mobile homeless Posted October 1, 2002 Share Posted October 1, 2002 Here is an interesting page worth a read. I realize that most here probably wont labor through the whole beast, but it has some interesting ideas and is worth going through it all. I personally dont agree with every last point, but most of it is quite compelling and on target. Thanks to "t" for the heads up. F i n d i n g C o m m o n G r o u n d http://www.aloha-audio.com/library/FindingCG.html kh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyKubicki Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Well, once again, something to get more people into vintage amps and drive up prices! Actually, this might be a good thing for tubes. There is a finite amount of NOS, with (from what I've read) new Russian or Chineese tubes being fairly undesirable. This is creating a demand and perhaps some new and better tube manufacturers will step into this niche...or is this just wishful thinking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDBRbuilder Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Kelly, Interesting article...many very good points covered in it. It seems funny to me that one can do everything in one's power to upgrade a system to get "just the right sound" out of it...changing speakers, and their placement, toe-in, etc; changing out different components in the line of signal travel to add this or eliminate that...BUT... There are factors BEYOND the ability of the consumer to change..... These are the inherent biological differences between one person's hearing and another's. Add to that the "individual perception factor" of what a correctly-reproduced sound "SHOULD" be. That is why, no matter how perfect a sound reproduction may seem to one individual, it may not seem so to another. Every ear is different...just like different horn flare rates,lengths, etc. Add to that the minute differences in each individual's middle ear parts nd nerve pathway to the brain, and the brain itself. Just those differences alone can be more than enough to alter what one person hears compared to another person. But, when the "individual perception factor" is included, it compounds the problem even moreso. Those individuals who say "it sounds like I am at a live performance"...just what does that mean? And is the "live performance" sound they are speaking of a performance without any amplification of the source instruments? Also, just where were they sitting when they heard the live performance they refer to? Even the factor of just where the live performance was performed can enter into the picture, since different acoustics of the places in which live performances are put on invariably contribute different sounds to what the listeners receive!! In the end, measurements are just that...measurements. They can only be used as a guideline...and can never end up being able to "tell the whole story" on whether one particular piece of equipment is better than another for any particular application other than for the application of the measurements themselves. I agree that a bad sounding piece of equipment will still remain a bad sounding piece of equipment...BUT...when you get into the equipment that is all "good-sounding"...then the minute differences that each individual has will be the determining factor as to which particular model of equipment is the "best-sounding of anything out there"...and even then, the differences between one of those pieces of equipment and the identical one made right beside it in the factory may be enough for that same listener to decide the other way in favor of another model. Ears SHOULD make the choices..all other factors(price range, etc) being the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 "Ears SHOULD make the choices..all other factors(price range, etc) being the same." I would like to know how "Ears" qualifies to make all the choices for the rest of us? I mean, he listens to a damn Krell:) Good article. I wish I had the background to understand all of it. Still, plenty of things in there that I did understand. Everything Builder said is right, but I think it's also true that some things just sound inherently better than others. Inversely, some types of distortion probably annoy the human brain, regardless of the biological/physical composition of the middle ear, or personal taste. For the most part, all humans like ice cream, though we might have our individual preferences of flavor or brand. However, no human would like ice cream if you added a few drops of something nasty into every dip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poleelop Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 HDBRbuilder---this may sound dumb, but it seems like common sense to me, so I have to ask: I certainly understand that different people hear things differently.....I can't argue with that. But if a "live" sound is reproduced perfectly by mechanical means, won't it be universally appreciated? What I mean is this: Person A may hear a particular sound as X, person B may hear that same sound as Y, and person C may hear that exact same sound as Z, but if that sound is perfectly reproduced, won't each individual hear it EXACTLY as they heard it live? I guess what I'm trying to ask is if individual hearing traits are really relevant to this discussion.....and if they are, I'm not understanding why. Now....as far as all of the tests go, I see that immediately. There's a lot that makes up a sound, and I don't see how any one instrument....or a combination of instruments....are going to tell me what I'm hearing. I'm sure my ear isn't nearly as well tuned as some of the people here. Hell, I've even got some hearing loss, but I do know there are some less than subtle differences between systems that on paper should sound