No knob needed
It becomes a little more obvious when we can reference to live un-amplified music instead of recordings where we have not been there.
I don't think we've yet identified all of them colorations.
Yes, but it still is being conveyed through that signal, and if the equipment is very uncolored, it seems to many of us of that the emotional content gets through better than when the system has irritating colorations.
It becomes a little more obvious when we can reference to live un-amplified music instead of recordings where we have not been there.
I don't think we've yet identified all of them colorations.
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When you can pick out the difference in "emotion" between two non-sentient boxes of gain without peeking, I'll be interested to see that.
edit: In the studio, colorations are commonly introduced to "increase" emotion. (e.g., Aural Exciter). IME, uncolored amps, that is, amps where listeners are unable to distinguish output from input by ear, are commonly derided as "flat, sterile, uninvolving." Catch 44 (twice as bad).
edit: In the studio, colorations are commonly introduced to "increase" emotion. (e.g., Aural Exciter). IME, uncolored amps, that is, amps where listeners are unable to distinguish output from input by ear, are commonly derided as "flat, sterile, uninvolving." Catch 44 (twice as bad).
I have different examples. My wife claims, I damaged her hearing: she can't listen to Hi-fi anymore. Once we were pulled in one mall in one demo-room of the company that makes what considered by masses as the best Hi-fi in the world. They had an ocean projected on the screen, and sounds supposed to confirm that, but she was shocked: "What sounds: wind, fire, water, or savanna?!"
Indeed, they could show one of pictures she mentioned, the sound would be equally wrong.
Guys,
I apologize in advanced, as I have been following from time to time this thread, and my consideration could be not very "updated" or I may repeat something that has been already said. Anyway:
1) At one moment there was a dispute (not new) between audibility or not, noise floor, 0.0001% of distortion. My personal view is that is hard to compare an instrument with a person. I think that the main difference is that the instrument measure the signal instantaneously, while our perception (in general, not only hearing) is a mixture of recognition, expectation and the physical stimulus. A bit like when we read; we don't really read letter by letter. When we see a letter we know which letter was before and which after. This is why the machine that read have no intonation.
2) Coloration, transparency and emotion: sometime it happen to me to watch a dramatic sunset, and if I get rid of sunglasses it's much less dramatic. Yes, the reality is without glasses, but if I enjoy more with, I put them back. I don't think there is something wrong. As long as you enjoy, better if you know you are wearing sunglasses. You cannot use sunglasses everywhere, same with the music.
Just my two cents.
D.
I apologize in advanced, as I have been following from time to time this thread, and my consideration could be not very "updated" or I may repeat something that has been already said. Anyway:
1) At one moment there was a dispute (not new) between audibility or not, noise floor, 0.0001% of distortion. My personal view is that is hard to compare an instrument with a person. I think that the main difference is that the instrument measure the signal instantaneously, while our perception (in general, not only hearing) is a mixture of recognition, expectation and the physical stimulus. A bit like when we read; we don't really read letter by letter. When we see a letter we know which letter was before and which after. This is why the machine that read have no intonation.
2) Coloration, transparency and emotion: sometime it happen to me to watch a dramatic sunset, and if I get rid of sunglasses it's much less dramatic. Yes, the reality is without glasses, but if I enjoy more with, I put them back. I don't think there is something wrong. As long as you enjoy, better if you know you are wearing sunglasses. You cannot use sunglasses everywhere, same with the music.
Just my two cents.
D.
This 2 cents were thrown here many times, probably in sum if to collect them it would be huge capital.
People throw them when they try to understand why others don't prefer amps with "0.0001% of distortion" measured on a sine wave on high power. And instead of the conclusion that THD numbers measured such a way matters less than other artifacts that were not considered, they search for other convenient explanations, like "Those who don't like our numbers like distorted signal".
Presupposition that the amp with 0.0001% of THD on nearly full power is a precise tool to reproduce music seems to be similar to other religious beliefs.
Hi,
Simple, because they differ in their performance in ways non-obvious to traditional static measurements.
So, you are citing hearsay as evidence? That is not exactly scientific, is it now?
Simply saying "1% Distortion" is not a fact, it is not even a meaningful statement as it lacks ANY qualifications. In fact it is completely irrelevant, rather than a fact.
