….and the organ is magnificent in this and another Don Smithers recording “Trompeten, Erschallet” also on vinyl
Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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You are using the ML3 on you Soundlabs? Shocking
… Careful though, there are elements within WBF (Bonzo) who will swear this can’t work and might attack you for years over it…
You are using the ML3 on you Soundlabs? Shocking
Errm, actually you attacked everyone on the forum for years that they should use a SET no matter what the speaker. Apogees, cones, stats...
I had discussed with Herb Reichert, the idea that the recording process especially digital tends to somehow “bleach” the harmonics and a certain transfer function sees to restore the musical palette
I know Lamm uses a couple of dB feedback in his SETs …not sure how they would sound without it but I used to have a VAC 30/30 mkiii that had adjustable feedback from zero to 8 dB in 1dB steps. It unequivocally sounded best on zero. Even going from zero to one brought a noticeable drop in sound quality. I have heard from others that the AES Six PAC monos, which also had feedback switch sound best by far without. Same for some Manley amps with feedback on minimum.
The Cary CAD-572se monos had a couple dB feedback and sounded nice but they never earned the reputation of their 300B XLS monos, which had none…maybe no connection…
Geddes found an almost anti-correlation between THD, IMD and perceived drop in SQ (the slope of the plot was slightly negative but correlation coefficient was negligible). Negative feedback creates high order harmonics that are actively unpleasant (Shorter and Crowhurst both realized this) and it can also create strange intermodulations (according to Pass and to Boyk and Sussmann). Some circuits are simply too non-linear to be reasonable without it …
I know Lamm uses a couple of dB feedback in his SETs …not sure how they would sound without it but I used to have a VAC 30/30 mkiii that had adjustable feedback from zero to 8 dB in 1dB steps. It unequivocally sounded best on zero. Even going from zero to one brought a noticeable drop in sound quality. I have heard from others that the AES Six PAC monos, which also had feedback switch sound best by far without. Same for some Manley amps with feedback on minimum.
The Cary CAD-572se monos had a couple dB feedback and sounded nice but they never earned the reputation of their 300B XLS monos, which had none…maybe no connection…
The Lamm ML3 Signature is zero-blobal feedback, It has two switches offering 1.2dB and 2.4dB of negative feedback. These change the output stage to yield lower impedance. Lamm says he put them there so people could eplore how using negative feedback dwngrades the sound of his amp
I think Geddes research was more that we needed to take into account masking effects of hearing , and that the metric he developed was far more correlated to Sq preference than traditional THD IMD meaurements which were correlated to a non statistically significant amount. At least for “music of the night” lol
Interesting. I think I read the ML2.x use a couple of dB as well.
found it:
Stereophile: "While the single-ended design topology and minimal use of negative feedback results in steadily increasingly nonlinear behavior with increasing power, the ML2.1 actually gives out more power, and sometimes at lower levels of distortion"
Yep. Which is why when people do not use unamplified music to audition, and especially when they use audiophile amplified recordings, they often make incorrect short term assessments. Then they have to stay with it for months before realizing the mistake, if at all, and then they just make some other silly change. The music you play for audition and your auditory template determines how fast you recognize the bad ones.
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"If we take these facts and join them up with our Perception Principles then we can make the following statements, which are, perhaps, not exact, but they are, none the less, more valid than not.
• The masking effect of the human ear will tend to make higher order nonlinearities more audible than lower order ones.
• Nonlinear by-products that increase with level can be completely masked if the order of the nonlinearity is low.
• Nonlinearities that occur at low signal levels will be more audible than those that occur at higher signal levels.
Again these may seem intuitively obvious"
Masking is of course the main mechanism as to why low order harmonics are effectively sonically invisible unless very high in level and the main reason high order harmonics are more audible. It is also well known that the higher orders in addition to being more audible are far more dissonant and unpleasant to hear.
The 2nd point is that masking is only effective if the non-linearity to be masked is low order.
The third point is something Cheever also noted that at high volumes you get better masking up the harmonic order and therefore he even put an SPL term in his model. It also means low level signals will be greater impacted and potentially more damaging to the sound.
