There was a guy that tried to reconcile the numbers to what we hear and he presented a method to do it. It wasn't received very well even though it made sense to me and some others. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/loun...lifier-general-discussion-38.html#post4033722Here are some of his musings. I would have liked to have heard more from him.
I’m not sure that the two terms closely correlate. If the sound of someone scraping their fingernails on a blackboard were reproduced with nearly 100% accuracy, I doubt that many would find the sound to be pleasant.
Conversely, I occasionally listen to music recorded on records during the 1940’s and 1950’s. By today’s standards, the reproduction of this music is not particularly accurate, yet I find some of it quite pleasant.
If a sound reproduction system is highly accurate, the pleasantness may be closely correlated to the source. If the reproduction system is inaccurate, the source should be of lesser importance.
Conversely, I occasionally listen to music recorded on records during the 1940’s and 1950’s. By today’s standards, the reproduction of this music is not particularly accurate, yet I find some of it quite pleasant.
If a sound reproduction system is highly accurate, the pleasantness may be closely correlated to the source. If the reproduction system is inaccurate, the source should be of lesser importance.
Yup. Accurate is an objective judgment of the performance of the system, pleasant is a subjective judgment that includes the source material.
For example, many serious audiophiles probably have systems with better bass performance than the systems used for mixing the recordings they own. This is accurate, but it's often unpleasant as it uncovers all sorts of low frequency throbs and rumbles that the recording engineers were unaware of.
In the olden days, systems had adjustable tone controls and filters so you could deliberately introduce inaccuracy to make the experience more pleasant.
For example, many serious audiophiles probably have systems with better bass performance than the systems used for mixing the recordings they own. This is accurate, but it's often unpleasant as it uncovers all sorts of low frequency throbs and rumbles that the recording engineers were unaware of.
In the olden days, systems had adjustable tone controls and filters so you could deliberately introduce inaccuracy to make the experience more pleasant.
A comparison
accurate = Apple IPS display
pleasant = Samsung oled display
Personally I prefer an OLED one. ;-)
Regards,
Tibi
accurate = Apple IPS display
pleasant = Samsung oled display
Personally I prefer an OLED one. ;-)
Regards,
Tibi
All you people can have pleasant if you want, but I find a guitar rendered accurately to be pleasant, and a guitar rendered less accurately to be less pleasant, and a guitar rendered pleasantly to be accurate, and a guitar rendered less pleasantly to be less accurate, so let's not slide off into a load of semantic obfuscation involving fingernails on a blackboard, which is anyway not a universal dislike.
I said what I meant, and I meant to say what I said.
It is possible for a person to find accurate to be pleasant and pleasant to be accurate, especially if you happen to play the guitar or any other instrument. Otherwise I'd be sitting playing my acoustic guitar and listening through a microphone, amplifier and headphones. Which I think you should accept is patently absurd, and which I only do for recording purposes.
I said what I meant, and I meant to say what I said.
It is possible for a person to find accurate to be pleasant and pleasant to be accurate, especially if you happen to play the guitar or any other instrument. Otherwise I'd be sitting playing my acoustic guitar and listening through a microphone, amplifier and headphones. Which I think you should accept is patently absurd, and which I only do for recording purposes.
Hi guys.
I think those who find it pleasant, don't care if it's accurate coz it brought to them what they want, maybe a feeling of unity with the music. And those who know it's accurate, find it pleasant coz it brought to them what they want, maybe a feeling of trust to its output.
IMO, both parties are right on their views on what they seek from their system. There is a problem only when one thinks the other is deaf, more to do with opinion on people than on pleasantness or accuracy. After all a pleasant system is not guaranteed to be accurate and an accurate system is not guaranteed to sound pleasant.
Although, sometimes we do get both together, when we know what we should not look for. 😉
I think those who find it pleasant, don't care if it's accurate coz it brought to them what they want, maybe a feeling of unity with the music. And those who know it's accurate, find it pleasant coz it brought to them what they want, maybe a feeling of trust to its output.
IMO, both parties are right on their views on what they seek from their system. There is a problem only when one thinks the other is deaf, more to do with opinion on people than on pleasantness or accuracy. After all a pleasant system is not guaranteed to be accurate and an accurate system is not guaranteed to sound pleasant.
Although, sometimes we do get both together, when we know what we should not look for. 😉
A lot of insight in this response. I believe you hit the nail on the head. Frequency response is probably the strongest indicator to what else is happening/or not within a system. Perfect FR indicates straight wire with gain. It seems flavor of the month is the trend in amp design. But you can't add something without taking something away. Whether by design or topology or even incidentally. The farther you get from perfectly flat response, the more 'unpleasant' the sound becomes regardless of why. All you have to do to verify this premise is to turn up the volume. You will soon recognize just what is pleasant and what isn't. The spikes of pain shooting through your head will tell the tale. If you want 'live' sound whether amplified or not, flat response is mandatory.
Those "spikes of pain" are from distortion, not less than perfect frequency response - FR is a trivial issue these days, distortion is the biggy ...
