Today's professional low distortion studio monitors are brutally honest (=very linear), so that most of the recording on the market sound horrible with them. This is probably the reason why many music lovers today (not necessary audiophiles) still prefer non linear equipments, such as tube, vinyl and vintage speakers. Those equipments mask the defects of the most of the recordings with the subjectively preferable distortions that the listener has chosen. I guess the audiophile who chooses linear equipments may just listen to his personally acceptable recordings only.
Actually, today, with ultra linear digital recording media, no professional engineer can finish his job without intentionally adding non linear distortion devices, because microphone is the worst device in terms of the linearity, and the following electronic equipments has to tame it musically (subjectively). Before digital age, the analog tape and vinyl was doing this job.
Brutal theory, thanks for sharing! Glad to see that we audio freaks now have tons of science like this to share in specialized fora like this. Wonderful!
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Im actually not sure, just guessing really and throwing out some theories to generate discourse
Good summary. Its more complicated than most folks think , myself included
What about perception of even vs odd order distortion? Any studies on this?
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Why this pre conception of even vs odd order? It seems that low order is benign no matter of even nor odd. Dont trust tubbists misconceptions regarding se vs pp, these guys simply drink too much...Some of them mix so much triodes and transformers that they down even know what they are talking about, except maybe the taste of they favorite sake brand...
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Nelson Pass always mentions that it's all subjective. Some prefer 2nd, and some prefer 3rd.
You can add 2nd and 3rd harmonics to your favorite frequency band with this mastering processor. It's only $7250.
Vertigo Sound VSM-2 Mix Satellite MK2 - Full Version - Vintage King Audio
$7k overpriced. Actually Japanese created such as a harmonics creator yrs ago.
The sad part is I forget its name...
It's not really overpriced for a pro mastering equipment. Many companies have been released this type of processor since 90s, and this one is one of the latest incarnation of them, aimed for mastering purpose. I own digital version of this processor distributed by Universal Audio, and it's more usable to add subtle harmonics than the other processors (both digital and analog) I have owned. Digital version has a good reputation among professional community. I don't know how close digital and analog version are, though...
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Well it IS pricey, but not overprized in my view. Vertigo is a new small company who sells small quantities which always increases price, but the main point that really sets them apart is the level of precision engineering and attention to detail (Germans, you know), and the experience these guys have.
$7k is way overpriced but lately audiophoolish price tags have made inroads into the world of mixing/mastering which coincided with a deprofessionalizing and general dumbing down that happened in that industry since digital got so cheap that an entry is affordable to all.
There are lots of harmonic generators around starting at $50 for a fully featured plugin to necessarily more expensive hardware units.
SSL, makers of scarily expensive analogue consoles, sell one for about $700.
Interesting hypothesis.
Doesn't really gel with my own experience though.
Back in the days when I had a with hindsight quite crappy stereo I was convinced that nearly half of my recordings were badly done and almost unlistenable. Gradually my stereo improved and is now rather like good quality studio monitors.
The better it got the fewer 'bad recordings' I seemed to own. Now I would be hard pressed to name 6 out of a few thousand.
There are many where I personally would have made different decisions during mixing but no really bad end products.
Well said! I always blame my own choices if the sound I'm hearing isn't all that great. The better my measurements got, the more recordings I played started to sound great.
If only a few recordings sound good (*), I'd take a good look, trying to find the error in the reproduction chain.
The only glitch I found is the mastering differences that can have a huge effect. Crazy that masterings can vary so much on the same album, depending on the target market.
(*)= or a single genre
The only parameters of a dynamic speaker which don't cause HD are Le(x) and doppler distortion. See:
Zaph|Audio - The importance of non-linear distortion
Le(x) is simple enough to measure or if you use the driver below the inductive region of the voicecoil you avoid Le(x) problems, for instance using a 7" woofer as the bottom of a 3-way. Doppler can simply be calculated based on SPL and cone area.
A lot of the mechanisms that cause HD also cause a proportional amount of IMD, therefore with a HD sweep and an Le(x) measurement you have a fairly robust characterisation of a driver. If HD and Le(x) look good then IMD should also be low. If HD looks bad everywhere, IMD is probably also going to be bad. If Le(x) is bad then you will get IMD at the frequencies where the voicecoil inductance becomes significant.
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Non linear distortion is no problem at all in loudspeakers. Linear distortion is a real pain. Question is it is easier to make drivers with low non linear distortion than drivers with civilized frequency response: Fostex vs Dayton... Fostex drivers sound acceptable though their ridiculous xmax and the resulting non linear distortion while Dayton sucks despite their efforts on motors while their cones and suspensions desperately suck, whatever the distortion figures try to dignify their poor sounding performance...
That s what Zaphaudio business is all about: shameless manipulation of innocent minds by an unscrupulous sophist arguments!
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Hi Charles, have you compared SSL and this $7K thingy in real world? When someone call this kind of professional equipment overpriced, it usually means one actually uses it in appropriate context in the long term.
Digital version is a lot less than $7k, and it supposed to be very close to the analog counter part considering digital UAD Manley emulation is scary close to the real one. But I can't still be assured if Manley or this is overpriced...
Thank you for your observation. In my theory, your experience can be explained this way: The non-linearity of the crappy stereo is (subjectively) less preferable than the non-linearity of your current stereo.
A common misconception is that HD and IMD are different things. As far as the device (amp, loudspeaker) is concerned they are not. The difference is the signal used to test the device, the underlying nonlinearity is the same for both and hence one can actually derive one from the other.
Doppler distortion is never significant enough to be an audible problem. Nonlinear inductance can be if it is not taken care of (shorting ring, etc.) Basically, with some care, nonlinearity in a loudspeaker can be made insignificant.
