Funniest snake oil theories

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#2,101
Charles Darwin said:
I want clean peaks of around 120dB, the headroom is because I never ever want to get my amps close to clipping. Plenty of headroom assures that the system sounds effortless at all levels. Which it does since no matter how casual I am with the volume it never sounds stressed or different in any way. The only 'downside' is that it is quite difficult to tell how loud it actually is without trying to talk to someone.
The upside is that regardless of how loud and for how long I listen it has never induced any ringing in my ears which in my experience is mostly caused by excess distortion.

As to what the onset of clipping is depends on your own definition.
The people who made my phono pre define it as the point where THD reaches -80dB (0.01%) while MC2 Audio who made my power amps use -70dB (0.03%).

As it happens I actually use a 175W amp on my tweeters, mostly because that is the smallest amp MC2 make.

If you want to see some real power merchants have a look at Quested, ATC or PMC main monitors which happen to be the best speakers I have ever heard. That is what I'm after, just a bit scaled down and more befitting for my humble abode.

The idea is to get as close to what it sounded like in the studio using my limited resources. But the path was very clear: It had to be active with plenty of headroom under all circumstances. The only real choice was to go for ATC or Volt woofers.
I chose Volt as they were a bit cheaper and more efficient.
In the last 10 or 12 years I have not come across anything which made me want to change anything in my stereo. That is a situation I very much like.
In the end due to careful s/h purchases and diy my entire system owes me less than one PMC XB2 costs retail of which I have built two.
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First I was in the "clean low power camp" Then I bought some HCA 1200's. Sure sounded better. Maybe power has an advantage? Picked up a 750. Well, better amplifiers have an advantage, I am back to lower power. What I am still in favor if is multiple outputs. You get that with bigger amps. They seem cleaner. Is it the headroom, or the basic distortion that matters?
 
#2,102
Charles Darwin said:
Plenty of headroom assures that the system sounds effortless at all levels. Which it does since no matter how casual I am with the volume it never sounds stressed or different in any way. The only 'downside' is that it is quite difficult to tell how loud it actually is without trying to talk to someone.
The upside is that regardless of how loud and for how long I listen it has never induced any ringing in my ears which in my experience is mostly caused by excess distortion.
Click to expand...
I agree 100% with this approach - you're using the sledgehammer technique to guarantee that the system never sounds stressed, which is shorthand for saying, the electronics don't inject distortion because they never get anywhere close to the ragged edge - the electrical side is always coasting.

The Bryston's at the audio show were the only stock standard units I've come across for a long time that were this capable; being used in a totally conventional fashion: single amp, driving multi-way with standard crossovers.

My variation is to achieve the same subjective result, but with 0dB headroom; the amps are running flat out most of the time, the accelerator is mashed hard to the floor. So, why doesn't the result sound 'stressed'. Because, I address the key issues, the distortion introduced when the electronics are driving hard - this is at the absolute heart of my focus, the area I work in ...
 
#2,103
I'm not sure the thesis that "ringing in the ears is caused by distortion" holds water. Back in the '70s (before ear protection was in fashion) those of us working in loud industrial environments experienced plenty of ringing ears from the undistorted sounds produced by stamping presses, forge hammers and the like. Forty years later and the ringing remains!
 
#2,104
'Ringing' does occur with undistorted sound, if the average intensity is high enough. For example, orchestral works can be played at maximum volume with zero issues -- however, a recent pop recording, highly compressed, played at this level would be disasterous for the health of your hearing - there is no 'shade' during the track to give the hearing system a chance to rebalance. I find I have to drop the volume quite substantially to listen to such recordings - not because it's distorting, but because the impact of the sound is relentless in my brain ... my ears certainly say, enough!, after 5 minutes or so ...
 
#2,108
To be more to the point I think ringing may be induced by extremely high level HF sounds which is what a clipping amp produces as distortion.
Never got ringing from PAs or home HiFis which were well within their capabilities but I never worked in heavy industry environments either. I guess I could have worded that better with hindsight.

When I was using small passive 2ways and a 50W amp I could easily induce ringing when playing at party levels. This has not happened with my current system even though the mean SPL at 1k can be much higher.

The worst case of ringing and beyond I ever had was a Ramones gig in the early '80s.
I was almost completely deaf for 2 hours afterwards and ringing continued for two days. I later met the FoH engineer (fiend may be a better term though) who said he measured over 125dBspl average at 15m!!!
Was a relieve to see Motorhead in the same venue a week later without experiencing anything like that, just ringing for the rest of the night which was fairly normal for '80s PAs. Luckily PAs and engineers have come a very long way since then.
 
#2,109
If I get anywhere near the level of ringing, I run as fast as I can. The one time I could not was when an idiot opened up with a 44 on the low caliber range and we were not wearing muffs. Tossed him out, but I believe I got damage to my right ear. Other than that, even being no spring chicken, I have pretty good hearing left.
 
#2,110
Worst ringing I've experienced was at a concert featuring Rufus and Chaka Kan around late 1975 or early 1976 at the Purple Onion in Columbia SC.

This was a small venue and I swear the band was set up for a large venue. After two hours we left with headaches and severer ringing in our ears along with a muffled sensation. The ringing persisted for several days.

That was the last time I went to the Purple Onion.

The military considered it pretty well established (by the late 60s) that most hearing loss and tinnitus were the direct result of (1) Impulse noise like that produced by firearms, and (2) High level high frequency noise such as that produced by airplane engines. They required hearing protection during exposure to either.

I've seen no credible information to contradict that determination.
 
#2,111
Well I was 16 or 17 back then and had a great time but there is no way I'd expose myself to anything like that these days and the temporary deafness only became apparent after the gig. Oddly enough I had no trouble hearing the band. ;-)

Luckily there was seemingly no long term damage incurred since I don't suffer from tinnitus and at nearly 50 years of age I can still hear my supertweets which are crossed in at 15k. Pheww...

Shooting ranges were never a problem as they did not exist in West Berlin where I grew up. Theoretically you could get executed in the american sector for having a kitchen knife.
Not that it ever happened but owning or carrying any blade over 6" could have been enough.
Now I live in the UK where all handguns are banned completely.
 
#2,115
#2,117
I find having 'cloth ears' instead of 'golden ears' and advantage, I can listen to my music instead of my systems faults.
But then what is a perfect system, a laid back night; its a SET with full range speakers OB and female vocal, another night its prog rock and an Audiolab 8000A, 3 way ported reflex. The perfect one is the one I am listening to🙂
 
#2,118
Last night I was working on a cross-over for a friend and since I had a signal generator and set of speakers handy I tested to see how high I can still hear. 15Khz is barely audible. I'm sure the crappy speaker I was using had some effect, so it might be interesting to try again with better speakers.
 
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