Yes. If measurements were so good, why does so much audio sound like crap, irrespective of cost? When well measuring gear gives me good sound, every time, then I'll stop pushing this agenda ...
It appears that you can't read too well - I've been pointing out repeatedly that it's the implementation, not the circuit that's all important. When rubbish gear can produce highly satisfying sound, and super expensive equipment drives you out of the room - something's wrong in the state of ...
What beautifully encapsulates the state of the board is this comment in the CFA Topology thread, by the skillful Russian chap, vzaichenko:
No-one disagreed with him - isn't this situation pretty pathetic, really ...?
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All pretty technical quatifiable parameters, especially THD/IMD not really seperable, slew rate isolated by itself pretty meaningless. SNR it's just a number.
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What I was alluding to was that all these people with good design and building skills know that the result will sound different from other items they've done, and can only find out whether it produces satisfactory SQ or not by listening to it working - all the designing to a goal, and measuring, won't give them that.
Forgive me if I missed it, but exactly where in this thread did you offer evidence that you are not merely tweaking to add your favourite euphonic distortion? Lots of people say that gear with good specs sounds bad and they prefer equipment with obvious known (sometimes glaring) technical faults. There is a simple explanation for this.fas42 said:
And so you have repeatedly been wrong. The circuit must come first. All else comes very far behind. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
. . the listener's ears? However, please don't equate 'expensive' with 'properly engineered' - in modern audio there may be a negative correlation.
The evidence, for me, is that that I hear more of what is in the recording. If "technically more correct" playback prevents me hearing detail that I know is in the recording, and the lesser amount that I now hear is less pleasant to listen to, then I regard its "accuracy" as suspect - I have listened to some of my evaluation CDs on many dozens of systems, and the typical result is that a significant amount of the content goes missing, with the added 'injury' frequently of it just being not very satisfactory to listen to. If 'euphonic distortion' is able to resolve all those issues, then let's have more of it!
My experience is that most circuits are fundamentally capable enough, but cost cutting measures severely kneecap the sound in key areas - if attention is paid to just those areas the SQ can be dramatically improved, in subjectively important aspects.
Unfortunately, the label 'properly engineered' does not get affixed to units - how does the ordinary consumer pick such items?
How do you know this "detail" is in the recording? There is reasonable anecdotal evidence that some people confuse noise and interference with 'detail' - for example the popularity of badly-made DIY cables.fas42 said:
In the middle commercial market maybe, but cheap systems and some very expensive systems tend to use circuits with obvious flaws. A bad circuit cannot be made to sound good however it is implemented, but adding euphonic distortion and noise is relatively easy.
Avoid audio magazines. Avoid very cheap items. Avoid very expensive items. Avoid items with pseudo-science babble in the marketing (e.g. any mention of quantum or superconducting).
The 'detail' is there, fas42, don't let them talk you out of it. It is called increased 'resolution'. It is a listening technique that all good listeners use.
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John, We just need someone with your experience to help us find which objective measurements are valid. Compression? Noise floor? Of course, convincing the world to make and publish relevant specs would be another issue. We live in a world where AVR's are sold in 10W increments.
Because the detail can mentally be easily separated and aligned to the source of the information, just like sounds in real life can. If you're in the middle of a sound filled, non-audio situation, where multiple sound elements are all 'firing', say in the crowd of a football match - then you don't have any problem mentally selecting one source - say a father talking to his son in another row - and following the conversation, irrespective of all the other detail impacting on your hearing system.
And this is what happens with top notch sound reproduction - it's not a 'stew', always sounding like a combination only; it is a sound landscape that you can 'wander' through mentally, and 'see' all the parts within, quite clearly and distinct from each other. And the better the system gets, the more this differentiation is perceived, you can 'see' every little part of it as sub-events in the big picture
Yes.
Recording mic distance becomes apparent, with sound sources separated according to mic distance.
DI'd sound sources become foreground, and more distant sources are presented further back in the sound image.
All these sounds are distinctly separate, and one is able to 'tune in' to these individual sounds easily.
I got some BQP's yesterday....I will listen for these kinds of improvements (and other changes) in the next few days.
Dan.
Actually I find the "details" easier to follow in my very obviously coloured dipole bass/midrange constant directivity upper mid/ treble setup. I know it's manufacturing a soundstage , but it does give the illusion of presenting something close to reproducing a performance, rather than reproducing a recording accurately. I'm currently trying out an "accurate" monitor, which seems promising, but not near as enjoyable sounding.
It's equally possible the upstream components may not be capable of passing enough along to be as involving with an accurate speaker as the system is with the partial dipoles, I admit.
Yes, this is "special" technique called "listening via eyes". Closed eyes, listener is deaf, this is prooved many times.
Knowing what I listen means know what should be heard. It is called expectance effect, well known many years.
Its good engineering Frank, not the magic many here want, the magic added by design Gurus to make their own sound is adding distortion and noise. I would reckon that most well engineered stuff sound neutral and unattractive to you and many others (myself included, as I have said, I have two main systems; valve full, range speaker, record deck/SS, 3 way speakers, computer stored WAV and listen to them depending on my mood, neither is perfect, both have different presentations but what I do ENJOY the music player through either).
Not really, everyday hifi sounds messy, ordinary to me just as much as it would to someone not particularly interested in sound reproduction. The analogy is, to listen to live acoustic music, and then listen to reproduction of the equivalent over a conventional audio system - if these sound effectively equivalent to you then that definitely puts you outside the "golden ear" brigade, 🙂. I know some people want audio to sound extremely artificial, for the "qualities" to be highly exaggerated, like a woman caking on makeup 10 times too thick - something I find very curious, not my scene.
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