SCOBIE CUSTOM AUDIO
Development of the World's Most Natural Sounding Amplifiers
I had done considerable designing and construction of tube and solid state amplifiers starting back in the 1960's. By the mid-80's, this was a serious hobby, getting most of my spare time. Upon returning to Canada from a trip to the South Pacific in 1991, I decided to design and construct vacuum tube hifi amplifiers as a full time vocation. A study of the existing ultra high-end amplifiers indicated that the finest amplifiers are most satisfying and profitable for a prototyper
to produce. After a couple of years of determined effort to build amplifiers of advanced design, it became apparent that from a business point of view, it made most sense to invest very heavily in research and development in order to surpass all existing amplifiers in naturalness of the sound quality. This could only be accomplished through a successfull program of innovation, which would require a high input of creativity, and ultimately the guiding hand of serendipity.
The Non-existence of the Theoretically Ideal Amplifier
The theoretically ideal amplifier is an amplifier which, connected to a theoretically ideal speaker and fed with an undistorted signal representing the musical acoustic pressure, creates an exact reproduction of the original musical acoustic pressure from the speaker. As simple as this sounds, neither the required information transfer functions nor the configuration of the ideal amplifier, nor the definition of an ideal speaker can be found in any existing literature on the subject of audio reproduction. Audio practitioners cannot even agree whether planar electrostatic speakers or cone speakers are better, let alone being able to stipulate the theoretical requirements of an ideal amplifier, which would be intrinsically related to the electrical characteristics of the loading speaker.
The 1895 Flying Machine Business
The Wright brothers, in 1903, achieved the world's first successful powered heavier-than-air flight. At the time of this flight, and for a couple of decades prior, there existed a thriving world-wide business in the creation of so-called flying machines. The only problem was that none of the flying machines flew. Lots of money was spent building flying machines and there were lots of experts and there were books of expertise on the subject. For example, there was a book on airfoils by a German experimenter who had died in a glider crash. This book was considered the bible of airfoil design, just as the Radiotron Designer's Handbook is today considered a bible of tube amplifier design. One reason none of the flying machines flew was that the bible was wrong. The Wright brothers had a good grasp of the essential skills: physics, and the ability and confidence to experiment with innovation. They invented the wind tunnel to assess airfoil designs and quickly discovered that the bible had been wrong; they discovered an efficient airfoil. My point here is that the Wright brothers were the first to apply physics and innovation to a problem that had hitherto been the subject of blind tradition.
The 1999 High-End Audio Business
Almost any blindfolded lay person can readily, and accurately, tell the difference between the sound of an acoustic guitar played six feet in front of them and the sound of the same guitar, recorded with the best recording equipment, and played back through the most expensive, or even the "best sounding" high-end audio system. The truth is, after hundreds of thousands of man-years had been spent on the development of audio systems, there was not one audio system on earth that sounded anything like the original performance. The state of high-end audio today is just like the state of the flying machine business in 1902: none of the flying machines could actually fly and none of the audio systems sound like reality. That fateful day in 1903 when the first flying machine flew was yet to arrive for high-end audio.
How to Solve the Problem of Real-Sounding HIFI
People have consistently made the error of considering audio to be essentially an electronics problem when it is in fact a physics problem. Not only is it a physics problem, but it is a cultural problem in that everybody is chasing short-term profit, whilst development of the ideal audio system is not a short term project. What was required to create the world's first real-sounding hifi system was the rigorous application of knowledge of physics to a problem that needs physics in order to be solved, and inspired innovation to develop the practical techniques to implement the theoretical findings.
A lengthy study of books from the original era of vacuum tube amplification produced no useful results, as the COMBINATION of amplifier and speaker is consistently ignored. The design of an amplifier and the design of loudspeakers are consistently treated as separate problems, and the individial treatments, regardless of depth, are simply wrong. In reality, the problem is to convert an electrical signal into a sound wave where a physical characteristic of the sound wave, either pressure or velocity, is an undistorted image of the information signal. This simple truth has never been carried through to the logical design implications.
