OMG, this statement is so right on.. and the shows are unbelievably bad sound..
Either way you want to spin it, DBT do not always align with the larger field of experience which always trumps the more limited view seen in the DBT.
THx-RNMarsh
John, many pages back, we agreed that a good amp is made when most of what you mentioned is satisfied; in other words, no one single item on the to do list for it can make it sound very good, it needs to be several of them together.
As I have already mentioned several times, I do not believe the absolute value of THD is of any great measure of sound quality, so long as they are below 0.1%, and so long as their decay rate doesn't behave erratically.
Although the list is long(ish), some have managed to fulfill it just fine, and as a result, we do have some really good amps around. Ultimately, if they did have to compromise, they managed to do so admirably.
You and I have agreed on that the Otala/Lohstroh amp is a good example of how it can be done very well, despite tham appearent faults, such as a relatively high THD factor by today's standards, and such as a relatively low power output.
The question arising from this is painfully obvious; if we knew how it can and should be done in 1973, why don't we have more of that, updated by what we have learnt along the way since then?
As I have already mentioned several times, I do not believe the absolute value of THD is of any great measure of sound quality, so long as they are below 0.1%, and so long as their decay rate doesn't behave erratically.
Although the list is long(ish), some have managed to fulfill it just fine, and as a result, we do have some really good amps around. Ultimately, if they did have to compromise, they managed to do so admirably.
You and I have agreed on that the Otala/Lohstroh amp is a good example of how it can be done very well, despite tham appearent faults, such as a relatively high THD factor by today's standards, and such as a relatively low power output.
The question arising from this is painfully obvious; if we knew how it can and should be done in 1973, why don't we have more of that, updated by what we have learnt along the way since then?
To offer my own answer to the above question, I feel certain that it's not for lack of knwledge and expertise of the designers, much less so because of the technology, but quite simply of the economics of the audio business.
Popular and cheap products are much more orientated towards gimmicks and gadgets, such as a remote contro, many flasing LEDs and so forth, that about sound. Money is spent on catchy effects ratger than on serious development work.
The High End is hell bent on showing us what modern CNC machines can do with a slab of metal, graphic LED displays, etc, in short, they too are going for the gadgets, even if their construction quality may be impeccable.
I am not saying nobody is working on the essetials any more, of there are companies which still care and invest in it, the shown example of H/K being one of them. But such companies are, in my view, rare examples.
Today, it's all about positioning the product, various niches and gizmos which help advertise and sell the stuff. And audio has not been very high on the popular purchase lists for a long time, it was replaced first by video, then by the PC, and these days by the TV screens, pushed by HDTV and the fact that even whole countries arerapidly changing over to completely digital systems (even the poor ones - Serbia will by law change over to digital transmissions from March 2015).
Popular and cheap products are much more orientated towards gimmicks and gadgets, such as a remote contro, many flasing LEDs and so forth, that about sound. Money is spent on catchy effects ratger than on serious development work.
The High End is hell bent on showing us what modern CNC machines can do with a slab of metal, graphic LED displays, etc, in short, they too are going for the gadgets, even if their construction quality may be impeccable.
I am not saying nobody is working on the essetials any more, of there are companies which still care and invest in it, the shown example of H/K being one of them. But such companies are, in my view, rare examples.
Today, it's all about positioning the product, various niches and gizmos which help advertise and sell the stuff. And audio has not been very high on the popular purchase lists for a long time, it was replaced first by video, then by the PC, and these days by the TV screens, pushed by HDTV and the fact that even whole countries arerapidly changing over to completely digital systems (even the poor ones - Serbia will by law change over to digital transmissions from March 2015).
Because, Dejan, the process of extracting good sound from equipment, to this day, is so precarious - one defect, problem area, anywhere throughout the system can kneecap the sound quality, and this is a factor that most people don't seem to want to grapple with. If a luxury vehicle, which is supposed to very quiet, has an irritating rattle coming and going all the time - you don't say, "Well, I'll just design a better engine, or completely change the way the suspension works, or, make the body out of aluminium rather than steel" ... no, you go to quite some effort to track down precisely where the noise is originating, understand why it is occurring, and then change just exactly what needs to be modified, no more, to make that noise a non-issue from then on ...
Last edited:
Since this thread is (also) about measurements: The price of a used AP 2722 just dropped: The All-New APx555 - By Audio Precision
jan
jan
It has been mentioned by others while I was sleeping, but all this can be the result of added audible harmonic distortion. And all this is subject to taste, meaning others might not find it "better".
Do you understand that, although you seem to have good intentions, these kind of definitions of "better" are loose and therefore not useful for progress?
Curious - who are the customers for whom -115dB THD+N wasn't sufficient?
If there are a large amount of people feeling that homoeopathy works, should real medical scientist pay attention to it when there's not a shred of evidence supporting its better than placebo? (I remember Nature having to retract a publication of a French researcher working the numbers, in a very clever way, supporting the memory of water)
Of cause not., because they are making a non secure logical fallacy. Just as you are making now.
Wider bandwidth and FFT length count for the APx555 - step forward again!
This sort of comment I always find hilarious,
- that somehow the system can "magically" add exactly the right sort of distortion to make a recording come to life, bring it closer to the experience of what hearing live sound is all about - for any recording one happens to put on! That's some amazing wand waving, right there ...
This sort of comment I always find hilarious,
And yet its used on almost every record you own.
Sound engineers use compression/distortion all the time. Even in classical music and on recordings you think are amazing.
That's the whole point of ears-only testing, to separate the truly audible from that which is imagined. Likewise any sort of controlled testing of any claimed phenomenon, whether auditory, organoleptic, haptic, medical, even ESP and paranormal - that's how we "limit" ourselves to physical truth rather than story-telling (which humans are superb at).
- Status
- Not open for further replies.