Natural Sound

[morricab]

You can wax poetic about these things, but at the end of the day, either you have heard something, or you have not. Very few systems can convey "presence" to the degree that some can, and when you experience it, you know it. You don't need to be an audiophile to recognize it (my girlfriend, and a few friends, who are not audiophiles, came to the same conclusion as me listening to the Altec 755A), and you certainly don't need to have a vast experience of live music either.

When you do hear it, it feels like the stars have aligned. Salvatore talks about it in a way which I feel is honest and I don't doubt he has experienced it with the Sadurni speakers (in his room, with his system).

The Altec 755A is quite unique, but it is an old, very fragile, speaker. There is a reason why those who have heard one (in good condition, with a good system) are so enamored with it. The degree of realism (though that term may be misleading) is uncanny, unlike anything I had heard before, irrespective of cost. The other Altec models (ex: 755C) do not have that same magic either. Unfortunately, it is very limited in other ways. The sound is addictive, and I ended up selling mine to free myself from its spell I will also add that hearing what this speaker can do has led me to realize that many costly speakers are simply not worth it to me - but that's a personal point of view.

You should explore DIY ways of getting there. There are a lot of interesting drivers that can provide magic if used correctly.

 

[Rexp]

Can I have some of what you are on?

I am obviously kidding but.....am I? Sounds should not change or vary to be convincing.

They either are or they are not. Palpable....it is or it isn't.

Tom

Not sure if you're trying to insult me or @Ron Resnick who wrote the above quote. Either way you're clearly not suited to the Moderator role, suggest someone else takes over who doesn't feel the need to personally insult fellow WBF members.

 

[hopkins]

You should explore DIY ways of getting there. There are a lot of interesting drivers that can provide magic if used correctly.

I could but the benefits vs time spend (including lots of trial and error) are really hard to evaluate. Not sure I have the skills and energy to get back into this.

I wish there was a simple way of experiencing the more "exotic" systems that everyone talks about here (including @PeterA 's). Audio shows only give us a very incomplete picture, and videos are so limited... Travelling and visiting people's systems is really the only way to understand what they are all about - as Bonzo, and some of you do.

 

[the sound of Tao]

I"m not sure there is much of a distinction between what you refer to as phases. Isn't "perceiving something and drawing evaluations", for the most part, using the same abilities to formulate concepts (notions) as is used to communicate them? To do one well is to do the other -- if only for yourself.

If anything I could have underestimated the number of stages involved in a process of listening to music played through a system and then writing up thoughts on it.

Perhaps all the processes don’t involve clear sharp change points and there can be complex overlaps but you could just as easily identify it listen, evaluate, write with a chain of different operational functions and mix of brain regions being involved throughout.

It would help to do every function well but you could be less than perfect and display variable quality in some functions but I’d suggest It’s completely possible to be a strong writer with poor listening skills and vice versa… equally it’s possible to be adept at analysis in listening and then struggle with synthesis in listening and vice versa… so a capable listener in ways but not without individual constraints.

 

[Argonaut]

Not sure if you're trying to insult me or @Ron Resnick who wrote the above quote. Either way you're clearly not suited to the Moderator role, suggest someone else takes over who doesn't feel the need to personally insult fellow WBF members.

Word of advice … when you visit a gourmet standard restaurant and you decide to chew out the maître d'hôtel before service … It would be unwise to order Tartar sauce with your halibut !

 

[Rexp]

Word of advice … when you visit a gourmet standard restaurant and you decide to chew out the maître d'hôtel before service … It would be unwise to order Tartar sauce with your halibut !

Why would I take advice from you, one of the most insulting people on this forum, you called me a Bell End (Dick Head) in the past. You're a disgrace and should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Atmasphere]

Most curious , might you advise us as to the mechanism with which your amplification designs have been developed and manufactured so that they seemingly induce this intrinsically corporeal effect upon the listener ? ( Whether they like it or not ) beyond the palpable norms of keeping THD around 1% or lower and tailoring the harmonic structure of an amplifiers more toward the Even rather than The Odd ?

As far as I know no-one designs to produce only even orders- there's literally no way to do that sans DSP. You can design something where the prior harmonic is higher in amplitude than the next harmonic in the series.

The trick isn't to design for even orders. Instead, you want the open loop design to have an exponential drop off of succeeding (higher) harmonics. What isn't often understood is that the ear treats the 3rd in much the same way as it does the 2nd (and is likely a good reason that reel to reel tape has so many proponents as tape heads manifest a 3rd harmonic as their dominant distortion component). These facts give the designer greater access to reducing distortion, by choice of exponent for the aforementioned exponential curve. That curve can be based on a quadratic exponent (higher distortion, including even orders) or cubic (lower distortion and no even orders). Both can mask higher ordered harmonics quite well and since the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are musical to the ear and close to the fundamental tone, innocuous.

