Natural Sound

[treitz3]

When a system can "accurately" reproduce lightning striking within a half a mile of one's home?

Then, we can talk about accuracy.

Tom

 

[Ron Resnick]

I have no idea what you mean by the 'breath of life' so you'll have to explain that before I can answer.

The sensation that a living, breathing person actually is singing to you in your listening room.

More "breath of life" is better than less "breath of life."

To me this is the raison d'etre of tube electronics.

 

[wil]

out of the blue, eh?

where did you say you live?

Interesting response.

 

[tima]

I’m just describing black background as that which is around and behind the instruments as they are played. It is the ambiance of the venue. Blackness or nothingness from a system presentation is not natural because even in an empty symphony hall or opera house, there is a quiet energy, audible and apparent. This low level information is captured on some recordings, and I want to hear it in my room. If a system always presents a black background, it is not resolving enough for me.

The introduction and advocacy for "black backgrounds" as a sound attribute came out of the Pearson/TAS wing of audio reviewing. Today it is used regularly by F sometimes appearing with the modifier 'velvety'. Imagine that, attaching texture to blackness. And it is used by other (not all) reviewers and by forum dwellers who adopt the audiophile guild speak. It is not in Holt's Audio Glossary. I probably used it myself as a formative reviewer although I've stopped doing that.

In the reviews I read I do not recall seeing accounts that attempt to break it down further. When I used the term I intended it as a way to describe the separation of musicians from each other. Musician here, not musician there. It partly supports the notion of dimensionality or the bas-relief character of musicians standing out or fleshed out. I see this as a psycho-acoustic idealization of the live experience that is not rooted in that experience. I think that is in agreement with your first sentence.

I have not heard of it used to describe venue ambience. To me a black background is effectively the absence of ambience, the absence of energy. I can see how someone might connect black backgrounds with a low noise floor -- the reduction or absence of system noise -- and maybe some writers intend that meaning when they use it. Where I"ve seen it frequently in that regard is in the description or review of power distributors and power modifiers that apply filtering to certain frequency bands, removing or reducing energy that the designer believes is not part of the musical signal. Some like the attribute, perhaps because it is regarded as a positive by reviews or because the product they just bought does create a black background. The open question remains whether it is soley 'noise' that gets removed.

I find the 'black background' attribute largely undesirable. It adds an unreal character to music from my system and homogenizes sound. It is antithetical to what I find in the concert hall and I rather not add that characteristic to my listening experience.

 

[tima]

I have made an effort to describe what I think natural sound is. You can do the same if it somehow differs.

What is interesting is that few, if any of the people who come to this thread to criticize you make any attempt at either provding their own alternative account of natural sound or providing the goals and references to which they aspire their own system. You made and continue to make a contribution here. Continual criticism is not contribution.

 

[Ron Resnick]

To me a black background is effectively the absence of ambience, the absence of energy. I can see how someone might connect black backgrounds with a low noise floor -- the reduction or absence of system noise -- and maybe some writers intend that meaning when they use it. Where I"ve seen it frequently in that regard is in the description or review of power distributors and power modifiers that apply filtering to certain frequency bands, removing or reducing energy that the designer believes is not part of the musical signal. Some like the attribute, perhaps because it is regarded as a positive by reviews or because the product they just bought does create a black background. The open question remains whether it is soley 'noise' that gets removed.

I find the 'black background' attribute largely undesirable. It adds an unreal character to music from my system and homogenizes sound. It is antithetical to what I find in the concert hall and I rather not add that characteristic to my listening experience.

+1

I do not use the term, except in a pejorative way, and except to distinguish the sonic philosophy of which it is a part from the sonic philosophy of emotional engagement to which I subscribe.

 

[Al M.]

+1

I do not use the term, except in a pejorative way, and except to distinguish the sonic philosophy of which it is a part from the sonic philosophy of emotional engagement to which I subscribe.

