Have words lost their meaning? Words and terms like smooth, refined, detailed, wide soundstage, organized soundstage, bass shy, microdynamics, de-interleaved, irritating, tortuous, threadbare, innocuous, harsh, whimpy, congealed, boomy, honky, musical, open, metallic, electronic, wet, liquid, anemic, bland and so forth attempt to describe the sound. But the usual audiophile words have become meaningless or trite. Maybe we need a new lexicon. |
Jmcgrogan does have a point...as he indicated, natural is vague as well. How about realistic, as having the full envelope of frequencies and tones expressed with complete dynamic freedom and clarity! That should eliminate about 90% of systems:). Of course one can only really assess an entire system. That's why reviews are quite meaningless really, except for the very obvious features and characteristics. |
JMCgrogan2... i agree with everything you wrote. "Neutral" in audiophile circles is a term that has been twisted to mean something different than balanced and uncolored. As a result, it misleads many people to expect it to mean one thing, when it is being used to mean treble-tilted and midrange sucked out, giving the impression of treble clarity and "clean" midrange. This is something i avoid at all costs, and my experience is that these days "neutral" is used in the latter sense 90 percent of the time. |
Wolf, I love the bread thing, especially useful at our Thanksgiving jamboree. Do you think 1247 pieces of rye (can I mix in some white?) would adequately stuff the turkey? Perhaps you know of another way to attach them to the ceiling...... I'm fearful of the affect the duct tape residue may have on the dressing. Cheers |
Dave_b..Maybe you missed the "rhetorical question" part of my rhetorical question. I find that I can pick and choose which aspects of the signal I want to harm, and then harm the living crap out of them. Pesky upper mids? I duct tape 1,247 small pieces of 2 day old rye bread to my ceiling and suddenly my system sounds EXACTLY like a concert in the Filmore West in 1972 heard while my girlfriend Shirley was attempting to braid my hair while surrounded by a "tribe" of hippies wearing feathers…just feathers...or to get the sound of Richie Haven's turquoise jewelry banging against the back of my Guild guitar I leant to him at an after concert party in 1970 Honolulu…I sat right in front of him on acid (me, not him…I assume) and to get THAT sound you have to lead a flock of quiet ducks (!) into your listening room and then gently tap your output tubes with a length of sterilized wax coated plumber's snake. Utterly worth it. |
A total of (0%) manipulation takes place in the amplifying process. By default it produces sound [objects] that appear to be in mid-air and are located (placed) back into their relative locations using the embedded information captured in the original venue.Our stuff does that too! No matter how complex the material is, the soundstage image stays absolutely **locked** in place, perfectly focused. The volume control only changes the overall size. Blumlein developed the concept back in the 1930s. |
Wolf_garcia, Secret pseudo science claims for items producing audio nirvana waste everybody's time… I could not agree more. There were a plethora of attempts by various designers (and big corporations) to generate “lifelike 3D sound” from the Carver Sonic Hologram Generator to the “signal completion” gadget. Here is an interest fact: All of those efforts (100%) were/are basically “parlor tricks” aimed at making the listener think that somehow a sound [object] has magically appeared to render itself in your listening room and sometimes coming from a side wall or even behind you. Those can be lots of fun. Here is another fact: My work is the exact opposite. A total of (0%) manipulation takes place in the amplifying process. By default it produces sound [objects] that appear to be in mid-air and are located (placed) back into their relative locations using the embedded information captured in the original venue. It does this effortlessly and with massive precision and focus. Roger |
Just a note about "things in the actual world," my stepson's Cambridge MA based company developed systems to pull conversations out of loud environments, and won an Emmy for it (it had been utilized in the "Most Dangerous Catch" series). Smart kids over there. Secret pseudo science claims for items producing audio nirvana waste everybody's time…talk to people who do the real work as they're much more interesting. |
Roger wrote, "geoffkait, You are really an ok guy and I would love to tell you what i’m doing that involves (you know what) but nah.... If I did tell you - you would actually agree with me and we would be on the same page. I think I have said too much already. I have too much legal stuff going on right now. I hope you understand." Oh, I understand, all right. :-) Looking on the positive side of all of this at least you didn’t say if you told me you’d have to kill me. Good luck with all the legal stuff. Wink wink Your quantum bro', Geoff Kait machina dynamica advanced audio conceits |
geoffkait, You are really an ok guy and I would love to tell you what i'm doing that involves (you know what) but nah.... If I did tell you - you would actually agree with me and we would be on the same page. I think I have said too much already. I have too much legal stuff going on right now. I hope you understand. Roger |
