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From now on, when I go shopping for new equipment, I will listen and pick the component whose sound I enjoy the most, accuracy be damned. When I tweak my system, I will adjust for the most pleasing sound, not the flattest response. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, I only have to enjoy the music.

I'll quote old Artie Dudley (from his "As We See It" in the 2007 Buyer's Guide):

"If you can't have a good time in your pursuit of a hobby -- especially one such as this, which can be a bit on the expensive side -- then what the hell's the point...? Live it up. Have a little fun, for God's sake."

A great topic.

Mr. Holt opines that accuracy is foremost. If it doesn't sound like what was recorded it is not high fidelity.

On the other hand, we are seeking an emotional connection with the music. Is not the best system that which best forms this connection?

I guess it comes down to whether one wants his photographs to be absolutely pure and accurate or whether they should be warm and rosy.

I like both, making me a partial heretic. Thus, ideally I would have one system that is ruthlessly wonderfully accurate and another that is just simply fun.

I would second the recommendation for a study of AD's writings of the last few years. You might also try a little Dick Olsher and possibly some Dr. Gizmo. (http://www.positive-feedback.com/pfbackissues/0705/gizmoabducted.7n5.html) Your nudge toward conversion might come in the form of a review of a SET as you discover the two objectives are not necessarily exclusive - unless, of course, you always consider a review of any SET as a description of undesirable colorations.

Reading "another magazine" last month I was struck by the disconnect between writers. Jonathan Valin's comments regarding the TW Acustic Raven AC-3 turntable include the AD sounding sentences, "As I understand the word, a coloration is something external that is added to the sound or something internal that is subtracted from it. The Raven/Graham is doing neither. It isn't 'inventing' added harmonic/dynamic details; it is pulling this low level information from the grooves in a way that other turntables and tonearms simply don't. The fact that this information generally makes instruments 'sound good' - make that 'sound great' - should not, I think, be held against it. If there's no room for gorgeous (and please note, very lifelike) tonality in this hobby, then the heck with it."

A little more than sixty pages on in this issue, HP takes the Scaena Loudspeaker System into his workshop. This is a speaker system which has an "overriding aim ... (of) the creation of a high degree of accuracy in the frequency and time domain, and a new level of audio resolution." Describing the experience HP states, "I understand that this system proved, for those who got a chance to hear it early on, a bit too revealing of electronic colorations or 'too cool' for those who have grown accustomed to the present-day mania for big speaker systems of great warmth and midbass romanticism or enhanced 'hifi' thrills. It ought to go without saying that realism should trump romanticism, but these are difficult days for the industry and for reviewers."

I would partly assume your future direction should be guided by your reaction to those two passages and your understanding of "realism".

I've also noticed the word "holistic" occurring with more frequency in recent reviews in Stereophile.

Personally, I have found little use for components that force me to turn off my system or severely limit my choice of recordings. My underlying goal is a system that makes more music accessible rather than less. I find "accuracy" to be elusive as I search the record stacks while "musical" seems to flow naturally from a wider selection of discs.

I suppose your decision will come down in part to what is in your library. If you have more Mahler than Mendelsohn, you might still prefer the more accurate system that can pin you to your seat (if the recording is excellent) rather than transport you to another locale if the music is performed well. As long as you don't throw out the accurate bits to gain the larger whole, there should be no problems.

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Armed with this new realization, I must now make a decision.

Easy - continue to aim for accuracy for the reason you stated (which I agree with), but buy a nice parametric EQ to tweak whatever you don't like. EQ is the only coloring tool you really need, and a good one doesn't have to cost a whole lot.

--Ethan

www.rane.com DEQ 60L

I gotta say: Maybe I'm not much of an audiophile either; I've always gone for the hi-fi set ups that let me enjoy my music to the max, but accuracy always plays a very important yet secondary role. So I guess a certain level of fidelity has always been important to me; I think there's a point where the system is accurate enough to let the musical message shine through. And once I feel like it's at a level where I don't notice any real errors (and once I think I'm hearing everything I need to hear in a recording) you can bet I want to experience the most musical thrills possible. So, maybe for me the two kinda go together? But the type of sound I enjoy definitely comes first.

Hi Bert,

I am wondering if our definitions of accuracy are the same. I know some who think accuracy as sterile, which I do not believe.

I thought accuracy was being at the actual event(?), was emotional as the instruments in the venue are emotional.

Am I wrong and need to adjust my definition?

Steve

With almost all performances being electronically presented, what is our reference?

Mounds.

Almond Joy.

One of my rules of life (almost a koan):

Look back on the choices you've made in your love life.

How many of those choices have lead to a currently fulfilling relationship?

Probably only one, three at the outside.

Now, run some numbers.

Odds are, you have had more relationships that didn't work out to the present than those which have.

You are, therefore, fallible. (In fact, maybe more likely to be wrong than right.)

If you strive for accuracy, you are likely to fail.

If you strive for enjoyment, you are likely to fail.

Your decision then becomes, which style of failure most becomes you?