Furthermore:
"A negative weak relationship was observed with the THD (r = - 0.42, p=0.06) and the IMD (r=-0.35, p=0.13) metrics. These results suggested negligible predictive values when utilizing THD and IMD metric in this context."
Notice it is a negative (albeit weak) relationship. Lower THD and IMD had slightly moer negative sonic preference.
"These results supported the skepticism that THD and IMD metrics were poor predictor of subjective perception of sound quality ratings."
Just as we immediately know if a sound is live or reproduced, it was immediately obvious at @ddk's that his various systems exhinited a natural sound. No hesitancy, I didn't think about it for a moment. A strong non-amplified music auditory template helps, but lifelike from a stereo compels your attention. As Lamm said it is intuitive.
You can nitpick but by that point it doesn't really matter. I suspect there is a threshhold of recognition for each of us, but once past it you are there. People talk about degrees of natural sound -- that may apply leading up to that threshold. Once past that it is easier to say what you're hearing is either natural or not.
I don't claim to have a naturally sounding system. However, with the right recording - which I think you're also suggesting -- my system can sound more natural. The recording used for audition is as important as the gear.
Certain aspects of a sound event are measured and converted to digital, what comes out the other side is then measured and compared to what was recorded to see how precisely it reproduced what was measured. Has nothing to do with natural sound however.
Not exactly. I am saying a nice performance and recording can help you quickly filter out the bad ones. That is what 95% are. This is not possible with audiophile amplified recordings was my point, they will often mislead you into thinking this sounds nice, or rather, tough to tell. Auditory template for that will be the guy's system at home which if it is based on audiophile amplified recordings, well...
When it comes to the good stuff, that can take a process of then trying in different systems and finding contexts it does well/badly in, and then after that if you cannot eliminate further you just go with the best deal or some non-sonic reason or buy them all if you have the capacity.
Is your goal "natural sound"? If yes, how did that experience direct you to changes in your own system? Speakers? Amps? cables? Anything? Nothing?
Ah, I believe you meant to spell it “you’re “?You appreciate this quote is actually not Einstein, and actually refers to economics, and not language semantics or philosophy
so is completely out of context
the originator was EF Schumacher often misattributed to Einstein
so yes I agree your not a genius
Yes that's my goal but my system is not there yet. Where am I? I rarely talk about my own system much less about changes to it, but I will say this much....
I've heard and reviewed Lamm electronics starting in 2009 and have owned the SS/hybrid M1.2Ref since 2015. Vladimir asked me to review several of his top components and those are forthcoming. I also own the ML2.2 SET amps. I've been convinced of the Lamm sound for some time now so that part of the equation is settled.
I'm now using ordinary cabling and ChingCheng power cords. You can see brands in my profile. Removing audiophile cords, cables and filtering let's me hear my gear without the additive or subtractive characteristics those things bring. And I like what I hear. While all wiring has an influence, I now prefer wire with what I consider a minimalist impact. I don't know how universal is that observation for other gear but it definitely applies to Lamm electronics for me. I removed almost all of the Aperture wall panels in my room. David has been very helpful in these areas.
The biggest remaining change will be speakers. For now I have a self-imposed "restriction" that I want to drive my choice with both SET and 100+W tube or SS amps (my M1.2 Ref isn't going anywhere.) That will give me flexibility in reviewing amplifiers. I am researching options, made a trip to Utah and listening to videos. I am in the process of writing a review of a pair of speakers that meet that criteria, but I don't want to talk about that or any plans until I am more comfortable doing so.
Ked. What are you talking about?
In amplified music, whether it be folk, rock, metal, electronic, hip hop, rap, blues etc, it's extremely easy to know what are good recordings vs not as good.
Never have I thought, this sounds more natural. More that this sounds more realistic, dynamic and like it's taking you into the studio.
I am not saying you need to confirm of recordings are good or not. You can play a good recording of Diana Krall, it doesn't easily highlight if system A or component A is better or worse than B. It can show some differences, but these differences don't mean much.
With violin, piano, and orchestra, you can know what to filter out pretty quick.
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