Given how you throw your weight around I naturally expected you to be familiar with the extant body of work on distortion perception, distortion mechanisms and so on. As this appears to have been an overly optimistic view (e.g. you make strongly worded statements from a position of utter ignorance and then defend them with hearsay and made up numbers) allow me to give you some pointers for your education.
First, forms distortion not covered by conventional tests. Some of the oldest work on the subject is now approaching retirement age but remains highly relevant...
Crowhearst, Norman. “Some Defects in Amplifier Performance not covered by Standard Specifications” Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, October 1957. pp. 195-201
Otala's work (espcially the parts that the AES thought too controversial, like what he called Phase Intermodulation (PIM) is also getting rather old... Easy to find is:
Otala, Mati J. “Transient Distortion in Transistor Audio Power Amplifiers”
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 1970
A reasonable reference on PIM is here:
PHASE INTERMODULATION.
Now some stuff on actual distortion (more precisely HD and IMD, as non of this work covers presumed distortions other than these), again, the most significant works approach retirement age:
Newman, Edwin Broomell..”Factors in the production of aural harmonics and
combination tones” Lancaster, Pa., Lancaster Press, 1937.
Reprinted from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 9, No. 2,
October, 1937.
The BBC's D. E. L. Shorters work is sadly widely unknown, though not through a lack of merit.
Shorter, D.E.L. “The Influence of High Order Products in Non-Linear
Distortion” Electrical Engineering, April 1950 pp.152-153
The most recent serious work on distortion audibility is:
E. Geddes and L. Lee, “Auditory perception of nonlinear distortion,” in 115th AES Convention, preprint 5891, 2003
A quite interesting corollary is here:
E.R. Geddes, L.W. Lee and R. Magalotti, “Subjective Testing of Compression Drivers,” J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 53, pp. 1152-1157 (2005 Dec.).
Finally, some notes on audio bandwidth.
Muraoka et al., “Examination of audio-bandwidth requirements for
optimum sound signal transmission”, Journal of the Audio Engineering
Society 1981, p.2
Ashihara et al., “Detection threshold for tones about 22 kHz”, 110th
AES convention 2001, preprint no. 5401
Nishiguchi et al., “Perceptual discrimination between music sounds
with and without very high frequency components”, 115th AES convention
2003, preprint no. 5876
Sugimoto et al, “Human perception model for ultrasonic difference
tones”, Proceedings of the 24th IASTED International Conference, Feb
16-18, 2005, Innsbruck, Austria
Oohashi et al. (1991), “High frequency sound above the audible range
affects brain electric activity and sound perception”, 91st AES
convention, preprint no. 3207
Nakamura et al. (1999), “Analysis of music-brain interaction with
simultaneous measurement of regional cerebral blood flow and
electroencephalogram beta rhythm in human subjects”, Neuroscience
Letters 275, p.222-226
Yagi et al. (2003), “Modulatory effect of inaudible high-frequency
sounds on human acoustic perception”, Neuroscience Letters 351, p.
191-195
Oohashi et al. (2006), “The role of biological systems other than
auditory air-conduction in the emergence of the hypersonic effect”,
Brain Research 1073-1074, p. 339-347
So indeed, "There are more things between heaven and earth then dreamed of in your philosophy." and there is no need to invoke Voudoun or the Boogeyman either, all that is needed is a modicum of science and the abandonment of pseudo-religious dogma.
Ciao T
Simple, because they differ in their performance in ways non-obvious to traditional static measurements.
So, you are citing hearsay as evidence? That is not exactly scientific, is it now?
Simply saying "1% Distortion" is not a fact, it is not even a meaningful statement as it lacks ANY qualifications. In fact it is completely irrelevant, rather than a fact.
Given how you throw your weight around I naturally expected you to be familiar with the extant body of work on distortion perception, distortion mechanisms and so on. As this appears to have been an overly optimistic view (e.g. you make strongly worded statements from a position of utter ignorance and then defend them with hearsay and made up numbers) allow me to give you some pointers for your education.
First, forms distortion not covered by conventional tests. Some of the oldest work on the subject is now approaching retirement age but remains highly relevant...