I think the term "black background" is one of the most atrocious terms in the audiophile vocabulary ever invented (even though I find the contraction into "blackground" kinda cute).

Tim says it well:
"To me a black background is effectively the absence of ambience, the absence of energy."

If you want to talk about low noise floor or a noise free background then call it that. Or "calm background" or whatever.

But "black background"? Seriously? It's a travesty.

 

[Argonaut]

I think the term "black background" is one of the most atrocious terms in the audiophile vocabulary ever invented (even though I find the contraction into "blackground" kinda cute).

If you want to talk about low noise floor or a noise free background then call it that. Or "calm background" or whatever.

But "black background"? Seriously? It's a travesty.

As is the term “ Natural Sound” In part for the same reasoning imho .

 

[hopkins]

I think the term "black background" is one of the most atrocious terms in the audiophile vocabulary ever invented (even though I find the contraction into "blackground" kinda cute).

Tim says it well:
"To me a black background is effectively the absence of ambience, the absence of energy."

If you want to talk about low noise floor or a noise free background then call it that. Or "calm background" or whatever.

But "black background"? Seriously? It's a travesty.

When I listen to music at my computer using Vanatoo desktop speakers the sound is less defined than when I listen on my living room speakers, at the same volume level. Call that what you want - blacker background or anything else - I'm just hearing more from the recording. That's what we are talking about here.

 

[bonzo75]

+1

I do not use the term, except in a pejorative way, and except to distinguish the sonic philosophy of which it is a part from the sonic philosophy of emotional engagement to which I subscribe.

Maybe you should have named your system thread EE sound

 

[Al M.]

When I listen to music at my computer using Vanatoo desktop speakers the sound is less defined than when I listen on my living room speakers, at the same volume level. Call that what you want - blacker background or anything else - I'm just hearing more from the recording. That's what we are talking about here.

Of course it is. But we don't need to employ nonsensical terms like "black background" while talking about those things.

 

[Atmasphere]

I think so. I don’t use the phrase black background. I don’t hear it in reality so I have no use for it when describing the sound of a system.

I use the term “ambience“ and I understand what you mean by room, ambience and hall reflections. I use the word low noise floor to describe lower system noise.

Black background to me is a description of an image against nothingness like in a black theater box or a painting with a black background, or space. To me, it means absence of anything.

Again, I returned to the mythical, ideal audio system, which is so hard to describe the character of that one is left, simply describing what the instruments on the recording sound like. Describing the character of Ray Brown’s acoustic bass, not the sound of the system or the woofer or the speaker. A black background never occurs to me in that ideal. There is always a sense of the recording venue or space when listening to a good recording over a good system. The more natural the system, the more varied and distinctly this recording space or ambient information is presented.

low noise, quietness, whatever you might call it, is about non musical noise not compromising separation of things in the music. not cookie cutter outline artifacts, but layering and proper organic rightness.....and having the recesses and corners of the venue defined. ease, scale and authority are enhanced by degrees of quietness. the lowest octaves are also enhanced by low noise as then the ambience is revealed as a more defined space. and it should happen when the listening space gets pressurized when the recording starts prior to the first note. if.....it's on the recording.

sometimes a recording has a black background, but the more natural recordings don't have that. mostly that's a construct. still might be enjoyable, but it's not a reference for live or natural. ideally each recording is distinct in these type things. the more distinct the better. if they all take the same 'set' then mostly that is one note bass as an artifact/coloration.

Apparently we are all on the same page here with the exception of what 'black background' means. To me if the background is truly black, the ambiance of the recording will be more easily presented. You both use the expression in a way that I do not although the goal is the same.

The sensation that a living, breathing person actually is singing to you in your listening room.

Thanks! I described something like that earlier. I used to think that only tubes could do that, but as I've learned more about how distortion and feedback actually work (rather than made up stories I maintained all the way through college in my youth) I've found that you can do that with class D as well no worries.

