Good point, and being a "black coffee - no sugar" kinda guy, one I can sympathize with. But what if all I could buy was Sanka? It used to be coffee, but now it's a strange and bitter imitation of the real thing. I might be forced to drink it with milk and sugar. (ugh). But with good beans brewed right I don't need milk or sugar. I.E., the real thing is enough.
I don't want to push my analogy too far because I actually believe that the "tinned music" we by is not as bad as we think it is. With very good playback systems you start to be amazed at what is actually contained in those recordings.
Perhaps what we hear most it is more like good coffee beans badly brewed. We blame the beans when it's actually the brewing that's bad.
Beans or brewing? Could be either or both.
Part of the problem is that we can assign significance to the wrong thing. Someone finds that a particular colour kettle makes better coffee, so then everyone wants to buy that colour and someone even comes up with some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain it. The reality is that it is the water temperature which matters, and a darker kettle cools more quickly. Waiting a few more seconds with a light colour kettle is just as effective, but the 'dark kettle' brigade are making a lot of money from people who don't know any physics.
Thorsten has made a good point. He is willing to tolerate some low order distortion in order to avoid high-order distortion, but would not wish to deliberately add low order (as some do). All technology involves compromise, you just have to choose which compromise you find most acceptable. That is why I find it amusing when someone pops up asking for the 'best' amp/buffer or offers the 'ultimate' preamp/DAC etc.
Part of the problem is that we can assign significance to the wrong thing. Someone finds that a particular colour kettle makes better coffee, so then everyone wants to buy that colour and someone even comes up with some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain it. The reality is that it is the water temperature which matters, and a darker kettle cools more quickly. Waiting a few more seconds with a light colour kettle is just as effective, but the 'dark kettle' brigade are making a lot of money from people who don't know any physics.
Thorsten has made a good point. He is willing to tolerate some low order distortion in order to avoid high-order distortion, but would not wish to deliberately add low order (as some do). All technology involves compromise, you just have to choose which compromise you find most acceptable. That is why I find it amusing when someone pops up asking for the 'best' amp/buffer or offers the 'ultimate' preamp/DAC etc.
I wonder if somebody had made some statistical studies about the way humans perceive harmonic distortions. At differences frequencies and on the 5 first orders.
I suppose too it has to be correlated with Fletcher & Munson curves, and harmonics in the 2500-10 000hz range are worse than those at 200hz ?
About high order harmonic distortions, i suppose we can forget about everything out of our hearing range.
So, we will have to ponder distortion measurements according to ours ears, in order to get a significant value.
Any way, when we are in the -80db range, i presume there is nothing we can hear. Phase, slewrates and IM will be the only concern.
I suppose too it has to be correlated with Fletcher & Munson curves, and harmonics in the 2500-10 000hz range are worse than those at 200hz ?
About high order harmonic distortions, i suppose we can forget about everything out of our hearing range.
So, we will have to ponder distortion measurements according to ours ears, in order to get a significant value.
Any way, when we are in the -80db range, i presume there is nothing we can hear. Phase, slewrates and IM will be the only concern.
Higher harmonics outside our hearing range fold back into the preceptable range through intermodulation.
Right. That's why i use exclusively current feedback for all my designs for years, now.
With more than 200V/µs, you are pretty quiet about non linear distortions.
In fact, i use 20Mhz 1000v/µs Op amps for all my preamp stages, and i filter signals at all the input stages above 200khz. My power amp have a 1Mhz power bandwith, and a 100 khz filter at the input. IM is hard to find at any level, and, as total Harmonic distortion is less than 0.02 %, i am only concentrated now on listening cables qualities (Joke).
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The joke may be on you! At the better levels of equipment cables may actually make a difference.
Anyone know the story of chicken sexing? 10,000 hours and 5-6% of the candidates succeed!
I assume you have been exposed plenty of live music. I therefore assume you know that the trumpet played in an aggressive manner (especially in a very live acoustic) can display a pretty sharp edge which becomes rather hard on the ears after a while. Under these circumstances I would argue that a using a little bit of top cut or (other sweetening) on playback, while not accurate, enables the listener to enjoy the entire performance without incurring significant listening fatigue.
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Hi,
Funny, I drink a lot of very bad coffee (a shame this, given people from my ethnical background are usually "Coffee Saxons"), but when I want a real nice cuppa I do hand grind the beans and it does taste better for some reason if the grinder uses a hardwood grinding element and not metal.
Ciao T
Funny, I drink a lot of very bad coffee (a shame this, given people from my ethnical background are usually "Coffee Saxons"), but when I want a real nice cuppa I do hand grind the beans and it does taste better for some reason if the grinder uses a hardwood grinding element and not metal.
Ciao T
Hi,
I grew up in an area of Germany where Coffee was taken very serious. Perish the thought of Instant, even -re-ground coffee was (rightly) frowned upon.
Making Coffee for us is a ritual that is not really so far divorced from Japanese Tea Ceremony, though generally of more utilitarian character. Together with our special Mountain water the results are quite something. The beans are often home roasted and then hand-ground in traditional coffee mills that follow centuries old patterns and often are of quite some age (ours was pre-war - the 1870 one). They then are percolated through a special ceramic filter (filter and coffee can are warmed up of course). The coffee is very strong, dark but lacks all the excessively bitter, burnt taste you get from industrial coffee. I used to drink it without sugar, just a little milk while still in my very early teens.
I often find myself breaking out into uncontrollable laughter when American or Chinese acquaintances wax lyrically about the quality of Coffee at Starbucks.
We now return to the scheduled programming of Cable Sceptics and Cable Believers having at other. You may fire at will, gentlemen.
Ciao T
Exceeding the bean's slew rate leads to permanent intermudulation distortion. Yeah I can buy that
I grew up in an area of Germany where Coffee was taken very serious. Perish the thought of Instant, even -re-ground coffee was (rightly) frowned upon.
Making Coffee for us is a ritual that is not really so far divorced from Japanese Tea Ceremony, though generally of more utilitarian character. Together with our special Mountain water the results are quite something. The beans are often home roasted and then hand-ground in traditional coffee mills that follow centuries old patterns and often are of quite some age (ours was pre-war - the 1870 one). They then are percolated through a special ceramic filter (filter and coffee can are warmed up of course). The coffee is very strong, dark but lacks all the excessively bitter, burnt taste you get from industrial coffee. I used to drink it without sugar, just a little milk while still in my very early teens.
I often find myself breaking out into uncontrollable laughter when American or Chinese acquaintances wax lyrically about the quality of Coffee at Starbucks.
We now return to the scheduled programming of Cable Sceptics and Cable Believers having at other. You may fire at will, gentlemen.
Ciao T
Hi Pano,
Perish the thought.
I guess growing up in East Germany under a communist regime was the better option. Freedom and Democracy are overrated... At least the coffee was good back there...
Ciao T
Perish the thought.
I guess growing up in East Germany under a communist regime was the better option. Freedom and Democracy are overrated... At least the coffee was good back there...
Ciao T
Here (in China) in Starbucks I find myself most often drinking an entirely acceptable brew of white tea (from within a silken bag, no less), only let down by the strong hint of chlorine from the tapwater.
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