Roger wrote, "geoffkait, With all due respect - I don’t owe anyone an explanation for anything I do. You can’t get passed the basics of my concept of constant velocity amplification even after trying 6 different ways to explain it. It obviously will never compute. 700 db doesn’t have to be scary." I actually understood your argument concerning speed of sound in air. I never said it was impossible or any such thing. Although I can certainly understand your defensive posture, I actually might be the only one who did understand your explanation from what I can tell. Also, just for the record I’m not the one who challenged you on the 700 dB thing. That happens to have been someone else. What I did challenge on was your name dropping of the fancy expression quantum mechanics, which although you continue to use it you have failed rather conspicuously to explain what you mean. "Here is another fact - you can’t win this argument." I wouldn’t bet on it. Besides, I’m not really sure you know exactly what argument you have with me. ;-) "You have a very rigid mindset. Maybe the tin foil hat is blocking it." i think you are probably reacting a little defensively. I have been designing quantum mechanical products for years. Besides I’m allergic to tin. "I sincerely wish you luck." Back at ya! geoff kait machina dynamica we do artificial atoms right |
geoffkait, With all due respect - I don't owe anyone an explanation for anything I do. You can't get passed the basics of my concept of constant velocity amplification even after trying 6 different ways to explain it. It obviously will never compute. 700 db doesn't have to be scary. Here is another fact - you can't win this argument. You have a very rigid mindset. Maybe the tin foil hat is blocking it. I sincerely wish you luck. Roger |
Roger wrote, "I never applied for jobs at any of those agencies - The DEA, the FBI and the DOD all used "head hunters" to find me and asked for my help based in my spotless reputation for troubleshooting and finding answers where their own people failed." Well, good for you. By the way that’s how the system works, agencies use head hunters to find people. They are always looking for people to fill slots. They can always use good schedulers or loggies or whatever. That’s the way it’s always been. Geez. Let me remind you that you still owe me some sort of explanation of the quantum physics you constantly refer to, but it looks like you’re going to high tail it out of here before you have a chance. Lol So far you have a spotless reputation for dropping cool sounding physics names like quantum mechanics and cool sounding employers if they’re the sort of thing that turns you on but avoiding any further discussion of what in Tarnation you’re talking about. Roger wrote, "I'm done." Done what? You haven't done anything yet. Geoff Kait Machina Dramatica Men Who Stare at Goats no goats no glory |
geoffkait, ..although to be fair it appears you worked on logistics (deployment) or some such thing. You were a scheduler, I take it.Is that your final guess? More to the topic - The FBI came to me, again based on my experience in the field of amplification, to develop a custom amplifier they could use to extract a very low level conversation recorded in an extremely loud night club environment. With all their resources, their lab gear could not dig out the conversation which was all but drowned out by the night club. My custom amp revealed someone hiring a "hit" man to take out a mob boss. I was able to provide them with clear evidence to allow the successful prosecution of the case. You’re not the only one who ever worked in GovernmentI never applied for jobs at any of those agencies - The DEA, the FBI and the DOD all used "head hunters" to find me and asked for my help based in my spotless reputation for troubleshooting and finding answers where their own people failed. Sound familiar? (again) Everyone who knows me in the audio business knows I am a relentless troubleshooter - in this case I tackled sound reproduction and succeeded. Now its your turn to have a nice day. I’m done. Roger |
Roger wrote, "But wait - how could I do this without a degree? The government came to me based on my reputation and "waived" the legal requirement that you must have a degree for that position. They did not care - they knew I was capable of fixing problems that the "college boys" couldn’t figure out." The Government always waives degrees in lieu of experience. Geez. You’re not the only one who ever worked in Government, in sensitive areas, or on weapon systems, although to be fair it appears you worked on logistics (deployment) or some such thing. You were a scheduler, I take it. Geez, get a swelled head much? Maybe those guards outside your door weren’t there for the reason you believe. Yes, I'm only joking. geoff kait machina dramatica |
Roger, I am with you a 100%. The same braying mule is as annoying as a swarm of gnats and he and they are running other members away. The braying mule with all his UFO devices on his cartoon website are reflective of his continual and never ending journey thru childhood. His is the only truth, past present or the future..His speech pattern is of someone who was constantly belittled and criticised himself. And now he passes that mirror image onto others. He is jealous of others ideas their concepts and designs. His site is marked as untrustworthy and triggers malware protection. Tom |
I will be the first to admit that you guys are way over my head.