the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDBRbuilder Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 I guess you are correct in as far as you went in what I was trying to say...but ...remember the BRAIN part of it. For example...some people have an affinity for bass, some for mid-bass, some for high-end treble...etc...and even though the performance as heard by each particular individual standing in the same spot will not make any difference as far as THAT part of it goes, it will still change when those affinities are involved...that is the "perception factor" that I mentioned...one listener is following the bass riff...while another listener is following the guitar...and yet another listener is folowwing the trumpet...their different concentrations brought about by their natural affinity towards them will give each of them a different viewpoint of how "real" it sounds to them...does that make sense? In other words, they are all hearing all of the same things, but their brains are concentrating on their own personal affinity...or "perception factor"...and that concentration is unique to each individual! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poleelop Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 I'm not sure if I follow.....but my question was based on the assumption that the sound(s) was reproduced PERFECTLY. That's probably not possible (and you guys probably assume that before I would), therefore, that might be were we have our disconnect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 I can understand this part of it: "Closing Thoughts This brief discussion of amplifiers is intended to point out how traditional measurements result in unwise decisions for amplifier design. The lower harmonics are nearly inaudible compared to the upper harmonics, yet they dominate almost any THD measurement! The meter is steering the designer, the reviewer, the dealer, and the consumer away from good sound. Its the classic tale of a drunk looking for his car keys under the street-light, even though he suspects he lost them in a completely different place. "The light is better here!" say the mainstream engineers, mass-marketers, and magazine reviewers but the key to good sound sure isnt where the audio industry has been looking. If it were, why do stereo LPs made 40 years ago, amplified with 65-year-old direct-heated triodes, sound so much better than todays digital sound played through 0.001% THD mass-fi rack stereos? The differences between mass-fi and true high fidelity are as plain as day to an (open-minded) listener. We are in the odd position of discovering that as speakers get better and better, the true merits of vacuum-tube circuits become more and more evident. After all, even J. Gordon Holt gave the Crown DC-300 transistor amplifier a Class "A" rating in 1971. At the time, the modestly-priced Dyna Stereo 70 received a lower rating - yet with modern speakers, the DC-300 is unlistenable, and the Dyna just keeps sounding better. The entry-level EL84 amps of the early Sixties (Scott 299, Eico, and Dyna SCA-35) sound remarkably natural and realistic with todays more efficient, and much more transparent, speakers. There is no reason to believe speakers will stop getting better, since all kinds of new innovations in materials science are on the horizon, and there are major advances in computer modelling techniques every year. Synthetic diamond cones, anyone? Its time to debunk the myth of "euphonic distortion" once and for all and discover the genuine and subtle sources of amplifier distortion that people are actually hearing. Once we find measurements that can actually help, rather than hinder, it'll be easier to build electronics that are friendly to the listener. I hope this article gets people thinking, and most important of all, listening for themselves!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted October 2, 2002 Author Share Posted October 2, 2002 Good quote, Colin! Funny, I almost quoted that too, along with some other parts relevant to triode wired pentodes vs true triode tubes, as I thought no one would actually fully read this piece. Glad you made the effort. kh systems Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Poleelop, (and anyone else who hasn't ever read it) I think you'll find an essay written in March of 1963 by J. Gordon Holt (founder of Stereophile), titled "Why HiFi Experts Disagree", to be a fascinating and very well thought out piece. Here's a link: http://www.stereophile.com/fullarchives.cgi?104 Ray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Okay, so posting links doesn't work the same way anymore, either. Howzit work now? The Article Wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyKubicki Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 I too did not understand all of the article, but what I got from it was that although ultimately our own ears should be the judge for ourselves, as our equipment gets more sophisticated, we begin to see what we have missed in the past. If we do this, we will eventually get to a point that by looking at parameters of an amp, we will be able to tell if we like the sound. Yet, when our ears "like" something that appears from the specs we should not like, trust your ears, for we have not yet quantified a piece of the specifications puzzle. I once met an audio engineer who designs sytems for wealthy clients. He starts the process off with a hearing test to determine the hearing pattern of the client, then designs a system around this so the ultimate aim is for the client to hear as flat as possible. Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 well at least the article recognized that the next best thing to the triode is the triode strapped pentode...like my dynacos have... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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