John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

Status
Not open for further replies.
do they sound diffferent? is there a similar concept that would sound different??

I do not know, this was just to show that same amplitude spectrum does not mean same waveform (phase spectrum is needed as well for the complete waveform description in frequency domain). But interestingly enough, voltage swing of both waveforms I have shown is quite different (clipping may occur with one wave and not with the second one..).

I don't assume these particular waveforms must sound different. But, as you know, ear is very sensitive to rising transient of the sound wave, especially with regards to (time) difference between 2 ears. So, I would expect that differences in phase spectra of signal transients would be audible as a different subjective spatial recognition.
 
Phase

These two waveforms have SAME amplitude spectra, they only differ in a phase (-180°) of one of the spectral components:

Hi Pavel,

This is the exact issue I have been pondering for a long time regarding static measurements vs. timbre.

It seems obvious if the harmonic falls on the slope of a filter the phase would be changed, but usually also the amplitude. However, there are cascaded phase changes in many systems containing many poles which can show phase anomalies yet maintain amplitude levels.

This issue is common in my experience with analog recording systems, where I have seen swept responses flat +-<1dB to 30kHz, but the harmonic to fundamental relationship is altered in playback. The result is a timbre change. This says to me that some aspect of the human hearing mechanism does not merely act as a multi-bank filter setup.

Mathmatically explaining the phenomenon is a bit beyond my pay grade I am afraid, but the effect is real.

Howie

Howard Hoyt
CE - WXYC-FM 89.3
UNC Chapel Hill, NC
www.wxyc.org
1st on the internet
 
Like I said.... it is way, way past the time when this should be incorp into measurements.

Possibly so- unfortunately, once you have government agencies dictating how things should be measured for the purposes of advertising, you're pretty much stuck with that. One of the few positive things I have to say about Stereophile is that they do a first-rate job of measuring, and if you ignore the purple prose from the chimps who do their reviews (and apologies in advance to the noble members of the species Pan troglodytes), the measurements they give do correlate very well with the sound, assuming we're talking about ears-only listening.
 
"there is no complete schematic for this PREAMP on this tread"
Please put one up, you can.
Considering that most members/readers of Diyaudio are amateurs ,not professionals like you and most contributors to this thread, for us diyers understanding what you are talking about and learning from it, starts with a schematic.
 
diyAudio Member RIP
Joined 2005
"there is no complete schematic for this PREAMP on this tread"
Please put one up, you can.
Considering that most members/readers of Diyaudio are amateurs ,not professionals like you and most contributors to this thread, for us diyers understanding what you are talking about and learning from it, starts with a schematic.

miklos, John quite properly withholds at least some details since, among other things, he still may make these. And there are "amateurs" who just want to copy the design and make it, whether they understand it or not.

But there has been more than ample discussion of the salient features, including schematics of related products showing some of the topological approaches, and including some aspects of the power supplies. The problem is you actually have to read the rather long thread :D
 
Member
Joined 2002
Paid Member
George, I have asked several times without answer, "Does the metric hold when all distortions are -100dB or so?" Earl has implied several times that it is relatively easy these days to find electronics that are "transparent", and my impression is he does not believe in most (any?) of the extreme beliefs.


George, remember that the metric is useful for loudspeakers- nearly any competent amp will score exceptionally well, which is why Earl uses a cheap Japanese amp and worries about more important things.

edit: xpost with Scott

Scott ans SY
You may both have some personal experience in evaluating Geddes Metric (or/and some earlier relative metrics). I don’t. So I could not answer Scott’s question for whatever higher number of distortion limit he would have set. You understand that.

Anything that can be done to evaluate the “acoustic importance” of a given distortion type and it’s magnitude on any part of the audio chain, is to be welcomed.
Why not to try-this heard but not seen- Geddes Metric?
I’ve asked for some technical assistance:
If you think I am way off, I would like to hear (read) it. :)

George
 
Status
Not open for further replies.