So, do what you want. Listen as you like. Buy as you please. But, never forget, you are probaly as apt to change as the weather.

Therefore, party on. Just make sure that you never consider any statement or audio experience to be cast in stone, 'cause at any given point in time, you are almost certainly wrong.

The cool part is that by knowing that, you may be able to enjoy the present moment even more.

All is fleeting, eh?

To steal an old quote, one of my vinyl sayings: "I know this stylus is already broken, therefore I enjoy it all the more."

Cheers.

In vino audio veritas.

Many excellent thoughts. Below is a small collection that triggered more thoughts.

Cyclebrain: "With almost all performances being electronically presented, what is our reference?"

This highlights the differences in basic perspective that we have as a group. I believe it is relatively easy, and fully possible, to accurately recreate a performance that was originally amplified. If the original was already sent through amplification and played through speakers, a home audio system with speakers should do a good job recreating this event. Speakers are good at imitating speakers.

OTOH, recreating the sound of unamplified acoustic instruments is vastly more difficult. They transmit sound in ways fundamentally different from speakers. There are also a vast multitude of subtleties that our sound reproduction systems do not even get close to replicating.

As it is rare for me to attend a performance where anything is amplified I suspect I look for somewhat different qualities in a system than those that listen to amplified music. For example, I am very sensitive to accurate timbre. I will happily give up bass slam for timbre and harmonic complexity. I will trade reproducing the last octave for the ability to recreate an acoustic space and note decays and reverb trails. For others, these tradeoffs are anathema I'm sure.

Steve: "I thought accuracy was being at the actual event(?), was emotional as the instruments in the venue are emotional."

Bertdw: " I think an accurate system (including the listening room) would produce vibrations at one's eardrum that are an exact analog of the signal on the recording."

I agree with Steve that this should be the ultimate goal, beginning with the recording engineer and proceeding down the reproduction chain. However, I think Bertdw is correct that this is the most we can hope for and all that we can accomplish given that we have no control how the recording was made.

Bertdw: "I don't think an equalizer will produce the qualities I'm looking for. Ethan, do you believe tonal balance is the only form of coloration that matters?"

I fully agree, there are many colorations. Those systems that I have that are simply beautiful - but not necessarily accurate were not that way simply through basic frequency modifications from "neutral". There is more going on.

Buddha: "Your decision then becomes, which style of failure most becomes you?"

The wise Buddha. Audio is compromise. Choose those compromises that please you.

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Jan, thanks for your suggestions, but I gave up on tubes years ago. Call me lazy, but they're a little bit of a bother. I once had a tube die and take out the fuse in my amp, right when I was trying to show off my system to a new audiophriend. And please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing a 200 watt SET amp. I love to be shaken by the low notes. Mahler may require lots of power, but I think Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony deserves to be cranked, too!

No, sorry, you've mistaken my intent. My references to Gizmo and Terra Triode are merely suggestions on how to think outside of "accuracy" as a measurement of ... what? Harmonic distortion? Flat frequency response? I don't know since I seem to think of accuracy as tone color, space and dynamics. Is that not also a path to accuracy?

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Can accuracy have two definitions? That doesn't sound accurate to me, Steve! I think an accurate system (including the listening room) would produce vibrations at one's eardrum that are an exact analog of the signal on the recording. Could this make a lesser recording sound more pleasant, more like being at the original acoustic event?

Of course accuracy can have more than one defining quality. Does that not make for more than one definition? Or just more than one defining term? If you have temporal acuity without timbral accuracy, what do you have? Not much I would say. I would think you first must lay out what "accuracy" means for you and then explore the options available.

I don't believe exciting my eardrum in an accurate replication of the concert hall is possible at the present time since all systems and rooms introduce their own signature which overlays the original signal. Can a drum reproduced through my system move my eardrum in the exact same fashion as when it is heard in Meyerson Symphony Hall? I don't see how that's possible. My ears are not in the position of the microphones and my room comfortably seats no more than three or four. I would assume to have a far better chance of making my eardrums quiver in exact replication of the original event if I used headphones and not speakers. But that brings up yet another departure from reality since an entire orchestra cannot fit inside my head.

Now, if you ask me whether a particular recording can accurately excite my emotions and recall of an event, that's a far easier task to fulfill. At the present time, nothing I have found can completely transport me to the Meyerson each night or back in time to Sun Records studio when the Million Dollar Quartet ruled. I can, however, recreate in my mind what it was like to be in those places at the time of a particular recording. I think if you read JA's account of his experience with the PSB speaker in this month's Stereophile, that is all that this reasonably "accurate" and resolving speaker can do for him. He must use his recall of the event to determine accuracy in his recording. Don't you do exactly the same thing when you make decisons regarding your present concept of accuracy? While total accuracy can remain a goal of high end audio, we are a long way from achieving that goal and at the present time I will settle for those bits of accuracy that make the music most interesting to me.

Think philosophically and not literally.

