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.
I haven’t been into audio long enough to associate this term with any brand. When I researched my Hegel H390, I encountered mentions of its tendency to "move the music along" and once in my system, this was indeed apparent. It was not only noticeably different from other integrateds I’d owned but also from the much-more-costly systems owned by two friends -- both long-time audiophiles. Perhaps PRaT is just a marketing term but so far I haven’t encountered another that appears to be a more appropriate description of this particular phenomenon. OK -- "Boogie Factor" -- maybe. But that’s not very specific, Because I’ve discovered rhythmic engagement is crucial to my listening enjoyment, the fact that this "propulsive" capacity was repeatedly mentioned in connection with the Hegel definitely piqued my curiosity. However, I recognize that each of us has different priorities when it comes to sonic attributes so it's understandable that this capacity might not matter so much to you or others, here. |
You say when you "first heard... [you] assumed..." Does this mean you have subsequently clarified it for yourself through direct experience or. . . ?
|
OP Perhaps it comes down to the ability of the amplifier to respond rapidly and fully to the current demands of the signal. This is most prominent when dealing with transients. Indeed, for so called PRaT speakers must be essential to bring out the pace rhythm and timing… the electronics certainly can’t do it on its own… there needs to be a synergy. N
|
| Post removed |
Hmm, it is indeed a very simple track. But, the PR&Tty kid is able to cry his way into the souls of analytical old men.
Mk.Gee - Are you looking up https://youtu.be/DxdKr5PmlPw?si=SRj4flzUpOR4WXPZ
PR&T ...whatever....
|
@audiom3 Understand the term 'sarcasm' much? Yes, there is no such thing as PRaT in a live concert because you are listening to live instruments. PRaT refers only to the reproduction of music with a focus on how accurately the leading and trailing edges of notes or sound waves are reproduced, which may not match the original live performance. |
@ghdprentice You're welcome! Yes, 40 years of being a drummer certainly doesnt hurt. Knowledge of 'good' sound quality? The only parameter with good SQ, is realistic or accurate. A cymbal (keeping it simple) that sounds compressed (ie squished dynamics), is not natural or accurate. No such thing as PRaT in a live concert. The band either has it, or they dont. If they do, people get into it. If they dont, they get booed off the stage in extreme situations. |
| Post removed |
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. ;-) |
Herb’s latest and recent reporting on an actively configured vintage horn/tube setup, a rarity (i.e.: active) with this kind of setup, where he goes:
Notice the inclusion of the more layman’s term "boogie-factor" as a variation of PRaT, the latter of which seems to have been described around here as a somewhat over-complicated and esoteric attainment to come by through years of audiophile cultivation and final revelation(?). I can only assume that for those it’s a rare (and late) trait to have experienced, not because it’s the Sasquatch of audio qualities but simply due to setup choices that didn’t bring out the boogie-factor (sorry, PRaT) in a prevalent fashion. Oh, I can imagine seeing PRaT entering what has otherwise been a stale audio serving through years being something of revelation when it adds up to the other qualities that has been meticulously harnessed over time, but making it a matter of an "enlightened progression" over decades is just going off the rails in my book. Maybe to some it’s the other way ’round; they attained PRaT long ago and earlier in their audiophile journey, and only later added the perhaps more conventional audiophile traits of imaging, resolution, airiness, balance of presentation, etc. As is I can definitely attest to the importance of boogie-factor/PRaT as a vital sonic ingredient, on top of many other things. |
Ah, Chris Rea. First heard "The Road to Hell" in a clapped-out army truck descending into the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, with truck wrecks littering the landscape. Later I was MC for a conference and had a copy with me. Played it as attendees drifted in, the morning after the big dinner. A colleague rushed up: "the sound system is broken". All he could hear was raindrops and windscreen wipers. Then the first crescendo hit. Chris really cares about the quality of sound, and all his recordings are studio-made. I heard him live in Melbourne and he was absolutely mortified that he could not get the exact sound he wanted. He never toured the USA |
@panzrwagn "Overall, I believe PRaT is fundamentally about controlling and minimizing stored energy within a system. It is the release of that stored energy that smears the sound, robbing the music of PRaT." I think you’re right on the mark based on my listening experiences. Two categories of components that seem to inhibit PRaT from my perspective are:
