Preferred Characters

Jay · 21st February 2003, 04:16 AM

What characters of sound is preferred by human ears or brain (in a technical or in a non-technical description)? This is not about human preferences that differ from person to person.

1. Sweet vocals. Female vocals seemed to be more preferable. It’s nice to have a feeling that the voice is sexy. Simple circuits give more probability for a sweet vocal. Speaker sensitivity and amplifier capability to send flat signal such that we can hear the voice membrane or the emotion of the singer (whether she is shy, trembling, etc). Well, tubes are extremely sweet and natural. We can enjoy hearing a good singer with sweet voice lively without music, can’t we?

2. Frequencies. Lows seemed to be more preferable than highs. Cymbals are nice but not likely to trigger adrenalin like lows do. But to standard extent, distorted lows are more acceptable than distorted highs. So it’s always better to have low decibel of highs than flat but distorted (correspond to resistor or L-pad in tweeter crossover)

3. THD. I don’t think that this is important. Any hi-fi system will do to me regardless of their THD. But what is the physical metric of second harmonic distortion? Could it be possible that this have something to do with sweet vocal? Because even that tubes are natural, vocals are seemed to be sweeter than natural voice.

4. Sonic/dynamics. Don’t know the correct “jargon” to express this. This is associated with fast respond (and enough power or flat respond), especially in low frequencies. Zero feedback design, high trans-conductance of amplifying transistors, flexible woofer cone, flat respond of amplifier and speaker circuit, all I think contribute to this character.

5. High fidelity. It’s sometime annoying when many musical instruments mixed together creating one resultant of voice. But I guest this is only because I’m expecting for the better. And may be all those words in audiophile dictionary fall into this category.

From above, number 4 is I think the most important. This is why I leave tubes and go back to solid state. But using complex circuit as in bipolar designs lose some preferred characters, especially if power is not a big concern. Simple bipolar circuits like DOZ and Bride of DOZ are very nice indeed. But I think only in inefficient speakers. In efficient speakers, may be MOSFET is preferable. So, has anybody with many experiences set up a Balanced line stage, Son of Zen, and fed the signal directly to a Lowther without crossover? I’m not yet convinced with the use of full-range driver.

halojoy · 21st February 2003, 04:39 PM

HiFi = High Fidelity.
Fidelity, to be totally true to.

In this case HiFi is when
the reproduced soundwave is as close as possible to
the recording material's description of the soundwave
according to the standard used to descibe the soundwave.
--------------------------

Besides, you are not really interested in Chess
or
you are a coward.

Because you haven't yet challenged gromanswe
at http://gameknot.com/
I am not afraid. And I will try to win over you.

Here is my statistics:
http://gameknot.com/stats.pl?gromanswe
I have lost, in average, 1/40 (every 40th game)
that is 5 games ouyt of played 200

this is the link for anyone to challenge me
http://gameknot.com/start_game.pl?chlg=gromanswe
I will play anyone of you members at diyaudio.com.
I will NOT lose - and in 90% of cases I will win!

/halo - thinks you we should use our diyaudio-ID
- when we join gameknot.com

= more fun & we can discuss audio while playing

Sch3mat1c · 21st February 2003, 05:25 PM

To bring more psychoacoustics into it:
It seems to me that slowly creeping things (animals, person of authority walking towards your bedroom door.....) produce low frequencies. This means danger, and in the wild it could mean something very bad indeed. So adrenaline hops you up to GET YER A$$ GOIN!
So LF = adrenaline, I see no reason why to doubt it

Anyone think of some other things?

Tim (IANAB, B = biologist

)

kelticwizard · 22nd February 2003, 04:46 AM

Sch3mat1c:

Did you think of this yourself, or did you read it somewhere? Because if you thought of this yourself, it basically agrees with an audio book written in the fifties. The explanation in the book was written to explain why our hearing is most sensitive in the middle ranges.

According to that book, the hearing is most sensitive in the middle ranges-the range where twigs break, for instance-because that way early man could detect both danger and possible prey. And by the same reasoning, we would have a reaction to deep frequencies, because it takes something large to generate them.

Interesting that your thinking goes right in line with someone else's writing of half a century ago.

Jay · 22nd February 2003, 04:24 PM

Sch3matic and Kelticwizard,

I don’t think there’s such a strong DNA transfer from our great great grandparent so that the ancient situation apply to us now. In my situation, the opposite is even truer. Whistles, car horns, well no, this is ridiculous.

Halojoy,

Thank’s for reminding me with HiFi definition. So do you think that I should have written “hi definition” here? Then hi-fi is more related to speakers than amps. This is because when an analogue signal gets out of an amplifier, the signal represents at least 90% of the recording material’s description of the sound-wave (Hell, where did I get this number from). When the analogue is transferred to sound wave by the speaker, the sound-wave represents at most 63.72%.