I'm sure you see where that bit is going; SETs produce the quadratic non-linearity; to do the cubic non-linearity the amp needs to be fully differential, not just PP at the output. IOW one or the other, but not both. Otherwise you get an enhanced 5th which is less musical (see Norman Crowhurst).

The idea in any event is the distortion must be innocuous. SETs do that- they can have quite a lot of distortion but since the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are so prodigious, higher orders are masked. In a fully differential design the 3rd can do that masking too; succeeding harmonics fall off at a faster rate and overall the distortion is quite a bit less; open loop might be 10x lower.

The problem of course is the more distortion you have, the more it obscures detail.

As far as I can tell keeping phase shift to a minimum at either end of the audible spectrum is important. If you have no feedback, this requires a lot of bandwidth, since phase shift components involved with a 6dB/octave slope can exist to 10x or 1/10th the cutoff frequency; IOW if in the bass, 10x the cutoff frequency, if in the highs, 1/10th the cutoff. The ear is terrible at detecting phase shift at a single frequency but over a spectrum it interprets it as a tonality. So if you cut off at 20Hz on a 6dB slope with no feedback, phase shift can go up to 200Hz and this can be interpreted as bass shy despite the 20Hz repsonse. BTW this does not seem to apply to speakers- its an electronics thing. It seems this is the reason Stewart Hegeman (designer of the early Citation gear from Harmon Kardon) was such a big advocate of bandwidth.

If you run enough feedback and the feedback itself is applied properly, you can get around this problem as the feedback will correct phase.

If the circuit is to employ feedback things get a lot more complex and if the rules of applying it properly are ignored, Bad Things happen. If applied correctly, the feedback will simply reduce the open loop (innate) distortion and preserve its exponential nature. If applied incorrectly it will add higher ordered harmonics of its own! If the circuit lacks gain and bandwidth, the distortion will rise at some frequency because the feedback is reduced at the frequency on a slope (20dB/decade). Its my theory that these two issues contribute to brightness and harshness.

These are just a few of the things I think any designer has to consider if they want to build a circuit that sounds musical.

 

[Argonaut]

Why would I take advice from you, one of the most insulting people on this forum, you called me a Bell End (Dick Head) in the past. You're a disgrace and should be ashamed of yourself.

I Rest My Case M’Lud …

 

[Argonaut]

As far as I know no-one designs to produce only even orders- there's literally no way to do that sans DSP. You can design something where the prior harmonic is higher in amplitude than the next harmonic in the series.

Did I infer that ?

 

[Atmasphere]

Did I infer that ?

Yes, with this:

and tailoring the harmonic structure of an amplifiers more toward the Even rather than The Odd ?

So I felt it important to be clear in answering your question.

 

[Audiohertz2]

As far as I know no-one designs to produce only even orders- there's literally no way to do that sans DSP. You can design something where the prior harmonic is higher in amplitude than the next harmonic in the series.

The trick isn't to design for even orders. Instead, you want the open loop design to have an exponential drop off of succeeding (higher) harmonics. What isn't often understood is that the ear treats the 3rd in much the same way as it does the 2nd (and is likely a good reason that reel to reel tape has so many proponents as tape heads manifest a 3rd harmonic as their dominant distortion component). These facts give the designer greater access to reducing distortion, by choice of exponent for the aforementioned exponential curve. That curve can be based on a quadratic exponent (higher distortion, including even orders) or cubic (lower distortion and no even orders). Both can mask higher ordered harmonics quite well and since the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are musical to the ear and close to the fundamental tone, innocuous.

I'm sure you see where that bit is going; SETs produce the quadratic non-linearity; to do the cubic non-linearity the amp needs to be fully differential, not just PP at the output. IOW one or the other, but not both. Otherwise you get an enhanced 5th which is less musical (see Norman Crowhurst).

The idea in any event is the distortion must be innocuous. SETs do that- they can have quite a lot of distortion but since the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are so prodigious, higher orders are masked. In a fully differential design the 3rd can do that masking too; succeeding harmonics fall off at a faster rate and overall the distortion is quite a bit less; open loop might be 10x lower.

The problem of course is the more distortion you have, the more it obscures detail.