Also there is no need for a 200 watt SET. It is not how much power you have on hand but how much the system makes of the first watt. After that the next 199 are pure gravy and mostly unhealthy for the music. Know where you want to end up and choose a system that gets you there. I have a difficult time when I think of speakers that require a 200 watt amplifier only to slough off 99% of that energy as wasted heat.

Thanks, for the replies all. I agree trying to get as close to live as possible. Personally I try to attend live unamplified events and listen to live unamplified instruments.

Using live, unamplified events is tough, but it seems to me that amplifying those events adds another variable to deal with, making life even more difficult. Just my opinion.

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Sorry Jan, I replied before I read your last post. But what am I to do if I can't find a speaker that sounds good to me on that first watt?

Twenty five years ago I would have said you were in a pickle and I would have mostly agreed with you considering what was available on the US market. Today I would say you haven't listened through enough speakers.

I think of Gizmo as a tour guide. Pointing out this item of interest and that curiousity as you put together the pieces in your own mind about what, for lack of a better word, "realism" means to you. I never thought he was not about accuracy but he was not about the same accuracy you and I grew up on. In their own way writers such as AD, DO and Gizmo are doorkeepers who open a portal to another dimension. If you are at the point where you are questioning your concepts of how you've put together a system for the last number of years, there are no better places to begin your exploration of what someone else's concept of accurate are than those who've resided beyond that door for a number of years.

I don't own an SET though I do have a little six watt Italian T amp that I enjoy from time to time. For years I stayed with my 82dB LS3/5a's which I can still enjoy. That didn't stop me from listening to live music and thinking about what else is possible. I think it's healthy to step back and question what you have done forever.

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Ethan, do you believe tonal balance is the only form of coloration that matters?

There are two basic types of coloration - frequency response changes and distortion. Reducing the "harsh" range between 2 and 4 KHz makes music sound smoother and more pleasant, unless there's already too little energy in that range. Likewise for boosting the "fullness" range around 100 Hz. And some people prefer a little distortion, hence the popularity of tube gear and vinyl records.

Personally, I'd rather have accuracy, to hear what the producers and recording engineers intended. They listen on accurate systems when making mixing decisions, and that's my preference too. I want to hear what they heard while mixing.

--Ethan

Except for the fact that vinyl and tubes get the leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships across better than many to most solid state amps,and thus tend to sound more correct to a learned ear. Alot of such a remark is dependent on the given manufacturer and the speakers, etc it is teamed with. Solid state amps that are well designed can do well, as well as any good performing tube amp. The tale of these 4 technologies ( digital/analog, tube/SS) does not show up well in linear weighted measurement systems.

Pardon the paraphrasing, but...calling tubes and vinyl 'inherently wrong' and subject to the being a 'pair of rose colored glasses' donned by the given person is really not a good way of getting the ear and attention of a discerning person.

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But it's hard not to plan for the future. That's where we'll spend the rest of our lives.

"...but the future's not even HERE yet!"

Firesign Theatre, "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus"

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There are two basic types of coloration - frequency response changes and distortion. --Ethan

I would argue that there is only one type of coloration - distortion. Any change of the original signal, be it frequency response, harmonics, reveberation time or some other yet to be discovered parameter is a form of distortion.

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Except for the fact that vinyl and tubes get the leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships across better than many to most solid state amps,and thus tend to sound more correct to a leaned ear.

Interesting. Is this leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships advantage claim obtained by measurement or something that is quantified by just listening?
I would think that a solid state amplifier with it's wider bandwidth, greater slew rate and better phase linearity would have a better transient response and timing.
Not that a good tube amp doesn't have something to offer.
I just don't think that leading edge response and timing is it.
So what is it then? I wish I knew.

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But it's hard not to plan for the future. That's where we'll spend the rest of our lives.

"...but the future's not even HERE yet!"

Firesign Theatre, "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus"

Man, I've lived in the past, and I'll tell ya, the future ain't what it used to be.

But, as long as we are talking about the future, I'll just steal this: Making predictions is tough, especially about the future.

OK, that's the wine talking.

Back on topic...

The "distortion" product that bothers me most is in the placing the arrival of all the sonic info into the same time frame.

I can forgive almost anything, but if there is a time smear, I get sonic A.D.D.

I'm at the age where I can do a meta analysis of myself, and I find I definitely tend toward full range drivers or speaker set-ups that focus on getting the time alignment right.

JGH used to say that if a speaker first got the midrange right, good things would proceed from there. For me, it's the ability to get all the parts of the sound (even if it's only mediocre) to me all at the same time.

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JGH used to say that if a speaker first got the midrange right, good things would proceed from there. For me, it's the ability to get all the parts of the sound (even if it's only mediocre) to me all at the same time.