When I said: “It’s sometime annoying when many musical instruments mixed together creating one resultant of voice”, that’s almost the same thing. When a complex passage is interpreted by a speaker, especially if highs and lows are generated at the same time (I think this is why classical music fans don’t like 2-way systems), the sound becomes “muddy”.

About the Chess,

I subscribed to www.gameknot.com 3 times and they promised to send me the procedures to activate my membership in 15 minutes. I thought the admins are… Only just now I thought I have given wrong email address.

Stay there Halojoy. Every Saturday and/or Sunday, I will make sure to push your king out of the chess-board!

Jay · 22nd February 2003, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sch3mat1c
To bring more psychoacoustics into it:
It seems to me that slowly creeping things (animals, person of authority walking towards your bedroom door.....) produce low frequencies. This means danger, and in the wild it could mean something very bad indeed. So adrenaline hops you up to GET YER A$$ GOIN!
So LF = adrenaline, I see no reason why to doubt it

Anyone think of some other things?

Yes, Sch3mat1c, I think you have had too much home theatre.

halojoy · 22nd February 2003, 07:44 PM

Yes, Jay

The loudspeaker is by far the bottleneck in todays soundchain.
CD-players, Amplifiers and the rest is HIFI
already in the budget segment.

Not even real HIGH END, so called HIFI speakers (5.000 dollars or more)
can compete in distortion figures with a massproduced amplifier or CD-player.

High end loudspeakers, without correction system,
is more in the same class as a good compact cassette player.
Slope begins several kHz before 20kHz in the hi freq end.
The bass has a slope worse than a SONY Walkman Cassette player.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I wait for you. Hope you find out trouble of registering at gameknot.
I am almost sure the fault is with your email.
Member "Tazzy" from NED plays very good.
I have only very slight advantage. He took the white pieces. So I have to play black.
But I have better stats as black, anyhow.

/halojoy - hope he can match up to his words, on the chess board.
- who can know what will come ......

Chess is a game from Asia. It takes a brain to make a game like chess.

Jay · 23rd February 2003, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by halojoy
Here is my statistics:
http://gameknot.com/stats.pl?gromanswe
I have lost, in average, 1/40 (every 40th game)
that is 5 games ouyt of played 200

200 games! It takes me 10 years to play that much. What are you doing with your time? I will tell your mother!!

When I joined the YahooChess, my score was boosted with only a few games. The trick was I would play only with people with much higher score (I know this is not fair, but it worked). In the beginning, I could hardly get anyone to play with me, but my "track record" did attrack best players to win over me.

. So I guest I will get a great point if I beat you, halojoy?

planet10 · 23rd February 2003, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by halojoy
The loudspeaker is by far the bottleneck in todays soundchain.

I think that the loudspeaker, even having the greatest range of "colour" is still the least important part of a hifi.

The smaller the signal the more important the device.

And CDs were a big step backwards in hifi... even today's best players don't send as much information on to the next stage in the chain as a modest TT. Hopefully SACD and/or DVD-A will be successful enuff that the CD becomes a thing of the past.

dave
planet 10/thousands of records, tens of CDs

fdegrove · 23rd February 2003, 01:28 AM

Hi,

Quote:

I think that the loudspeaker, even having its own particular range of "colour" is still the least important part of a hifi.

Really?

You really surprise me here...what good is it sending a perfectly good signal through a no good speaker?

I would dedicate at least half of the budget to the speakers.

While I do get your point...rubbish in rubbish out, right?

Cheers,

\Vinyl lives.

