But wont the rest of your music-collection degrade if you chase good recordingd too much?
Thats very true, but I dont understand the connection with synergy. Ive heard some cheap noname stuf sound great. Some bose too. Always on low spl though.
I agree but I have to discarge it from "rules " as I don' t have responsibility on it but only on what I build. Of course I just assume source is perfect. If not you have to include also listening ambient and your head position in the audio chain. Because they are part of it.
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In my experience I can say all changes I made did not lead to improvement, while all improvement required changes.
It should ? As there is no optimum, there is no "shall"...
Ps. I like your signature...retired from Diy ahahah
) nice!
In my experience I can say all changes I made did not lead to improvement, while all improvement required changes.
It should ? As there is no optimum, there is no "shall"...
Ps. I like your signature...retired from Diy ahahah
) nice!
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I often hear this mentioned where a speaker struggles with some recordings. Not all speakers will modify a bad recording. One can sound boring or dull, or out of balance as originally mixed. But may be enjoyable despite this.
We all know that in term of hifi reproduction, speakers are the weakest link. But, we have heard protests about amplifiers designed to not faithfully reproduce the recordings and rarely we have heard such protests about speaker design! The truth is, 'voicing' of hifi reproduction is mostly done in speaker design!
I think many speaker designs have been done based on the wrong assumption that the amplifier has done its job properly (i.e. all amplifiers sound the same); so it should be okay to 'voice' the speakers. Ime, properly designed speakers tend to sound dull with ordinary amplifiers but once you get the proper amplifier the speakers will really shine!
Does this mean to alter the response making it 'natural'? If so it is an often misused term. Some speakers will not sound natural, no matter how much you EQ.
'Voicing' I believe is mostly done by ears. This could technically mean something like making the 'BBC dip'. It could be anything, as long as the resulting sound is preferred by the designer. It's not really a mistake, that's why I think not many protests are heard about it, assuming that nothing else can be done.
The thing is, once I reached certain level in my pursuit for the best amplifier, I found that a good amp can fix many issues that were thought as speaker's issues.
There is a theory regarding how a microphone will pickup everything in the room while human ears will 'filter' diffuse sound fields. This results in around 3dB of unwanted sound so that to make a speaker to sound natural it's response must follow something like the BBC dip, or have lower response around 3k-4kHz. My experience is, most amplifiers do not have the ability to reproduce room reverberation to a sufficient level, let alone too much of it.
I know why a downward slope will tend to make sound more natural, I will not discuss this, but it is not because of the diffuse sound. Many people even don't know how to make the response flat without making the speaker harsh sounding. It's easier for them to damp the response around 3kHz then increase again afterward.
Long time ago when I was active with speaker building (and didn't know how to design amplifiers) I had a gut feeling that passive second order electrical was a special filter (tweeter in parallel with an inductor, woofer in parallel with a capacitor). It tended to sound right but dull and not so impressive. One of my reference speaker was designed like this, and now with my best amps I strangely don't anymore hear issues with the speakers (only with amps, source and recordings).
Remove the speaker/room interactions especially early reflections, and the reverberations on the recording will shine through.
Can you give an example of a good amp?
Are you sure? How about headphones?
I can't. They have a trick that I don't want people to see (a circuit part that can be tracked to the designed electrical properties). I started with building best amps people have ever heard, amps people raved about, in order to find the best amplifier. Then I reached a level/situation where I'm just comparing my own designs to compete for the best one. I forgot which other people's amplifiers were examples of a good amp (I hesitate to say none). But I think that once PMA (member I trust) said that symasym is a good design. Mike (the designer) was the only person I know that favors MPSA18 as input transistor. It has smooth soft highs that makes voices to sound natural, but I fancy higher hfe part than MPSA18.
Sorry, my mistake. Actually MPSA18 has high hfe (above 700) which is exactly why I like it. But I think I don't like it because it's just 45V device (VceMax) and soundwise I blame the character to its non linearity. Very enjoyable but not accurate.
This does help with many speakers. On speakers of higher fidelity, non-linearity is not as welcome and isn't helpful.
Yes, most of the class AB SS amplifiers as they have been and remain 99% of the commercial amplifiers.
And that is directly attributable to the high cross distortion when you turn up the volume.
If you switch to a tube amplifier, nirvana will return.
I don't like the commonly high distortion of tube amps... It's too obvious once you are familiar with it. Experience will change our taste. But I'm still finding out what actually is 'wrong' with class B SS amps, if there is any.... (for that I need to restore back my source/DAC, build several class-A and compare... May be there is nothing seriously wrong, only my current source/DAC is not up to a standard that I was used to.)
We often drive Ferraris in town... sort of !
to be too much focused on distorsion most of listeners or people that forgett how to listen, has forgotten there are far much bigger defaults in their set up.
Common thinking... they focuse too much on a device instead the whole setuping. It's easier to change the amp or to optimize distorsion cause the brain see it as a rational thing that makes containers to isolate but perception is the opposite, something naturaly biased . Distorsion is not often the worst default of our hifis but more easy to measure so please the rational part of the brain that like to focuse on problems to fix.
If non having distorsion keeps some defaults like non "acurate" (read : pleasant for the own bias of the listener), too bad spectral balance, too much amount of bad timing, reverb of the room, damping of the room... all that problems are less easy to fix that having a good amp !
I have a good amp on my main system but on some speakers I have, the result is better with some simplier amps : all is about the blend, and mainly tonal balance. Too much systems have good result when you measure the distorsions but are less natural than a radio in a kitchen ! But the brain is reassured by seing the good result on the osci. while your musician friends tell you it's bad for their ears !
I'm sure I'm biased like all of us, but tubes amps and horns are not acurate while giving good subjective results (read: enjoyable for the listener)... So of course YMMV, I can't think to my hifi without thinking about its room... saw too much systems with bad blending between the size of the speakers with the size of the room, not talking of the setuping of the speaker and listener positions most often ditacted by lazyness or WAF.
to be too much focused on distorsion most of listeners or people that forgett how to listen, has forgotten there are far much bigger defaults in their set up.
Common thinking... they focuse too much on a device instead the whole setuping. It's easier to change the amp or to optimize distorsion cause the brain see it as a rational thing that makes containers to isolate but perception is the opposite, something naturaly biased . Distorsion is not often the worst default of our hifis but more easy to measure so please the rational part of the brain that like to focuse on problems to fix.
If non having distorsion keeps some defaults like non "acurate" (read : pleasant for the own bias of the listener), too bad spectral balance, too much amount of bad timing, reverb of the room, damping of the room... all that problems are less easy to fix that having a good amp !
I have a good amp on my main system but on some speakers I have, the result is better with some simplier amps : all is about the blend, and mainly tonal balance. Too much systems have good result when you measure the distorsions but are less natural than a radio in a kitchen ! But the brain is reassured by seing the good result on the osci. while your musician friends tell you it's bad for their ears !
I'm sure I'm biased like all of us, but tubes amps and horns are not acurate while giving good subjective results (read: enjoyable for the listener)... So of course YMMV, I can't think to my hifi without thinking about its room... saw too much systems with bad blending between the size of the speakers with the size of the room, not talking of the setuping of the speaker and listener positions most often ditacted by lazyness or WAF.
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The problem is that the measurements tell us one thing and the ears another.
Use the online translator and you will see what I mean.
?Por que los amplificadores de bulbos suenan mejor? |
I have been there... I want the best of both worlds
I want something much more enjoyable than listening to second order distortion I want something more enjoyable than listening to vocals and narrow variation of music
You cannot realistically expect listening to any YouTube video will tell you what something really sounds like.
dave
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