Consider how any speaker goes about getting the midrange "right" - or not - and I think you'll see there's still sage wisdom in aiming for the middle and working your way out as the budget allows. Any full range driver gets the midrange correct in part by being time and phase coherent from the fundamental through the top harmonic the driver can reproduce. That would make at least seven of the ten octaves we concern ourself with also time and phase coherent. Stick a cap or inductor in between two dissimilar driver surfaces and possibly connect one out of phase to compensate for phase shift resulting from what you just placed in line and things aren't going to be the same as not having any of that happen. Yeah, a lot of people don't hear it but some do and they buy full range speakers of some sort. Then they figure out how to get deep bass from that driver which is a lot easier today than it was a few decades ago when SDFR's were less common.

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Interesting. Is this leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships advantage claim obtained by measurement or something that is quantified by just listening?
I would think that a solid state amplifier with it's wider bandwidth, greater slew rate and better phase linearity would have a better transient response and timing.
Not that a good tube amp doesn't have something to offer.
I just don't think that leading edge response and timing is it.
So what is it then? I wish I knew.

Someone here can tell me I'm wrong but I've always felt tubes do the "start/stop" thing better than most solid state amplifiers. And it would seem transistors should have a better chance at getting this right. But when I see measurements on solid state gear that "sounds tube-like" they tend to have distortion components more similar to a good tube amp. Both the tube and solid state amplifier possessing good "tube-like" start/stop qualities have low order harmonics which tend to settle down very quickly with few if any high order harmonic addditions.

We are accustomed to seeing this distortion product laid out on the horizontal axis of a graph with the highest peaks at the left of the graph and not much to the right. What if that line were turned on its end and became the rise time of the signal? If that were the case a tube-like amplifier's signature would be a very smooth transistion from start to stop through most of its path. On the other hand the typically jagged distortion graph of a more "transistor-like" amplifier would have almost a saw tooth rise time displayed from start to stop as the additional high order components were injected in the signal path.

If you then increased the resolution of the line following the rise time of the signal, you would more plainly see just how much the additional harmonic distortion components alter the edge of the "start/stop" line. Once again, as JGH claimed, it is not the T.H.D. that counts, it's how much of each component goes into that number - and possibly were it falls in the development of the signal's path from start to stop. In the case of the "tube-like" amplifier you would have a distortion product that would enter with a wiggle at the very start of the signal's rise time and then essentially disappear. When looking at the solid state amplifier you would see the jagged edge of a less than straight path from start to stop. And, of course, the same would hold true on the declining edge of the signal path which would account (in some part) for the better trailing edge information retrieval of a good tube amplifier.

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Except for the fact that vinyl and tubes get the leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships across better than many to most solid state amps,and thus tend to sound more correct to a learned ear.

Interesting. Is this leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships advantage claim obtained by measurement or something that is quantified by just listening?
I would think that a solid state amplifier with it's wider bandwidth, greater slew rate and better phase linearity would have a better transient response and timing.
Not that a good tube amp doesn't have something to offer.
I just don't think that leading edge response and timing is it.
So what is it then? I wish I knew.

Pardon this rant..but here it comes. This should help :

The problem is that 99.9999% of the measurements in audio are linear weighted systems.

The ear hears by the timing, level and temporal placement of the leading edge of transients and some aspects of the length of time that the leading edge hangs around. Nearly..oh...80%, or more, of the waveform is ignored by th ear. All of the backwave, for the larger part, is ignored.

For example, a horn driver completely DESTROYS the backwave or negative portion of the waveform. Yet many people feel they are incredibly revealing. What a horn does, it takes the pressure wave..and builds it up in the throat..and then at the point where the wave is best 'pressure coupled' in mass transfer to the ambient air load... it releases that wave from the confines of the throat and sides of the horn surface body proper. This makes it, shall we say... more efficient and correct in that moment of transfer. However, that efficient transfer and high sensitivity can also make it sensitive to the larger problems of non-linear transfer involving the backwave on/during high level loading. A decent example of the leading edge being far more important - is what the horn shows itself to be.

Same for digital. The ear is hearing and discerning picosecond level distortions with regards to timing issues. Jitter. The Jitter makes a mess out of the micro transient and transient edges. Their timing and size relationship (with respects to absolute levels and with respects to one another) are screwed up. But the linear weighted numbers/tests/distortion figures don't reflect this fundamental reality.

Some folks can't stand amplifiers with very high levels of negative feedback, as negative feedback microscopically smear the leading edge of 'fast transients'. We can hear the microscopic changes in transient creation and execution due to changes in power supply loading in the given amplifier, or the microscopic changes in transient current demand/supply presented by the power cord or overall AC.

Speaker cables, speaker wire, etc, all revolve around, as a contentious item, the microscopic changes in timing and transient loading.

If you understand the aspects of the fact that 100% of what the ear hears and works with..represents about 10% or less of what a 'linear weighted-whole signal analysis' looks at ..then you'll start to 'get it'.

Oh yes. The ear/brain combination ALSO is capable of..on the fly.. taking the ENTIRE frequency range, complex signal transient 'system' or complex transient full frequency timing and loading and harmonic system..and analyzing it as a single complete set, or 'moment' in time. Or, in the case of a well trained audiophile ear/brain combination, ignoring large parts of it..to zoom in on and concentrate on a small part. We're only now JUST, I mean JUST beginning to crack the surface of that capacity, with respects to a computer based measuring system and algorithm that can hear and discern between multiple voices in a given room.

