Controlling transient response

[Conrad Hoffman]

The whole idea of 4 and 8 ohms speakers is a bit misleading, as is the idea of an amp that's only good for whatever somebodies idea of an 8 ohm speaker is. More important is the minimum impedance of the speakers and the level you intend to drive them. My guess is you don't have any problem at all in continuing to use the Marantz amp, though no matter how good you think a 30 year old amp is, a good session on the test bench would likely reveal some components or connections that are in need of attention. As for the transient problem, the ear is really good at detecting amplitude problems from various causes, but really bad at determining the root cause. Thus the need for test equipment of some sort. IMO, you've described speakers that are poorly suited to your intended purpose, and the real cure is probably different speakers. I'm always leery of "awesome" sounding speakers, because that's usually a sign that something in the design isn't right. The speakers should have no inherent sound quality of their own. I'd try a parametric equalizer and some room treatment, but the problem may be inherent in the choice of drivers, crossover design, shelf problem, or even a box radiation issue, and may not be easily cured with passive measures.

[AdamZuf]

Poorly suited to my intended purpose??

These monitors sound awesome with good input. With bad input, they sound horrible. You can detect and pinpoint all production errors, from source to every part of the mixing. They do have a sonic signature, but every speaker does, I never heard a system without a sonic signature. Once you have a speaker reality has changed.
However, because of the difference between good and bad recordings I want to keep with the ADAM - nothing I've heard (for nearfield) differentiate good and bad input as much as these. A bad recording can be a little undifined thing in a mushy space in the front, while a good recording can throw a soundstage that its depth is only defined by imagination according to reverbs used in the studio or natural acoustics in the original setting, with the speakers totally disappearing and all elements are stable at exact points in all 3 dimentions, some sounds can come from the behind. You start keep track of different elements of music by exact location, difference in substance and space (you can differeniate reverbs so well to a point that the image is a combinations of spaces, according to different reverbs) It's scary, really, sometimes too much info to the brains.

I've gone through most of the offerings available for nearfield use and believe me, I wouldn't bother with trying to build a system around monitors if they wouldn't be something very good for my purpose.

My room is half treated. Measures quite flat. I'm eq'ing a bit with parametric to compensate for small issues of the speaker. For now I keep using the TransX to compliment the EQ's work. It's working fine, I'm just want to see if I can improve it, and hardware is much more elegant...
Tonal balance was good before and after TransX, that's why I am not bothered by the frequency response but with the transients, it's very obvious.. a pink noise measurement would probably be quite the same before and after

Adam

[Conrad Hoffman]

It appears then that you're happy with the results using the TransX. Given what that does (I haven't heard one, just going by their description) you'll be hard pressed to duplicate it in hardware. I'd stick with what's working.

[dejanm]

Adam,

Did you play with interconnect and speaker cables ? Sometimes cables can provide improvements that you are looking for ...

[AdamZuf]

Originally posted by Conrad Hoffman
It appears then that you're happy with the results using the TransX. Given what that does (I haven't heard one, just going by their description) you'll be hard pressed to duplicate it in hardware. I'd stick with what's working.

Yes I assume there's a good chance this is what will happen. I'll try the other transient shapers available and see if the TransX is the best for this purpose.

Originally posted by dejanm
Adam,

Did you play with interconnect and speaker cables ? Sometimes cables can provide improvements that you are looking for ...

hmmm... no. good interconnects should have better transient response, no? I should probably try ultra crap, bad soldered interconnets, but maybe it will be a hard time to have a matched pair
Now really, interconnects will not change this to satisfactory level, besides, I need the possibility to fine tune.

Thanks
Adam

[lt cdr data]

the most indespensible item you need is a very good 31 band graphic eq.

its far too simplistic to say because percussion is forward the speakers have an enhanced transient response

you can also get somthing from a company called spl , a "transient designer" , its based upon compression /vca's, attack and release time of the compressor.

I have been attempting to boil down the various factors which affect sound, based upon physics, and lo and behold, these studio processors act on such parts, in an attempt to try and ascertain which effect produces such a change in sound, rather like yourself, however, its not straighforward and too simiplistic

there is

amplitude....volume, compression type tools ( vertical relation)
frequency....eq., filters ( horizontal relation)
and phase...time...delays and modulation effects
also harmonics....distortion type

some are interdependant, eg. eq. works on amplitude and frequency and can also change the phase

you can also get harmonic exciters which are good fun to play with

tubes may not strictly have less of a transient because of limited time, dont' electrons travel at light speed? not counting drift velocity.

its probably more to do with rolled off top end due to tube capacitances, and perhaps hi feedback in transistor amps causing transient intermodulation distortion that is more the differences.

and like I suspect, as alluded to, to do with the age of the amp wrt. capacitors, bias, perhaps not as well designed with respect to feedback, hence transient response, and perhaps not liking the load.

[nhuwar]

The electron tubes we use here are not velocity modulated tubes so the electrons dont change speed much. When the beam is energised they just change the flow rate so to say. The relative speed they arte traveling is close to the speed of light but not at the speed of light.

It would be counter productive to make a electron travel close to the speed of light in a tube because of the exponitial increase in mass that takes place to it.

As far as transient response there are tubes made that work above the 100ghz range and above at far higer ratings then silicon can.

Nick

[ArtG]

I recently read somewhere (on the 'net, I think) that someone calculated the speed that electrons impact the phosphor screen of a TV CRT with a 25,000 volts on the anode. As I recall, it's 200,000 miles per hour, which is well under the speed of light. Good thing, since a lot of dents in the screen would eventually distort the image! As I recall from my physics, though, I believe electrons have no mass, so they won't damage the plates of my prized output tubes, if the voltage would run too high!

[SY]

Too slow. I don't remember the number offhand but it was something like 1000 times faster than that. In a small signal tube, electron velocities are about 10 million mph.

[AdamZuf]

Originally posted by lt cdr data
the most indespensible item you need is a very good 31 band graphic eq.

its far too simplistic to say because percussion is forward the speakers have an enhanced transient response

there is

amplitude....volume, compression type tools ( vertical relation)
frequency....eq., filters ( horizontal relation)
and phase...time...delays and modulation effects
also harmonics....distortion type

some are interdependant, eg. eq. works on amplitude and frequency and can also change the phase

But I said that I use an EQ. There's a limit to what I can do in the frequency domain. The fact is that when I reduce the transients, it works.
I'll tell you why I came to conclude that these are the transients:
1. Not adaquate dry/reverb ratio. EQ can't fix this, right?
If any part of the spectrum was too strong, I would blame the sound for lots of other things before transient response. indeed, the frequency response is not perfect to my ears, and I made some fixes with the EQ. I never ran across such a problem (blaming strong transients in a speaker), and believe me, I've done some listening and thinking about the subject.

2. The other thing that I noticed about the speakers is that they are dark. By no means they are bass heavy, they tend to be sharp sounding, if not bright. However, I noticed that the tonality still tends to have that darkness, you might laugh but I find something demonic about that tone.
Then I realized that just the same way that when you compress certain instruments and give the compressor at least a few ms of attack, you tame the highs a bit, the same principle works here. Many instruments develop high frequencies after the lows. So if the attack starts with the lows, and is accentuated relatively to the later developed, higher harmonics, that explains the dark tonality.

you can also get harmonic exciters which are good fun to play with

What does that got to do with the topic?