As far as I can tell keeping phase shift to a minimum at either end of the audible spectrum is important. If you have no feedback, this requires a lot of bandwidth, since phase shift components involved with a 6dB/octave slope can exist to 10x or 1/10th the cutoff frequency; IOW if in the bass, 10x the cutoff frequency, if in the highs, 1/10th the cutoff. The ear is terrible at detecting phase shift at a single frequency but over a spectrum it interprets it as a tonality. So if you cut off at 20Hz on a 6dB slope with no feedback, phase shift can go up to 200Hz and this can be interpreted as bass shy despite the 20Hz repsonse. BTW this does not seem to apply to speakers- its an electronics thing. It seems this is the reason Stewart Hegeman (designer of the early Citation gear from Harmon Kardon) was such a big advocate of bandwidth.

If you run enough feedback and the feedback itself is applied properly, you can get around this problem as the feedback will correct phase.

If the circuit is to employ feedback things get a lot more complex and if the rules of applying it properly are ignored, Bad Things happen. If applied correctly, the feedback will simply reduce the open loop (innate) distortion and preserve its exponential nature. If applied incorrectly it will add higher ordered harmonics of its own! If the circuit lacks gain and bandwidth, the distortion will rise at some frequency because the feedback is reduced at the frequency on a slope (20dB/decade). Its my theory that these two issues contribute to brightness and harshness.

These are just a few of the things I think any designer has to consider if they want to build a circuit that sounds musical.

Lol , Embracing Feedback now are we , wonder what brought this on ..!!!

 

[Argonaut]

As far as I know no-one designs to produce only even orders- there's literally no way to do that sans DSP. You can design something where the prior harmonic is higher in amplitude than the next harmonic in the series.

And I did not infer as such with any element of that which I wrote … You wrote “only even orders” ?!?!

 

[Atmasphere]

And I did not infer as such with any element of which I wrote … Really Ralph Yawn !

Of course you did. Please cease with the gaslighting.

 

[Argonaut]

Of course you did. Please cease with the gaslighting.

You seem a little confused Ralph … Where did I write “ only even orders” ?

 

[Tangram]

Hi Tangram, this is an interesting post. I have difficulty separating sound from the experience I want to achieve. We know the sound of a violin when we hear it playing around the corner or right in front of us through an audio system. That knowing can only come from aural memory.

The other day I cleaned the connections in my system for the first time since I bought it two years ago. I then sat down and listened to how the sound changed. It was easy to hear. Sometimes, when I listen to a solo bass, trombone, or soprano, I marvel at just the sound, focusing on just what I hear. That is all at and in that moment, and I judge the accuracy based on my memory of how they sounded over the years of hearing them live. And yet, there is more to it. Listening to an audio system can be a richer experience.

This is where the experience of listening, the emotions, the anticipation, the air pressure, the music, the sheer gestalt of it all, comes together. For me, it starts with the references of live music, the sound and all that comes along and together with it. I suspect if varies from listener to listener. Each of us has different priorities and experiences, and different abilities and interest levels, so the results vary. I have heard a handful of systems that simply astonished me, the ones that make me forget where I am, and make me feel, really feel, as though Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass are right there singing in the studio or jazz club, and I am there sitting at a specific seat in the audience. To achieve that, one must know the sound of a voice and a guitar and of sound in a space. The emotions and rest of the experience follow from ther

Given listening to stereo, our seemingly inate ability to geo-locate is naturally invoked. We have a sense of the location of sounds. If there is familiarity with, for example, orchestral arrangement, it is fairly simple to map a picture in our head of an orchestra performing before us in a general dimensional sense. I believe the microphone placement used for recording can influence that: compare recordings made with the Decca tree and the heavily multi-mic'ing approach of DG mixed to highlight indivdual musicians. I tend to prefer the former as a more realistic representation. I don't hear three-dimensional musicians in the concert hall or from my stereo although I've written in the past about musicians in bas-relief when an individual is brought to the fore in a reproduction.

All that is not included in my use of the word "presence".

In my writing I sometimes talk about venue context or 'the sense of an orchestra in a hall'. This is what I mean by presence. I believe it comes from room or hall acoustics with reflected sound -- that ever so slight timing delay between direct and reflected sound. As most halls tend to have a fair amount of height above an orchestra, reflections include that space to yield a dimensional enclosure of air with sound waves moving through it that yields 'the sense of an orchestra in a hall'. Depends on the venue. Smaller recording studios with trios and quartets tend to yield less presence although place a group on a stage on in, for example, a church and the venue may be heard.

However I don't take that sense of presence as 'an illusion' or as a thought that there actually are performers before me. I understand 'illusion' as a deception -- sonic stimuli that represents what is perceived differently from the way it is in reality. That deception is not a goal for me.

In what I call 'limbic listening' -- a wholly non-analytical experience -- I find a much more amorphous involvement where a sense of space with musicians in it is largely non-structured.

Of course you did. Please cease with the gaslighting.

Ralph, the Ignore button is a great way to trolls like Argonaut. He was my first add.