Never thought this thread would get so deep and philosophical- interesting stuff and I appreciate everyone’s contributions.
3D lifelike sound and impeccable measurements - mutually exclusive???
The more I investigate gear the more it seems that it’s easy to get organic involving sound with flesh and body and a 3D immersive soundstage with the right matching of components but it also seems like it necessitates choosing some components that don’t measure well/add colorations/even order harmonics etc My question is are there components (specifically amps/preamps and integrateds) are out there that combine great measurements and in your mind also have that organic immersive sound that really helps many of us get more emotionally involved in the music or are these qualities mutually exclusive?
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The point is that even measurers ultimately rely on hearing to justify their choices - however important measurements may be to them, it still comes right back down to ‘hearing’ for the most intelligent measurers.Good post thanks... This remark of yours is very important... This is the baron de Münchhausen fallacy... A dial cannot read itself he need a human interpreter, but the human interpreter could be voluntarily or by birth deaf for example, he will not be able then to interpret with his ear some sound parameter measurements, BUT he could work with them in creating a speaker very well designed, like a robot, but he will never listen to it...Then we need dials, we need someone with a brain to read the dials, and we need ALSO someone with a brain containing a listening history linked to 2 ears to INTERPRET the dials and not only use them....Any good designer ultimate control test for sure is listening his own design... I verified not long ago that most people dont have a clue about acoustic, even very educated one.... Why? Because acoustic is not only equations or dials readings, something we apply without thinking much, doing only mechanical calculus, acoustic must be ALSO a personal experience with our own ears to make sense of our own audiophile experience....Intuitive acoustic experience in his own room is a personal experience so limited it is, very important, to figure out the deepest acoustical problems... My Helmholtz mechanical equalizer gives me that experience directly, with what is at the foundation of musical or speech experience: the first wavefronts timing perception by each ear and the way the brain analyse and synthetize the physical waves in " time" in a specific room... My greatest personal discovery, well known in acoustic, not well known among audeiophiles or even audio specialist, is that the room is NOT a passive sets of walls waiting for the waves to bounce on them... The room is already a delicately balanced distribution of pressures zones field where the wavefronts for each ear are "sculpted" in a way by damping or enhancing acoustical content, but also by the Helmholtz resonators, my pipes and tubes, specifically located, who act on some definite frequencies and their harmonics...All that finely tuned for a specific unique pair of ears, yours... The different timing events in the audio chain that must be related and translated into one another at the END of the chain are in your room.... There is a timing of bits in a recording session by the recording engineer... There is the timing of waves coming to the microphone from the theater or from the studio where is recorded the original event with all the trade-off implicated by the choices of mic and location...And this timing for the mic is very different than the first wavefronts different timings coming to each ear of each listeners in the original event... The timing of your speakers drivers so to speak is another important timing... There is another set of timing events in your own room coming from each speakers to your ears the first wavefront of sound picked by the right timing of the waves crossing the different pressure zones of the room created by the sound itself and all the content of the room... None of these 5 timing events reduce to one another at all.... The most important one the only one which is at the end and which can be act upon by the audiophile is the timing in his room.... This is the reason why acoustical settings is so important, dac or speakers or recordings so better they could be, will be reduced to a mediocre experience if the room is not adressed... My second discovery is a mechanical equalizer did not have the same limitations than an electronic equalizer....And it cost nothing to create one.... My best to you.... |
If someone tells you they are watch out.Perceiving and thinking could be the " same" watching out.... This is my point in a nutshell.... To be clearer in intuitive acoustic perceiving IS thinking, and thinking become perceiving.... What is "intuitive acoustic" ? Simple listening experiments What is an experiment? Faith in yourself.... 😁😊 |
Measurements all aim at laboratory standards, royally ignoring the requirements of psychoacoustics. That is, we do not measure sound quality as perceived by the human brain. We measure reliability.I'm going to contest this. The measurements aren't the problem- we can easily measure what we need to (at least insofar as electronics are concerned) to know that the electronics will have both good distortion figures **and** also sound musical. But for the most part the industry does not do that. As a result the spec sheet becomes the Emperor's New Clothes. Often super low THD is associated with a 'neutral' amplifier that sounds bad. When this is the case there's been a bit of slight-of-hand. If you know of an example of this, look at the **frequency** at which the distortion measurements were made. You'll see that its only 100Hz. This is important- at 100 Hz most solid state amps made in the last 60 years have enough feedback to allow for excellent reproduction. This is why solid state amps have had 'good bass' for so long. But those same amps otherwise sound bad because they are bright and harsh. This is also why tubes are still around and it comes down to the same thing: Those amps have increased distortion at 1KHz or 10KHz! IOW