John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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So we are back to the date when your claim was posted (9th of June).
Who do you mean, we?
Your claim and your obligation to provide the evidence. ;)

Obviously, it will be much easier to see who's in denial of what after you brought up the evidence for your claim........
It's your business obligation to keep on denying now but it won't change 2015 event on Hydrogenaudio forum.
 
Thank you Tournesol, I’m completely out of my depth here, but will continue to listen to what is being talked about. :up: ToS
Attached FFT of various output currents of the same amp.
(I love LTSPICE: never the magic smoke ;-)
 

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... If this distortion is applied to a rock music (I tried well recorded Godwhacker by Steely Dan in 96/24), it is almost impossible to tell that the distortion was added. If I added the same distortion to Beethoven's No. 9 symphony Movement No. 1, the distortion is immediately audible in the low level passage just after the beginning. Interesting.
Thank you for this valuable bit of gem.
... Thinking about preparing files, but I am not sure if it is not a wasting of time.
No need to make more files on my account, what you share was plenty clear. Most of us here are DIY, you showed the value of narrow band noise for listening tests, we can easily check for ourselves. Again thank you.
 
That's interesting, Pavel - thank you! Can you say more about these distortions & how they were created - might help others experiment too?

Transfer function is modified in the low level area. Normally it should be a straight line, here it is bent for low levels, approaching quickly to zero. The result looks like a crossover distortion of a poorly designed, heavily underbiased class B amplifier.
 

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Thank you both. The distortion used is interesting because it affects just low level signals, which I was not able to do before. It may represent a very bad class B transistor amplifier of early seventies. Now, it depends on music we listen to.

If this distortion is applied to a rock music (I tried well recorded Godwhacker by Steely Dan in 96/24), it is almost impossible to tell that the distortion was added. If I added the same distortion to Beethoven's No. 9 symphony Movement No. 1, the distortion is immediately audible in the low level passage just after the beginning. Interesting. Thinking about preparing files, but I am not sure if it is not a wasting of time.

I think it would be a good thing to do. ABX or similar testing of files where it is just audible - what some would call ear training, and then ABX of music where it is pretty much impossible to spot would be interesting - so testing how easy is it to learn to hear such a thing. You'd need to reduce the distortion to more probable levels perhaps.
Just a thought.
 
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Thank you both. The distortion used is interesting because it affects just low level signals, which I was not able to do before. It may represent a very bad class B transistor amplifier of early seventies. Now, it depends on music we listen to.

If this distortion is applied to a rock music (I tried well recorded Godwhacker by Steely Dan in 96/24), it is almost impossible to tell that the distortion was added. If I added the same distortion to Beethoven's No. 9 symphony Movement No. 1, the distortion is immediately audible in the low level passage just after the beginning. Interesting. Thinking about preparing files, but I am not sure if it is not a wasting of time.

I have an interesting one on speakers and music. If I listen to classical music on my £180 workshop speakers (Q Acoustics 3020) the music is very, very listenable. If I try to play jazz or pop through those same speakers I can hear straight away that they are not quite on the money because the speakers lend a slightly ‘boxy’’ sound to the music So, it seems our tolerance for acceptability of sound very much depends on the material we are listening to as well.

I’ve been to quite a few classical music concerts so I reasonably know what an orchestra sounds like. Same for jazz and rock.

NB the Q Acoustics are for the money very nice little speakers - my comments here are really with a very critical ear, so I don’t want to sound like I am knocking them
 
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I hope I don't come off as conceited when I claim I'm pretty smart in some areas, but pretty dumb in others, especially when this post is about the dumb part.

I just don't get the logic of smearing someone's posts by claiming the poster has commercial interests, even going so far as violating the rules by name-calling (shill, snake oil salesman). The smear-campaign seems to focus on members whose posts the smearer doesn't like, not all those with commercial interests.

If PoliticianA says "2+2=4" and PoliticianB says "2+2=5", is "never trust politicians" a valid or useful criticism of PoliticianB? What about addressing the math?

Is this the logic?
1 MemberA sells ProductB, but never mentions ProductB or his company here.
2 Unknown to DIYA members, ProductB doesn't do well in blind tests, either being indistinguishable from less expensive products, or being worse than similar products.
3 MemberA doesn't condemn ALL blind tests, only those improperly conducted, using unfamiliar terms and references that leave the hapless DIYA members uncertain and doubtful. Particularly, when someone's wife heard lifted veils somewhere using ProductB.
4 Ka-ching!

This logic is so convoluted that the smearer may want to consider a career as an FIR filter!

I remember the ABX thread on the other forum and skimmed it looking for "the evidence". A different member of that forum thought (no links or proof) he recognized MemberA, and wrote*:
PS: [MemeberA]'s German hifi-forum profile or signature once contained a very general "development, manufacture and sales of audio electronics among others - commercial member".

Is this "the evidence"? Wow! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!

I know I'm dumb; please help.

Disclaimer: Although I've spent ≈35 of my ≈40 work years at universities and research institutes, the last few years have been funded by a for-profit company. They use industrial speakers and amps, and non-audiophile microphones and headsets. Their products cannot be used to play the customers' music without modification. I'm 99.99% sure no DIYA members have ever or will ever buy their products. My funding is unrelated to sales.

