I think we're still waiting for actual descriptions of these errors in a Signal Theory framework - rather than vague anecdotes of circuit topology correlations in (sighted) listening and suspicions of “subtle phase errors”
these "more significant" errors of audio amplifiers must have actual electrical signal consequences??
and please skip the “conventional measurement” strawman beat down and get to you point(s)
It is interesting to go thru the results from Canada's NRC of loudspeaker tests. I will bet money that those judged best by most experienced listeners will have the flatest response and lowest distortion. I also personally think that wide dispersion is a plus but there will be those (the controlled dispersion Geddes Lee crowd) who will disagree on this point. I think they will agree on the first two points however. Regards
My inside man at a local Trader Joe's calls me when something he particularly likes comes in to the wine department, something he expects to sell out quickly. It's taken me a while to realize that our tastes diverge when it comes to residual sugar, to which I seem abnormally sensitive and don't like, and he seems to like. On the other hand I do appreciate vintage Port, Sauternes, Barsac, German/Austrian Auslese/BA/TBA, and other European and domestic late harvest wines that are oozing with the stuff, however infrequently I may drink them. "All, or nothing at all..."
So audio preferences may well be analogous.
And Toole, and then and now Olive, have continued those tests at Harman, including doing a heroic job with the speaker mover to minimize speaker position effects, and continue to find, with both trained and untrained listeners, that flat frequency response and well-behaved dispersion are preferred.
Another possibly amusing story: When Toole and Olive presented a paper years ago about sighted versus "blind" testing of loudspeakers, some of Stereophile's writers were in the audience. The paper pointed out that when people could see the loudspeakers they were given to prefer the big ones over the small ones, the latter including a rather low-cost JBL powered system IIRC. But (I speculate) so charged was Stereophile with what they thought they were going to hear as content of the paper, the report from the convention in a following issue said something like "While we have the highest respect for Dr. Toole... [blah blah], we must observe that of course the listeners, being Harman employees, would naturally prefer the Harman products". But the point was: THEY DIDN'T! When the listeners could see the comparatively puny JBL system alongside the big Theil, the score went way down for JBL and way up for Theil! Toole wrote a letter to clarify this which was never printed, in which he joked that of course the lot of the listeners who voted thus were summarily fired.
Hi,
You read one from me.
Some recordings are of course done the way you observe, HOWEVER, HIGH QUALITY recordings are NOT done that way.
If all you listen to is low quality garbage level quality recordings then investing into a high performance audio system is futile.
Ciao T
You read one from me.
Some recordings are of course done the way you observe, HOWEVER, HIGH QUALITY recordings are NOT done that way.
If all you listen to is low quality garbage level quality recordings then investing into a high performance audio system is futile.
Ciao T
John, could you please elaborate on: "... Then there is the BBC." What did you mean by that, good or bad? In what way?
Also, could you comment on Decca Phase 4 stereo series of LPs, I am very curios, as I hold them to be the best stereo I have ever heard in standard LP fare (although their choice of recorded material leaves something to be desired - Mantovani?), i.e. not some special edition, or a product from a small, ultra purist company?
Thank you.
So, now let's take the next step: make such device with switch and conduct a double blind test. Positions of the switch should not go clockwise increasing amount of low order distortions, it must be quite random. Let's see what people prefer.
I bet, distortions VS sugar is exactly wrong, confusing analogy. They don't sound like a sugar, they sound like garbage. Well, when they are low order and increase with loudness, they are perceived like increased loudness, so people claim it is "too loud" instead of "too distorted".
You can wait forever, if don't start looking at valid points in others' opinions. No matter were strawman "conventional measrements" beaten to death, they still pop up like the major proof of "wire with gain".
wire with gain must not add dynamic distortions. If it does, no matter how small "beaten strawman distortions" are, it is not a wire with gain
Edit: our perceptions are adaptive. Go to the room, close eyes, ask somebody change something while your eyes are closed. Open eyes and tell what's the difference. I bet, the longer you wait before opening your eyes, the worse is the result. See if something is moving when your eyes are open. The slower it moves, the less you see changes.
Dynamic matters!
But it is about vision. Hearing relies on dynamics even more. Take piano sound, change attack/sustain/decay phases, and you can't tell what is the instrument. I know hat well, because I experimented with such dynamics a lot designing synthesizers.
That's why tiny changes in sounds caused by sag of PS and poor PSRR, change of nature of distortions when different stages are differently driven, and so on, is much more audible than some 0.01% f 2'nd order distortions added on steady sine tone. Dynamic matters
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BBC +10! They have forgotten more about recording than most people have ever known Their broadcast transcriptions were superb-the best LPs ever pressed. Available only to broadcasters and had to be destroyed after a certain number of plays and if memory serves you had to certify their destruction. I must confess that I did not tell the truth and kept the discs. Regards
I always found the Phase 4 lps to be somewhat bright, but they certainly had extreme clarity. A matter of taste I suppose. Regards BTW I loved the liner notes on "Pass in Review" A dixieland band is followed by a Salvation Army Band "sternly admonishing the hosts of Satan that have gone before". Regards
No, when something is very slightly louder than another thing (we're talking a few percent, not 50%), people think the louder one is more detailed, open, clearer. Try a DBT where the person who's taking the test thinks you're comparing amps when what you're really doing is changing level by 0.2 or 0.3dB. See what descriptors they use.
A lot of literature on this, that is why level-matching is vital in honest comparisons.
Sadly, the BBC have (sometimes) now forgotten about recording. It now seems to be pot luck whether a particular live concert has a good sound engineer or an incompetent one. Best to stay with 1970s and 80s BBC recording, when they still knew how to do it and Angus McKenzie would quickly tell them on the few occasions they got it wrong.john dozier said:
I have read about Decca classical recordings before. They were the opposite of 'minimal':
Decca Records - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They did sound good, though! Thorsten, would you expect to be able to hear the difference between interconnects, mains cables etc. when listening to these LPs?
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Now we are getting to things that may matter but aren't part of the "traditional," as in slick sheet, measurements. They can be understood and measured. They even pass the sniff test!
Can't resist with that setup: I laughed heartily reading the latest Stereophile's Fremer review of the gargantuan MBL 9011 power amplifier, which MF hooked up with some kind of exotic interconnect, left the room, and came back to smell burning electronics. He found that the unit still functioned and proceeded with the review, but one rather wonders what effect the burning component(s) had on the performance. A second choice of interconnect caused the amp to shut down immediately. Oy!
I'm sure there are people who use minimal recording techniques, but there's no way that the simplest recording doesn't rely on several op amps in the recording chain, and probably a few SMPSs. I doubt many of them worry about what mains cable they use. Their (balanced) interconnects will not be cotton covered, and will be tens of metres long in total; they will not use a special type of weave.
Of course the nonlinearities in the final amplifier in the chain are applied to the entire mixed down signal, whereas the individual tracks that went into the recording could, to some extent suffer from distortion without causing IMD between them. And the power amplifier has a more difficult job to do than line level mixers etc., so it is important. But I still think that worrying about the final 0.5m of interconnect cable into the amp seems, on the face of it, to be absurd.
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