Good point. And intuitively it seems to me that 'parallel distortions' from multiple cables and channels is different from the 'blanket distortion' you get from passing the entire mix through your system. i.e. you can tolerate a lot of distortion on each solo instrument as long as there's no intermodulation between them. If that makes sense?
Yeah that makes sense to me. My complaint about opamp sound (I take it that's what you're getting at here) isn't THD - that's obviously very low, rather IMD. If an opamp-based mixing console (the vast majority are) is handling only one instrument per channel than that's what's called 'sparse spectrum' audio. In a console, the really critical parts of the circuitry are after all the channel strips' contributions have been summed - the mix-bus and beyond.
Looking at strange things..
Here is an article I assume its an interview with Bob Carver..(I could be wrong)
Any thoughts?
Speaker-Microphone Effect
Bob Carver Cherry 180 Tube Monoblock Amplifier One of the most significant tube amplifiers of the past 60 years! Review By Dick Olsher
Regards
M. Gregg
Here is an article I assume its an interview with Bob Carver..(I could be wrong)
Any thoughts?
Speaker-Microphone Effect
Bob Carver Cherry 180 Tube Monoblock Amplifier One of the most significant tube amplifiers of the past 60 years! Review By Dick Olsher
Regards
M. Gregg
An interesting "discovery" this morning yet again highlighted why there is a need for a "tweaking imperative", and why perhaps there always will be. My system has been off air for a while, because the amp went bye-bye and I've been too occupied otherwise to sort it out. My wife complained that there's been a lack of good sound in the house for a bit, so for the heck of it I put a CD through the Blu-ray player and via HDMI into the LCD TV, thus using the microscopic speakers of the latter. Both units are Aldi cheapies, close to bottom of the barrel electrical engineering you would imagine ...
Hmmm, quite reasonable - decent mid fi - zero bass, but the treble was fairly reasonable. But, there is an on-screen track progress count, can I turn it off? Yes, I can, the OSD button on the remote does the trick. And, here it comes -- the sound went up quite a few notches by doing this simple, silly thing ...
But, there was a catch: being a cheapie, the silly on-screen count popped up again at the start of every next track, automatically, appears no way to switch off this behaviour. And, of course, down went the SQ! I went through a silly ritual, switching this display off over 10 tracks. Deaf Wally could have picked up the difference: display up gave classic irky, edgy, flat digital sound, display gone presented a soothing, comfortable, more detailed sound, with some soundstaging, which could run at high volume without irritating. My wife picked it easily -- no DBTs necessary! The treble is the giveaway: bad sound means cymbals sound like cutlery rattling, good means that you can mentally picture the instrument being struck.
So what's going on? Bargain basement gear shows the effect of extremely basic tweaking! - this is only supposed to be relevant to ambitious playback!! Well, to me it represents the ongoing dilemma in the audio industry, that people struggle to realise that you have to be fussy with digital sound. At a technical level, when the CD counter information is off the image is effectively frozen, no processing needs to be done within the set to update the image from frame to frame, the video circuitry can go to sleep. Which means, that it's not pumping out high frequency gunk, as a by-product of constantly adjusting the video display - the low-end audio DAC, etc in the TV doesn't have to keep this interference at bay. And, the result is quite decent sound ...
I've heard this effect over and over again, it's part and parcel of digital playback; the most expensive systems I've listened to years ago usually smelt badly of this "distortion", to some degree it appears to be getting better these days ...
Hmmm, quite reasonable - decent mid fi - zero bass, but the treble was fairly reasonable. But, there is an on-screen track progress count, can I turn it off? Yes, I can, the OSD button on the remote does the trick. And, here it comes -- the sound went up quite a few notches by doing this simple, silly thing ...
But, there was a catch: being a cheapie, the silly on-screen count popped up again at the start of every next track, automatically, appears no way to switch off this behaviour. And, of course, down went the SQ! I went through a silly ritual, switching this display off over 10 tracks. Deaf Wally could have picked up the difference: display up gave classic irky, edgy, flat digital sound, display gone presented a soothing, comfortable, more detailed sound, with some soundstaging, which could run at high volume without irritating. My wife picked it easily -- no DBTs necessary! The treble is the giveaway: bad sound means cymbals sound like cutlery rattling, good means that you can mentally picture the instrument being struck.
