2. Start hearing tonal balance like warmer, brighter etc. These are more the mass market type.
3. This is the hi-fi entry level listening. We talk about soundstaging imaging, detail etc. all those technical term that you read from the magazine. Everyone who comes to my place I will try to get them into this level. It is not too difficult once we show them the audiophile recording.
4. People start talking about PRAT. From level 3 to level 4 needs a little bit more experience and listening to more systems and live performance.
5. This is my ultimate level of search. It is the complete disappearance of the system. It is the directness of the system. A lot of technically superb systems fail in this area. We call them technically perfect musically dead. Getting from level 4 to level 5 is even more difficult.
This is the area that many of my customers come back to me telling me that how come they didn't get the same feeling when doing the audition in other dealer's demo regardless of price. They cannot explain it so they use 'feeling' as the term.
Interesting Level descriptions, to me they make sense.
I think I just transitioned to level 4 after upgrading my Lampizator GoldenGate to GG3 with the new Engine11P, volume control and USB. The new USB requires a USB cable with a 5 volt leg. I had to send my Sinope out to add the leg. While the cable was out I used the ethernet output from an Innuos Statement thru an UltraRendu and used a Network Acoustics USB to an Antipodes S20 and then SPDIF out to the Lampizator.
Immediately I noticed the PRaT I was missing with USB. There was some loss of sound quality I attribute to the NA USB relative to the Sinope. When the Sinope came back I still preferred the Ethernet output of the statement to the USB with the Sinope. Now I put the Sinope between the UltraRendu and S20.
As the Statement outputs both USB and Ethernet together I can set the same music to play at the same time with the InnuOS Sense and switch between them real time. The PRaT is hard to describe but very easy to hear when its right. There is an obvious time smear to the USB output when heard together.
I can remove the S20 and use the USB output of the UltraRendu to the Lampizator and the PRaT improvement is still obvious so it seems to me it is the difference between the Statements USB and Ethernet outputs.
I don't know if it is an issue with the Statements USB or with USB relative to Ethernet as a carrier for digital information.
I believe in PRaT, to me it changes the sound to a relaxed more analog feeling and the Rhythm and Pace immediately reminds me of what I prefer when listening to LP's.
@cdcWhen I stopped building my own speakers in the ‘70’s until I began climbing back into this hobby upon my retirement (in my 70’s), I would have placed myself at the first stage, all speakers needed to be full range, the bigger the woofer, the better.
Three years on, I would place myself at stage three. I’ve explored several different sets of speakers and amps, sources, in three different rooms. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard two systems where one had PRaT and one didn’t, but some sound better than others, and I’m beginning to make distinctions between components that sound ‘right’ to me and those which do not. I am looking for a sound stage in which the speakers disappear (some have a hard time doing that), enough imaging that I can identify different instruments within the sound stage, and notes that sound as if they came from an instrument I can identify [double-bass, guitar, piano, etc.], and, of course vocals that are clear. Some recording techniques or mastering methods obscure some of these qualities, but I just wait for the better recordings to appear on the stream, or next disk [CD or Vinyl] that I put on. (I hate it when the instruments drown out the voice, as happens with some female vocalists, especially.)
Now, as @ghdprenticedescribes PRaT, I can easily relate to ‘not wanting to drag myself away from my system,’ but, as others allude to, only when it’s playing music that I like. If my system can’t do that, something is wrong and I’m busy working on it, or saving up to replace what I’ve identified as the weak link in the chain. It’s been that way for three years now, and the acquiring is finally slowing down, but only after spending about 12 times what I had initially estimated the cost to be [of course, that expense was spread out over what is now four separate systems, plus a few ‘spare’ parts, but still . . ..]
Conspicuously absent is the first thing I listen for, and has been since I was 18 years old: How closely reproduced vocals approach the sound of real life ones. I recorded my 3-year-old’s voice with a small capsule condenser mic plugged into a Revox A77, and use that recording to evaluate the sound of loudspeakers, a brutal test.
I also recorded the sound of my Gretsch drumset (early-70’s "stop sign" badge) and Paiste 602 cymbals---the sounds of which I am of course intimately familiar---with a pair of the same mic. I can actually strike the drums and cymbals as the recording plays on speakers, and get an instant comparison between the sound of the drums and cymbals and how any given loudspeaker reproduces the recording of them. Another brutally revealing test.
I first saw the terms "accurate timbre" and "vowel coloration" in the early-1970’s writings of J. Gordon Holt in his Stereophile Magazine (he was it’s owner and sole reviewer), and instantly adopted those parameters (the presence of the former, the absence of the latter) as the most important in the reproduction of music. FAR more important than, say, soundstaging.