You guys have more degrees than a thermometer. You would think with the vast amount of collective knowledge just in this forum that somebody could figure out some of the hard problems. Gosh - you even know how many atoms there are in the world ! Wow. What did that get you? Well lets see - you could score big time at trivial pursuit. Unfortunately it can't be applied practically to solve real world problems. At least in audio. You don't know my background. I was a consultant to the DEA, the FBI and wrote code for the DOD to facilitate the deployment of the top weapons systems around the world. They use to have armed guards outside my office. But wait - how could I do this without a degree? The government came to me based on my reputation and "waived" the legal requirement that you must have a degree for that position. They did not care - they knew I was capable of fixing problems that the "college boys" couldn't figure out. Gee sound familiar? I have tried to be polite and share something remarkable with you. I am no genius but there is one thing I'm sure of and that is analog amplification and distortion. I own it. Roger. |
But that's avoiding the whole question. You're the one who brought it up. Hel-loo! So tell us, what is the quantum mechanics involved. I'm very interested. Seriously. Don't play hard to get. Share, share! If you don't wish to divulge top secret information just talk in code, I'll get it. ;-) geoff at Machina Dramatica |
There is no dividing line between classical physics and quantum physics. It kind of is what it is. As I already commented on subject of nanoscale things just because something is very very small doesn’t necessarily mean that quantum physics is involved. That’s why we refer to physics of atom, which I am pretty sure just about everybody considers really really small, as atomic physics, not atomic quantum physics. Now if you were to mention something about the de Broglie limit or perhaps quantum entanglement or even quantum confinement then maybe we would have something quantum to discuss. Are you using artificial atoms? Until then, color me skeptical. Oh, you could also quote some Roger Penrose, you know, the math genius who had some kind of hallucination or epiphany or something and wrote a book, The Emperor's New Mind, in which he addresses Quantum Physics of the Mind. Is that what you’re driving at? Well, that’s different! Lol geoff kait MachinaDynamica.com we do artificial atoms right! |
almarg, Roger, I of course don’t question the innovative nature of your design, or the quality of the results. But to provide some perspective on the numbers that have been cited:Yes I know if you do the math - that's what I have too. Its a very large number. (very high voltage gain) This is why I had to resort to quantum physics. You cannot use standard components. It might seen like overkill to some but quite necessary and obvious when applied. BTW 100 billion cells in the brain relates to brain mass as does not translate into thought capacity or discernment. The ear-brain system does real time "calculations" to recreate an image in the "mind" (which has no mass). Roger |
Map man wrote, "atmasphere says phase switch may not always be audible. Geoff say it was in certain cases cited." Funny, nobody has actually been able to point to ANY errors in the Polarity Database. That being the case I suspect we’ll just have to live with 90% of audiophile CD recordings being polarity inverted and press onward. Hell, the phase anomalies in the listening room alone are sufficiently great to swamp a perfect recording, a perfect amp, perfect speakers. Many contented audiophiles are sitting right directly in the middle of a standing wave, anyway. Who’s zooming who? But getting back to the point of my bringing up polarity in the first place, can Roger’s amp really provide the "live" experience with issues of polarity and compression and room anomalies? g. kait machina dynamica |
mapman You'd think such a high precision device like that if truly possible that would cost more than a few grand.Because of the "basic" look of H-CAT (chassis, etc.) it might not win any beauty contests but you quickly realize that most of my resources were put into the circuitry and function. Roger |
Atmasphere wrote, "Because of these factors inverting the phase is often not audible. You need a purist recording; everything has to be right in order to hear it. We included the phase inversion switch on our preamps on account of the fact that its a real pain in the rear to reverse the phase at the speaker terminals for each recording!" I participated in John Curl and Bob Crump’s room a couple times at CES way back at the turn of the century and (of course) the Curl/Crump/Thompson Blowtorch preamp used in the room had a polarity switch. A very expensive one I might add. And Bob brought a lot of his own CDs with him to the show to demonstrate that polarity is audible. Very audible. Also in the room was another audio insider, Clark Johnsen, who, as you probably recall, wrote the book on absolute polarity. The CDs that Bob used for the demo were actually not purist recordings. They were good recordings but not purist recordings. Maybe you need a better polarity switch. ;-) Clark Johnsen in Positive Feedback: "For that sorry state of affairs, you can blame the commercial audio press. For whatever reason, hardly a whiff of this vital phenomenon ever appears in those precincts. Ultimate Audio, with two feature articles, became by default an exemplar of polarity awareness—quite so, as ultimate audio cannot be achieved without it! A personal disclaimer: I have often called polarity the sine qua non of correct audio practice. As author of the only book on the topic (The Wood Effect: Unaccounted Contributor to Error and Confusion in Acoustics and Audio, ISBN 0-929383-00-1), which explains everything, I naturally applaud the renewed attention. And I remember how Michael Gindi, an Ultimate Audio contributor, once toured the Stereophile Show chanting, "If you can’t hear the Wood Effect, you can’t hear!" I expect he still stands by that, though nary a peep recently." geoff kait machina dynamica |