So what's going on? Bargain basement gear shows the effect of extremely basic tweaking! - this is only supposed to be relevant to ambitious playback!! Well, to me it represents the ongoing dilemma in the audio industry, that people struggle to realise that you have to be fussy with digital sound. At a technical level, when the CD counter information is off the image is effectively frozen, no processing needs to be done within the set to update the image from frame to frame, the video circuitry can go to sleep. Which means, that it's not pumping out high frequency gunk, as a by-product of constantly adjusting the video display - the low-end audio DAC, etc in the TV doesn't have to keep this interference at bay. And, the result is quite decent sound ...
I've heard this effect over and over again, it's part and parcel of digital playback; the most expensive systems I've listened to years ago usually smelt badly of this "distortion", to some degree it appears to be getting better these days ...
Of course, the obvious thing was to then use the TV's freeze control, again locking the image, allowing much of the electricals of the LCD set to take a break. And, this also did the job - so have quite satisfying sound out of a miserable, el cheapo TV set; to put it into context, compared to much of the sound I heard at the recent audio show, I'll take what I'm hearing now - not because the sound is smoothed over, opaque or tiny; but because it sounds like real people doing their musical thing ...
I'm having a lot of fun, seeing what this ultra, ultra low end playback can do, and so far it has been fairly positive. The carcase of the TV is flimsy plastic, and it rattles and buzzes fairly easily with volume, so judicious use of the volume control is necessary - boogie rock sets everything vibrating! The tiny speakers are overwhelmed with a strong bass foundation in the music, so one can't be silly! But, the right spectrum mix comes across well, Mozart piano concertos do very nicely, interestingly enough: the whole top 2/3rds of the piano keyboard present easily as well as, and mostly better than any piano tracks I heard at the hifi show.
Anyway, the really interesting bit is that this new plaything is as susceptible to the interference effects in exactly the same ways as the normal setup. Each time I did the usual tweaking moves to help things along, I got the same benefits as for the old fella'. Although everything is totally different, the signature sound of the recordings is coming through, a sign one is going in the right direction.
Since I have done nothing with the insides of these consumer items, anyone should be able to replicate what I've done easily if they're interested; could be illuminating to see what the results are, how others view it ...
Anyway, the really interesting bit is that this new plaything is as susceptible to the interference effects in exactly the same ways as the normal setup. Each time I did the usual tweaking moves to help things along, I got the same benefits as for the old fella'. Although everything is totally different, the signature sound of the recordings is coming through, a sign one is going in the right direction.
Since I have done nothing with the insides of these consumer items, anyone should be able to replicate what I've done easily if they're interested; could be illuminating to see what the results are, how others view it ...
Alex, the key thing was to reduce interference that could come into the picture - digital sound on less robust gear is very sensitive to these issues.
So, reserve one power circuit for the setup and try and have the power coming from the last socket on the spur. Which means, pull the plugs on all the extension cords and power cables from all the other sockets and turn off every socket switch on that spur. Switch off every device in the house that is a transmitter, so all mobile phones off, cordless phones and base station off, wireless modems, everything you can think of.
No fluorescent, energy saver lights on; it's useful to have the last light fitting in the chain of a lighting circuit running an incandescent bulb, and switched on, this may help.
Make sure the DAC in the TV is fully warmed up, give it at least an hour's worth of playing sound before making judgement. Bass heavy material is not good to assess quality with, this stresses the minimal power supplies used here; what you're looking for is cleanness of treble ...
I'll be interested in what you get!
So, reserve one power circuit for the setup and try and have the power coming from the last socket on the spur. Which means, pull the plugs on all the extension cords and power cables from all the other sockets and turn off every socket switch on that spur. Switch off every device in the house that is a transmitter, so all mobile phones off, cordless phones and base station off, wireless modems, everything you can think of.
No fluorescent, energy saver lights on; it's useful to have the last light fitting in the chain of a lighting circuit running an incandescent bulb, and switched on, this may help.
Make sure the DAC in the TV is fully warmed up, give it at least an hour's worth of playing sound before making judgement. Bass heavy material is not good to assess quality with, this stresses the minimal power supplies used here; what you're looking for is cleanness of treble ...
I'll be interested in what you get!
Frank,
Thats why I fit one of these to the back of the mains filter in every amp I build..
SuperClamp Kit : information Use the SuperClamp to protec...
