Entropy

(as encouraged by Ifor)

Entropy

Quite shockingly we hear the entire universe is heading for heat death and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Then again it's something like 30 trillion years away (or was that 300 trillion?), so should we worry?

Compared with our lifespans it's all eternity and during our lifespans there are things that have shorter lifespans than our own, and these are called manufactured products, insects, certain animals, etc.

Leaving insects, certain animals, etc. aside, manufactured products include all sorts of things, for example cars. And back in the 7venties car entropy was great. An incredible amount of energy and natural resources (are there any resources that aren't natural?) went into the 7venties car only for it to return to the dust (rust) shortly after its third year.

The entropic reaction is one where all energy is transformed into heat, which is irreversible, so rust must be heat that's lost its latency. That, plus flakes of paint and cracked and discoloured plastics.

So what is the expected lifespan of a well-loved item of audio equipment? And is three years sufficient? That depends on our perception of value. For example, if the Bank of England inflation calculator can be trusted, a Cortina in the 7venties must have cost something like £30,000 in today's money.

And OK, a Cortina would do one heck of a lot more than an item of audio equipment. For a start, it could take you on a journey! Can an item of audio equipment do that? Well actually it can! It can take you on a musical journey.

By its third year surface rust would emerge top of the wings, because on the inside it would be rotten as most of us found out back in the day. But we'd spent all that money! The cost of a motor back then was second to buying a house.

The reason I ask is because my 7venty amplifier is now over three years old and still works and those mysterious meters haven't budged, meaning the quiescent state of the amplifier is rock stable.

Would it have been a viable high fidelity amplifier? Don't ask me, I only use mine for monitoring sound levels and audio edits, as well as listening to some favourite albums, as well as conveying the audio to my speakers on videos I watch.

But so far it's lasted over 3.5 years and only goes off if there's a power cut, or I switch the wrong socket off. It's the metal jacketed type of which only three exist(ed). The wood version prototype blew itself to death and could not be resuscitated due to my lack of patience due to the death of the enthusiasm trail.

And of my reluctant enclosure suppliers (which is why the 7venty never happened), one went bust and the other two, well their balance sheets are shrinking - another type of entropy?

If chez badger is anything to go by, the lifetime of a well-loved item of audio equipment is "up to 52 years" as there are a pair of speakers and a turntable of that age.

I do think it’s a great shame the 7eventy never progressed to production. The most intriguing/informative/educational/etc discussions on the forum, in my opinion, were always those about new product development.

It was interesting listening to a Justin Hayward (Moody Blues) interview on YT where he commented about stereo and Decca's ideas about how stereo should sound, i.e. more natural than the singer in the left speaker and the drummer in the right.

By the way, it was Decca Radio Research who discovered a lot of what latter day "audio design" gurus claim for themselves.

Hayward went on to say he preferred mono, and I didn't immediately understand what he meant, but it eventually clicked.

Everything has to return to its original state of rest, for example, a guitar string starts at its state of rest, is plucked causing it to vibrate, and then it decays to its original state of stillness.

If on its way back to that stillness the guitarists finger accidentally strays and catches that string, the note which was perfect has received an imperfection.

Expand that out to an orchestra, and replace the string with vibrations in the air. The performance starts in stillness, then becomes a harmony of some duration, and ends in stillness of air.

Circuits are supposed to do the same. That stillness is called zero or 0V. It is impossible to escape that zero, but people try - for example, the fully balanced headphone amps. Trouble is even balanced circuits must have a reference, which is zero or 0V, or otherwise it's a "one hand clap."

The point is that we cannot achieve a perfect zero - at all times where current flows, zero becomes non-zero, even infinitesimal.

So stereo, which at some point must have channels returning to the same reference, never return to that same reference - they always return to a non zero, which only becomes a true zero some time interval too late.

In mono, and I mean true mono, that can never happen.

In a live stage setup harmonies don't collide due to amplifiers sharing zero, because they don't.

But is that statement true?

Actually they share a common zero at some point, but due to separation, that zero is kicked into the long grass (the 13A socket(s) the amps are plugged into - and the wiring back to the consumer unit is still non-zero - and I don't mean "earth").

An integrated stereo amplifier has its zero inside it. It couldn't work any other way. That zero is only zero when there's nothing playing. Otherwise it's always an infinitesimal non-zero.

So, that's why mono-blocks can sound best - not always - it depends on the way they're realised, and it's because the zero has been kicked into the long grass (physically separate power supplies).