Any modulation distortion, driver compression issues, poor off-axis polar control, and any other form of non-harmonic distortion, along with poorly controlled loudspeaker polars at crossover regions between drivers/horns.
In addition, note that harmonic distortion turns into AM distortion, so low-to-vanishing THD is good for avoiding listening fatigue and promoting "transparency" or IOW "hi-fi" imaging.
Also note that Loudness War compression has made listening fatigue worse: what you listen to nowadays is as important as the sound reproduction system. I find that good classical recordings are as good or better today than ever. Pop/rock/etc. -- well, that's where the problems reside in this particular subject area.
Find a pair of very low modulation distortion loudspeakers, outstanding polar control in the midrange down to its high pass point, and an amp with very low higher-order harmonics, as well as low THD and very low IMD. Then find recordings with higher dynamic range than most popular recordings nowadays. You'll find yourself turning up the volume for certain recordings until you're close to concert volume.
My experience hasn't been that good in this respect. I don't believe that most DIYers do enough homework in all areas necessary to produce superior results when designing and implementing DIY loudspeakers: I find that they tend to simplify design measures of merit too much, instead focusing on too few measures (e.g., flat on-axis FR only, etc.).
Chris
Corner Horn Imaging FAQ
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Having them phase track +/- an octave around the crossover point helps. Also physical time alignment. Depending on the crossover point is what determines spacing. Go to high and the gap is impossible to achieve optimally @¼ wavelength. Also ensure the mids breakup is at least -15-20 dB down.
Using drivers with known low distortion helps. Example is the Vifa XT25BG60-04 ring radiator. On it own the distortion specs would seemly exclude this from the top tier in performance, but when coupled with a shallow waveguide from Pellegren Acoustics greatly reduces the distortion and makes it a true gem. Adding the waveguide also allows a much lower crossover point of 2k without issue. Another example of a very good low distortion driver is the Vifa TC9FD. It's small size lends itself to a mid tweeter like used in the Manzanitas. They don't sound that good for no reason
BTW this should be in it's own thread.
A very late response to this post, but I have another factor to add that doesn't seem to have been covered, so far.
As we get older so there can be a remarkable 'roll off' in our hearing of higher frequencies. Eventually we may only hear up to 4 or 5KHz.
Alongside this we may also experience a severe change in our threshold of pain. This can drop from around 120dB to 90 or even 80dB, or even lower, and it's usually in the higher frequency range that this occurs.
This means that it can affect how we hear music, with louder, high frequency passages actually impinging on our threshold of pain.
And consequently a loss of pleasure when listening to music regardless of the quality of speakers or electronics. We just have to get used to listening at lower levels.
Written from personal experience. :-(
As we get older so there can be a remarkable 'roll off' in our hearing of higher frequencies. Eventually we may only hear up to 4 or 5KHz.
Alongside this we may also experience a severe change in our threshold of pain. This can drop from around 120dB to 90 or even 80dB, or even lower, and it's usually in the higher frequency range that this occurs.
This means that it can affect how we hear music, with louder, high frequency passages actually impinging on our threshold of pain.
And consequently a loss of pleasure when listening to music regardless of the quality of speakers or electronics. We just have to get used to listening at lower levels.
Written from personal experience. :-(
That came to mind while reading and had not seen it mentioned until just prior of typing. Thanks for bringing up those valid points. I set rigs up for my dad and change stuff almost as often as I do in my own systems. An accident left him with partial hearing loss along with what occurs naturally with age and time. Theres that and people do perceive sounds differently, even having healthy hearing. Factor in the masses probably do not bother acoustically treating rooms or even know well enough to do so. Or do but don't bother. Or their spouse won't allow it. It may be safe to say most people just know they want speakers that sound "good" to them.
Given a perfect listening environment and quality gear its nice to have plenty of options to tailor systems.
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Welll barring physiological 'problems' Which are unfortunate.. at best.
For decades;
Crap gear has been the cornerstone of Unpleasant Fatiguing sounds.
No magic involved .. hearing is believing
No news there though, what is annoying are the salestypes /fanboys even, who blatantly lie about their gear regardless of the obvious.
Remember years ago, My wife walking out in the middle of a dealer's demo of Linn Kans speakers because they were Horrid , Shrill sounding things.
Yet the dealer adamantly maintaining that these were great speakers ..
suggesting that we were the problem.
Does anyone even wonder why Audio is a sunset industry?
For decades;
Crap gear has been the cornerstone of Unpleasant Fatiguing sounds.
No magic involved .. hearing is believing
No news there though, what is annoying are the salestypes /fanboys even, who blatantly lie about their gear regardless of the obvious.