No answer to my question yet, I duly note.The industry does not pay attention to absolute phase. As a result, 50% of all recordings might be incorrect phase. The problem you have thought is that about 99.3% of all recordings employ more than two mics, often with tracks recorded in entirely different rooms. Sometimes these tracks are in phase with the rest of the project and sometimes they are not. This can result in out of phase bass which requires in some cases a special processor when mastering LPs. Otherwise the stylus can get knocked out of the groove. This does not happen with digital of course, but the point is that there are a lot of recordings that really are not absolutely in phase or out of phase. Because of these factors inverting the phase is often not audible. You need a purist recording; everything has to be right in order to hear it. We included the phase inversion switch on our preamps on account of the fact that its a real pain in the rear to reverse the phase at the speaker terminals for each recording! |
Roger, I of course don’t question the innovative nature of your design, or the quality of the results. But to provide some perspective on the numbers that have been cited: A million is of course a 1 followed by 6 zeros. A billion is a 1 followed by 9 zeros. A trillion is a 1 followed by 12 zeros. The human brain contains approximately 100 billion cells (a 1 followed by 11 zeros), according to various references on the web. 800 db, as used to represent the ratio between two quantities of voltage or current or sound pressure level or various other variables, corresponds to 1 part in (1 followed by 40 zeros). ("Other variables" does not include power, for which 800 db corresponds to 1 part in (1 followed by 80 zeros)). As cited in various references on the web, the number of atoms in the planet Earth is roughly in the vicinity of (1 followed by 50 zeros). 1000 db, expressed as a ratio, corresponds to 1 part in (1 followed by 50 zeros), and therefore corresponds to the ratio between the number of atoms in the planet Earth and a single atom. As cited in various references on the web, the number of atoms in the known universe, extending about 13.8 billion light years in all directions, is roughly in the vicinity of (1 followed by 80 zeros). 1600 db, expressed as a ratio, corresponds to 1 part in (1 followed by 80 zeros), and therefore corresponds to the ratio between the number of atoms in the known universe and a single atom. (1000 db and 1600 db have of course not been previously cited in this discussion, but I include those figures to provide additional perspective on your 800 db figure). Regards, -- Al |
almarg, I agree with Ralph’s comments in that thread to the effect that the claim of "velocity countermeasures" ("countermeasures" meaning "corrections," as I understand it) in the area of 700 or 800 db seems nonsensical.What do you suppose is the percentage of errors in an actual living ear-brain connection? Parts per million, billion, trillion? Every single time I added another 100 db to the velocity detectors what do you think happened? A) didn’t notice any difference. B) far superior projection. Most designers can’t even contain that much raw gain in one place without it going up in smoke. It is used exclusively for the detection and preservation of velocity. I use custom devices (built at my factory) that you won’t find on the shelves at Digi-key or Mouser because nobody makes them. I had to design a special circuit board to handle the auto-focus system housed in a Faraday cage and buried in pure copper. You are welcome to your own opinions but don’t tell me it can’t be done. Its already been done. The results are self evident. The answer is B. Roger |
Atmasphere wrote, "Such a Red Herring! We don’t even know that such is even true... sheesh." what you mean "we", Kemo Sabe? Atmasphere also wrote, "Anyway, we let George hear the CD (so this was not an analog/digital thing at all) but he couldn’t make the call on that one, despite telling us initially that the room sounded fine other than being the wrong polarity. Can you see the problem?" I already explained all that. No answer to my question yet, I duly note. geoff kait machina dramatica |
Could this be a major reason why many listeners prefer analog to digital?**Such a Red Herring! We don't even know that such is even true... sheesh. Anyway, we let George hear the CD (so this was not an analog/digital thing at all) but he couldn't make the call on that one, despite telling us initially that the room sounded fine other than being the wrong polarity. Can you see the problem? I'm sure that is why he left so quickly- it must have been as obvious to him as it was to us. |
