Sound Quality Vs. Measurements

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Max Headroom

Max Headroom

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dvv said:
....The things you will hear with will surprise you, I guarantee it....
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.....maybe I already heard them on the Stax electros :tongue:.

I have dynamic headphones of varying qualities also.
Any recommendations for a really quick and easy headphone amp.
In this case it does not need to be super flash, and battery operation would be handy.

Dan.
 
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NorthStar

NorthStar

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Joined 2012
abraxalito said:
OK thanks, its a start, I put him into Yahoo - it turned up this very useful page of links by Jon Risch : Annotated Cable Bibliography - Jon Risch - Cable Asylum

However he's (JR that is) far from glowing in his comment on the article in 'Audio Ideas Guide' saying (in effect) that the approach of looking only at LCR parameters is way too narrow.
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Yeah, you got it, within your link. ... Making The Connection: A Closer Look At The Role Of Interconnect Cables, J.H. Hayward, Audio Ideas Guide, Summer/Fall 1994 | & Making The Connection, Part Deux: A Closer Look At The Role of Loudspeaker Cables, J .H. Hayward, Audio Ideas Guide, Winter 1995

Also: Special Cable & Interconnect Test Feature, by Gordon Brockhouse, Audio Ideas Guide, Summer/Fall 1990

- And within this last article just above you have Blind Listening Tests on several Exotic Cables and others more common ones (inexpensive 12-gauge).

Plus! Getting Wired, an article by Bryston Chief Designer Christopher Russell, with comments on cables and their measurable and audible effects. ...Including Spaced Pair - Twisted or Weaved - & Co-Axial speaker cabling. ...Their geometry, and benefits.

Plus! A Subjective Audition of Speaker & Interconnect Cables By Andrew Marshall.

Very good stuff all around, and no matter what other people might have to say or not; including Noel Lee, president of Monster Cable Products Inc.

* Get a hold of these three articles above, read them carefully, and further your knowledge on Audible Sound Quality (listening sessions from the "subjectivists" conducted and under carefully controlled tests and conditions) versus Measurements (scientific & physical measurements from the "objectivists").

And this applies to everything; audio components, amplifiers, preamplifiers, CD players, turntables, loudspeakers, AC power cords, analog and digital interconnects, speaker wires, all cables including the grid, the ground, the electrical circuit breaker, the AC lines in your neighborhood, in your house, the electric transformers from the electric posts outside, the quality of those wires (copper), the fiber optic cables, the central hydro power station, the miles and miles of cables separating your home from that main central electrical power/distribution station, etc., etc., etc. ...The central electrical grid.
 
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NorthStar

NorthStar

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dvv said:
(Bold by DVV)

I beg to differ. I will not get into a discussion on cables with you, as I see you are a "cable believer", I will just say that at best, in my view, you can hear a difference of materials, e.g. pure silver vs OFC copper, and while I like pure silver, it doesn't always win.

However, I will agree that cable properties can se brought to light by whatever is driving those cans, and as everywhere else in audio, the possible range is from junk drive as in 99% of devices to excellent, as in dedicated, seriously designed and made headphone amplifiers.

The usual method is to throw in a series 220-270 Ohms resistor from an amp output to the headphones jack - if there's a worse method, I will be surprised. Consider that most headphones have a nominal impedance of 30 to 100 Ohms, some higher than that, and consider the damping factor of say 100 Ohm cans fed from a 220 Ohm source. Beside which a 220 Ohm resistor probably can interact with can cable properties, especially if it's long enough.

However, a dedicated cans amp will probably have an output impedance of say 0.5 Ohms or less all the way up to 20 kHz, and that is low enough to prevent any serious interface problems with headphone cables. My point is that cans and amps are no different from amps and loudspeakers, the only truly significant difference being that the power levels are incomparably smaller with cans, as just 1 mW usually produces 95 dB SPL or more, meaning we are dealing with transducers where anything above say 0.8V of output is enormous power.

This hypothesis can be, and in my case was, confirmed by using your own favorite set of dynamic phones first from your usual source, and then by using a pure class A dedicated headphones driver amp. The things you will hear with will surprise you, I guarantee it. Assuming you have a good set of cans in the say USD 200-400, you'll be surprised at the low level detail you will have missed otherwise, If you have cheaper cans, like say cheaper Grados, you will be sometimes literally shocked at what they can do when driven properly. And the bass quality and quantity you can have from a cheaper (app. USD 150) Koss cans will have you shaking your head in disbelief.

My point is - you do not hear the difference in cables half as much as you hear the differences between can drive, and the differences between cables is in fact amplified by poor drive source.
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It's not just the quality of the cans themselves but also the quality of the headphone amp and its volume control.

As for the cables (wiring); just use good common sense and quality copper. :)
...With solid connectors (gold).

Soldered or clamped; that is the question. And if soldered, with what; silver or?

And audio paths from quality print circuit boards (double - triple layers), and short, and gold conduits, or silver, or pure copper, or?

* Nice meeting you, & Happy Holidays DVV! :snowman: :deer: :xmastree:
 
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fas42

fas42

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a.wayne

a.wayne

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Joined 2008
fas42 said:
There's a fair bit of nonsense talked of hifi systems not being capable of "percussive energy" (sorry, a.wayne, ;)) but it's easy to find counter examples, just on YouTube - my attention was brought to this, from another thread ... using 'ancient', very simple technology to achieve sound with bite ... vintage Fullrange CORAL beta 10 in expontialhorn - COLORFLY - OPERA cyber 30 - YouTube
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You are not familiar with what i speak , i get that , no explanation will suffice , get that too ...

Pretty good coloration , i guess u missed it .... :drink:
 
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fas42

fas42

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You're not answering the question - try doing a mental experiment, look at YouTube clips of real drumkits in action, listen to the qualities, the sense of the sound; then go back to that particular clip, imagine a real drumkit being played in that room, and the same recording is being made. Now, in what way is the recording you're looking at 'wrong' ...?

As a side note, the way to good sound is to first get 'pop', then refine; the other approach, of starting with refinement, and trying to give it 'pop' is the hellish way to do it, IMO.
 
a.wayne

a.wayne

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I dont need u boob for that Frank , spent the better part of a decade doing the due deligence on that kind of stuff , we did our own recordings for reference and spent many many hrs listening in on live practice , if you have never heard a full symphony at full chat in a practice hall a 1/3 of the size of normal , you havent experience power ... :)

Or

A studio grand at full chat in a typical 20x40 listening space would require more power and speakers than your biggest u boob fantasy ...:)

Ok , back to amps ... :drink:
 
NorthStar

NorthStar

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Yes Frank; that was what you and Wayne were talking about. :)

By the way, drum kits (percussion) are the best example for the most dramatic effect between acoustically treated rooms versus non-treated ones. I won't post any youtube videos because I am sure that you guys already saw some of them.

Drive carefully in this Holiday season, and if you're going to have a drink, hire a designated chauffeur (a sober one). :car: ...And tell the driver to watch for deer on the road. :deer:
 
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fas42

fas42

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Pretty easy, Bob. Undistorted sound has 'percussive energy', PE, automatically - that's what's on the recording. Therefore, lack of PE is a form of distortion, normally caused by hitting the limits of the capabilities of the amplifier - even cheap speakers will do this quality well, if driven properly. The only caveat with low end drivers is that they have be conditioned well each time from cold, IME, to achieve this - higher quality units or using different technologies most probably means less problems here ...

So, to 'measure it' means high quality recording with a microphone of the speaker output, and sophisticated comparison with source waveform to see where the damage is done, I believe. Unfortunately, the bits and pieces to do this are not available off the shelf ... ;)
 
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