What exactly is PRaT???


Ok, it’s like this thing and is associated with “toe tapping” and such.  I confess, I don’t get it.  Apparently companies like Linn and Naim get it, and I don’t and find it a bit frustrating.  What am I missing?  I’m a drummer and am as sensitive as anyone to timing and beats, so why don’t I perceive this PRaT thing that many of you obviously do and prize as it occurs in stereo systems?  When I read many Brit reviews a lot of attention goes to “rhythm” and “timing” and it’s useless to me and I just don’t get it.  If someone can give me a concrete example of what the hell I’m not getting I’d sincerely be most appreciative.  To be clear, enough people I greatly respect consider it a thing so objectively speaking it’s either something I can’t hear or maybe just don’t care about — or both.  Can someone finally define this “thing” for me cause I seriously wanna learn something I clearly don’t know or understand.  

soix

@richardbrand 

Classical music most certainly benefits from a system with PRaT.  In that case, I call it the "air-conducting factor." ;-)  Just the other day I listened to a marvelous stereo broadcast of Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony performing Strauss's "Don Juan" at Tanglewood.  If that performance doesn't get you out of your chair and waving your arms, nothing will.;-) So much joyful swing in the rhythms and phrasing!  I want to hear Furtwangler pounce on Brahms, or Rosenthal turn Debussy into a dance date, or Klemperer hammer away at Beethoven, just as much as I want to hear Basie bounce or Goodman swing. ;-)

@dogeardaudio

As a teenager I was air-conducting (might even have been to Pierre Monteux’s Elgar) when I accidentally hooked a vase on the mantlepiece and hurled it across the room. Mind you, Georg Solti (the Screaming Skull) got so carried away, he stabbed himself with his own baton ...