It seem like you either didn’t read or didn’t understand my post.
Read it one more time, do you disagree?
Cheers
I was told that Edison cylinders actually sound better than modern recordings is a specific way. Any ideas, why?
Bha ha ha ha.
The ultimate in analogue fidelity
How old were you when these became avaliable in stores?
I am trying to understand you, and I am curious about why you think the 7th is such a huge problem.
I was talking about this post.
Please remember that the 7th overtone in a piano (depending of how the piano is tuned) is NOT the same as the 7th harmonic distortion in an amp.
An amp is not a musical instrument, it is only meant to REPRODUCE the signal.
Cheers
That's a shame. My new speakers (Brodmann) are being produced by a piano makers company. They are designed to actually be a musical instrument.
Hi John,
Now, let's see. 4th harmonic of 1 KHz (got to keep the math simple for me) would be ... let's see now ..... hmmmm 4 KHz? Now, the 7th should be .... ah ... 7 KHz!! 7 divided by 4 would be (getting calculator, got to be right here) ... ah! It's up now .... 1.75!!!! They are right! I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. I'm far too excited about this now.
Hmmm, there is a band called 7th harmonic in England, and PrimaSounds musical massage. Some Astrology also. Now this is important folks! The technical information is mostly being applied to a PIANO. My system is designed to reproduce music, not to colour it. Therefore it is generally accepted that efforts should be made to prevent the reproduction of all forms of distortion. This would include the 7th harmonic, right?
It's painfully obvious that you have either not read my posts concerning the evil 7th harmonic problem, or you simply do not understand what I have said on the subject.
One more time then. The 7th harmonic is part of a series of higher order distortion products. No matter where in the chain from artist to the speakers, we should attempt to reduce all sources of distortion.
Am I correct so far?
Right. Now, is there any way to reduce only the 7th harmonic? Any mechanism that you can think of that specifically produces 7th order harmonics? I mean, save a mis-tuned musical instrument. I must admit to you that at this point in time, I'm stumped. I can't figure out any reasonable way to reduce only the 7th harmonic (without help from a DSP engine), or any mechanism in an amplifier that would tend to create same.
Okay, I think I've established that there is nothing we can do about the 7th harmonic in isolation. Will you accept this John?
If we attempt to do anything in order to reduce the 7th harmonic, it will also reduce the levels of the higher ordered harmonics nearest in frequency. In fact, anything we do to reduce the 7th harmonic (I should be cutting and pasting all this) will most probably reduce all types of harmonically related distortion. This will also reduce IM distortion as the number of frequencies involved will be drastically reduced as well. Therefore, a worthy goal to keep you eye on. Can you agree with that?
Now, the one thing that running my own business for many years taught me is this. Don't waste time and energy to worry about anything you can't change. Do invest time and energy on things that you can change. If you consider this, then it seems to be obvious that concentrating on the 7th harmonic alone will not be too helpful in finding a solution. However, it would seem that reducing the levels of higher order distortion would be a good path to follow- as long as you don't create issues in other aspects of the design. As long as components are imperfect, so will be devices made from these imperfect parts. If you can accept that, then engineering an amplifier (for example) is in fact a compromise between different issues. You have to rate the problems you are solving by using some sort of weighting system. What's more important and what can be traded off?
That's my take on things anyway. Does this seem to be reasonable to you John? If not, can you explain where the logic falls down?
One of the real issues in pushing the concerns of 7th harmonic amplifier distortion to that early date is that not only was the 7th harmonic swamped by all other distortions, but often the equipment would not reproduce that frequency well. Certainly not without a lot of distortion to that overtone / harmonic. Let's see now. The voice channels are restricted to a maximum of 3 KHz, and the lower limit seems to be 300 Hz. I'll admit that I don't recall the early limits they put on voice traffic, but this is the excepted range these days. So, the lowest fundamental that could create a 7 th harmonic from a 3,000 cycle (getting into the mood) ceiling is 300 Hz, the highest would be approximately 428.571428571 (it repeats) Hz. I'm going to bet that the reproduce transducer was probably not a low distortion device, and we know that carbon microphones excited with DC current are far from linear and noise-free.