I'll take a musicians point of view on this and tell you the kind of distortion matters more than the amount of distortion. Music killers number 1 & 2 are time & higher order harmonic distortion in that order. Depending on what you listen to, third order is okay if second order is relatively absent or vice versa. If you have both 2nd and 3rd in significant amounts, you'll get unnatural sounds. This is what my ears have told me over time. Bandwidth is only significant for rolloff in my opinion.
In response to post #30. Since you can't have one without the other, it's both. The point I was getting at is that amps with vanishingly low thd but with noticeably less than perfect FR are as fatiguing as can be when turned up no matter how 'pleasant' they may be described as at low to moderate levels. The listener is being fooled by it's other 'stellar' attributes. Any emphasis in the upper ranges, especially 6-9khz is going to drive nails into your head at high volume, period. Ultimate FR really is key imo. So as far as the op is concerned, it really does have to be accurate to be pleasant. That the definition includes overall thd is where contention stems from.
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Accurate FR??
Nearly all recordings are eqd and mucked with by recording engineers and mastering people (if only by microphone choice and placement in the mildest cases!) before it ever gets to your amp. The only thing you might get faithful to is the response as it had already been adjusted to someone else's tastes.
And after it goes to speakers there is no accuracy. Stereo playback is an illusion not a recreation of reality. Amps can be accurate alone, but not full recording/playback systems. They can only provide a more or less convincing illusion, and its likely some inaccuracy in fr, separation, distortion or reverberation might improve the illusion for some.
Nearly all recordings are eqd and mucked with by recording engineers and mastering people (if only by microphone choice and placement in the mildest cases!) before it ever gets to your amp. The only thing you might get faithful to is the response as it had already been adjusted to someone else's tastes.
And after it goes to speakers there is no accuracy. Stereo playback is an illusion not a recreation of reality. Amps can be accurate alone, but not full recording/playback systems. They can only provide a more or less convincing illusion, and its likely some inaccuracy in fr, separation, distortion or reverberation might improve the illusion for some.
now why will you do something you do not like?😱
diy'ers are mighty proud of their work, never mind that there are better sounding amps out there..
Now throw in a skewed system FR and what do you get? There are good recordings and bad.
Irrelevant to the op. What we know for sure is that there are recordings. How accurate they are can only be determined by how accurate the playback system is. That's as good as it gets. You will never know what the engineer's taste or preference is otherwise and hence have no base from which to criticize.
Yes, irrelevant. All we have is the recordings, and the aim of the game is to get the greatest satisfaction from listening to them. Luckily, that is truly an amazing amount of "goodness", but you wouldn't know that it exists from listening to the playback on the majority of systems.
I've had to put up with the usual terrible standard of "professional" sound reinforcement over the years, so I aim to at least circumvent that awfulness in environments where I have control over things - to be able to create the intensity and vibe of live music without the jarring of defects in the playback mechanism always getting in the way.
I've had to put up with the usual terrible standard of "professional" sound reinforcement over the years, so I aim to at least circumvent that awfulness in environments where I have control over things - to be able to create the intensity and vibe of live music without the jarring of defects in the playback mechanism always getting in the way.
accurate Vs. pleasantness ...
"Pleasantness" is subjective by definition. 🙄
I had the "AX" and "BX". AX turned into the DIYA "badger" amp , but I always gravitated
toward my BX in my last modular system. Did I perceive some "pleasantness" ?
The AX was indeed accurate - my first TMC LIN amp(3-5ppm).
Did I like the bootstraped amp because it was such , or did it's higher distortion
attract my primitive sub- conscience ?
I also knew exactly what the differences were - the BX had 3X the H2. Did
the foreknowledge of this "prime me" for "subjective -ness" ?
Well , I'm going to redo the ol' bootstrap allowing one to go "CCS - less"
(.01%) input pair CCS (.002%) ... or anywhere in-between. (servo or DC cap choice ,too).
Some say servo's destroy "pleasantness " , as well - we'll see.
PS - Oh , the shame .... to actually design a "high THD" amp 😱 .
OS
"Pleasantness" is subjective by definition. 🙄
I had the "AX" and "BX". AX turned into the DIYA "badger" amp , but I always gravitated
toward my BX in my last modular system. Did I perceive some "pleasantness" ?
The AX was indeed accurate - my first TMC LIN amp(3-5ppm).
Did I like the bootstraped amp because it was such , or did it's higher distortion
attract my primitive sub- conscience ?
I also knew exactly what the differences were - the BX had 3X the H2. Did
the foreknowledge of this "prime me" for "subjective -ness" ?
Well , I'm going to redo the ol' bootstrap allowing one to go "CCS - less"
(.01%) input pair CCS (.002%) ... or anywhere in-between. (servo or DC cap choice ,too).
Some say servo's destroy "pleasantness " , as well - we'll see.
PS - Oh , the shame .... to actually design a "high THD" amp 😱 .
OS
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