A human can hear and understand ONE person out of 500 that are screaming all at once in a larger room or party. We are only now beginning to figure out how to do that with computer based measuring and collecting systems. Think about the processing power that the average human commands, as about 99 out of 100 people can do this 'large noisy room' trick. Imagine the capacity of a TRAINED AUDIOPHILE.

If the measuring systems used today (Audio Precision for example), a digital one, that is, sampling at about 500khz to 1Mhz, and an algorithm was created that ONLY..ONLY looked at these given aspects of the signal..the distortions and numbers would...for the first freaking time in human freaking memory....exactly equal what the audiophiles have been saying for many, many, years.

This new or different weighting algorithm would also have to use the entire complex transient level, timing, and harmonic mix of transients..both micro and macro..together..as a single point of analysis for a distortion measurement. Just like the ear/brain does. Both/either full/partial frequency spectrum is part of it, as this is how the ear/brain system works. The ear does not hear one single picosecond bit of jitter at a time, it hears the one 'misplaced' as it is analyzing them all at once, and thus gaining the knowledge of the one that is out of place by the 'whole signal analysis' (but in the way stated). It resolves by relational/complex analysis. Like it does voices in the crowded room. It thus gains considerably more capacity in the realm of ultimate micro or macro resolution.

The visual eye/brain comparison would be to have 10,000 or even 20,000 people all dancing the exact same way......and being able to clearly and easily see the three or twenty people that are slightly out of step.. and to be able have any viewer under the sun tell you whether those dancers are either behind or ahead of the dance, out of sync, not kicking high enough, etc.

The bigger a given problem is, the longer it is hanging around, the harder it is to solve...the more fundamental the mistake in the formation of the question.

In this case, the measurement system in use --- is fucked.

Fix it.

To create a workable measurement (or analysis) system, it must fundamentally model reality, then it stands a chance of becoming valid, if used and handled by a thinking human being. This thinking human being must also allow reality to dictate the methodology or state/type/'nature of' the given measurements and measuring/modeling system..as they are based on human analysis of what humans hear, not forcing the idea of 'logic' to dictate terms to reality. That's a fundamentally fucked up way to consider science and is entirely invalid, at best.

Pardon me, but this pile of crap started when an angry, vindictive and childish Newton took over the Royal society and forced the idea of mathematical theory pushed forward to attempt to force reality into existence, instead of being a properly placed 'simple adjunct' to 'human observation' based directions in scientific investigation.

This one single point has moved mankind's efforts in scientific investigations nearly backward (or at least sideways) for nearly 300 years. Ever since then, it seems that every linear thinking emotionally driven lunatic on the planet has held back 1000 different valid channels of research due to to 'the numbers saying it's not possible'.

Newton should be lauded and praised for what he brought and did, but his ass should also be kicked around the block a thousand times over for being such a dumbass - for pushing forward such garbage as the idea of numbers and 'law/theory' ... invalidating observation..and thus..numbers and math dictating reality. Every scientist, physicist, engineer, and technician known to mankind, since that time.. has unknowingly (for the most part) been trained via such utter foolishness.

Thus, those folks who have predilection for such foolish linear and blindsided thinking have entered these fields. A self perpetuating nightmare. And in the process..held back mankind in the investigations of the nature of reality.

The odd scientist...mostly seen as an iconoclast..has broken free of this--and was entirely correct in doing so. These folk have usually/invariably been the innovators of the world. And when they do their best to smile when accepting the award at the banquet..the funny look on their face..is them thinking how absurd the whole farcical thing is..and just when is the next time they'll have to dodge a flurry of knives aimed at their backs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

People who think that the whole audiophile mystique thing is total crap.. are totally without a fucking clue.

You will NOT hear this information I have just given you all in one spot. It tends to represent the basic function of too much information when it comes to designing audio gear. Those who know this stuff..need to keep the audio crew in general, ignorant and down on the farm..as this is what separates the men designers of Audio gear from the boy designers. And keeps that food on the table.

It is my guess that less than 20 people in the entire audio industry know and understand everything I've just told you, as a group of understandings to be used as a single point of analysis. I could be wrong about that..but I doubt it.

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Thank you for a facinating discourse, KBK. I must admit that some of it is over my head. Could you cite a few references for further study?

One quick question, if you don't mind. You said:

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The ear hears by the timing, level and temporal placement of the leading edge of transients and some aspects of the length of time that the leading edge hangs around. Nearly..oh...80%, or more, of the waveform is ignored by th ear. All of the backwave, for the larger part, is ignored.

How is it then, that we hear a continuous sine wave as, well, continuous?

Peak level of the sine wave, the level of that given single wave peak..with respects to the other following/preceding peaks..and the timing between them. IIRC, part of the proof in the pudding is that a triangle waveform sounds largely the same to the ear as a sine wave of same peak amplitude and frequency. One can scream from the rooftops about how this can be used to 'fool' the ear..... but that would be ignorant of the rest of the ear/brain skills and capacities.

