used for almost ‘transparent’ Audio
reproduction likes of which are very hard to come by(only in high end
circles) …..I then really understood the power of this old skill of
‘Valve amplification’. We were listening to CD’s through and through
without having any conversations for hours. That’s how entrancing music
actually became along with the beautiful dim-glow the active Valves.
I would recommend all music lovers to check out Lyrita music
systems/Web-site as he has a range of products and services like buy
backs/Upgrades and even installment system for broke people like me.
Thanks and let’s Listen
ISh
ish@email-addr-hidden
(sarai.net/ frEeMuZik.net)
________________________________________________________________________
Q: How did you start off with Audio and Audio systems in particular.
Ans: I started off in Audio basically as a hobby. I m trained to be a
chemical engineer, Good thing about engineering is that you are versed
in all the basic sciences, so the knowledge is there and you can take
off in any direction you want to. And then there was a change in my life
as such moving from one part of the world (USA) to my home country so I
decided that I will make a complete switch in my working life, and in a
way make a business out of what I really wanted to do which was to make
high quality audio systems.
Q: Around what time was this?
Ans: It was in the early 90’s. I was working as a researcher in a big
Chemical Company in the US. I was in R&D and I had some amount of time
to look into other aspects Like sound and Audio and through their
library I could do some amount of research on things relating to my
interest and one of those were acoustics because this company also
produced materials for acoustic applications. So that helped me to study
the fields of sound and sound reproduction to some degree. Then I tied
these two things together when I came back(to India) and decided that I
wanted to make high quality components for home listening primarily and
also do some consulting in acoustics. Both of them are going on hand in
hand now.
Whenever a manufacturer starts out building for the consumer market he
needs to have a very clear idea what he needs to do. Mass market in
India is flooded with goods from all over the world like Europe Japan
and China now, but the unfortunate thing is that they are targeting what
I call the lowest denominator. Where they are not bringing in products
which are of very good sound quality. They have decided that they will
fight on the price line. They have decide is that what the consumer
wants is features and it is a approach like this which has sidelined the
real purpose of a Music system that is to produce ‘good sound’. The
whole focus has become on providing bells and whistles rather than
producing good sound. So my intention was to reverse that cycle and go
back to the basics of what sound equipment should be and approach a
market which has been totally neglected in India which is the Audiophile
which is a higher end market. So actually to come out with music systems
produced in India which can complete with the high-end imported goods,
that was the intention and that is how I have gone about making my
equipment.
Initially I had started making solid state transistor equipment and
amplifiers. (round 1995) Original intention was to make loud speakers
because my first interest was in loud speakers so soon I discovered that
if you have to sell a high quality music system to a customer you have
to sell it as a complete system you can not sell it as piece meal.
Because all components interact with each other and produce the overall
sound. The final sound is what the consumer hears so they will have to
be in a way matched. . I did not find good enough amplifiers in the
market which I could use do demonstrate my loud speakers with. So for
that purpose I came into Amplifier design through a back door. I had
made some amps for myself as a hobby, so I had some basis of what a good
design should be like. So I decided to sell the whole system with my
Amps and speakers and people can be assured of good sound. CD’s were
available around that time so reasonable good sources were available. My
intention was to provide good quality sound system and Indian prices so
a lot of people can afford it.
I have stayed away from the mass market completely because I can not
complete with them on the price side. I want to attract the discerning
listener who is not satisfied with what is available and is looking for
good sound at an affordable price. Even now to look at good quality
sound is to look at imported equipment which is expensive proposition
for most people. So my equipment sought of falls in between. So there is
a fair amount of audience who can afford it and who will appreciate the
quality also.
What becomes a problem for small manufacturers is how to do the
marketing. In my case it has all been through word of mouth. I have
elected to remain a small manufacturer so my consumer base is also
limited. But I have been having a satisfying experience in helping some
music lovers appreciate ‘good sound’. The word has spread around the
Delhi area primarily but now they are going around all over India.
I am very happy to keep it small because this equipment is mostly hand
made and it (equipment) doesn’t take easily to production techniques.
Because a lot of compromises have to made when you go into mass
production of Audio equipment I have tried to keep it small scale.
Q: When and why did you switch from Solid State Amps to Valve Amps
Ans: I was given a valve amp by a friend of mine design of which goes
back a 40 years, it is a very well known amplifier made by a company
named ‘Quad’. It is a classic product because it has survived for so
long and they are still making it by the way. The same model is still
made for nostalgic and still produces for the same nice sound.(as the
criteria for good sound reproduction systems would still remain the
same: through ears)
It is unfortunate that some of the old stuff is being forgotten. You
should always learn from what has happened before, but the sad part id
that we have a series of designers and engineers now who have completely
neglected this aspect of technology.
Valve technology is very well suited o audio sound and in some ways it
is superior to transistor technology but because of this rush to get
into something new it has been neglected by the main stream of designer.
There has always been a group of people who have kept it alive in Europe
in t he US and there has been resurgence in this technology because
people have realized that there is some value in it. It still sounds
better than solid state amps and there is no reason to negate it. And my
intro to them was these two valve amps I got and I started to listen to
them with my speakers and I realized that there is definitely something
in it that has to be looked into and my intention was to take that sort
of a design and improve on it using material which are available to me
in India.