Both store a good amount of energy from what I know: high mass turntables are slow to release vibration and higher power amplifiers need larger power supplies to handle the bigger current demands. @bolong Agreed with your statement that "It requires a clean start and stop of a transient". I agree that I don't think it has anything to do with timing per se, but rather having sharp leading and trailing edges for when a sound wave starts and stops. |
PRAT is Brat. @soix have you ever listened to a Naim system from source to speakers? Or Naim electronics with ATC speakers? I got back into the hifi hobby about 20 years ago. I was traveling for work at the time and would visit brick and mortar stores all across the US, and I listened to all kinds of systems from budget to quite exotic. There were surprisingly few setups that actually moved me. One that did was a Naim CD player and Nait XS integrated amplifier with Naim floor standing speakers. Not the last word in detail or power, but it just sounded so incredibly “right”. The music had momentum and flow, and yes it made me want to tap my toe. I later decided that is what people are talking about when they say “PRAT”, and wondered what engineering trick or emphasis was employed to achieve it. I could have listened to that system all day. I had an opportunity to hear some very high end Naim gear at the time, and while the detail, lack of distortion, spatial representation and power of the music were clearly better, the music seemed a bit more sterile compared to their more entry level gear. (Naim’s newest higher end gear has it all however.) I have thought about what I consider to be “PRAT” a lot since then, and have been chasing it in my systems, while also trying to achieve what I consider convincing imaging, dynamics and tone. If you don’t “hear” PRAT in yours or others systems, but you are enjoying what you’re hearing, I wouldn’t worry about it. I enjoyed listening to recorded music immensely for years before becoming aware of PRAT, but now I can’t un-hear it. Someone mentioned Tony Rice previously. I find his work with David Grisman’s Quintet and Grisman’s dawg music in general from the late 70s and early 80s to really swing and be loaded with PRAT. The recording by MOKAVE called Afrique is another great recording to test your system’s PRAT capabilities. YMMV kn |
@bolong ...Re Cha-cha cha...."Fascinating, but you can't dance to it..." Dense....dwarf star alloy level, if speed read you will bruise one's brain... MHO, and I'm stuck with it. ;) @immatthewj ... It's been and will continue for quite awhile, an Experience. Yes, back to PRaT falls... ;) Hey, if what you listen to doesn't make you 'move' in some fashion, physically and/or emotionally, in yet another mho, you're listening to the wrong stuff. Ultimately, the means that you apply to create that grand illusion for as long as you love or tolerate it despite the bugs ignored to do so.... ...IS the Point. *blink* PRaTically guaranteed .... ;) 'ciao, J |
I've posted that in my opinion PRaT relates to the time domain, not the frequency domain that we usually talk about. To the person that never listens to symphonic music, I would ask if that extends to films which use such music to underscore the drama? Classical music almost always does have a beat, it is just not as in-your-face as some other genres and can be very complex and rewarding if you get it. A big orchestra faces a big timing problem though - the visual clues from the conductor travel at the speed of light (near instantaneous) but sound is much slower. It takes almost 1/10th of a second to travel 30-meters. The Sydney Opera House Concert Hall stage is about 19-meters wide and is small for a major concert venue, because of the concrete shell surrounding it, although it is comparable with the Berliner Phiharmoniker I pity the organist sitting high towards the roof looking in his rear-vision mirror down at the conductor in the distance! Nevertheless conductors like John Wilson can make a good orchestra rock ... |
@asvjerry , straying from OP's topic, I am happy to read that you were spared from the major devastation. It was horrific to see on television, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to actually experience losing everything. PRaT takes a back door to that. Back on topic, after following this thread for a bit now, as nearly as I can ascertain, PRaT seems to be in the ear of the beholder. If it gets your toe tapping it has PRaT? In that case, although my system is hardly 'end game', I've been listening to and experiencing PRaT for quite some time without realizing it. |