Remember years ago, My wife walking out in the middle of a dealer's demo of Linn Kans speakers because they were Horrid , Shrill sounding things.
Yet the dealer adamantly maintaining that these were great speakers ..
suggesting that we were the problem.
Does anyone even wonder why Audio is a sunset industry?
Very bad recordings are also a cause.
Usage of feedback everywhere down the recording and the mastering.
Replay the thinned awful monotone bass recording with lot of feedback transistor amps and you get listening fatigue x 100. No feedback amps have less listening fatigue but sound for most part awfully distorted.
Usage of feedback everywhere down the recording and the mastering.
Replay the thinned awful monotone bass recording with lot of feedback transistor amps and you get listening fatigue x 100. No feedback amps have less listening fatigue but sound for most part awfully distorted.
I did not read the whole discussion, but in my opinion and experience, it's mainly disharmonic distortion. This can be caused by to much compression in the production of music, poor digital ad/da conversion and digital overdrivin sounds, disharmonic sounds in the music, ...
Harmonic distortion sounds good in our subjective human ears, but disharminc distotion really make our ears bleed.
An other factor may be too much noise in our daily life. I lived in a rather big city for more than a decade, but moved to the countryside a few months ago, and my ear fatigue is much less, probally due to more silence and less noise.
Harmonic distortion sounds good in our subjective human ears, but disharminc distotion really make our ears bleed.
An other factor may be too much noise in our daily life. I lived in a rather big city for more than a decade, but moved to the countryside a few months ago, and my ear fatigue is much less, probally due to more silence and less noise.
And another, which may already have been covered, and is not factored into most people's allowances.
Just like a motor vehicle, all electronic components wear out, especially capacitors.
The rate at which they wear out depends, of course, on the quality of the original components from which the device was made.
So often, when it's repaired, the cheapest quality components are used, unless you go to a specialist.
That's why it's a good idea, if you can, to do the repairs oneself. Then one can ensure the amp, or whatever, has a chance of sounding good for at least another five years or more.
Yup, everything wears out ... including us.
John.
Just like a motor vehicle, all electronic components wear out, especially capacitors.
The rate at which they wear out depends, of course, on the quality of the original components from which the device was made.
So often, when it's repaired, the cheapest quality components are used, unless you go to a specialist.
That's why it's a good idea, if you can, to do the repairs oneself. Then one can ensure the amp, or whatever, has a chance of sounding good for at least another five years or more.
Yup, everything wears out ... including us.
John.
Even though it may be subtle difference smog and environmental pollution can effect our hearing as well. As with smoking. Especially for those who get overly congested whether its very obvious to them or not some congestion can enter the ear canal and dull hearing. Not only did my sense of smell and taste strengthen I noticed my hearing became sharper after I quit smoking.
Hi ! i have a question ... does this happens only with digital sources ? if so try a tube somewhere in the chain ... like a dac with tube output ... or a tube line stage/buffer
and listen
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Nahh.... not reallyHi ! i have a question ... does this happens only with digital sources ? if so try a tube somewhere in the chain ... like a dac with tube output ... or a tube line stage/buffer
and listen
When I'm annoyed about a sound from a speaker. It's mostly some issue with driver choise, X-over, cabinet resonance or general frequency response trouble.
And if there is still something wrong - I mostly did not correct the real issue or did not measure well enough - Or the problem is not fixable in it's current design.
Nahh.... not really
When I'm annoyed about a sound from a speaker. It's mostly some issue with driver choise, X-over, cabinet resonance or general frequency response trouble.
And if there is still something wrong - I mostly did not correct the real issue or did not measure well enough - Or the problem is not fixable in it's current design.
Hi ! i ask because i have NEVER heard a not musical sound from an analog set up ... both LPs and tapes. Never. With digital some kind of noise can intrude in the signal and mess it up. This has nothing to do with resolution.
Actually i was much impressed by the sound coming from an old Grundig CD7500
it was a piano track ... the sound had body, power, ... bold. Impressive indeed. With some digital the sound can be flat, dry, thin ...
the difference between this and THIS
The cd player had no remote control ... a real issue for me. Anyway when i went back to get it for 250 euro it was gone. Why they did not think to a remote control ... i would buy one immediately with the remote. What a sound ... i understand its resolution is only like 14 bits ? well they were enough to me.
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First off.... Digital is not a bad technology, but can be used wrongly - like anything else. Digital has way less distortion than any tube or LP. But some might like a little distortion - it's widely used in music production, to enhance "presence" and add more focus to the uppe octaves.
