It is a very sensitive subject... imagine people that had those measurements as
the main thing in their lives... alike a God... the correct thing to be done... the correct way to know things...and them someone say they have loose their time searching for fishes into the desert..... for sure this is not easy..but someone must point that... drop by drop.... trying to have more clever minds studying the subject.
As i told... IHF rules were crazy...and everybody was following....so.... we can go deep into crazy things, never criticising and the untrue turns true, and everybody enters the same boat and go inspecting the wrong thing.
Well... it is a very long way to go...but seed is planted and i will take care to put some water.
49 years reading US magazines, tests and evaluations based into numbers...and perceiving all that stuff as non sense... now a days...with internet... with forum...i can say that i disagree, that we need to study more psycho acoustic and reduce a little all that passion for numbers...to understand what happens inside a human beeing.... the real customer to amplifiers and speakers....not meters.
Alike worries about vibrations that can destroy some car when the engine reaches 12.000 RPM... when that motor,unders study and inspection cannot reach that RPM even without engaged...so....just academic brain exercise.
Reduce distortions from 0.1% to 0.008% is waste of time.... humans do not perceive... and speakers will produce enormous distortions that will turn the amplifier distortions almost nothing.
What represents a calculation error when you construct a road and discover was 10 centimeters longer into those last 50 kilometers.... when sun became hot.... the road will increase length by many meters because of heat!
regards,
Carlos
the main thing in their lives... alike a God... the correct thing to be done... the correct way to know things...and them someone say they have loose their time searching for fishes into the desert..... for sure this is not easy..but someone must point that... drop by drop.... trying to have more clever minds studying the subject.
As i told... IHF rules were crazy...and everybody was following....so.... we can go deep into crazy things, never criticising and the untrue turns true, and everybody enters the same boat and go inspecting the wrong thing.
Well... it is a very long way to go...but seed is planted and i will take care to put some water.
49 years reading US magazines, tests and evaluations based into numbers...and perceiving all that stuff as non sense... now a days...with internet... with forum...i can say that i disagree, that we need to study more psycho acoustic and reduce a little all that passion for numbers...to understand what happens inside a human beeing.... the real customer to amplifiers and speakers....not meters.
Alike worries about vibrations that can destroy some car when the engine reaches 12.000 RPM... when that motor,unders study and inspection cannot reach that RPM even without engaged...so....just academic brain exercise.
Reduce distortions from 0.1% to 0.008% is waste of time.... humans do not perceive... and speakers will produce enormous distortions that will turn the amplifier distortions almost nothing.
What represents a calculation error when you construct a road and discover was 10 centimeters longer into those last 50 kilometers.... when sun became hot.... the road will increase length by many meters because of heat!
regards,
Carlos
Both is important. I say 50% / 50%. People who only measure or people who only listen, both can remain in the vicious circle of same mistakes, routine and prejudice.
Yes Pavel....your white hairs, your age and all your experience turns you a nice
negotiator.... fifty fifty is fine..... and you are someone that design and produce precision instruments.... hard to you to think about that...i thank you by your attention in that thread..others will run from the thread and will say to themselves:
- "A hell to this idiot!"
But the best thing is to read, and to think about..and also to try to deenie my words, to reduce value and to point non sense things...this is evolution..because doing that, under the effort to show i am wrong, sometimes a ligth will appear into folks minds...when we try to find counter arguments to dennie something...many times... we realise the other guy is rigth..and this is evolution.
You was invited to inspect Symassym deeply...i have asked you to find for defects, for bugs..because someone doing that will discover, while listening and also while measuring, the amplifier quality.
So.... i am here to provocate... challenge may be better words in english...in portuguese is really provocation (provocação)..... the counter reaction will bring new ideas for sure.
Carlos
negotiator.... fifty fifty is fine..... and you are someone that design and produce precision instruments.... hard to you to think about that...i thank you by your attention in that thread..others will run from the thread and will say to themselves:
- "A hell to this idiot!"
But the best thing is to read, and to think about..and also to try to deenie my words, to reduce value and to point non sense things...this is evolution..because doing that, under the effort to show i am wrong, sometimes a ligth will appear into folks minds...when we try to find counter arguments to dennie something...many times... we realise the other guy is rigth..and this is evolution.
You was invited to inspect Symassym deeply...i have asked you to find for defects, for bugs..because someone doing that will discover, while listening and also while measuring, the amplifier quality.
So.... i am here to provocate... challenge may be better words in english...in portuguese is really provocation (provocação)..... the counter reaction will bring new ideas for sure.
Carlos
To some extent I agree that 50-50 is the right balance but we have had amazingly accurate scientific measurements on audio now for what over 20 years but we have not made any discoveries as to what are the measures that determine a great sounding system. So my contention is that we have gone as far as we can go in this direction without some guidance as to where we should be focusing and this will come from psychoacoustics.
The real advances are to be found in understanding how we hear i.e. the brain-ear connection, psychoacoustics, whatever we want to call it. Once we get closer to that understanding we can then get closer to understanding how to build great sound reproduction systems.
The real advances are to be found in understanding how we hear i.e. the brain-ear connection, psychoacoustics, whatever we want to call it. Once we get closer to that understanding we can then get closer to understanding how to build great sound reproduction systems.
More or less the same, I mean that careful listening may turn us to new methods of measurements of audio chain, regardless how difficult it is.
I think this describes the ASKA amps.. simple bootstrapped
"schoolbook"amps that sound better than 50 transistor
OEM's. "magic compensation" at work. 😀
OS
I would warn against any "long distance" shared subjective experience. Nothing is as misleading as word description of sound. We need mutual experience at the same session. DIYaudio is great, it connects so many enthusiasts, on the other hand they have seldom an opportunity to listen together, and it is difficult to persuade someone in a 10 000 km distance about sound quality of a system he never heard.
