+1
And as mentioned earlier, do you know anyone who has bought components and assembled a system based soley on the equipment's measurements? I for one don't.
Measurements and the Correlation of What We Hear
- Thread starter mep
- Start date
+1
And as mentioned earlier, do you know anyone who has bought components and assembled a system based soley on the equipment's measurements? I for one don't.
Wow, that really puts me in my place!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you stay up all night to come up with that piece of wisdom?
God knows I don't mind a bit of sarcasm and indulge in it myself, but let's see if we can't keep it focused on the positions, not the people, OK?
Tim
Tim
Actually Tim, I'm not to sure we disagree at all. Even you say that all bets are off when it comes to the speaker and room. You and I also have nothing against EQ. We surely agree on the need to do things about the acoustic environment, you nearfield and I treatment.
What I'm saying is that a bunch of perfectly flat, ultra low distortion pieces thrown together are no guarantee of perfectly flat, low distortion sound. As you say, all bets are off. So I question how in the world whatever measurements one cares to rely on, on paper, will guarantee the end result. Now make the goal not neutrality but preference and it get's even harder.
As one marketing guy to another, we've both witnessed "magic numbers" used exactly the same way as "magic metaphors".
Has it ever crossed anybody's mind that some manufacturer's stuff work best with each other because for example, their preamps are dark but their amp's are bright? It happens. Inside the boxes, manufacturers and designers are mixing and matching parts because even the parts tip or dip. Imagine what would happen if you replaced your soft dome with metal tweeters. Your system was built to work with those soft domes. You have to wonder if the electronics inside really are ruler flat. The sound coming out of the system as is, may be at 1m on axis, but change those parts and you'll be thinking quite correctly that there's been some FR "tweakage" inside. Impedance variations and FR go hand in hand. Flat into a dummy load means nothing except flat into a dummy load.
My point is simply that we can't evaluate gear in a vacuum. There are just too many external variables. Every piece has to be evaluated within a system context. Your "drama less" system is precisely that, a system. You can't evaluate just the DAC or any of the four amps, or the drivers by themselves.
Let's go back to Mark's original question. Your system manufacturer comes out with a new set of actives for 2012. What could he provide you by way of measurements to make you even think it is better than the older model you have?
Jack-I know you “get it” and I appreciate that. I do you think you are right though. This thread has become helpless and hopeless and it’s probably time it was mercifully put out of its misery. I was naïve enough or hopeful enough that I thought we might just have a meaningful discussion, but lots of people went into the closet and pulled out all of their dogmas and mantras (and they didn’t even have any dust on them by the way) and wound them up and sent them into the thread.
I was just thinking that if we took the Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction” and prefaced it with “measurement” every time the word “satisfaction” is sung, it might sum up my point to a degree.
I was just thinking that if we took the Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction” and prefaced it with “measurement” every time the word “satisfaction” is sung, it might sum up my point to a degree.
There is a fundamental misconception in your “whatever pleases the owner”. IMHO, the audiophile approach is that in spite of all variations, the representation statistically converges in a better representation of the artist intentions and/or the real experience. You seem not to believe in it, or do not want to take the risk, and prefer to stay just in the “accurate” phase. OK. But, again IMHO, you misrepresent the general audiophile position – or at less mine.
Absolute neutrality and compatibility do not exist. You use the existing measurements just to augment your expectation bias of being correct, nothing else. But most of the time your neutral system is spoiling information that you will never recover. Surely, exceptions can happen just by chance.
Surely, after loosing what for some people find is an essential part of the sound reproduction experience, you are also loosing the essence of the hobby.
Disclaimer: as a few people have seen, my argumentation line is based in the writings of Floyd E. Toole about the musical experience and sound reproduction. This does not mean he agrees with many audiophile views, and his approach to maximize the quality of pleasure of the listening experience is different from most audiophile conceptions. By no means when I use his ideas about sound reproduction I am claiming support for my amateur views.
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steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
The Lamm LL1 Signature preamp is greater than 97db signal-to-noise ratio, below 2 Volts RMS output, A-weighted
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
my yamaha c2a is greater than 105db a weighted.
im selling mine to buy yours
lol!!!!!!!!!!!!
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
It's Saturday morning and I have the coffee pot on and decided to go back and re-read marks original post. This part, to me is the essence of the Marks excellent question.
Yes, I think equipment today is improved,Why? Because of technology and accumulated knowledge,manufacturing quality control and design. Equipment builders have taken full advantage of this. You have now much better film capacitors, 1 pct film resistors, a whole host of different types of transformers,computer modeling,better test equipment,silver wire,better solder,custom made pieces made to the designers specs,ect,ect,ect
How does all this translate into more neutral sound,better dynamics,greater clarity,a more realistic stereo image?
If I can take my 55 year old Ampex 350's and rebuild them,using SOTA capacitors,resistors and yield some of the best sound I have ever heard,what can I take away from that.
1. These preamps have separate power supplies,dual mono design,very large amount of filtering,tremendous headroom,straight foward circuit design, tube compliment is proven to have good sonic qualities.
2. Good design trumps age in this instance,so if that is true and I only changed capacitors and resistors, cutting edge components do make a sonic difference.
Now I'm sure Tom or maybe Tim can explain the what and why of this happening, phase shift,lower THD,signal to noise ratio,ect. But let's just say to quantify everything that has taken place with my Ampex 350's, to fully explain everything without reservation, could be impossible to be honest about it.
Now can I honestly answer Mark's question......to be honest......No!
How old were those caps and resistors? It's possible, not a certainty by any means, but completely possible that you could have made the same sonic difference with proper spec caps and resistors right off the shelf.
What you can take from that is that, by your estimation, at this point in time, it is your perception that it yields some of the best sound you've ever heard. What you can't take from that is that it yields some of the quietest, most distortion free, most dynamic, accurate (flat FR for the next pedant that comes along), channel-separated, transient responsed (please forgive the English that's taking a butchering here...), etc, etc, sound you've ever heard. For that, you're going to need measurements. But if you just love the way it sounds and couldn't care less how it measures, I completely respect that. Enjoy.
Tim
Tim-Here you go again with your measurments mantra. Everybody that repeats this mantra and acts like we are all tripping over meaningful measurements-they're everywhere we look, is living in a fairy tale world. You don't have all the measurements you claim to love. All you have for the most part is a spec sheet which may or may not be anything more than design goals. 99% of the time you buy gear based on a combination of faith and what your ears tell you. No matter how many times you profess your love for measurements, they really don't factor much into your purchasing decision because you probably don't have any to go by. And my point to this thread is that even if you really are tripping over the measurement data (which I know you're not), they still aren't going to tell you what you are going to hear when you put your new component in your system.
Again, the measurement data that is taken by second parties will only tell you if there are gross flaws in the design. Audio companies have known how to make gear that exceeds what anyone would expect to see on measurements over 30 years ago. None of those excellent measurements will give you a clue as to why two similiarly measuring pieces of gear sound very different.
Guys, please don't get personal or I start using the delete button on posts . It is the weekend. Let's keep the discussion fun like buying Steve's amps.
. It is the weekend. Let's keep the discussion fun like buying Steve's amps. Roger-I appreciate you taking the time to go back and read again what I posted. I kept trying to throw out meaningful examples that people could sink their intellectual teeth into and have an honest dialogue. Only a few people "got" what I was trying to say. The rest read what they wanted to read, locked and loaded, and came out with their tired old mantra guns blazing as they kept talking past the points that were trying to be made.
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