In other words, back then the 7th harmonic did not demand a great deal of attention by itself. There are pretty logical reasons why this is so, and they still hold today.
Naw, how about the main thing you are supposed to learn in the education system. Reading books, ones that are peer reviewed and accepted to be correct for the most part.
Honestly John, show a little more respect to your contemporaries here.
Gawd, another looonng post! Sorry about that everyone. 😱
-Chris
From the web, first article ...
My god! The 7th harmonic sounds bad when coming from a nice piano (like the one I have, it's an upright and also about 80 years old or so). The article also contains some math where an assertion is made that the 7th harmonic is 1.75 X the frequency of the 4th harmonic. Do you know that this is amazing? I would never have wasted my time to even consider this, or figure it out.
Now, let's see. 4th harmonic of 1 KHz (got to keep the math simple for me) would be ... let's see now ..... hmmmm 4 KHz? Now, the 7th should be .... ah ... 7 KHz!! 7 divided by 4 would be (getting calculator, got to be right here) ... ah! It's up now .... 1.75!!!! They are right! I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. I'm far too excited about this now.
Hmmm, there is a band called 7th harmonic in England, and PrimaSounds musical massage. Some Astrology also. Now this is important folks! The technical information is mostly being applied to a PIANO. My system is designed to reproduce music, not to colour it. Therefore it is generally accepted that efforts should be made to prevent the reproduction of all forms of distortion. This would include the 7th harmonic, right?
It's painfully obvious that you have either not read my posts concerning the evil 7th harmonic problem, or you simply do not understand what I have said on the subject.
One more time then. The 7th harmonic is part of a series of higher order distortion products. No matter where in the chain from artist to the speakers, we should attempt to reduce all sources of distortion.
Am I correct so far?
Right. Now, is there any way to reduce only the 7th harmonic? Any mechanism that you can think of that specifically produces 7th order harmonics? I mean, save a mis-tuned musical instrument. I must admit to you that at this point in time, I'm stumped. I can't figure out any reasonable way to reduce only the 7th harmonic (without help from a DSP engine), or any mechanism in an amplifier that would tend to create same.
Okay, I think I've established that there is nothing we can do about the 7th harmonic in isolation. Will you accept this John?
If we attempt to do anything in order to reduce the 7th harmonic, it will also reduce the levels of the higher ordered harmonics nearest in frequency. In fact, anything we do to reduce the 7th harmonic (I should be cutting and pasting all this) will most probably reduce all types of harmonically related distortion. This will also reduce IM distortion as the number of frequencies involved will be drastically reduced as well. Therefore, a worthy goal to keep you eye on. Can you agree with that?
Now, the one thing that running my own business for many years taught me is this. Don't waste time and energy to worry about anything you can't change. Do invest time and energy on things that you can change. If you consider this, then it seems to be obvious that concentrating on the 7th harmonic alone will not be too helpful in finding a solution. However, it would seem that reducing the levels of higher order distortion would be a good path to follow- as long as you don't create issues in other aspects of the design. As long as components are imperfect, so will be devices made from these imperfect parts. If you can accept that, then engineering an amplifier (for example) is in fact a compromise between different issues. You have to rate the problems you are solving by using some sort of weighting system. What's more important and what can be traded off?
That's my take on things anyway. Does this seem to be reasonable to you John? If not, can you explain where the logic falls down?
I am trying really, really hard to find common ground and definitions with you here John. I am very sorry I had to get down to basics, but it seems we may need to look at the foundations of understanding each other. I don't understand why problem you could have had with my previous posts on this subject.