To conclude, it seems a reasonable statement that in the entire history of radio, hifi and electronics, there is no evidence of serious consideration of what amplifier and speaker designs, IN COMBINATION, would be ideal, and therefore eternal, beautiful, and most importantly, capable of reproducing sonic reality. There has been no evidence of the creation of an amplifier/speaker combination that is based on the needed fundamental truth.
After seven years of constant work, both design and experimental (which produced about five thousand pages of detailed amplifier and speaker design), I began to perceive the idea that somewhere buried in the fog was the concept of the ideal amplifier. This concept was assiduously pursued until success was achieved. My confidence in the correctness of this formulation of the ideal amplifier was based on an appreciation of beauty and the satisfaction of all mathematical, electrical and physical requirements, as determined by many years of dedicated effort. The ideal amplifier is not found in any book on audio or electronics that I have ever come across in a lifetime of practising the art of audio electronics, nor is there any reference as to the existence of such an object, and yet it is very real and necessary for truly accurate reproduction of sound.
The ideal amplifier is a form of time machine. There are two ways to effect travel in time. One is to move part of the present into the past, and the other is to move part of the past into the present. The ideal amplifier is capable of the latter form of time travel, as it enables the recreation of sonic reality from an earlier place in time. There are subtle advanced physics considerations that have been employed to optimize the time travel capabilities of the ideal amplifier. These considerations have never before been employed in the art of audio reproduction.
The identification of the ideal amplifier posed the challenge to design and construct real amplifiers that would function closely to the ideal, and therefore be capable of bringing joy and rapture to the music lover.
Building the Real-World Ideal Amplifier
During the experimental process that supported the discovery of the ideal amplifier, various prototype circuits of very advanced innovative design were extensively listened to, using a speaker of unique advanced design. This work largely enabled the definition of the circuitry and components of the first pair of production monoblocks. Construction of these amplifiers began in October of 1998, and completion came in April of 1999, with about 1000 hours of highly skilled labour needed. Compare this to about 5 minutes assembly time for a consumer amplifier, or a maximum of around 100 hours for expensive high-end amplifiers. A high degree of success was obtained in getting the actual amplifiers to perform very closely to the theoretical ideal. This could only be made possible by drawing heavily upon a lifetime of experience in designing and building vacuum tube amplifiers, combined with a number of subtle serendipitous twists.
Tweaking the Amplifiers
During the final phases of construction of these amplifiers, numerous listening and reliability tests were performed and various components were individually adjusted within each amplifier to obtain the optimum in sound quality from that amplifier. About 50 hours working time went into the tweaking of each amplifier.
Evaluation of Sonic Performance
The sonic performance proved to be most satisfying, providing practical correlation with the theoretically ideal amplifier. The acoustic dynamic range is very satisfying, with lifelike impact, combined with superlative transparency found even in peaks in program material. Most of the listening tests are done with the very best audiophile LP pressings of classical and jazz recordings of the highest quality. Only the best 50 or so LP's out of a quality collection of 5000 LP's are used, to ensure an optimum combination of covering a wide variety of types of sounds while enabling the developer to become very familiar with the program material. Transparency is superb in all frequency ranges from the lows to the highs. Transparency remains extremely good even in very soft passages in the music. The quality and timbre of acoustic instruments is exceptional, and remains constant over the range of dynamic levels. We are confident that these are the finest sounding amplifiers in existence. A number of experienced local audiophiles have heard this system and the opinions are unanimous that the sonic performance is unflawed, which cannot be said of any other audio system. Many music lovers, from the audiophile background, musicians, and lay persons have listened to our demonstration system, which contains the prototype ideal amplifiers, as well as many other components of advanced design. Those who truly love music are unanimous that we have, by a large margin, the most natural sound quality possible.