I hear you buddy you can not hear PRaT if your focus is on the beat that everybody else is following for proper timing. Possibly you hear everything else not supplying the beat as being one or two steps behind the beat that is being generated. Drummers are the foundation if they are off chasing something else everything is just going to fall apart but they do disguise their metronome by laying down some cymbal decay to cover their tracks and fills to punctuate what everybody else is doing to disguise it. |
@stuartk
Thx for posting a link to this video. I found it fascinating. The presenter did a great job. |
I can definitely feel the toe-tapping quality in the Bombino and Chris Rea songs. At the same time, I can't disagree that Chris Rea was garbage, so it seems PRAT and crappy music are not mutually exclusive. I can feel no PRAT in the Stevie Ray Vaughn piece nor in thriller, however. Considering that PRAT clearly manifested through the diminutive speakers of my Pixel phone, I would venture that PRAT is very real but that it can safely be ignored as a selection criterium for audio equipment. PRAT lives in the music, not the system, and I can't imagine equipment so bad it can't reproduce something a smartphone can. |
PRaT, in my book, also has clean delineated ’plosives. part of the package. It requires a clean start and stop of a transient, with no out of phase smear or lag in the signal additions that are unwanted, which would cover up the fine aspects of the plosive or transient. the requirement is one of a clean wideband low distortion and high signal to noise ratio signal reproduction. That’s what it takes to get a plosive right. Live amplified vs reproduced. the trick is, of course, to get the reproduction to sound like the live and amplified. When all that is working, we can naturally and natively extract or witness ’PRaT’ in the amplified and reproduced signal.. |
I agree that PRaT is primarily a subject term that's used to describe a feeling/experience where you find yourself sucked into the music and absent mindedly tapping your toe. I have experienced it with my system on certain recordings. From a system perspective, I think that some components tend to excel in the frequencies ranges that can be correlated with the desire to "boogie" so more often bring it out from recordings compared to other components. |
PRaT is experiential, and as such takes some experience to hear - or not hear. It's pretty clear it does not exist in any one domain, like frequency, or phase, per se. The Large Advent is great example - beautifully voiced, extended well controlled bass, but PRaT? Not so much. My explanation is hysteresis - the delay between input and output. Hysteresis may vary due to a lot of factors, amplifier damping, a function of output series resistance, including the amp, speaker cabling, crossover series inductor (one reason internally amplified speakers tend to sound 'quicker') and overall speaker alignment. Acoustic suspension speakers rely on compreesion of trapped cabinet air for damping, and are as a result inherently slower and less linear to stop, resulting in a smear that doesn't show up in frequency response graphs. By comparison, full range drivers, for all their other limitations and freed from those driver control constraints tend to have that ineffable 'liveness' that they are known for. Likewise, much of the difference between MM, MI, and MC phono carts can be attributed to their inductance, with MM carts having 10X the series inductance - and resulting hysteresis - of most MC carts, with MI like Grado and Soundsmith falling in between. As for amplifiers, the ability to control and dissipate the woofers back EMF (the 'brakes') is likely their major contribution to PRaT. Overall, I believe PRaT is fundamentally about controlling and minimizing stored energy within a system. It is the release of that stored energy that smears the sound, robbing the music of PRaT. |
You might check out this analysis, exploring how Little Wing in fact incorporates both straight time and swing, which is why it’s deceptively difficult to get right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uGDYs__ZP8
|
That Chris Rea song is garbage. Hard to find PRaT in garbage. It’s got everything that made music suck in the 80s. Bombino is a better example. It still seems like no one can come up with a definition but plenty of examples of what they think it is. Seems like it’s more a quality of the song and whether the system can reproduce those qualities. If that’s the case then shouldn’t there be some way to quantify what makes the system do that? Whether it’s transients or decay or midrange quality or phase coherent drivers or even room treatments. Basically something like if you want a system that can reproduce PRaT then it needs these n number of qualities. |
False orthodoxy is prone to pop up in high end audio, and PRaT is one such. I know what it is--and have successfully ignored it for decades. Nevertheless, this is an amusing thread. I like that it brought out a couple drummers. My favorite comment: "...it was hard to hum and toe tap to Schoenberg" Mrs. Schoenberg would beg to differ.... |
