Why does a vero build sound so good ?

[MartyMart]

"vero-board"
"strip-board"
call it what you will, I've been using it a lot lately and "by gum" it seems
to "sound" very good..... let me expand ((((      ))))    

The perf and PCB builds i've done are fine and dandy, but I'm
convinced that the vero builds ( a number are second versions of these)
are sounding "bigger" "Brighter" and "clearer" ..
Could this be due to the enormous ( by PCB standards ) "tracks" of copper that connect everything in the circuit  ..?
Could there be something to this .. or am I going mad here ?

Thoughts ?

Marty.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Maybe with all the extra experience you are getting, the most recently built stuff has all the 'right' components!
Seriously, I can't see why there would be a difference, at least for the simple kinds of circuits published for stripboard.
Incidentally, even with the 'wide' sripboard tracks, ocasionally I have had to solder 'extra' copper down on the power rails (fat single strand copper from mains wiring scrap found in skips outside new building sites).

[airhole]

could be the start of a new mojo phenomena? *grin*

cheers,
george

[R.G.]

Could there be something to this .. or am I going mad here ?

Let me pre-apologize. This is not a poke at you.

There is nothing there.

What you have discovered is why audiophile tweakos think their equipment suddenly sounds better when they open it up and replace the line cord connector with a "medical grade" one, or these days a special "high frequency" line cord connector.

It's why cake mix makers always insist that the user put in an egg, some milk, and maybe a dash of vanilla - they found over the years that even though they can easily make an equivalent mix that only needs water, the users insisted on adding something to the mixes to make them "better".

There is something in the human mind that insists that when they put their hands to something, it gets better.  Mark will have more lucid comments than mine, I think.

But there is not a verifiable reason outside the human mind for what you have heard.

[MartyMart]

OK...... fair enough !!  
My brother always says I'm a bit "nutz" anyway  !!

Marty ......  :oops:  :roll:  :oops:

[Wild Bill]

The idea does work in reverse, however. I learned long ago that if you haywire a prototype it will usually work perfectly, no matter how ugly it looks.

When you then put your heart and soul into the finished unit it may look beautiful but there will be hours of cursing while de-bugging!

I think it's another facet of Murphy's Law...

---Wild Bill

[Satch12879]

Could there be something to this .. or am I going mad here ?

Let me pre-apologize. This is not a poke at you.

There is nothing there.

What you have discovered is why audiophile tweakos think their equipment suddenly sounds better when they open it up and replace the line cord connector with a "medical grade" one, or these days a special "high frequency" line cord connector.

It's why cake mix makers always insist that the user put in an egg, some milk, and maybe a dash of vanilla - they found over the years that even though they can easily make an equivalent mix that only needs water, the users insisted on adding something to the mixes to make them "better".

There is something in the human mind that insists that when they put their hands to something, it gets better.  Mark will have more lucid comments than mine, I think.

But there is not a verifiable reason outside the human mind for what you have heard.

Alton Brown had something to say about this cake mix analogy (not in reference to vero board that is) and while he'd usually "roll his own" and give you good reason so, he's in favor of cake mixes.  It's slightly more complicated than just being in your mind, so to speak.  I wish I could remember the reason why...

Wait, wait, WAIT! I just reread the above statement more closely; How can you NOT add eggs nor vanilla to a cake, mix or not? It has nothing to do with "better," is has to do with CHEMISTRY!

[DiyFreaque]

Well, I can think of a possible reason why a build may sound better on vero as opposed to PCB, though it has nothing to do with mojo or superiority of one type of board over the other.

For me, the nature of breadboards, protoboard and stripboard promotes star power/grounding, so it's easier by default to go to that kind of distribution scheme when building on that type of board.  Could be that with PCB, it may be easier to lay traces that 'daisy chain' power and ground connections, if one is not thinking about it too much.   A PCB with effective star power/ground would sound no worse than a vero board with the same.

Star power/ground will make a difference in the performance of a circuit, depending on the type, size and power-hungriness of the circuit.....

Cheers,
Scott

[RDV]

Due to tolerances of parts values, everything you ever build more than one of will sound different.

RDV

[Ge_Whiz]

One of the 'features' of stripboard is that there is a reasonably consistently high distributed capacitance between tracks leading to overall capacitances of tens of picofarads. Radio circuits often do not perform well on stripboard (are noisy or unstable) - even BCB (MW) radio circuits often only work well if all excess copper strip is either completely isolated or even cut off the board completely.

Since I have seen capacitors used in the few hundreds of pF to modify the tone at certain stages in effects circuits, it would not surprise me if the auditorially gifted might hear the difference. Anyway, the effect is probably of the order of Eric Johnson and his battery sensitivities.

[nightingale]

In my experience,
I have noticed that different "brands" and "grades" of semiconductors, [even diodes] can really impact the overall sound of a circuit, especially j201's.. I just got a batch of fairchild j201's from mouser and they seem to be "a little hotter" than an older batch of fairchild 201's that i have?

another example,
I have a few different "brands" of germ 1n34a. In a diode clipper circuit llike a dist+ one brand sounds like a "throaty OD" to my ears. the other "brand" sounds like fuzz, and both brands measure very closely in value.

just some observations i thought i would add to this thread..

[shawn]

Did you happen to use different parts? I've noticed this and it all came down to different manufacturers result in various "quirks" in how they operate. Even some opamps sound different depending on the batches. *shrug*

[MartyMart]

Well I'm glad this has thrown up some interest.
My main issue is with a pair of "Tube reamers"
No 1 is on perf, and includes my "mods"
No 2 is on vero, and includes my "mods"
Same chip ( NE5534ap )
Same resistors - from my 5% set
Same caps - Panasonic ECQ's
Same diodes, a 1N34a and a 1N4148
Same alpha pots

No 2 is "clearer" and sounds better !!  .... so I can't explain that other
than the differences between the "parts" within that batch, as RDV said.