True Works of Art
A true work of art has a number of qualities: it is unique, usually hand-made to the highest achievable quality, and most importantly, reflects some aspect of reality. As these amplifiers are capable of closely reproducing musical reality, they qualify as true works of art, and are in a class that is beyond the scope of high-end audio. These amplifiers are of absolutely unique design and are the only existing examples of this design. The physical appearance of these amplifiers has been very positively received by all who have beheld them, including those with a developed appreciation for aesthetics.
Investing in Works of Art
It is almost universal in high-end audio that equipment values depreciate in time. However, the case is very different for works of art. It is the firm conviction of the creator of these amplifiers that, no matter what initial price is agreed upon, the amplifiers will, if ever resold, go at a price considerably greater than the original purchase price. This is true because the intrinsic worth of these amplifiers is extremely high, and as time progresses, more people will become aware of Scobie Custom Audio amplifiers. It makes no more sense to consider future production levels of these amplifiers than it does to consider the production of a great master; for all practical purposes these amplifiers are absolutely unique, and are very likely to remain so.
Pricing of Our Amplifiers
Diamonds are priced according to clarity and weight, these corresponding to quality and quantity. A close examination of the prices of the finest high-end audio amplifiers reveals a similar pricing scheme, where clarity becomes the naturalness of the sound and weight becomes the maximum class A output power of the amplifier. This scheme is subject to individual variations in the distortion characteristics versus power output of amplifiers. It is popular in high-end audio to claim that the "first watt" of output is superior to the first watt of competing amplifiers. Consider a 300-B amplifier of 8 watts output that must be connected to a highly efficient speaker system to produce peak sound pressure levels that fall far short of realism. Clearly the full 8 watts is required on peaks, and it is clean peaks that are very satisfying to the music lover. So it is very important how ALL of the 8 watts sound, not just the first watt. Scobie Custom Audio amplifiers are extremely linear right out to full output, so the quality of the average output watt remains close to the quality of the first watt.
The true monetary value of audio amplifiers depends on the build quality, the artistic merit of the physical unit as sculpture, and most importantly upon the sound quality. Other than our amplifiers, the finest amplifiers available are selling retail for $2500 U.S. per watt of class A output power. These amplifiers are considerably less significant than our amplifiers as sculpture, and are completely lacking in the vast advantage to sound quality of the ideal amplifier circuitry.
Custom Built Amplifier Models
We offer a junior ideal amplifier of 20 watts per channel constructed as a dual-mono stereo unit. This amplifier is constructed on a hand-made stain resistant aluminum chassis measuring 20 by 30 by 4 inches and employs advanced design circuitry that is a distillation from our best designs. This amplifer is extremely transparent and has lower dynamic range compression than any other commercial amplifier. This amplifier is offered at $10,000.
We have developed numerous high performance designs, and can build amplifers to custom needs. We are currently testing a prototype 80 watt amplifier of revolutionary design that yields the most linear amplification known to mankind.
Current Offerings
We have currently for sale one pair of 35 watt monoblock amplifiers, which embody ideal amplifier theory. These amplifiers, pictured on this website, are the world's most advanced design amplifiers, and will reward the listener with the beauty of music played live that is lost with all other designs.
The tenth watt of output from these amplifiers will be found under rational scrutiny to be superior to the first watt from any other amplifer. These amplifiers are offered at $50,0000.
We are now building several dual-mono stereo amplifiers of 40 watts per channel. These will be priced at $10,000 to $25,000 depending on custom features such as capacitor and transformer quality.
How to Audition the World's Finest Amplifiers
Scobie Custom Audio is located in Victoria, which is located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which may be reached by air or via a convenient and scenically beautiful ferry ride from Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Our telephone number is 1-250-386-1048, and we may also be contacted via email at scobie@crunchers.bc.ca. The mountain did not come to Mohammed; Mohammed had to go to the mountain. We have, through extreme levels of inspiration and dedication to beauty, created the mountain, and what remains for you is to come to the mountain.
Copyright 1999 Duncan Scobie. All rights reserved.
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