* I deleted MemberA's username, but I bet everyone knows who it is, and added the italics.
 
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Transfer function is modified in the low level area. Normally it should be a straight line, here it is bent for low levels, approaching quickly to zero. The result looks like a crossover distortion of a poorly designed, heavily underbiased class B amplifier.

Thanks Pavel

If you are doing listening tests of noise why not reference the ITU-R 468 weighting curves & seeing that we are much more sensitive to noise around the frequency 6 KHz where it peaks to +12.2 dB above the Fletcher-Munson (done with single tones) A weighted curves

A noise signal centred around 6KHz (not 4KHz as I posted before) should be perceptually maximised

600px-Lindos3.svg.png
 
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If this distortion is applied to a rock music ...
Sorry, PMA, but, really, it has nothing to do with the kind of music played.
It is just the well known mask effect.
Every sound engineer knows how it is difficult to have two instruments playing in the same time in the same bandwidth and get both easily distinguable. Like a male voice and a tenor saxophone. Or doubled instruments (voices, guitars).

Every hifi listener knows that crossover distortion is more audible at low levels, just because the distortion ratio increase (same distortion components/less original signal).

Your two files are interesting, I can hear in a (too much) obvious way the both effects of your distortions: the original signal, correlated harmonics that are situated upper in the bandwidth, and awfull IM situated under this last one, absolutely non correlated, just like an independant parasitic noise added.

I believe this narrow bandwidth random noise test should be revealing to make the difference between analog magnetic tape and digital recording.
May-be the way to convince JC and some others of the benefit of digital ?
 
Here's a research paper that address some of the topics raised in discussions to date. "Psychoacoustic active noise control with ITU-R 468 noise weighting and its sound quality analysis."

It uses fMRI to objectively measure the psychoacoutsic response to the test signals rather than listening tests
As it says
Psychoacoustics is the study of the human perception of
sound. In this paper, we try to evaluate the ANC (active noise control) performance
based on the human perception of residual noise. A subjective
test is the most direct way to meet the goal. However, several
drawbacks may restrict its usage: 1) inconsistent evaluation
during testing, 2) disparage among listeners, 3) time cost for the
testing setup and monetary cost for recruiting and training
listeners, and 4) potential hearing damage during testing.
Therefore, there is a need to apply an objective model to
estimate the subjective evaluation. This section will describe
the quantitative models for several psychoacoustic
measurements.
It examines three psychoacoustic metrics of the sound Loudness, Sharpness, Roughness & derives a preference based on these three which it call Pleasantness
The aforementioned psychoacoustic metrics measure four
aspects of human hearing sensations. To measure the overall
preferences by listeners, an integrated measurement of sound
quality is required. In this paper, the sound quality is quantified
by the empirical pleasantness model for pleasantness proposed
in [13]:

From the conclusions
Both synthetic noise and realistic noise were taken for
simulations. Results show that the new system improves not
only loudness but also pleasantness, although SPL increases.
Informal listening tests demonstrated that the results from the
objective pleasantness model correlate with the subjective
sensation.
 
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I have an interesting one on speakers and music. If I listen to classical music on my £180 workshop speakers (Q Acoustics 3020) the music is very, very listenable. If I try to play jazz or pop through those same speakers I can hear straight away that they are not quite on the money because the speakers lend a slightly ‘boxy’’ sound to the music So, it seems our tolerance for acceptability of sound very much depends on the material we are listening to as well.

I’ve been to quite a few classical music concerts so I reasonably know what an orchestra sounds like. Same for jazz and rock.

NB the Q Acoustics are for the money very nice little speakers - my comments here are really with a very critical ear, so I don’t want to sound like I am knocking them

Bonsai,

I find what you say is interesting. I only have one speaker and an eclectic taste in music. The speaker seems capable of playing back virtually anything, but quite often I will have to change the eq settings and the input/out levels of my iPod+preamp+poweramp, plus a change in how close or far away I sit when listening. Yes, this is a compromise, but I am listening to music, and if I can hear the structure of the sound, I will by default become immersed. Its like as if the speaker is a gigantic hearing aid, and quite often these changes are very subtle. :note:

One of the very best things I ever did was to learn how to set up a guitar to give perfect pitch and intonation. How very subtle changes in pressure from the fretting fingers, combined with the dynamics of picking, can through a chord progression become convincingly emotional in terms of musical expression. I would say that for me, to play a musical instrument is excellent training for understanding the nuances of individual audio components within a playback system. :eguitar:

ToS
 
I just don't get the logic of smearing someone's posts by claiming the poster has commercial interests, even going so far as violating the rules by name-calling (shill, snake oil salesman). The smear-campaign seems to focus on members whose posts the smearer doesn't like, not all those with commercial interests.
Is is obvious, reason why the author of those endless harassments is in the ignore list of most of us.

His equally obvious obsession (to be polite) is interesting, assimilating professional design and snake oil.

Who would even think of attacking a doctor posting on a forum devoted to medicine ?

I would like to add that I don't think any one should be stupid enough to believe that any input he could provide in this thread to promote his products or his talent will increase his sales ;-)
 
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