If I could find the value of the components I would buy them..don't get caught up in the other stuff.
I think its a transorb diode and a MOV..the problem is geting the correct type..Votage<<you have to get the voltage right..
I still fit normal suppression as well..across primary and secondary..plus other things..
Regards
M. Gregg
Thats why I fit one of these to the back of the mains filter in every amp I build..
SuperClamp Kit : information Use the SuperClamp to protec...
If I could find the value of the components I would buy them..don't get caught up in the other stuff.
I think its a transorb diode and a MOV..the problem is geting the correct type..Votage<<you have to get the voltage right..
I still fit normal suppression as well..across primary and secondary..plus other things..
Regards
M. Gregg
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Thanks, M(?), I've gone many, many rounds of that sort of thing ... I have some rather interesting 3D sculptures of parts that perform a more precisely calculated attenuation of the bad stuff, on the normal system! Something like this would probably help in a disc player/TV combo, but naked power going in seems fairly well cleaned up in my components, going by the listening so far - probably because both devices would use switching power supplies, which if reasonably implemented should give cleaner power in key areas ...
Another tweak is to plug the disc player, the Blu-ray or DVD player into a different house circuit from the TV, at near the end of that spur line, so that any mains glitching caused by one unit is attenuated more by the time it gets to the other box. And, keep the cables, power and HDMI all nicely spaced, or at right angles, from each other; neatness here in routing everything together can easily work against you ...
I'm finding that this minimalist configuration gives very nice string tone, easily better than anything you'll hear at a hifi dealer -- plus, plenty of real depth, instruments are nicely behind the TV set ...
I'm finding that this minimalist configuration gives very nice string tone, easily better than anything you'll hear at a hifi dealer -- plus, plenty of real depth, instruments are nicely behind the TV set ...
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Frank,
"easily better than anything you'll hear at a hifi dealer?
Increasing likelihood of ground loop by plugging across multiple spur line?
Garbage.
You define the term "Hack". No measurement gear, no analysis software. No demonstrated results.
Fantastic attitude and self confidence, down right delusional.
Your adventures in Hi-Fi are truly exciting High Fiction. I enjoy reading it, your enthusiasm is delightfully contagious. Generally I don't respond to subjective nonsense, it is like feeling the need to submit an Op Ed piece after reading the comics. But your prose just puts a smile on my face. Keep up the good work.
"easily better than anything you'll hear at a hifi dealer?
Increasing likelihood of ground loop by plugging across multiple spur line?
Garbage.
You define the term "Hack". No measurement gear, no analysis software. No demonstrated results.
Fantastic attitude and self confidence, down right delusional.
Your adventures in Hi-Fi are truly exciting High Fiction. I enjoy reading it, your enthusiasm is delightfully contagious. Generally I don't respond to subjective nonsense, it is like feeling the need to submit an Op Ed piece after reading the comics. But your prose just puts a smile on my face. Keep up the good work.
And a cheery hello from me - I suspect you're a person when driving who spends the whole time watching the speedo; after all, that's the only way to know that you're moving forward, none of that subjective nonsense of noticing that trees and buildings are whizzing past should be used as a guide at any time ... ,
Unfortunately, I like to listen to music, rather than carefully ascertain the output of a measuring device, and the latter is apparently how a lot of people like to view their audio systems,.
"Easily better than the hifi dealer" is referring to string tone, it does help to read more carefully ...
Ground loops? We're talking here of modern components, two pin plugs, no earthing need apply ... . Besides, I've been doing this sort of tweak for ages, on earthed gear, and haven't had the issues you're apparently concerned with ...
It's a great shame that the majority of people seem to treat listening to audio as a deeply religious exercise, to be mournfully serious about the whole affair; to do it with some enthusiasm is not PC I'm sorry to hear, I have been suitably reprimanded ...
, Unfortunately, I like to listen to music, rather than carefully ascertain the output of a measuring device, and the latter is apparently how a lot of people like to view their audio systems,
."Easily better than the hifi dealer" is referring to string tone, it does help to read more carefully ...
Ground loops? We're talking here of modern components, two pin plugs, no earthing need apply ... . Besides, I've been doing this sort of tweak for ages, on earthed gear, and haven't had the issues you're apparently concerned with ...
It's a great shame that the majority of people seem to treat listening to audio as a deeply religious exercise, to be mournfully serious about the whole affair; to do it with some enthusiasm is not PC I'm sorry to hear, I have been suitably reprimanded ...