the distortion production rises with frequency. The ear interprets the higher ordered harmonics as brightness and harshness; if the 7th is present in enough amplitude from a 1KHz fundamental the amp is going to sound bright because the ear assigns brightness and harshness to the 7th harmonic (as well as other higher orders). The slight of hand is that to get around this problem the industry measures at 100Hz and calls it good. So if you want to hear an amp that has both low distortion and sounds like music, look for one in which the distortion at 100Hz, 1KHz and 10KHz is exactly or nearly the same. Manufacturers don't usually show that in their measurements but they should. One reason that they have not is an engineering problem called Gain Bandwidth Product. GBP is to feedback in electronics what gas is to a car. When you run out of gas the car stops. When your GBP is insufficient, the feedback goes down. Because most of the amplifiers, tube or solid state, made in the last 90 years have had insufficient GBP, they have also had insufficient feedback at the frequencies *where it counts to the human ear*. This is why feedback has gotten a bad rap in high end audio, and why a good number of manufacturers have made zero feedback amplifiers. A zero feedback amp gets around this problem of variable feedback by having none- in this way, as long as its got the bandwidth (IOW well past 20KHz), its distortion will be exactly the same at 100Hz as it is at 10KHz. So if the spectra of the distortion is correct (IOW the 2nd and/or 3rd is prominent enough to mask the higher orders from the ear), a zero feedback amp can be quite musical, even though its distortion is 'high' (THD numbers don't tell the story because to the ear the 2nd and 3rd are nearly inaudible while the ear is keenly sensitive to the higher orders). But this is also true if the amp has feedback, if it has enough GBP to support the feedback properly up to 20KHz. Quite simply it was probably not until sometime in the late 1980s before the semiconductors needed to pull this off even existed. It was some time later before the will to design an amplifier with this vital character of distortion was designed. So its no surprise that people still think that excellent specs and really 3d musical sound are mutually exclusive because the examples that disprove this are a minority in the high end audio world. We certainly have the ability to measure what's important- although the will to do so is an entirely different matter! |
So its no surprise that people still think that excellent specs and really 3d musical sound are mutually exclusive because the examples that disprove this are a minority in the high end audio world. We certainly have the ability to measure what's important- although the will to do so is an entirely different matter! It is a common problem. People want to be comfortable in their bubble, not told they are not wearing any clothes. |
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Absolutely wrong. Are you referring to the response of the tympanum? Basilar membrane? Hair cells? Auditory nerve? Inferior colliculus? Medial geniculate nucleus? Primary auditory cortex? Secondary auditory cortical areas? Association cortices? Striatum/limbic system? |
"Great post.... We dont know very well how the ears works...Then figuring out how to use our ears in a room is a deeper problem than most think it is...My mechanical equalizer inspired by Helmholtz was the solution i created to adress only one of this acoustical problem with an imprevisible result and very successful experiment.... The map is in front of us.....But the reality is not the sketchy map we have drawn.... Not only do we not understood all the relation between physical acoustic and neurophysiology of hearing; but here in audio most think that it is electronical engineering the key to audio perceived experience... The level of prejudices is huge coming from the market.... Audio perceived experience is mostly acoustically dependent.... In a nutshell almost all amplifiers will sound bad in a bad room, same thing for dac or speakers...The difference between them will not be commensurate to their transformation by being put in a well controlled room acoustically...The difference will be day and night.... Then we have some claiming, no problem, trust us, we understand hearing in electronics design, and we have on the other hand a crowd waiting for the next upgrading plaster to their acoustical wounds.... The stupidest are those who dont trust their own ears to take the journey... Sorry.... Question to them : if you dont trust your own ears how are you supposed to learn concrete acoustic in a specific room with specific ears ? With a computer program simplifying acoustic and reducing it to precise tested frequency response? |
clarinetmonster2 OP198 posts03-28-2021 11:44pmReally only one or two people have answered my question and made suggestions of brands that they believe both measure very well AND offer an immersive musical experience in their opinion. That’s really all I’m looking for. How hard is that? You are asking an impossible question, hence why your answers will be all over the place. You like the Chord DACs, which also measure well. Others prefer a different DAC sound and would consider the Chord analytic not matter how good. Soundstage is recording, room, and speakers, with somewhat minor influence from other components, though there can be synergy between components and recordings that can bring brief moments of glory, forever chased if you don't get a handle on the basics. I have not heard a system that was exceptional that was not in a room where the audiophile spent considerable effort. I have heard good systems, but none that were exceptional. The exceptional ones were all a work of love and acoustic performance. |
I have not heard a system that was exceptional that was not in a room where the audiophile spent considerable effort. I have heard good systems, but none that were exceptional. The exceptional ones were all a work of love and acoustic performance.Very true .... It takes me 2 years full time to create my acoustical settings... But it was the most rewarding job i have ever done.... |