Does Tonal Balance Affect Perceived Pace and Perceived Resolution?

[Robh3606]

Back to @Robh3606 his cherry picked plots on his post #139.
How is my feeble mind supposed to work out, in real-time, which of those peeks/peaks is/are the one that describes the sound coming in
There are two or more options for that waveform to give me some PRaT, and I sort of need it to be clear, in order for me to get it.
And if the sound is further delayed by a cycle, then that is also making it difficult to line things up.
It might be possible that some people are just better at processing the sounds, and others need some help with an easier and more accurate sound?

Hello

Do you have know what those plots represent? Well if not, they are 1 point is space on axis measurements. They are convoluted from the impulse response to the Step responses shown for two different speaker systems. The Step Response shows the arrival times of all drivers in the system.

The impulse response where the Step comes from contains amplitude, frequency and phase so a complete picture of what arrives at you ears at that distance and listening axis.

They were posted to show the difference between a Time Aligned system and one that is not.

If the non time aligned speaker is time coherent you will not be able to hear the time arrival differences between the drivers. The group delay of the overall system is below the audible threshold.

Almost all speakers fall into this category.

Remember this is a measurement, a very useful one, but not a predictor of what you will actually hear. There are way to many variables for a single measurement to do that.

Rob

 

[Robh3606]

This is market driven as people believe that if I have a big box then I should have deep bass. I think much better sound could be achieved by trading the bass extension for higher efficiency. Also, as you say, they should have higher impedance as well. If the person wants bass extension then get a pair of subwoofers that are specifically designed by the manufacturer to mate with the speaker and handle below 40Hz. But what do I know ??

I agree there are always trade offs but I gladly take a bigger box for higher efficiency and less bass extension. Just add a sub if needed.

There is no getting around Hoffmans Iron Law. There is the rub between big box and small box. You can't have high efficiency bass extension and a small box. For high efficiency you need a bigger box so only 2 of the 3 at any one time.

Rob

 

[DaveC]

Back to @Robh3606 his cherry picked plots on his post #139.

It was post 156 where the group delay vs audibility criteria was posted by Rob, which is exactly what you were commenting on wrt my 4th order xo at 400 Hz, except it's a DSP so you have to look at latency of the DSP instead of delay caused by the passive xo. But even if there was a a passive 4th order xo, you don't know the what the mid xo is, nor the physical locations of the drivers, so you can't assume anything with the info I gave you.

 

[Lagonda]

Preventing a rise of distortion with frequency in a solid state amp 35 years ago was pretty well impossible. The Gain Bandwidth Product needed to support the feedback was very hard to obtain.

Sill better figures than tube amps of that age, the rest is just current day marketing, what you sell today is always better on paper. I always wonder where the big revelation i read about are, i just don't hear them. Same old vine in different more expensive bottles.

 

[Atmasphere]

Sill better figures than tube amps of that age, the rest is just current day marketing, what you sell today is always better on paper. I always wonder where the big revelation i read about are, i just don't hear them. Same old vine in different more expensive bottles.

As the SETs have shown, THD does not matter if distortion rises with frequency. The result is unpleasant.

Now if a solid state amp can be engineered to not have that problem (and that's 'fairly easy' with class D implementations) then you can have the best of both worlds.

FWIW there were tube amps made in the early 1960s that rival the best solid state amps of today in terms of distortion. So 'always' isn't accurate, just so you know.