A very important thing to remember is that numbers and math do not occur in nature. At all. Not one little bit. It is a very nice and workable tool for investigation, and that it has helped considerably in linear ways..but that's about it!!! Entirely a fabrication of the human mind.

It is always good to remember that numbers and math are ultimately ...a doll. A toy.

Here's a twisty bit of entirely true logic and understanding that the vast majority of people and scientists have a very difficult time getting their head around:

Reality is infinite and outside the realm of current human understanding. On both ends, the micro and the macro..infinity rules. Mankind cannot, via numbers and math, define or understand infinity. If one wishes to understand infinity..one must put down that human toy used for linear little bits of it...One must drop the math, and drop linear reality.

Let me put it to you this way.

A caveman picks up rock. Somehow..he has rock..and rock.

He puts rock down..and rock down. He looks at rock and says 'unh'..and looks at rock and says..'unh'.

He turns and looks at the sky for few seconds..and looks back at rock. 'Unh'..and 'unh' He decides to call it 'uhn'!

So now he understands a conceptual basis for plurality, and a given amount. Two rocks! What a concept! Two = uhn!

Great tool. But the context and use must be remembered.

He looked away to the sky and looked back and the rocks were still there! So the conceptual basis of testing reality against the idea of a counted and numbered reality, outside of the actual presence of the counted reality... is valid.

Now....

How to define the sky?

Good luck.

That's the part I was worried about getting wrong. I know that one of them dang waveforms sounds identical to the other but cannot not remember which one it is. I think I remember that the leading edge of a square wave is what's important..not th rest of it. IIRC, as long as the leading edge of a 3khz square wave occurs at the same time interval, the positive and negative periods can be altered radically..and it will sound the same. It's been awhile since I've looked at the basics, as I'm over 20 years past that point.

The shame of it is, everything I've said, save that, is solid. Some will use that one point to dismiss the rest. Sad, when you think about it. Part and parcel of the entire commentary, which is about people being 'hoisted by their own petards'*, as a wise Frenchman once said.

Now that I think about what it is you said..is it triangle and square that sound the same to the human ear? Sounds right. But then again, mathematically speaking the sine also fulfills that aspect...

*' Literally, 'blown into the air by the blast of shit you intended for others', would be a near enough modern translation.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist%20by%20your%20own%20petard.html

It is amusing to me to note that these 'shit blasters' is the origin of the word Engineer.

master handbook of acoustics might have that point in it. I got it from a friend, many many years ago, and he told me at the time, exactly where it came from. Look up the full nature of distortion in horn drivers, and what jitter and sampling rates does to leading edge transients when going from AD to DA, as a start, or follow up, whatever works for you.

Also, the timing or sampling rate required to equal the spacial capacities of the average audiophile. All it takes is a simple calculator to understand single aspect of our complex hearing system.

Place an audiophile at a point of a 9 foot triangle and a speaker at the other two points.

Vary the 'equal amplitude' timing of the sound from each speaker to 'create' a phantom source between the speakers. The research I read..was that the audiophile could differentiate between the sound seemingly like it was appearing at one spot..and a spot adjacent to it..by approximately the psychoacoustic timing and apparent placement..of one inch. Meaning..it seemed, to the audiophile, that the sound had move to one side..by one inch. It was all timing of the two equal level sounds.

Now, do the arrival time triangulation tests.

I believe the test was actually the movement of a tiny bell..by one inch..and the audiophile could discern changes as small or smaller than one inch of positional change. They attempted to recreate that with speakers.

Doing the triangulation and measuring of timing for arrival time differences for the two ears..reveals some frightening numbers.

Just one simple aspect that blows all modern work in digital out of the water. And pure analog excels at this aspect like no other. It is a inter-channel relational timing issue. It is easy to see why turntables and open reel or cassette for that matter, blow digital out of the water.

All acoustic live music or even amplified live music with no digital electronics is a wonder to behold, for those reasons. It's not the sampling rate, or the frequency cut off..it's the timing and amplitude issues, in both the micro and macro sense. Including the intermixing of signals in the timing and amplitude sense, which the ear does very well with, thank you very much.

You know, real world stuff.

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vinyl and tubes get the leading edge transient timing sizing and ratios/relationships across better

Would you please learn to speak English?

Seriously, guy, distortion is more alike than different. It almost seems like you are intentionally obfuscating or trying to over-think this stuff.

--Ethan

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Any change of the original signal, be it frequency response, harmonics, reveberation time or some other yet to be discovered parameter is a form of distortion.

Okay, but I distinguish distortion as nonlinear behavior - the addition of new content not present in the original. Versus merely skewing the balance between content already present.

--Ethan

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Personally, I'd rather have accuracy, to hear what the producers and recording engineers intended. They listen on accurate systems when making mixing decisions, and that's my preference too. I want to hear what they heard while mixing.