India has always had a very active electronics industry. A lot of
equipment has been manufactured here in fact the largest manufacturer of
Valves was ‘Bharat Electronics Limited’ and they are still
manufacturing. They make Valves for radio frequency use and not for
audio use any more, but they still have a lot of old stock
Q: A lot of guitarists were using Valve Amps
Ans: Yes because valves have a unique distortion characteristic when you
push them too hard and a lot of guitar player like that. It’s called the
‘Crunch’ in sound, and solid state has never been able to deliver that
even though a lot of them have tried. A lot of Guitarist use valve
amplifiers and that have actually kept this industry going, and the
manufacturing is still taking place. There are factories in the Checz
Republic, Russia and Yugoslavia making Valves and the entire production
now is dedicated to Audio use. So there is no real shortage of Valves in
the world and the production is taking place and also there is a lot of
old stock also floating around. I also started using old Stock of BEL
(Bharat Elect Ltd) which was still available with some traders in India
and I can get them at a reasonable price. That is how I started off.
(More about the Amps)
It takes one to two years to come out with a good design so you have to
give yourself that much of a lead time but the end result is always
worth it.
Q: were you testing the subsequent designs and how many drafts did you
actually go through to come up with the present design.
Ans: There is a lot of material available for the do it yourself on the
internet. There are some publications available for the hobby people
from where a lot of knowledge can be gained from what the other people
have done. That is how I started out also. And there is a lot of self
like ‘what are the works of other designers’ and what kind of precision
is required for making the loud speakers etc. All these things have to
be studied if you want to come up with good designs. All this
information is then inculcated in your own brain. And you then select
your philosophy of design. Like any field of this sort there are
numerous ways to approach the final result and there in no way anybody
can say that one actual approach is better than the other. Because there
are multiple ways to get to it, you have to choose which Design Approach
is the best way to go and that requires a fair amount of study and
introspection also. So this how you arrive at your design and you make
prototypes and you test them and you come out with the finished product
that still sound good. Then you follow that same design philosophy for
the range of loud speakers.
If something works for one particular design of loud speakers the same
philosophy should hold for your entire range of loud speakers. So then
it is coming up with a range of loud speakers/systems which satisfy the
different segments of the market. People have space and budget
constraints and also some have different music requirements which
require different frequency response from a music system. You also build
your systems to also fit in those general segments.
In fact in valve amps the designs are very simple and straight forward.
A lot of work has already been done in the 40s to 60s when there were a
lot of brilliant minds working on electronics. This was also an
aftermath of the Second World War when people had worked a lot on radars
and signals which used valve equipment. All the amplifications of
signals were done by valve equipment at that time. So there were a lot
of brilliant engineers who came out of the war and went into the Audio
field. They were all trained well and they already had good practical
experience and there where a huge amount of different approaches by
different designers that came out. So there was a lot of research and
experimentation done with valve amps. So there is practically nothing
new a designer now can do. The only thing I have done is basically
looked at the designs of other people before me and then selected the
path that sounds right to me and then it is a matter of how you
implement it like what materials/components are used, how well the
circuit is made out. Then all that falls into place with your individual
efforts.
Q: How were you checking you Music systems like frequency response? Were
you using some special Equipments?
Ans: Basically I rely on my ears the most. I ve listened to a lot of
live music. I think people don’t realize that human voice is
recognizable by everybody and you can use that human voice to test the
loud speakers also. That is because you are so used to of how the vocals
sound and with that you can judge how well is the sound being reproduced
by a music system. And If a music system is balanced well over the human
frequency range you have already covered a fairly extensive range of
what a loud speaker should deliver. Say from 300Hz to 4 KHz because that
is the range of female to female voice. That’s the Mid Range and also
the critical range in out listening. So if you have got that right then
you have a successful design. Then the really high and low frequencies
really become the icing on the cake.
Also from my own experience and what all the other designers have said
the traditional specifications that we have for Amplifiers and speakers
tell you nothing about how they going to sound like. So I don’t really
stress on the specifications that much because they are not relevant to
the sound quality at all. They are basically engineering bench marks.
Q: So because these systems are hand made will for example System A & B
produced separately with some amount of time gap (say 3 months) be the same.
Ans: They will be reasonably close. As a listener you will not be able
to tell much of a difference. There are differences in critical parts
like transformers and the valves which might have some minor
differences. Nothing is exact.
In the loud speakers the tonal quality of each loud speaker will be
similar. The only thing that will change is from small cabinet(speakers)
to large cabinet is the extension of the low frequencies so you get a
little bit of warmth to the sound because of the bass(low frequencies)
Q: then you mean to say that the mid to the top frequencies are the same
in all you speakers?
Ans: They should be. Cabinet size basically dictates how low in
frequency response a music system can go. I have also decided that I
will have 2 way design for my speakers (2 cones on each speaker) They
might have more than 2 driver (units which actually produce the sound
like the woofer for the bass and the tweeter, the whole system of
drivers is then put together is called a loud speaker) Drive units
remain the same in all my speaker systems and the only thing that
changes is the design of the cabinet and possibly the cross over.
Q: Even your Amps design also vary a lot Like the 8 valves 4 Valves
design and I think that one has 12 of them.
Ans: In that one there are 8 valves and there are 3 input valves. Here
also the whole design is dictated by how much power you want in the
Amps, this one is 30 watts RMS per channel. That will determine what
type of valves you can use and what kind of parallel arrangement you can
use the output valves in to achieve that power output. Circuitry can be
suited to many designs but the final design is output oriented. The
basic design is also similar here from smaller through to the larger
amplifiers. Again because I like the simplicity and the sound quality of
the designs I stick to them over the range of my products.
…
Received on Thu May 26 16:15:26 2005
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