harmonics vs. partials

[Carl Meyer]

Ron, your post caused me to rethink that situation.  Not being a musician, I
didn't think of the fifth situation.

Let me say that I think that vacuum tubes as well as tape recorders go into
saturation rather gracefully which produces second harmonic distortion, but
a transistor amplifier is almost distortion free until it (hits the wall)
and clips the signal and causes dramatic odd numbered harmonics.  Splatter
would be a good word to describe the result.  That may be the reason for the
tube preference.  I still think that you couldn't tell the difference if you
kept the volume at a reasonable level.  Nowadays transistors are capable of
lower noise than tubes I believe.  I don't doubt that transistor amplifiers
could be designed to have the same distortion as tubes, but you couldn't
sell them,  preconceived opinions being what they are.

Carl Meyer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Newman" <ronman@imt.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: harmonics vs. partials


>
> >Carl,
>
>
>
> >and since second harmonic distortion is octave related to the music, it
> >don't sound too bad.  The third, however, sounds terrible.
>
>          Is this because harmonic distortion generates its own set of
> harmonics, i.e. the third harmonic becomes the first harmonic or a whole
> new series?
>
>          If so, the third harmonic, as you say, would quickly generate its
> own harmonics out of the chord (is the technical term "secondary
> harmonics"?).
>
>          If not, the distorted third harmonic of an xsistor, being the
> musical fifth, falls nicely into most of the simple chords that loud
> players use, so their preference for tube amps would remain unexplained.
>
>
>
> ************************************
> Ron Newman
> Troubadour Technology
> http://www.imt.net/~ronman/troub.html
> ************************************
>