soongsc said:
The point is that we need to do "what we can hear", not what we can see. Perfect waveform construction may be nice, and won't hurt, but it's not necessary if we can't hear it. We can't hear large amounts of second order nonlinearity, but this dramatically changes the waveform. Should be spend lots of effort correcting it? Why if we can't hear it?
Well, if it has never been accomplished before, who can say for sure whether we can hear the difference or not?
Since we haven't seen it yet, who can say for sure if the sun will come up tomorrow? You don't believe in science at all I take it.
I did never assume that we hear waveforms. BUT: If wafeforms are distorted we would definitely have group-delay distortion which seems to be detectable in some cases.
Regards
Charles
Regards
Charles
soongsc said:
Although I can't see how what you say has to do with anyone believing in science or not, but I see that our ways of thinking are different. You may think the world is flat until proven otherwise because visually it is flat to you; I think that we cannot deny the world may be round unless proven otherwise. Therefore right now, you may seem correct because you can visually prove the world is flat; I feel that since there are some curvature visible in the horizon that a more accurate possibility is out there.gedlee said:
😉
Soongsc
I think that you twisted this backwards, and yes you and I do think differently, I completely agree with that. You don't accept that we don't hear "waveforms" because you haven't tried it, BUT ALL scientific data points to this being true. However you don't accept it unless you, yourself, do the experiment. You are rejecting all of the existing "science", while I accept what "science" tells us about waveforms even though I have not done the experiments myself.
I accept that the sun WILL come up tomorrow, even though I haven't seen it yet. I accept what science tells us about cosmology and that the sub WILL come up.
I think that you twisted this backwards, and yes you and I do think differently, I completely agree with that. You don't accept that we don't hear "waveforms" because you haven't tried it, BUT ALL scientific data points to this being true. However you don't accept it unless you, yourself, do the experiment. You are rejecting all of the existing "science", while I accept what "science" tells us about waveforms even though I have not done the experiments myself.
I accept that the sun WILL come up tomorrow, even though I haven't seen it yet. I accept what science tells us about cosmology and that the sub WILL come up.
phase_accurate said:
Your statement does imply this. There certainly ARE waveform changes that WE CAN hear, but the converse is not true. Just because the waveform changes shape does not mean that we can hear a difference.
I think you are just implying that because you just want to belittle others, not just me. Personally, my position is all the information that I have seen does not tell the whole story. This is vastly different from what you think of what I accept or not accept. If I think that certain aspects needs to be explored, yes, I will do some experiments on my own. This is because most people just point in very vague directions claiming the information is there, and avoid detailed discussion, for whatever reason I do not wish to speculate on.gedlee said:
Recently I had the opportunity to hear some aspects relating with sound quality that I fully understand and most of which was new to me. It seems that B&K has done more research than I had seen in published paper.
It does not mean we can't hear the difference either. I do not get the same impresson of what he is implying. Must be my English.gedlee said:
Have you ever compared signals fed from the amp to the speaker and that recorded at the listening position? I can say that if on an average, you can get these to match within an average difference less than 10% of each other using time aligned music signals, you will hear a significant improvement.
soongsc said:
Nobody is belittling anyone. I'm just saying that the science says
that waveform maintenance is not a factor in perception. You can believe the science or not.
It is well known that some linear distortion will distord the wave form and cannot be percieved. It is because our hearing mecanism is not detecting in the same way as our vision one.
In the vision science colours made of totally different mixtures which means with totally different spectra can be exactly the same for the vision system, they are called metamers.
Do not mix the senses when you analyze, this is why physics and math exists.
JPV
In the vision science colours made of totally different mixtures which means with totally different spectra can be exactly the same for the vision system, they are called metamers.
Do not mix the senses when you analyze, this is why physics and math exists.
JPV
Earl, I've noticed that speakers which are designed with a lot of attention to waveform preservation tend to image considerably better than average. Such speakers usually go to great lengths to minimize diffraction, as diffraction will disrupt the waveform. My suspiciion is that it's the elimination of diffraction (a delayed, displaced, distorted repetition of the original signal) more than preservation of the waveform per se that gives such speakers their imaging characteristics. Any comments?
Duke
Duke
Duke
What I am saying is that IF you had perfect waveform reconstruction - in ALL directions of course - then I am sure the speaker would sound good - although there are room issues etc. that need to be considered in the final judgement. But if the speaker could recreate a perfect waveform reproduction, then yes this would be a good thing. BUT just as certainly there are things that can have a major effect on the "appearance" of the waveform that have no effect on audibility because these things are just not considered in our hearing. Hence, the appearance of a good waveform is unnecessary as far as hearing is concerned.