Crowhearst, Norman. “Some Defects in Amplifier Performance not covered by Standard Specifications” Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, October 1957. pp. 195-201
Otala's work (espcially the parts that the AES thought too controversial, like what he called Phase Intermodulation (PIM) is also getting rather old... Easy to find is:
Otala, Mati J. “Transient Distortion in Transistor Audio Power Amplifiers”
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 1970
A reasonable reference on PIM is here:
PHASE INTERMODULATION.
Now some stuff on actual distortion (more precisely HD and IMD, as non of this work covers presumed distortions other than these), again, the most significant works approach retirement age:
Newman, Edwin Broomell..”Factors in the production of aural harmonics and
combination tones” Lancaster, Pa., Lancaster Press, 1937.
Reprinted from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 9, No. 2,
October, 1937.
The BBC's D. E. L. Shorters work is sadly widely unknown, though not through a lack of merit.
Shorter, D.E.L. “The Influence of High Order Products in Non-Linear
Distortion” Electrical Engineering, April 1950 pp.152-153
The most recent serious work on distortion audibility is:
E. Geddes and L. Lee, “Auditory perception of nonlinear distortion,” in 115th AES Convention, preprint 5891, 2003
A quite interesting corollary is here:
E.R. Geddes, L.W. Lee and R. Magalotti, “Subjective Testing of Compression Drivers,” J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 53, pp. 1152-1157 (2005 Dec.).
Finally, some notes on audio bandwidth.
Muraoka et al., “Examination of audio-bandwidth requirements for
optimum sound signal transmission”, Journal of the Audio Engineering
Society 1981, p.2
Ashihara et al., “Detection threshold for tones about 22 kHz”, 110th
AES convention 2001, preprint no. 5401
Nishiguchi et al., “Perceptual discrimination between music sounds
with and without very high frequency components”, 115th AES convention
2003, preprint no. 5876
Sugimoto et al, “Human perception model for ultrasonic difference
tones”, Proceedings of the 24th IASTED International Conference, Feb
16-18, 2005, Innsbruck, Austria
Oohashi et al. (1991), “High frequency sound above the audible range
affects brain electric activity and sound perception”, 91st AES
convention, preprint no. 3207
Nakamura et al. (1999), “Analysis of music-brain interaction with
simultaneous measurement of regional cerebral blood flow and
electroencephalogram beta rhythm in human subjects”, Neuroscience
Letters 275, p.222-226
Yagi et al. (2003), “Modulatory effect of inaudible high-frequency
sounds on human acoustic perception”, Neuroscience Letters 351, p.
191-195
Oohashi et al. (2006), “The role of biological systems other than
auditory air-conduction in the emergence of the hypersonic effect”,
Brain Research 1073-1074, p. 339-347
So indeed, "There are more things between heaven and earth then dreamed of in your philosophy." and there is no need to invoke Voudoun or the Boogeyman either, all that is needed is a modicum of science and the abandonment of pseudo-religious dogma.
Ciao T
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Hi Sy,
You are not providing any evidence. There are many amplifiers that clearly have low distortion according to any conventional metric and are considered as and are described as "involving", "musical" etc.
The currently ongoing thread on "the best amp I ever heard" at thishere boutique is such an example.
If you wish to be taken serious in any scientific sense, you need to provide evidence, not hearsay. This is as true in audio, as it is in other fields of endeavour and you cannot simply change the rules because they do not suit you in that particular case, unless you permit others to do likewise.
Ciao T
You are not providing any evidence. There are many amplifiers that clearly have low distortion according to any conventional metric and are considered as and are described as "involving", "musical" etc.
The currently ongoing thread on "the best amp I ever heard" at thishere boutique is such an example.
If you wish to be taken serious in any scientific sense, you need to provide evidence, not hearsay. This is as true in audio, as it is in other fields of endeavour and you cannot simply change the rules because they do not suit you in that particular case, unless you permit others to do likewise.
Ciao T
Hi,
Here is another good one:
Predicting the Perceived Quality of Nonlinearly Distorted Music and Speech Signals; Chin-Tuan Tan et al. JAES Volume 52 Issue 7/8 pp. 699-711; July 2004
Ciao T
Here is another good one:
Predicting the Perceived Quality of Nonlinearly Distorted Music and Speech Signals; Chin-Tuan Tan et al. JAES Volume 52 Issue 7/8 pp. 699-711; July 2004
Ciao T
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