This is one place where you and I disagree then. My thought is that you are attempting to illustrate how great the problems of the 7th harmonics are. Problem is that you are exaggerating this particular harmonics effect beyond it's normal unpleasant effects on piano music. Be pretty rough from a woodwind instrument too I suspect. 🙂
Back to the unpleasantries I see. Why?
I'll bet that this knowledge was known far before that. This may simply be the earliest reference that you have seen so far. Mind you, it doesn't matter when this knowledge was first known as it is well before the time of anyone still living on this Earth of ours. All our ancestors were pretty smart you know. They knew about all kinds of stuff back then. They even had math that predicted many discoveries made later in time.
Actually, the 7th harmonic was the very least of their problems with reproduced or amplified music, but especially the transmitted voice. Yup, Bell research where they first figured out feedback and how to apply it. They had also figured out phase issues too. Those telephone guys were / are amazing folks! I read that in several different books, not on the internet ('cause I knew these things before they put they internet on computers).
One of the real issues in pushing the concerns of 7th harmonic amplifier distortion to that early date is that not only was the 7th harmonic swamped by all other distortions, but often the equipment would not reproduce that frequency well. Certainly not without a lot of distortion to that overtone / harmonic. Let's see now. The voice channels are restricted to a maximum of 3 KHz, and the lower limit seems to be 300 Hz. I'll admit that I don't recall the early limits they put on voice traffic, but this is the excepted range these days. So, the lowest fundamental that could create a 7 th harmonic from a 3,000 cycle (getting into the mood) ceiling is 300 Hz, the highest would be approximately 428.571428571 (it repeats) Hz. I'm going to bet that the reproduce transducer was probably not a low distortion device, and we know that carbon microphones excited with DC current are far from linear and noise-free.
In other words, back then the 7th harmonic did not demand a great deal of attention by itself. There are pretty logical reasons why this is so, and they still hold today.
Off the 'net?
Naw, how about the main thing you are supposed to learn in the education system. Reading books, ones that are peer reviewed and accepted to be correct for the most part.
Honestly John, show a little more respect to your contemporaries here.
Gawd, another looonng post! Sorry about that everyone. 😱
-Chris
Hi Joshua,
I haven't heard of this brand, or their speakers. All I know is that the statement you just made really conflicts with the "ideal loudspeaker".
Mind you, if you like the sound, enjoy. They are the right ones for you.
-Chris
That could be seen as a problem more than an asset you know.
There's the money shot! Right there is what you should have worried about. That is a very definite negative as speaker systems should always be designed to have as low a sonic signature as possible while keeping the efficiency up to acceptable levels.
I haven't heard of this brand, or their speakers. All I know is that the statement you just made really conflicts with the "ideal loudspeaker".
Mind you, if you like the sound, enjoy. They are the right ones for you.
-Chris
You may be right => www.duratone.com.au
Passive resonators still aren't anyone's up of tea, used VC models go for 1/4th of the full ticket up till this day afaih.
Pretty they are though, especially the luxury wood veneer versions.
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Chris is right in this case, Joshua. Please try to keep your comments close to the subject at hand. Loudspeakers are NOT supposed to be musical instruments.
Everyone, I hope you have actually tried to learn about 7th harmonic distortion and its relation to the musical scale. This is important, BECAUSE you don't want to add something that would not be normally in the music being played by adding it in the sound reproduction chain. If you do, it sticks out, as a 'metallic' sound. Do you want your favorite singer to sound 'metallic'? How about your favorite music? Now, some music uses the 'metallic' aspect of some materials to advantage. How about music played on oil drums, cymbals, etc? Even horns, and many classical instruments use higher order odd harmonics for a 'special' perhaps 'stressful' sound. Is that how you want everything in your hi fi system to sound like? If you have a lot of 7th, 9th, 11th, that is what you will get.
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That's interesting. So, what's the point of trying to get your entire reproduction chain as accurate as possible, and then to mess it all up with a speaker that is a 'musical instrument'?
jd
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