Entropy
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
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Printed Date: 27 Mar 2026 at 4:02am
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Topic: Entropy
Posted By: Graham Slee
Subject: Entropy
Date Posted: 19 May 2025 at 10:41am
(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?
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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps
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Replies:
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 19 May 2025 at 2:53pm
Interesting points Graham as always. I enjoyed listening to the 7eventy amp, very musical in that I enjoyed listening to lots of music through it. It is currently out on loan so we'll probably have another person wishing the amp had gone into production!
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Jon
Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.
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Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 19 May 2025 at 7:30pm
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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.
Both have needed significant maintenance - the speakers new crossovers (after 47 years) and the turntable overhauled several times.
There are also amps, speakers, subwoofers and a CD player in the 30+ years age range which have never been serviced or repaired. Oh and of course Slee headamps now in their late teens.
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Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 21 May 2025 at 9:36pm
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Your point about entropy got me thinking. Astrophysics, global warming, and circuit stability. Very different timescales and factors. I've owned and enjoying listening to my Proprius amps for many years now. They still sound great or rather the music does, and they run at about the same temperature now as when they arrived. A tribute to the stability of the circuits and their construction. Thanks to Graham and past colleagues.
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Jon
Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.
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Posted By: ICL1P
Date Posted: 22 May 2025 at 10:06pm
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.
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Ifor
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Reflex M & ACCESSION M, CuSat50, Majestic DAC, a Proprius pair.
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Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 23 May 2025 at 9:16pm
Agreed
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Jon
Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.
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Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 01 Jun 2025 at 8:45am
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).
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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps
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Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 10 Jun 2025 at 10:23am
How does a labour of love (often seen as obsession) - in other words creativity - and the flow of its time merge with the "real world"?
The "real world" here, is defined by man's rigid regimes of dividing the week into convenient time units called work periods, which is an absolutely brilliant idea for those involved in tiresome/laborious work, and I wouldn't want to change that, only make it better.
But what about the dreamer? How can a dream clock on and clock off?
So, in an entity where dreams are manufactured, there has to be unspecific conveyor belts of time, that, at times, merge with the conveyor belts of time in the real world, for when a dream segment jumps out of imagination into the real world.
And I think it was that, which made it possible for us to pull off what we did.
But how does any of what I wrote above become tangible in the mind? And if it could be, how could it be scaled up?
I mean, what mechanisms of recruitment could be employed to differentiate between true dreamers (as opposed to wasters), and those capable of comprehending the time conveyors that might converge, or even diverge to a later convergence?
I don't think it possible. I also wonder if anybody reading this will be able to grasp the context of what I'm saying. I think it's too abstract.
And being that the concept, idea, or language is detached from tangible reality and not grounded in specific examples (thanks AI...) makes it impossible to implement.
So, perhaps it can never be scaled up.
My thanks go to John Cadman and Leo Kirkbride as being the only people I ever met who were able to work within a dream.
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That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps
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Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 10 Jun 2025 at 4:39pm
Hopefully I'm on track with you Graham... Would active dreaming be creative, where passive would be day dreaming like a 'nowhere man' or woman etc. I agree John and Leo are great!
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Jon
Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.
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