I agree. With an accurate system, we "reproduce" what is on the recording. There is the difference between the recording venue and the listening room, which makes it an imperfect "hearing' of the recording. With appropriate room treatments, that hearing gets closer to the reproduction. The accurate system reproducing in a well-treated room will highlight the "problem" of some recordings being judged good- versus bad-sounding.

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The ear hears by the timing, level and temporal placement of the leading edge of transients and some aspects of the length of time that the leading edge hangs around. Nearly..oh...80%, or more, of the waveform is ignored by th ear. All of the backwave, for the larger part, is ignored.

For example, a horn driver completely DESTROYS the backwave or negative portion of the waveform. Yet many people feel they are incredibly revealing. What a horn does, it takes the pressure wave..and builds it up in the throat..and then at the point where the wave is best 'pressure coupled' in mass transfer to the ambient air load... it releases that wave from the confines of the throat and sides of the horn surface body proper. This makes it, shall we say... more efficient and correct in that moment of transfer. However, that efficient transfer and high sensitivity can also make it sensitive to the larger problems of non-linear transfer involving the backwave on/during high level loading. A decent example of the leading edge being far more important - is what the horn shows itself to be.

Can you explain or show a reference where it proves that the backwave is lost or ignored? What you have written does not make sense to me. A sealed acoustic suspension speaker would "lose" the backwave too.

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I believe KBK is referring to the rarefactions in the wavefront. That is, from the front of the speaker, when the cone is moving away from you.

I though that was what he was saying, but how can that happen? If you only heard the compression and no rarefactions of the waveform, there should be gross distortion to the sound, I would think.

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This is exactly my point, in arguing for the opposite conclusion! The accurate system will draw one's attention to the problems in the recording and away from the music. I wish to involve myself in the music, emotionally and intellectually, not be distracted from it.

I understand your desire to hear and enjoy a greater proportion of the recordings. Many musicians, in my experience, listen to less accurate systems all the time and bypass the sound quality and listen to the performance of the music. Doesn't seem to detract from their enjoyment, even if they are aware of and appreciate better sounding systems.

But if a recording was not recorded well and sounds inferior to a better recording, an inaccurate system would distort both a good and a bad recording, which could be either more pleasing or less pleasing. It can't be guaranteed that the distortions of an inaccurate system complement the inaccuracies of the recording. Sounds like 'take your chances' situation to me. A more accurate system would provide an even better experience on those good recordings than possible with an inaccurate system on the same good recording.

If it comes down to preference, I'd pick the accurate system and get the best out of the recordings, and enjoy the musical performance (emotionally and intellectually) on those not so top recordings.

Clap, Clap, Clap. Nice job. I actually understood
something rather complex because you did such a good job
of communicating it.

How can any different waveshpae sound the same, ? When ya scope something and try to figure stuff out, it's usually by seeing the different SHAPE that you find a difference...what a nudnick. Checkout some guitar stomp boxes, they basically alter the wave shape to produce a desired sound effect, when MAKING the musica/sound. REPRODUCING that sound needs a ckt that doesn't alter the wave shape. If you look through a poorly made piece of glass, it distorts the image, you don't see what's really there. Better camera lens, gather the image better, cleaner, without distortion. so do hi fi equipment. Even a square wave that ain't a square wave is different from a perfect square wave, which is why it's used to test ckts, since it has all the freq components in one shape. A mishaped square wave, shows/proves your amplifier or pre amp is not accurately reproducing the input signal, what a concept. Cable lifts don't matter in the pursuit of accuracy, and reproducing the original LIVE event, why do you think better mics, record better, sound better, they are able to pickup and deliver teh original sound to a better recorder which also doesn't DISTORT.

Absence of photons does not produce signal in the eye. Ie, nerves to do not fire in the absence of photons. The ear is a similar 'one sided' creature. IIRC (It's been along time since I went through the basics of the ear's function) positive pressure fires the system up, negative does not. The human voice is a one sided positive pressure device, as an emitter, or source. Single ended class A, one might say. One might then come to the consideration that the ear has evolved to hear the human voice, or vise-versa.

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I believe KBK is referring to the rarefactions in the wavefront. That is, from the front of the speaker, when the cone is moving away from you.

I though that was what he was saying, but how can that happen? If you only heard the compression and no rarefactions of the waveform, there should be gross distortion to the sound, I would think.

Horns are about 25% to 40% distortion, the vast majority of that distortion being within the backwave. They get the initial positive impulse down quite well, though. Think of a horn as an acoustic equivalent of an oscillating porcupine quill. Like a pump of sorts. Class A, single ended, like the human voice.

I searched for a long time to get a system that I don't tire of listening. I am currently happy with what I own, and it does make most recordings sound pleasant, and is supposed to be "accurate". Being able to hear and distinguish between good and bad recordings tells me that I'm getting through to the recording itself. If the recording is very good, it gets me through to the artist and the interpretation of the music to a greater extent than a less accurate system, which is what we are all seeking. Funny thing is that even on so-so recordings, I still can appreciate the artistry. Now that to me is a sufficient system.