21st February 2003, 04:16 AM	#1
Jay diyAudio Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Jakarta	Preferred Characters What characters of sound is preferred by human ears or brain (in a technical or in a non-technical description)? This is not about human preferences that differ from person to person. 1. Sweet vocals. Female vocals seemed to be more preferable. It’s nice to have a feeling that the voice is sexy. Simple circuits give more probability for a sweet vocal. Speaker sensitivity and amplifier capability to send flat signal such that we can hear the voice membrane or the emotion of the singer (whether she is shy, trembling, etc). Well, tubes are extremely sweet and natural. We can enjoy hearing a good singer with sweet voice lively without music, can’t we? 2. Frequencies. Lows seemed to be more preferable than highs. Cymbals are nice but not likely to trigger adrenalin like lows do. But to standard extent, distorted lows are more acceptable than distorted highs. So it’s always better to have low decibel of highs than flat but distorted (correspond to resistor or L-pad in tweeter crossover) 3. THD. I don’t think that this is important. Any hi-fi system will do to me regardless of their THD. But what is the physical metric of second harmonic distortion? Could it be possible that this have something to do with sweet vocal? Because even that tubes are natural, vocals are seemed to be sweeter than natural voice. 4. Sonic/dynamics. Don’t know the correct “jargon” to express this. This is associated with fast respond (and enough power or flat respond), especially in low frequencies. Zero feedback design, high trans-conductance of amplifying transistors, flexible woofer cone, flat respond of amplifier and speaker circuit, all I think contribute to this character. 5. High fidelity. It’s sometime annoying when many musical instruments mixed together creating one resultant of voice. But I guest this is only because I’m expecting for the better. And may be all those words in audiophile dictionary fall into this category. From above, number 4 is I think the most important. This is why I leave tubes and go back to solid state. But using complex circuit as in bipolar designs lose some preferred characters, especially if power is not a big concern. Simple bipolar circuits like DOZ and Bride of DOZ are very nice indeed. But I think only in inefficient speakers. In efficient speakers, may be MOSFET is preferable. So, has anybody with many experiences set up a Balanced line stage, Son of Zen, and fed the signal directly to a Lowther without crossover? I’m not yet convinced with the use of full-range driver.

22nd February 2003, 04:46 AM	#4
kelticwizard diyAudio Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Connecticut, The Nutmeg State	Sch3mat1c: Did you think of this yourself, or did you read it somewhere? Because if you thought of this yourself, it basically agrees with an audio book written in the fifties. The explanation in the book was written to explain why our hearing is most sensitive in the middle ranges. According to that book, the hearing is most sensitive in the middle ranges-the range where twigs break, for instance-because that way early man could detect both danger and possible prey. And by the same reasoning, we would have a reaction to deep frequencies, because it takes something large to generate them. Interesting that your thinking goes right in line with someone else's writing of half a century ago. __________________ "A friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body." -Anonymous

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21st February 2003, 05:25 PM	#3
Sch3mat1c diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Milwaukee, WI	To bring more psychoacoustics into it: It seems to me that slowly creeping things (animals, person of authority walking towards your bedroom door.....) produce low frequencies. This means danger, and in the wild it could mean something very bad indeed. So adrenaline hops you up to GET YER A$$ GOIN! So LF = adrenaline, I see no reason why to doubt it Anyone think of some other things? Tim (IANAB, B = biologist )

22nd February 2003, 04:24 PM	#5
Jay diyAudio Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Jakarta	Sch3matic and Kelticwizard, I don’t think there’s such a strong DNA transfer from our great great grandparent so that the ancient situation apply to us now. In my situation, the opposite is even truer. Whistles, car horns, well no, this is ridiculous. Halojoy, Thank’s for reminding me with HiFi definition. So do you think that I should have written “hi definition” here? Then hi-fi is more related to speakers than amps. This is because when an analogue signal gets out of an amplifier, the signal represents at least 90% of the recording material’s description of the sound-wave (Hell, where did I get this number from). When the analogue is transferred to sound wave by the speaker, the sound-wave represents at most 63.72%. When I said: “It’s sometime annoying when many musical instruments mixed together creating one resultant of voice”, that’s almost the same thing. When a complex passage is interpreted by a speaker, especially if highs and lows are generated at the same time (I think this is why classical music fans don’t like 2-way systems), the sound becomes “muddy”. About the Chess, I subscribed to www.gameknot.com 3 times and they promised to send me the procedures to activate my membership in 15 minutes. I thought the admins are… Only just now I thought I have given wrong email address. Stay there Halojoy. Every Saturday and/or Sunday, I will make sure to push your king out of the chess-board!

22nd February 2003, 07:44 PM	#7
halojoy On Hiatus Join Date: Nov 2002	Yes, Jay The loudspeaker is by far the bottleneck in todays soundchain. CD-players, Amplifiers and the rest is HIFI already in the budget segment. Not even real HIGH END, so called HIFI speakers (5.000 dollars or more) can compete in distortion figures with a massproduced amplifier or CD-player. High end loudspeakers, without correction system, is more in the same class as a good compact cassette player. Slope begins several kHz before 20kHz in the hi freq end. The bass has a slope worse than a SONY Walkman Cassette player. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I wait for you. Hope you find out trouble of registering at gameknot. I am almost sure the fault is with your email. Member "Tazzy" from NED plays very good. I have only very slight advantage. He took the white pieces. So I have to play black. But I have better stats as black, anyhow. /halojoy - hope he can match up to his words, on the chess board. - who can know what will come ...... Chess is a game from Asia. It takes a brain to make a game like chess.

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