I was also drawn to the writings of Art Dudley, from whom I added "color saturation" and "tonal density" to my hi-fi vocabulary/lexicon. Art referred to imaging (in all it’s diverse forms) as "parlour tricks".😊 Harry Pearson placed soundstaging at just about the top of his priority list.
I prefer Rhythm and Pace… as PRaT sounds more like brat, but just a different term for what is probably the most difficult to directly focus your minds eye on (all right, in this case ear on), and yet is probably the most important sonic parameter to a great sounding musical system.
The OP brings it up in number 4 because unlike detail, imaging, or slam you do not sense it directionally… as in right there in a certain place in the sound field are the cymbals and they have a certain sonic characteristic, or the bass… easy to focus your attention on.
PRaT is a characteristic of the whole system…. Of the music coming out. You cannot sense it from listening to the snare drum relative to the kick drum. It is the timing of all the music and effects you very subconsciously. It is what makes you tap your foot, or want to sway with the music. It is not what sparks your mind’s eye to listen to the whack of a drumstick or bowing of a cello string. It is what sucks you into the music and establishes that primal connection.
While you cannot be missing all the other good attributes of a system, this is the one that truly makes a system enthralling and engaging. This is the thing that makes it hard to drag yourself away from the system after hours of listening. So, if you can walk away from your system after playing and album or are ever fatigued, this is probably what you are missing and it is worth investing a lot of time trying to learn how to perceive it and get it into your system. There are a tremendous amount of high end equipment that is virtually devoid of it.
Pace rythm and timing or PRAT describe the real sound qualities of sermons by preachers transmitted by loudspeakers at the end of pop masses decades ago.
Maybe misery enjoys company, but I’ve always guessed that reported PRaT was a perception that the beat subjectively seemed more noticeable to the reviewer but is something I’m not yet familiar with. Odd to think that changing components can change this “beat/rhythm” perception.
The OP did state that PRaT requires more experience to various systems and live music in which I lack- I only briefly demoed for sonics only to determine if I’m interested in purchasing, and rarely go to live music except recently attended several symphonies (Itzhak Perlman, Yoyo Ma)
I would add that timber being a psychoacoustic personal construction, the key is probably to learn how to listen to what “works” for you and seek and tweak to deal with what doesn’t.
Personally, when testing to a system, I also pay a lot of attention to dynamics, transient, attacks, distinction in vibrato and the dissipation of a sound, the death of a note that remains distinctly audible among others…
harmonics and system induced coloration are also on my top list of stuff to pay attention to.
I am also very sensitive to sound staging, literally as I would be when attending a theater play or an opera.
I also have to admit that it has so far always been much more difficult for me to fully appreciate a sound system when “I don’t like” the piece being played to test it… That is a good feedback to self when it comes to trying to find scientific explanation to what works for me or not.
Finally, I try to always keep in mind that a sound system is made of a master signal which has always been designed (purposely or not, wisely or not), current, cables, electronics, speakers, a room, in the moment in the life (and the day) of an individual. So when the individual is me seeking for emotions listening to music, I very selfishly tend to consider it is the foundation of the system. I try and learn how to listen to the other components to gain in pleasure. Very easy to feel, a bit challenging to measure but so far very engaging and exciting, alone and with fellow passionate music lovers and audiophiles !
While there are a few folks that go directly for the music and don’t get focused on details, slam at first. They are the exception. I certainly followed the steps.
Most dont know acoustics and anything about sound....
At best they had learned to define sound quality with the gear pieces changing as in a musical chair contest...😊
I know because it was what i believe before minimal acoustics study and experiments...
Try this:
Read the definition of "timbre" in acoustics... begin with wiki...
Then study what is a Helmholtz resonators...
Then seeing how complex it is really, buy an acoustics book...
Begin simple experiments...
It is fun and the cost for me was "peanuts" ...
Results: immersiveness an audiophile experience with low costs...
By the way "immersiveness" is not only a feeling it is also a well defined acoustic concepts which is related to specific acoustics parameters controls we can learn to modify... ( as reflections and reverberation time etc)
The audiophile vocabulary is related to the gear use and gear market ...
The acoustics vocabulary is related to the Ears/brain/system/room controls parameters...It is this vocabulary set of concepts that we must learn and which will exceed the audiophile vocabulary limitations...
The musical vocabulary is another one...
I apologize to the OP if i may sound a bit rude with the truth ...
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