The attempt to design for perfect waveform reconstruction is IMO not worthwhile and a great deal of resources would have to be expended in areas that simply don't make that much, if any, difference.
This is a classic "true but irrelavent" situation. True, perfect waveforms aren't bad, but this is irrelavent.
This is also the classic forum argument over the absolute versus the practical. If perfection is the object and cost and all else is not relevent then "why not" get perfect waveforms? Sure in that context, why not? - send me the blank check and I'll get started right away.
My goal in all I do is to find the very best at the lowest possible expenditure of resources - both monetary and time. To do otherwise is simply wasteful, unnecessary and a diversion from the true task of great sound quality.
I am sure that the pursuit of waveform perfection would cause care to details that are important and this would result in a high quality system. But there would be a lot of resources wasted in areas that don't matter. It's the pursuit of the latter that I am concerned about.
What I am saying is that IF you had perfect waveform reconstruction - in ALL directions of course - then I am sure the speaker would sound good - although there are room issues etc. that need to be considered in the final judgement. But if the speaker could recreate a perfect waveform reproduction, then yes this would be a good thing. BUT just as certainly there are things that can have a major effect on the "appearance" of the waveform that have no effect on audibility because these things are just not considered in our hearing. Hence, the appearance of a good waveform is unnecessary as far as hearing is concerned.
The attempt to design for perfect waveform reconstruction is IMO not worthwhile and a great deal of resources would have to be expended in areas that simply don't make that much, if any, difference.
This is a classic "true but irrelavent" situation. True, perfect waveforms aren't bad, but this is irrelavent.
This is also the classic forum argument over the absolute versus the practical. If perfection is the object and cost and all else is not relevent then "why not" get perfect waveforms? Sure in that context, why not? - send me the blank check and I'll get started right away.
My goal in all I do is to find the very best at the lowest possible expenditure of resources - both monetary and time. To do otherwise is simply wasteful, unnecessary and a diversion from the true task of great sound quality.
I am sure that the pursuit of waveform perfection would cause care to details that are important and this would result in a high quality system. But there would be a lot of resources wasted in areas that don't matter. It's the pursuit of the latter that I am concerned about.
Earl,
Your statement a few posts up significantly widened my view:
"You are making a huge assumption here that the ear hears "waveforms". It doesn't. It deconstructs the waveform into a pattern of excitations in the ear (along the Cochlea) which are detected in complex ways."
I think you answered my question above with this:
"I am sure that the pursuit of waveform perfection would cause care to details that are important and this would result in a high quality system. But there would be a lot of resources wasted in areas that don't matter."
One of my more vivid recollections of the Summas in your upstairs living room is how the sound was completely detached from those big boxes, as if they were merely objects in the room that had nothing to do with the music that seemingly by magic appeared out of thin air.
Duke
Your statement a few posts up significantly widened my view:
"You are making a huge assumption here that the ear hears "waveforms". It doesn't. It deconstructs the waveform into a pattern of excitations in the ear (along the Cochlea) which are detected in complex ways."
I think you answered my question above with this:
"I am sure that the pursuit of waveform perfection would cause care to details that are important and this would result in a high quality system. But there would be a lot of resources wasted in areas that don't matter."
One of my more vivid recollections of the Summas in your upstairs living room is how the sound was completely detached from those big boxes, as if they were merely objects in the room that had nothing to do with the music that seemingly by magic appeared out of thin air.
Duke
soongsc said:
Now you are definitely getting stuck on the idea of perfection instead of reality because the scenario you describe would sound awful. Having the waveform from the left speaker reproduced with perfect acuracy at the left ear (or within 10%) and the same from the right speaker at the right ear = what? HEADPHONES.
The goal is not to have a perfectly shaped wave at the ear, this would require no reflections of any kind (you're in an anechoic chamber, yuck) and no crosstalk (headphones), so no spaciousness and an in head localization.
Unfortunately headphones does not create the perfect wave form. If you study it a bit more you will discover that there is a different set of design parameters involved.poptart said:
I understand that each of us are limited in our own knowledge. I also noticed you like to choose the non-technical part of my words to respond quite often.😀gedlee said:
I don't understand your reply soongc. I'm not trying to say anything about whether a transient perfect speaker is necessary or not, that's a different issue, but even if the speaker was an absolutely perfect simple source the signal at the ear of a listener in a normal room would not look the same as the signal sent to the speaker, nor should it, this is not the goal. The reflections and absorptions from the room and even off your own torso, head, and ear lobes are all arriving at the ear canal together. Your brain can make sense of this but a microphone is dumb and will simply add all the sounds together making a total waveform that does not match the one sent to the speaker. If you listened to a "perfect" speaker in an anechoic chamber you'd get close to having the signals the same and the sound would not be good.