There are better systems than what I have, and many times more expensive. But, the system sounds pretty good to my musician's ear, and looks pretty good on paper and measurements from an engineering analysis. It didn't cost $20K, and I'm sure you can assemble a system like that. Will such a system satisfy you? Hopefully it can. Happy hunting.

[edited for misspelling]

I would agree here, because different wave shapes will sound different.

A small nit to pick: a square wave has fundamentals and odd harmonics of the fundamental, but not "all" frequencies. Triangle waves have even harmonics. (If I remember my math right) Varying the fundamental frequency will get you through the spectrum like a frequency sweep, but not all frequencies simultaneously. Square waves are used in testing because if the square wave shape is well-preserved, then the bandwith extends to at least 10x the fundamental. That means that a good looking 1 KHz square wave response means that the system is "good" up to 10 KHz, or more. If the system shifts the phase (timing) of any of the harmonics, the square wave will distort its shape. Look at square wave responses of some speakers and you'd wonder why those were ever highly recommended.

In addition, the Fourier decomposition of the square wave into odd harmonics is infinite. The reconstruction back to a perfect square wave is not possible, but only approximated if the frequency band is limited, as in practical systems. That's why you will see rounded-off square waves at 10 KHz fundamental, if the system cuts off at 20 KHz.

Anyone who is more expert than I in Fourier mathematics may wish to explain further.

Other tests are a pulse test or a step test, but those are just a few available from the many that can be done.

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... The ear is a similar 'one sided' creature. IIRC (It's been along time since I went through the basics of the ear's function) positive pressure fires the system up, negative does not. The human voice is a one sided positive pressure device, as an emitter, or source. ...

I don't think so, but I have not looked at ear research in decades. If you're interested, look up the papers by von Bekesy.

The ear translates pressure to displacement (movement) via the middle ear bones. A varying pressure (e.g. sound) will oscillate the ear drum and oscillate the movement of the membrane 'windows' at the cochlea, which induces movement in the fluid, which vibrate the tiny hairs, as well as the tympanic membrane.

This is like the ripples on the speaker cone when the wave travels down the cone from voice coil to the surround. All frequencies will behave this way on the cone, because the mechanical stress wave is transmitted at a speed determined by the material of the cone. If the wavelength of the wave is long compared to the size of the cone, the cone appears to move as a piston because the amplitude change is slower than the response of the cone.

The voice is produced by vibrating strings (vocal cords) which produce a varying pressure (compression and rarefaction, the AC component) around an average value of near-atmospheric. There is a DC component, which is the air flow from the lungs past the vocal cords and out the mouth. Wind instruments also produce vibrations from the reed(s)(AC) rinding on top of the air flow (DC).

Haven't heard the Vandersteen's recently. I have heard that those are pretty good, so I'm sure it's a good choice. I understand that Mr. Vandersteen has done a lot of the science correctly. I also remember the one time I met him a long time ago, he said that he also did a lot of listening experimentation when developing his speakers. Well, it's definitely a combination of those efforts that work.

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But I chose it because the sound pleased me. Is that not the definition of euphony?

I assume it would be if you consider the sound of live music to be euphonic. What's the problem with that?

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... The ear is a similar 'one sided' creature. IIRC (It's been along time since I went through the basics of the ear's function) positive pressure fires the system up, negative does not. The human voice is a one sided positive pressure device, as an emitter, or source. ...

I don't think so, but I have not looked at ear research in decades. If you're interested, look up the papers by von Bekesy.

The ear translates pressure to displacement (movement) via the middle ear bones. A varying pressure (e.g. sound) will oscillate the ear drum and oscillate the movement of the membrane 'windows' at the cochlea, which induces movement in the fluid, which vibrate the tiny hairs, as well as the tympanic membrane.

This is like the ripples on the speaker cone when the wave travels down the cone from voice coil to the surround. All frequencies will behave this way on the cone, because the mechanical stress wave is transmitted at a speed determined by the material of the cone. If the wavelength of the wave is long compared to the size of the cone, the cone appears to move as a piston because the amplitude change is slower than the response of the cone.

The voice is produced by vibrating strings (vocal cords) which produce a varying pressure (compression and rarefaction, the AC component) around an average value of near-atmospheric. There is a DC component, which is the air flow from the lungs past the vocal cords and out the mouth. Wind instruments also produce vibrations from the reed(s)(AC) rinding on top of the air flow (DC).

For me, the whole point, IIRC, (the 'R' point, the recalling point - is critical here) is that the nerve impulse is only firing, or predominantly firing in the one motional direction with respects to the hairs in the ear.

So while the entire mechanism may respond with respects to timing via reload and reset, etc..it is only (or predominantly) firing in the positive direction. Think about it. How would the capacity for differentiation occur, otherwise?

Anyway, I'm getting near that point where if I attempt to speak on the depth of it much further, I'll be pulling it out of my ass. I'd have to go back and dig through the info again, to avoid that.