I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[rdf]

For final fun, here are the same tweeters driven by the pathological cable but this time first-order crossed over with a single cap, looking at voltage at the crossover input. Now the speaker cable interacts with the complex driver/cap impedance. Note the obvious bump at the crossover frequency and keep in mind this appears, within the limits of the other driver impedance, across all the drivers.

[SY]

Nice one, rdf. So with the pathological wire, we have 0.1dB, edging toward barely audible. And I mean "barely." EQ via wire. With zip cord, the relative deviation should work the same way as before, i.e, dropping the EQ by about half?

[Curly Woods]

Originally Posted by SY

Nice one, rdf. So with the pathological wire, we have 0.1dB, edging toward barely audible. And I mean "barely." EQ via wire. With zip cord, the relative deviation should work the same way as before, i.e, dropping the EQ by about half?

How do you measure transparency and sound staging with a meter? Just curious. Never heard of a measurement for those traits yet. Ears are the only way that I know to tell the difference with regards to those traits. Just curious how these are measured.

[danielwritesbac]

Originally Posted by SY

Can you explain what this means and where that number comes from?

Testing the frequency response and harmonic distortion of different sound cards with RightMark and several people showed, that while RightMark was "pointing in the right direction" the extent/amount of any error was never perceived in proportion to the figures shown on screen.
That accounts for the 0.12db figure to error out of favor with the ear, and while this figure is approximate, it also demonstrates the very small tolerance for "wrong sounding" errors. Its much smaller than previously anticipated. Hyper-sensitive equipment and picky people were, perhaps, contributing factors to this figure. I think that it is suited to the hi-fi market.

The 40db figure, to error in favor of the ear comes from standard audiology tables, and it is an approximate figure. The actual figure varies depending on the sound pressure levels in use as well as the frequencies where the error occurs. This figure given was arbitrarily conservative, because the actual figure might be overkill for the hi-fi market. Audiology is a great way to determine the least intrusive crossover frequencies for a multi-way speaker's crossover, and I cite this precedent for the use of audiology in audio equipment measuring.

Perhaps someday, measuring equipment can have an option where it displays on a graph what a person may hear. However, a flat response isn't always going to apply to audio because the ear never has a flat response.

You can see why the proportion of error perceived turned out much differently than the measurements indicated.

Of course, much of the ear favoring has already been created in the recording studio. Even though the recording studios do quite a bit of accommodation. . . according to the science of audiology there remains a generous budget to error in favor with the ear (the cases where imperfection is just fine); however, it is also true that there's an extremely tiny margin for errors out of favor with the ear (the cases where imperfection is intolerable).

Bearing in mind that the purpose is audio, as in ear is part of it, this may help explain why some large errors are tolerable while other, tiny errors, are intolerable.

Any software engineers out there willing to arrange for a "what you hear" adaptation on a far field measure?

[SY]

Testing the frequency response and harmonic distortion of different sound cards with RightMark and several people showed, that while RightMark was "pointing in the right direction" the extent/amount of any error was never perceived in proportion to the figures shown on screen.
That accounts for the 0.12db figure to error out of favor with the ear, and while this figure is approximate, it also demonstrates the very small tolerance for "wrong sounding" errors. Its much smaller than previously anticipated. Hyper-sensitive equipment and picky people were, perhaps, contributing factors to this figure. I think that it is suited to the hi-fi market.

I still have no idea what this means. Is there a reference somewhere written a bit more clearly?

[SY]

Originally Posted by Curly Woods

How do you measure transparency and sound staging with a meter? Just curious. Never heard of a measurement for those traits yet. Ears are the only way that I know to tell the difference with regards to those traits. Just curious how these are measured.

When someone actually demonstrates differences in soundstaging or transparency from wire, detectable by ear alone (no peeking), get back to me with that question.

[rdf]

Originally Posted by SY

Nice one, rdf. So with the pathological wire, we have 0.1dB, edging toward barely audible.

More like a half dB over a couple octaves. No claim of smoking guns, I've just hated simplifying assumptions since my EE profs instructed to get within a factor of ten and finalize on the bench. Into a low impedance, high order multi-way the RLC of the ubiquitous 16 gauge recommendation could reach audibility on complex impedance alone, without the help of magic and the spirit world. That last post was to suggest it's worth a look.

Edit: it occurs to me now I first simulated this on punch cards!

[cbdb]

More like a half dB over a couple octaves.

??? 100mdb= .1db

it occurs to me now I first simulated this on punch cards!

Your as old as I am. Fortran

[BudP]

How do you measure transparency and sound staging with a meter?

You don't. That isn't even the point to all of the measuring. Our beloved hobby is a mirage, an insultingly good illusion of something that was once real. These hair shirt fellows are just going about doing their job, which is to make sure that the equipment they devise is the best they can. In so doing, they allow the rest of us, in our Hawaiian shirts, to sip mint tea and discuss the illusion as if it were anything but. That we have an illusion at all is entirely due to the careful, step by step analysis of the best methods available, to provide the most information possible, correctly. If they hadn't been progressing in the correct direction all this time, our illusions would not have progressed to the state they have.

If you take a look at the odd ideas I have been promoting over the last two years, you will note, eventually, that I continually invite the hair shirted folks to engage with the possibility that I am pointing to yet another level of performance, beyond where they knew they were safe. This does cause alarm, and gallons of placebo water are dumped on to neutralize the snake oil they fear I am pointing to.

In a few years we will find them happily tearing out the old and soldering in the new and we will all benefit. Not from my ideas, or their implementation, but from the careful and measured exploration of the new horizon they must trek to.

Just enjoy the benefits already pouring from your speakers. And, get ready to experience yet another revolution in our illusions, it is happening right now and to a degree, right here.

Bud

[rdf]

Peaks a little over 100 mdB at 3kHz, down around 400 mdB by 6 kHz, so I was in error. Around half a dB in a single octave. Almost 1 dB down in two, not that I put much weight is such a simplistic analysis.

OT: First computer used was an IBM 1130. Me and that Geico guy.