14bits can be absolutely fine.... number of bits refer mostly to background noise - like tape hiss.
Second - A source should be neutral - just like any pre-amp and power-amp. It's the speakers and the room that really makes a huge difference. In my room - normal speakers with dome tweeters... exite to much of the higher notes, and my slanted walls are a bit tricky to dampen. So her a set of waveguided tweeters, seem to sound much better. So you have to be very sure, what system and in what room you are playing, before judging the reasons for listening fatigue.
Most examples of bad bass in any listening room - is because of the lack of some kind of EQ - with or without subwoofers. And for me - bad bass - is really annoying and creates listening fatigue like bad tweeters/midrange integration.
I find tube gear and LP's annoying because of noise, difficulty of use and lacking raw power for dynamics with modern speakers.
14bits can be absolutely fine.... number of bits refer mostly to background noise - like tape hiss.
Second - A source should be neutral - just like any pre-amp and power-amp. It's the speakers and the room that really makes a huge difference. In my room - normal speakers with dome tweeters... exite to much of the higher notes, and my slanted walls are a bit tricky to dampen. So her a set of waveguided tweeters, seem to sound much better. So you have to be very sure, what system and in what room you are playing, before judging the reasons for listening fatigue.
Most examples of bad bass in any listening room - is because of the lack of some kind of EQ - with or without subwoofers. And for me - bad bass - is really annoying and creates listening fatigue like bad tweeters/midrange integration.
I find tube gear and LP's annoying because of noise, difficulty of use and lacking raw power for dynamics with modern speakers.
Hi thanks for the very valuable reply and advice. I agree to you but i just notice that many times problems arise just with digital. Never with an analogue source that it very could be far from perfect but still does not irritate the ear like some digital ... it is the same with video. Like a sort of pixellation of the sound ? someone speak about RFI intruding in the musical signal.
As i said above this could be even more problematic with higher resolution digital. Someone talk about a digital haze ...
But there is a very big issue. I understand that with digital dsp processing is often very heavily used. A friend of mine for instance made some digital recordings of some of his LPs (he is a very analogue guy) thinking that he could not bear the digital copy (16/48)
Instead he told me that he could have lived perfectly also with the digital copy ... and he hates cds
So many cds are paying the bitter price of overprocessing during the editing phase ?
I have always wondered if an analogue master has ever been put against its digital copy in a listening session. That would tell a lot of things ... i guess.
Anothere thing that i would like to try with my AD-DA converter is to compare a direct analogue feed with the same feed passed thtough the AD-DA converter ... a transparency test.
It is a very fascinating argument ... when i will retire i will do
Well.... that's the downside, when you optimize anything. When you zoom in and make anything more precise - you also get more detail... maybe details you do not like - but nevertheless... you get them, when the veil is liftet.Hi thanks for the very valuable reply and advice. I agree to you but i just notice that many times problems arise just with digital.
Older tv's blurred things out and made it look a littel softer... which was actually nice, when the program material was inferior. But now that we have better videos with higher resolution and more than 24 fps - it all becomes really good in combination with the modern tv's.
Problem with music is - that there are way more freedom, than there is with motion pictures. With a movie, you have pretty strict guidelines for speech and sound. But with music, you can mostly just call it artistic freedom and creativity. That's why there are so many issues with replaying music in our homes. Some studios have some speakers and maybe a half deaf mixer. Others use top of the line super duper digital equipment to make everything extremely clean and well behaved. Then we come along with our personal gear, that follows only some basic sporadic rules and ideas. This again explain why it's so difficult to come to some sort of agreement among us hifi-geeks.
Yes - a digital copy is really precise. The whole point is to be transparent throughout the system. A CD is absolutely great.... it's mostly the editing and mixing and original recording, that makes all the difference.
It's also a matter of design. A chain is never stronger that the weakest link. But in hifi - some links are more important than others.
Some older analog recordings are really awesome - mostly because they were made with pride and good effort. Digital is so effective, that if you screw up - it will relentlessly be heard. I personaly hate the hard distortion of overdriven microphones, from many youtube videos. Everything has to be LOUD today. And here lies the biggest problem in my view. Digital is fantastic - if used wisely. But if you take an analogy to cars. Some older cars might be much simpler. But sometimes the building quality was way higher - like an 80's mercedes. The rub can easily be - that digital is being miss-used. Cause when it's easy - we leap over where it's easiest and forget good worksmandship.
And finally DSP's. When used to correct issues that should have been solved by good design. Then it can sound better... but it will always be a compromise. In bass, you can do much more, since our ears are less sensitive here. But like anything else. Know when and how to use the right tools - then - and only then - it will sound good
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