Wierd eh ??

Marty.

[bwanasonic]

As always with a claim like this, rather than trying to explain how such a phenomenon could be, you should first determine if the origional claim is true. If someone claims his razor blades are sharper after putting them under a little carboard pyramid, there is no point in hypothesizing on how this could be until you determine that the blades are indeed sharper. If you can pick out a vero build from say a perf build, in a double-blind test, of the same circuit using identical components, and consistently describe it as "brighter and more open", then you can try to figure out why.  After you fail that test, you can put your energy into building on whatever you have handy, because what matters is the layout, and following good construction pratices.

Kerry M

[Mark Hammer]

As has been noted here, by those with far more training and experience than I, layout matters.  One of the things that stripboard does is force a different layout on the builder.  Whenever I look at the stripboard layouts posted, my first impression is generally "Whoa, that's a LOT more space than I would have used!".  That's not a flaw in the use of stripboard, simply a reflection on how different stripboard layouts often are, relative to PCB layouts that might seek to cram everything into a smaller space and permit use of a greater diversity of chassis types.

As R.G. also points out, though, the psychological aspects of acoustic memory, and the role of expectations in audio perception, should not be discounted.  It CAN happen that some ineffable sonic qualities/properties can occur which are not expected (and which are often VERY context-dependent) and have a physical basis, but for every "UFO sighting" that defies explanation by natural phenomena, there are almost always 500-1000 more that fall into the "Oops, I sort of forgot about that" category, where people were more likely to believe their imagination.

Research into the phenomenon of hypnotism (which is far from what most folks think it is) indicates that those individuals who are most easily lured into so-called hypnotic states via suggestion, are those with more active imaginations.  That is, those folks who can imagine, for example, what it would feel like to have eyelids as heavy as lead, in rich detail, from a subjective perspective, are more likely to respond to such suggestions from a hypnotist, whether clinical or stage performer.  I should emphasize that they are not more *creative*, but that they more readily dredge up personal experience and extrapolate from that in detail.  These are probably also the same people who easily cry at movies, (because they can imagine themselves in the situation depicted more easily) and people who are likely to be more inclined towards acting (because they can imagine what the character would feel and think).

I'd be curious to know what the linkage is, if any, between openness to suggestion (i.e., hypnotizability), and being an audiophile.  That is NOT to suggest such people are morons.  Rather, some people may just be more amenable to imagining what something WOULD sound like, and end up responding to their own self-suggestions (Wow, it IS clearer with greater definition!) or the suggestions of others.  It might not be there, but they hear it because they are more capable of persuading themselves.

But, once again, I have to remind myself that in the world of audio, sometimes stuff you wouldn't think of matters, just as much as sometimes it doesn't.

[Torchy]

... because what matters is the layout, and following good construction pratices.

Kerching, we have a winner  

[nooneknows]

I really don't' know why people here "hates" the audiophile matter.  
I recognize I can fall in the audiophile class, but I don't feel myself a moron just because I pretend to hear subtle difference between different interconnection cables.
Yes, of course, there' a lot of hype in some audiophile gizmo around and a lot of stupid people spending a lot of money in bullshits (bat-wing dust cables, magic capacitors etc.) .
But, often, the differences are really there. With my friends, sometimes, we does double blind tests, just to check out if we're going crazy. Well, something works, something doesn't.. But, still, it's NOT only hype.
For example....
I know you could not believe it, but freezing a cd and painting the border with a black marker, generally, makes the disc sounds better. You don't believe it right? ok, before saying that, just test it with two disc (one freezed, one original) in double blind with a GOOD hi fi system (with the loudspeakers in the right position, good cables, etc, etc.) ...and let me know....

[bwanasonic]

I know you could not believe it, but freezing a cd and painting the border with a black marker, generally, makes the disc sounds better. You don't believe it right?...

The same person (Peter Belt) who made this original claim also asserts:

that photographing a person affects them adversely, and that if you place a photograph of yourself as an infant or small child along with a current photograph of yourself in a plastic bag in the freezer, you will improve your listening experience.

If you can verify any of these claims in a double-blind test, there is a $1,000,000 prize waiting for you at www.randi.org .

Some people believed this guy too:



Kerry M

[Paul Marossy]

Due to tolerances of parts values, everything you ever build more than one of will sound different.

Bingo! This is the same reason that one "vintage" Fuzz Face will sound great and another one will suck. I do think, though, that if the tolerances are reasonable (say 5%), you will get a fairly consistent product with the stuff that's available today.

[Wild Bill]

---"I really don't' know why people here "hates" the audiophile matter. "


The answer is simple - techies are offended by "snake oil" salesmen taking advantage of the ignorant!

The highly inflated pricing of the audiophile world cannot be denied. There seems to be a perverse pride in that market about WANTING to pay more so that they can be more confident they have a good value or perhaps, just to brag!

Politicians often use a similar tactic by throwing tons of (OUR!) tax money at an issue. They aren't actually fixing anything but we gullible tax payers are impressed by the huge sums and think SOMETHING good must be happening!

If I can get you to pay $1000 for a $5 power cord I will make $995 profit. I won't waste my time trying to convince a true techie. I'd concentrate on those audiophile users who know just enough to recognise my buzz words, but not understand them. That way I can impress but not be intelligently debated.

As for the original issue, I stand by my earlier post. A crude varo board will more often work better right off the bat than an expensive and time consuming pcb project.

The laws of the universe were written by Murphy and Finagle.

---Wild Bill