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I might just also comment on that maligned term "hack" -- yes, I'm very much been a hacker in terms of trying everything, to see whether something makes a difference or not. You see, I actually want to see progress occurring, in the subjective performance of equipment, and in understanding of the underlying causes for that. Rather than timidly follow precisely in the footsteps of the "wise" men, who obviously must know everything already that needs to be known ...
Improving the subjective performance of equipment is easy. The gear stays the same, only perception changes in subjectivist view. The underlying causes for that are all in your head.
Review definition of fidelity. Subjectivist has 100% fidelity of self perception.
High fidelity in audio is culmination of engineers, using real metrics to manufacture hardware that works. Sure, plenty of room for imagination in seeking solutions. Knowing something really works requires scientific method. This involves transmission of ideas that leads to blind reconstruction of experiments and results.
Review definition of fidelity. Subjectivist has 100% fidelity of self perception.
High fidelity in audio is culmination of engineers, using real metrics to manufacture hardware that works. Sure, plenty of room for imagination in seeking solutions. Knowing something really works requires scientific method. This involves transmission of ideas that leads to blind reconstruction of experiments and results.
Yes, high fidelity will result from engineers properly applying themselves to solving a "problem". But first they have to perceive that there is an issue, that there is something to be "solved": the audio world is divided into 2 camps, those that believe that all has been solved and the solutions only have to correctly applied; and those that know that this is not the case, that a technically correct audio system is not automatically "nice" to listen to.
In the area of the human listening system, "knowing something really works" is not easy, because the ear/brain is very clever at filling in the gaps, reconstructing the twisted bits - and, it gets bored easily. DBTs only go so far in getting "true" answers, because the human being is a very unreliable measuring instrument, which I'm sure you'll agree with.
I suggest an exercise: a "correct" system plugged into 100% clean power, then we deliberately introduce dirtier, and nastier, harmonics into the AC waveform in a step-wise fashion -- it has been suggested that high power arc welders do a nice job of fulfilling this function. At what point does there become an audible effect, if ever; where are the metrics that say that engineers have this under control?
In the area of the human listening system, "knowing something really works" is not easy, because the ear/brain is very clever at filling in the gaps, reconstructing the twisted bits - and, it gets bored easily. DBTs only go so far in getting "true" answers, because the human being is a very unreliable measuring instrument, which I'm sure you'll agree with.
I suggest an exercise: a "correct" system plugged into 100% clean power, then we deliberately introduce dirtier, and nastier, harmonics into the AC waveform in a step-wise fashion -- it has been suggested that high power arc welders do a nice job of fulfilling this function. At what point does there become an audible effect, if ever; where are the metrics that say that engineers have this under control?
A couple more things for those 'daring' enough to try the disc player and TV combo: make sure, via the setup menus for the player and TV that the signal comes through straight, no surround doo-dahs, resampling, frequency enhancements, all the usual rubbish manufacturers think will "improve" the sound - think zero tone controls ...
Also, forget about getting convincing lowish bass - it ain't gonna happen, so don't try to pump it up in any fashion: all you'll do is force the speakers to work too hard, and stress the power supplies in the set ... and largely wreck the sound. You're after getting clean midrange and treble ...
Also, forget about getting convincing lowish bass - it ain't gonna happen, so don't try to pump it up in any fashion: all you'll do is force the speakers to work too hard, and stress the power supplies in the set ... and largely wreck the sound. You're after getting clean midrange and treble ...
And yet another tweak: another characteristic of much audio related digital circuitry is that it gets 'tired' ... well, not really, but that's what it sounds like, the playback develops a tedious, lacklustre tone. Essentially this is equivalent to a static charge building up slowly, insidiously dragging down the SQ. The easiest way to 'reset' this factor is switch off the TV, leave 30 secs or so, then switch back on; depending upon everything, the sound will have a 'refreshed' quality about it ...
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No, from the TV speakers is what I was talking about. Bulging bass doesn't do it for me, last bad experience was hearing the Steinway Lyngdorf Model D setup at a dealer, trying to do a piano -- one of the most ridiculous things I've heard in a long time: the left side of the piano felt 20 feet high, and the treble end was a tiny midget, almost invisible on the floor. This is the sort of thing that gives the "high end" a really bad name ...
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