audible distortion and tube gear?

Distortion is a personable sort of thing, likely reserved for 'umans.  One could say all music and it's varied instruments just create "liked through loved" distortions not natural in nature.  That, combined with a distort we call 'a beat' that likely began as a distort of a heartbeat.....

All audio gear has a level of 'good' distort v. 'bad' distort.

It gets discussed a lot 'round here.

It seems to get steered by taste, tolerance, and budget.

....no to mention the Final Arbiter...

SAF or SOAF.

@atmasphere  , thank you for getting back to me on that.  As always, I appreciate the education you provide to me.

@immatthewj The designer of the CD probably didn't understand what makes distortion audible to the ear. So they probably just added harmonics to the signal without doing anything else.

One of the things that makes distortion more audible (especially higher ordered harmonics) is if distortion rises with frequency, which is common in most amps with feedback but likely wasn't taken into account when the CD was created.

If you have hearing loss or other problems at the frequencies at which the distortion occurs, you might not hear it. But others around you might- if they are yelling at you to turn it down that's a clue. A good system never sounds loud until over 95dB or so. If it sounds loud below that you know you have a distortion problem of some sort.

@everybody, thanks for the input.

@soix

but if you share what equipment/cables are in your system and what CD you’re using you’ll likely get much better and more useful insights here. Good question though.

Equipment is Maranzt SA10 in front of Cary SLP 05 in front of Cary V12 in 50 wpc triode in front of those B stock Revel M126Be’s that I am auditioning. Components are connected using the balanced outs and ins with Kimber Silver Streak XLR. The speaker wire is Kimber but I do not remember the model # (I bought the wire back in the ’90s, but there are multiple strands of blue and black insulated wire). The disc is "My Disc" (The Sheffield/A2TB Test Disc).

@atmasphere

With a pure sine wave, higher orders added are easily heard since our ears use them to tell how loud sounds are (so are keenly sensitive to them); you need a bit more distortion for the lower orders (2nd and 3rd) to be audible.

the tone I was originally inquiring about is, I assume(?) a pure sine wave? The description says that the first reference track is 0.0004% distortion and then the following five tracks are: 0.1% distortion, 0.3% distortion, 1% distortion, 3% distortion, 10% distortion.

I got to messing around some more with this last night, and this time I was sitting up (as opposed to reclining back) and looking down at my sound level meter (so my head was higher and more forward than the previous times I had tried to identify distortion using this CD). The description says that, "Distortion is the slight buzz mixed in with the pure tone." I’ve never heard what I would describe as a "slight buzz." However, sitting up and looking down, as opposed to reclining back and gazing ahead at a slight upwards angle, I guess I did hear the tone change somewhat as it switched to the final track. I don’t think that I would call what i heard a "slight buzz" though.

My ears have suffered cumulative abuse over the years and I am pretty sure that I have lost some frequencies. Does it seem plausible that I have lost the frequency that the "slight buzz" is on? Also, I suffer from tinnitus (however when I am listening to music I do not notice it); could the tinnitus be at the same frequency, or close to it, that the "slight buzz" is on, and that is why it does not absolutely jump out at me?

After the consecutive tracks that are what I believe the pure sine waves you refer to, are 5 consecutive tracks that repeat a short musical passage with the distortion being increased in the same increments as before to 10% . . . I am going to listen to those (musical) tracks some more, but so far I honestly cannot tell the difference between any of them no matter how I position my head.

*low-lvl lurk*

I know that I have read on this site about "tube sound" having something to do with the way tube gear handles distortion, but would tube gear make it harder to recognize distortion?

@immatthewj Perhaps, depending on how much distortion your amp has and that of the speakers.

Distortion is mostly heard as a tonality, a change to the timbre of musical instruments. With a pure sine wave, higher orders added are easily heard since our ears use them to tell how loud sounds are (so are keenly sensitive to them); you need a bit more distortion for the lower orders (2nd and 3rd) to be audible.

You mean even order distortion vs odd order distortion this is different Then gross

Distortion think of this as lavor that the amp imparts

DAVE and Troy

AUDIO Intellect Nj

Either tubes or solid state can be made to sound softer, more polite, warmer, etc. that frequently comes with a masking or blurring of detail usually most notable, but not exclusively, in the treble region where you’ll hear muted dynamics, air, reverb trails, etc.  I could see equipment that is voiced this way masking certain types of distortion and may be why you might be hearing minimal differences.  Conversely, equipment that is designed to be hyper detailed can accentuate distortion, so as with most everything in audio the key is finding the balance that sounds best to you with the music you listen to.  Hard to say given your description and lack of other pertinent info what you should be hearing, but if you share what equipment/cables are in your system and what CD you’re using you’ll likely get much better and more useful insights here.  Good question though.

If you think of distortion as a type of noise, then yes, you could say that if you start with a high amount of noise to begin with you are going to have a harder time, but not impossible, hearing low amplitude noise that's in addition to the original.

On the other hand, our ears are pretty good at recognizing differences, so that's why I'd say it's harder, but not impossible.

A bigger issue is the room acoustics, IMHO.  Clean that up and you can hear a lot of things you could not hear before.

Either of the below links will supply an info that will assist with this inquiry.

I'm sure the content will be challenged by those with their own interpretations of the data.   

https://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like

You need to distinguish "distortion" which the ear likes vs. the kind it doesn't. The ear likes octaves, fifths, etc. I googled it for you and came up with this.

As you can imagine there are many types of distortion and Ralph Karsten ie Atmasphere can give you pretty much the lowdown on this.