Component audibility. Fact or fiction ?

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I hear speakers with brilliant drivers every so often, and the sound is just, yuck! - not because the speakers are off, but because important system details are not right, and the latter is what I'm interested in sorting out.
What do you mean ,"important system details are not right"? It is quite possible, if not probable, that the speaker may produce a very good rendition and appeal to the vast majority, but their discordance with you is only your perception. What you've said, in effect, is that your personal perception means you are prepared to modify very good speakers detrimentally, to suit your "taste".

The Supertramp track has a great deal of that element in it, the better the system is the further back one can hear apparent sounds coming from.
the mikes are amongst the musicians
Stereo and so-called "depth" are illusions. There does appear to be a delusionary aspect to expect such things in recorded music which, by definition, uses points of capture: microphones.

And the latter aspect is where having better drivers will pay off, cheap drivers need to be strongly conditioned from cold, every time - this is a nuisance - high quality units should come on song within 5 minutes or so.
It isn't the speakers being "conditioned", it is your brain becoming accustomed to the sound.

Abs
 
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As you know I have been trying to get useful info on what seems, and what seems not to be detectable using the method of placing a device under test (the caps, the opamps etc) into the audio chain, the chain that is then recorded using a PC's A/D convertor.

To wrap this all this up here is the final track (honest) and this one's for fun... just listen to it... for once please :) and give your comments. This and the track in post #1 might just establish a "baseline" of what you can reliably pick up on in this kind of test.

Jay... has this one got rhythm and soul ?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yn05r2tmv6h86ya/The Directors Cut_Has It Got Rythmm And Soul.wav
 
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What do you mean? I'm fine with whatever music. Violin was worst. As you noticed, everyone were focusing on the background piano instead of the foreground violin. I think every classical music has low freq contents, but didn't show up on your files.

I mean that I just want you to listen on your best system or headphones and see how it sounds.
 
Excellent choice, Karl. This is a recording that can completely take over a house, in an auditory sense - if all is in order it can be played at tremendous sound levels and completely demolish the listening space, in a good way :), as far as the eye can see ...

If someone claimed to have a top notch system this is the sort of recording I'd hit it with ... and I would just keep increasing the volume level ... ;)
 
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Só you're looking for some "irregularity" in the sound. I cannot download for the moment but from previous listening thru iPod internal speaker and intermittent streaming sound I was confused about who the singer was. Not natural I guess.

I will download sometime today or tomorrow.

Thanks Jay, that would be great. Yes, just listen and see what washes over you. The singer was Natalie Cole,

Unforgettable... with Love - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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I'll slowly reveal bits of what you have been listening to today.

Before you all cry "foul" :D the purpose of these tests was twofold...

1) You have to listen to them. With one file there is nothing to compare against so your hearing perception plays the main part. That is what audio is all about. Its not about analysing files on a PC... its about what you hear and whether you like what you hear.

2) The last few weeks have seen many "listening tests" ranging from "big" changes such as the opamp tests down to "minute changes" such as Pavels "cap vs cap" tests.

This thread and these tests (and unwittingly, by listening to these two tracks you have all actually completed the tests) :) which I think you will find interesting when you know what has been going on. There are some very large "elephants in the room" wandering about on both these tests.

Before I say anymore if anybody wants to give them another listen, particularly the last track... again on the best set up you have...and just see if you can pick anything out... well you have the chance today before more on that one is revealed.

Trust what you hear...

The first track. How did it sound to you ? I think Barleywater smelled a rat but the first comment was "brittle, garbled and metallic". Frank and 5th Element generally approved... but the elephant remained hidden :D

Track 1 was a mix of direct rip to wav (so as good as it gets) which then switched randomly to playback via the Sony CDP790 with the 5 cheap electros in circuit to. This was then fed into an A/D convertor. A test track of -10 db was ripped directly and also played and recorded from the Sony to set absolute levels.

A picture will show all...



The top track is the direct rip and the lower the Sony CDP790 +caps.

Now can you hear it ?

The second test is different... go back and have a listen and trust what you hear.
 

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It was a nice try made by Karl, very inventive, but I assume it has been quite impossible to disclose this (intention) by listening only, without having a hint. Barleywater has caught it immediately and described with word "garbled".

Wait untill you see what the second one is ;) I have a group photo that shows it rather nicely.

Yes, I think Barleywater knew something was afoot although the "garbled" tag was applied as a generalisation perhaps, implying the original master wasn't to his liking :D
 
What The Hell Is This

I downloaded the file (the directors cut has it got rythmm and soul) and played thru the hand phone. All I got was big noise with the music playing on background. I played the file streaming from iPod and quick time with intermittent sound, the music is not in the background of any big noise. I don't understand what happen with the download process.
 
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