 

[PeterA]

Apparently we are all on the same page here with the exception of what 'black background' means. To me if the background is truly black, the ambiance of the recording will be more easily presented. You both use the expression in a way that I do not although the goal is the same.

To me, the ambiance is the background overwhich the next notes are presented, inherent to each performance and space. The lower the system/room noise floor, and the higher system's resolution capabilities, the more completely and naturally the ambiance information embedded in the recording can be presented.

 

[Atmasphere]

You might consider then that SETs have the highest noise floor of any kind of amp. If you run DC on the filament of the power tube this is helped quite a bit; but that reduces the lifespan of the tube due to 'hot spots' forming in the filament (IOW they last longer if AC is used with a hum balance control).

(I had an idea to get around this problem by having the DC flip polarity every time you turned the amp on so to reduce the wear on the filament caused by the hot spots.)

To put this in perspective, to really hear what an SET does you have to have high efficiency speakers like the ones you have. A class D amp can be made to have a very similar distortion character (although lower overall) with a SNR of -115dB or better (so 20dB quieter). Its much easier to hear low level detail with that kind of noise floor on a high efficiency speaker!

 

[bonzo75]

To put this in perspective, to really hear what an SET does you have to have high efficiency speakers like the ones you have.

Why was this ever an argument

 

[Atmasphere]

Why was this ever an argument

I don't think it is, but I've noticed that many people use SETs with speakers that have far too little efficiency to really hear what the SET can do. This is why you read so many comments about how 'dynamic' SETs are. I explained this earlier. I was simply acknowledging that Peter got this bit right.

 

[Lagonda]

I don't think it is, but I've noticed that many people use SETs with speakers that have far too little efficiency to really hear what the SET can do. This is why you read so many comments about how 'dynamic' SETs are. I explained this earlier. I was simply acknowledging that Peter got this bit right.

Now Peter has "gotten this right" you should supply him with loaner amps of your OTL and class D variety and trust his ears. He will no doubt keep the ones he finds best. Are they better than Lamm ?

 

[PeterA]

I don't think it is, but I've noticed that many people use SETs with speakers that have far too little efficiency to really hear what the SET can do. This is why you read so many comments about how 'dynamic' SETs are. I explained this earlier. I was simply acknowledging that Peter got this bit right.

For some reason, you want to make this a general discussion about SET typology, and speakers. This personal system thread is about my specific Lamm ML2 and the specific speakers that Vladimir Lamm suggested would sound best with his amplifiers, the Vitavox CN191, early version from late 50s, which is a 16 ohm load and 105 DB efficient.

Speakers like this are rare and not very available today, so perhaps you want to discuss amplifiers that you design that may work better than my amplifiers on the speakers available today.

I agree with Bonzo. You keep making this point, and I keep mentioning that my amplifier and speakers don’t have the issues you keep describing.

 

[Amir]

You might want to read this and watch the video... Humans are apparently capable of vocalizations that you may not have been previously aware?

To the first question: Yes.

I think the class D sounds more accurate, more natural than our OTLs on most speakers. Certain ESLs are an exception; our class D does better than our OTLs on ESL57s but not on Sound Labs since Sound Labs need some power which is hard to make with solid state since Sound Labs have a 30Ohm impedance in the bass.

The class D sounds very similar to our OTLs; in casual listening without looking you'd not know which is playing as it has the same smoothness in the mids and highs as the OTLs (there are a number of reviews confirming this). The big tell between them is the class D is a bit more focused, so images in the rear of the sound stage are easier to make out. This happens because its lower distortion; distortion obscures detail.

The bass is usually the other area where the two sound different from each other. Since the class D is able to act as a Voltage source and our OTLs are meant to act as a power source, the way they play bass is different depending on the loudspeaker used.

Thank you for description

 

[Amir]

we can all like our own approach, and we should avoid trying to denigrate other ways. stick to the positive.

100% agree, we should avoid trying to denigrate other audiophiles