Back to the question I am now asking for the third (count ’em) time. The real question is is (two is’s in a row) George’s database correct or not? In other words do you have any evidence or even proof that he’s wrong? Forget about analog. By the way, if you read George’s page more carefully you’ll find some (I think) logic reasoning there that might substantiate the idea that analog (vinyl) and perhaps cassettes as well don’t suffer the inverting polarity nearly to the extent that digital does. In any ace he is arguing that the vinyl counterpart can often be non-inverting whereas the CD version is R. And, he goes on, this difference in polarity between digital and vinyl generally speaking, is a big reason my words why audiophiles frequently prefer analog. Makes sense, no? So here is the relevant paragraph from George’s page: "It almost goes without saying that the inverted playback of CDs greatly disadvantages them musically when compared to the non-inverted playback of their vinyl record counterparts. It should be noted that the polarity integrity of each element in the chain of a vinyl record’s recording through its playback can be determined without ever listening to it in a manner similar to that described below for digital media, but is much easier to accomplish for vinyl records than for CDs, because a record’s musical content is laid down continuously in its groove, which is fundamentally different from the discontinuous way the digital representation of a CD’s musical content is laid down in its track. Could this be a major reason why many listeners prefer analog to digital?** Sometimes there are additional reasons, that although substantially less significant, might influence some listener’s preference of vinyl records over digital media that you may read about below.* So, even if you don’t buy into the problem of polarity being as big as George claims, say you think it’s 50% or whatever and perhaps you also don’t particularly care to check the polarity of every single CD and mark it Out Of Polarity like some people I know. Nevertheless, and as unfortunate as this may be, since absolute polarity is also an issue with (some) digital playback electronics, and I know that’s true because I had a CD player that was polarity inverting, unless the True Audiophile has some means to determine if in fact his system is in the correct absolute polarity, then at least 50% of the time he will be hearing the music in Reverse Polarity, no? Furthermore, even if one were to be really stubborn or in denial or whatever and say, Geez, I don’t think any CDs are Reverse Polarity, guess what? In that case ALL CDs will be heard as R since the system with an inverting component in it reverses polarity, so you wind up with the music out of polarity. An ordinary man has no means of deliverance. cheerios, geoff kait |
Atmosphere wrote, "Well it was easy to hear on our system how the LP was better; and since LPs have greater bandwidth than CDs, pretty easy to discount his comment when he said ’you can’t hear it on analog recordings’." But that’s not what he said based on your original description of the event. What he said - or at least implied in your comment - was he didn’t listen to analog, only CDs so he wasn’t sure he could hear R compared to N for vinyl. He didn’t say NOBODY could hear polarity on analog recordings. That would be pretty silly, no? Getting back to his database of N and R recordings for a second, I will ask again, do you see any mistakes in the polarity of the recordings George listed? Whether he could or couldn’t hear the difference at your room I consider somewhat irrelevant for reasons I already explained. geoff kait |
I should also point out that George’s criterion for determining which is better N or R for a given recording is that it’s one that sounds more like "live" music must be N. Roger’s criterion is the same, I.e., "live" music, for what his amp sounds like compared to amplifier X.Well it was easy to hear on our system how the LP was better; and since LPs have greater bandwidth than CDs, pretty easy to discount his comment when he said 'you can't hear it on analog recordings'. The fact of the matter is that you can. But to do so, the recording can't have more than 2 or 3 mikes (and the 3rd mike, which will be the one in the middle ala Mercury recordings, had better be phased properly). That is why we have the inversion switch BTW and we've had it since the inception of the preamp in 1989.
We had broken-in electronics, as well as broken in loudspeakers. In this case I would not use a strawman argument for something, especially when you don't like them used on yourself: George made it quite clear upon entering our room that he could hear the difference. The funny thing is we could hear the difference on both the LP and CD (Canto is a 2-mic recording), and it was correct the first time when he came in. But despite that, George came had his own confidence; we entertained his requests without rancor but he just got up and left as fast as he could. |
Thanks, Geoff. I read through that page, and as I interpret it he's basically referring to how his design minimizes or eliminates phase jitter and other unwanted phase shifts and timing errors. Still not sure how that has anything to do with the speed of sound in air. Also, I agree with Ralph's comments in that thread to the effect that the claim of "velocity countermeasures" ("countermeasures" meaning "corrections," as I understand it) in the area of 700 or 800 db seems nonsensical. I suspect those numbers would equate to resolution that is even in conflict with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The universe itself isn't that precise. Regards, -- Al |