Yes numbers indicate a bad amplifier
Ex:
DTH modifies the original wave, a note Do may sound like Do#
This can be measured or heard the sound.
IMD-Modulation between frequencies, the music will mix in complex passages(all instruments playing), effect not seen with a single instrument.
This can be measured or heard the sound.
Simply amps, are not stable with temperature and with the power, The damping factor change with the power, the bass are more loose.
This can be measured or heard the sound.
The loudspeaker are very important to appreciate good amplifier, Ex: a speaker rigid suspension and much heat in the whole magnetic a speaker has a lot of compression...
Ex:
DTH modifies the original wave, a note Do may sound like Do#
This can be measured or heard the sound.
IMD-Modulation between frequencies, the music will mix in complex passages(all instruments playing), effect not seen with a single instrument.
This can be measured or heard the sound.
Simply amps, are not stable with temperature and with the power, The damping factor change with the power, the bass are more loose.
This can be measured or heard the sound.
The loudspeaker are very important to appreciate good amplifier, Ex: a speaker rigid suspension and much heat in the whole magnetic a speaker has a lot of compression...
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Perhaps there are two groups of people, those who want amplifiers to be ideal - what goes in comes out unchanged but for being louder. And those who want their overall system to sound 'nice' whatever nice means.
back to photography for a second - people rate lenses on a subjective quality called 'bokeh' which deals with how an image looks in the out of focus areas. Sure it's possible to try and equate this with measurements of spherical aberration but by-and-by people prefer to describe it in words using terms like 'smooth' and 'harsh'. Even a 'bad' lens with a pleasing bokeh will be deemed a good lens by those who 'know'.
I think I'm more interested in amplifiers that are not ideal, there's no 'magic' in an ideal amplifier for me. Once you've made that leap, measurements of ideality are less helpful and we are back to the words 'liquid, tube-like' and the rest. I don't mind that one bit. It is a shame that some exploit the romantic side of audio with overpriced over hyped equipment.
back to photography for a second - people rate lenses on a subjective quality called 'bokeh' which deals with how an image looks in the out of focus areas. Sure it's possible to try and equate this with measurements of spherical aberration but by-and-by people prefer to describe it in words using terms like 'smooth' and 'harsh'. Even a 'bad' lens with a pleasing bokeh will be deemed a good lens by those who 'know'.
I think I'm more interested in amplifiers that are not ideal, there's no 'magic' in an ideal amplifier for me. Once you've made that leap, measurements of ideality are less helpful and we are back to the words 'liquid, tube-like' and the rest. I don't mind that one bit. It is a shame that some exploit the romantic side of audio with overpriced over hyped equipment.
Bigun said:
This is a very good way of putting it. If someone prefers an amplifier that alters the sound in a way that happens to be pleasing to them, more power to them. Some people describe this in terms like "expensive tone control". Hey, if it floats your boat....
The other group of people are philosophically inclined to amplifiers that are more true to their theoretical function - i.e., the straight wire with gain. For those peole, the tone control is a separate function (it may be their speakers, for example). Their view of a pair of "ideal" amplifiers might be two different ideal amplifiers that sound identical, even when the program material itself sounds harsh. They want the warts and all.
Another related thing to bear in mind here is the following question: With what amplifier did the loudspeaker designer voice his loudspeakers? If, for example, he voiced them with a soft-sounding tube amplifier with a modest dampling factor, the sound might be harsh with a solid state amplifier that is actually sonically more transparent.
Cheers,
Bob
Bigun said:
Yes you are right.
The amplifier that is under the category "nice sounding" of cause have a sound of its own. Everything sounds good. And we can call it sameness sound.
Leave the psychoacoustic thing for the speakerdeveloping people and the acoustic experts.
jkeny said:
This is not contradictory at all.
I merely made the point that after a long period of time looking at amps on a bench, and then listening to amps on a very good system (whatever that means) that I started to see a trend in terms of sonics. Now I can anticipate reliably the sonic result to a fairly high degree of reliability. That is all.
Someone may say that I am prejudiced and my hearing is being effected by my expectations, right? 😀
This isn't the whole story at all... just an anecdotal bit of information.
As far as telling how an amplifier will actually sound via any measurements, I say forget it. Not possible to know much about how anything sounds unless you listen, imho.
I compared two examples of the ultra-super-low distortion National Semi opamps in a single spot of a unit that has been in service now for a decade. Two different model numbers, same specs. I expected to NOT be able to discern any difference. I was quite surprised to hear a difference. No, the difference was not measured. It would be interesting to measure it no doubt and see if there was any difference other than something very very very low in level. Or, maybe a measurement might discern some other feature that might indicate why I could hear a clear difference. Who knows, maybe a bad run of one of them?
Similarly I compared an early production of an AD opamp with a brand new sample of the same opamp and both the noise floor and the overall sonics seemed disturbingly different. The people at AD I got the sample from seemed indifferent, btw.
What does it mean?
Heck if I know.
_-_-bear
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
bear said:
Perhaps the two opamps, using different rates of negative feedback some people notice the difference. This issue was addressed by Otala in the 70's
-Although not mathematically proven...
No, you don't but if you want to build something that recreates in your ear/brain the sensations of listening to live music experience then you need to know the important characteristics that the ear/brain evaluates when listening to live music and build your device accordingly.myhrrhleine said:
In other words if you want to fool the ear/brain into thinking it is there with the musicians rather than listening to them through speakers then you need to know how to fool it!
jkeny said:
almost anyone can go to a store and just listen.
no degree needed.
very few successful audio designers have a duel degree in psychoacoustics
- Status
- Not open for further replies.