What is "fast" ?

[tima]

In terms of subjective perception, I believe he thinks it is a clean, articulate sound rather than a sluggish or muddy sound. Personally, I don't really like the term "fast". Is it in HP's glossary of audiophile terms?

"Fast" is in Gordon Holt's The Audio Glossary: "Giving an impression of extremely rapid reaction time - of a reproduction system being able to "keep up with" the signal fed to it. Similar to taut, but applied to the entire audio frequency range."

Or Gordon Holt's "Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary" which is online: Giving an impression of extremely rapid reaction time, which allows a reproducing system to "keep up with" the signal fed to it. (A "fast woofer" would seem to be an oxymoron, but this usage refers to a woofer tuning that does not boom, make the music sound "slow," obscure musical phrasing, or lead to "one-note bass.") Similar to "taut," but referring to the entire audio-frequency range instead of just the bass.

I agree with you - I don't like the term either (though in 2008 I did use it in a review.) As used in audio talk "fast" seems unclear in terms of the object to which it is applied.

As we see with Holt and some responses here, the word gets described by its synonyms. Though Holt does say "Giving an impression ..." which suggests something subjective. The folks referring to speaker rise time or settling time suggest an objective event or measurement as a cause? of such impression.

I am inclined to agree with your audiophile friend's "clean, articulate sound" though I might say "clear and distinct". As @Tim Link suggests above, I do not hear live acoustic music as "fast" in the same sense as the word is used for audio systems.

 

[tima]

Listening to acoustic instruments live they never sound "fast" to me.

An excellent point.

 

[bonzo75]

Fast is not hurried. So live music won't sound fast. But reproduced music will sound slow. I also agree with Gordon Holt's explanation. Those who don't use it don't have to. They should just understand why those who do do. They are not correct by not using it

 

[Lagonda]

This time it's the chicken before the egg, your speaker's drivers moving faster and with more control using more powerful electronics!

david

Well this particular chicken needed better abs to push the egg properly

 

[Lagonda]

Fast is not hurried. So live music won't sound fast. But reproduced music will sound slow. I also agree with Gordon Holt's explanation. Those who don't use it don't have to. They should just understand why those who do do. They are not correct by not using it

The best systems i have heard seem to slow time somewhat where you feel you are getting greater insight to the music, at the same time the album is over really fast because you are so engaged

 

[tima]

Fast is not hurried. So live music won't sound fast. But reproduced music will sound slow. I also agree with Gordon Holt's explanation. Those who don't use it don't have to. They should just understand why those who do do. They are not correct by not using it

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The best systems i have heard seem to slow time somewhat where you feel you are getting greater insight to the music, at the same time the album is over really fast because you are so engaged

"be quick, but don't hurry"....this Wooden guy once said.

quick comes from synergy, agility and balance......an effortlessness of motion and degree of control.....looks and feels easy........so then you can relax into the music.

 

[Folsom]

I think some 45rpm albums sound “fast” in a way, unnatural. (Usually ones remastered for 45rpm)

While it’s hard to put words to it, “fast” sound is distracting and bad if it has that character all the time. Being more capable bass is a good thing but not if it has a strange quality to it. So “faster than” is a positive” but “fast” is a negative to me. I doubt that helps. I think there are better descriptors.

 

[Al M.]

I've done some simple measurements on rise times of cheap department store speakers. As long as they weren't pushed past their limits they reproduced the leading edge of transient signals I made for them with near perfection. It was the trailing edge where things took time to settle down. I think "fast" can perhaps refer to how quickly the speaker can stop.

Very interesting, thanks for the info.

Listening to acoustic instruments live they never sound "fast" to me. I would describe them as bold, vivid, and rich, detailed and free from electro mechanical transducer effects. I'm tempted to compare the audio speed effect to the sharpening effect in a picture. I like properly applied sharpening. It compensates for the lack of resolution and 3d depth to some effect and just generally looks good to me, like an artistic effect. The real world never looks sharpened. Just smooth and detailed.

The sound of live instruments tends to greatly depend on the distance from the listener. I have heard concerts of small-scale music in rather small venues where the instruments sounded with incisive, pronounced transients that I perceived as "fast". Further away, in not so small venues, the sound tends to be, in relative terms, smooth as you say, while indeed often also detailed.

 

[the sound of Tao]

The best systems i have heard seem to slow time somewhat where you feel you are getting greater insight to the music, at the same time the album is over really fast because you are so engaged

Milan,
Really great point, I was also trying to get some understanding on how perception and engagement play into those loss of time awareness periods that do happen in great music but can be when the music is apparently slow or fast in nature. The time play and temporal distortions that great music performance can make.

I figure if the music is 100% engaging then there is no awareness or lapse of focus that allows gaps and the registering of external cues so the mind and feeling nature follow the thread seamlessly and we are then taken utterly. I lose great chunks of time these days... but I spose that could also be other things as well

 

[Tango]

.....where you feel you are getting greater insight to the music,

It is great we are trying to get understanding what people mean when they use the word "fast" to describe a sound of a system or component. Personally I think describing sound is very difficult and there is no rules to it and should put no restriction or ridicule how one express it in words as long as it is honest and not pretending to be esteemed reviewers. Same as a doctor should not be telling a patient how he describe his pain. When people in my circle use the word fast, it is because he has heard many other systems and components and his instinct automatically compare what he hear to what he has heard as slow or typical that drives him to use the word "fast". Others might be more clever using other vocab to describe exactly the same thing he hears. It is just a matter of understanding one means in saying that particular word. Many comments earlier seem to hit the target of what a person trying to describe sound using the word "fast."

Maybe getting off the topic of this thread, what Lagonda san said above is a crucial criteria that once a system gets pass the face value goodness, it is really the "Getting-into-the-insight-of-music" aspect that I believe makes a system or component goes beyond. This is even more difficult to try to explain in words. A system needs to have that ability to portray very very delicate of little tiny sound, contrast, delicate changes in pace of a cello bow, that slow movement quieter passage that actually emotionally pull the listener in, etc, etc. Things that make listener realize how masterful the cellist or musician is. Damn it is just difficult to describe and put into words.

 

[PeterA]

Maybe getting off the topic of this thread, what Lagonda san said above is a crucial criteria that once a system gets pass the face value goodness, it is really the "Getting-into-the-insight-of-music" aspect that I believe makes a system or component goes beyond. This is even more difficult to try to explain in words. A system needs to have that ability to portray very very delicate of little tiny sound, contrast, delicate changes in pace of a cello bow, that slow movement quieter passage that actually emotionally pull the listener in, etc, etc. Things that make listener realize how masterful the cellist or musician is. Damn it is just difficult to describe and put into words.

Yes, and this too is what we experience with a really great live performance. When a system is really, really good, it is difficult to describe because one is lost in the overall experience and is unable to really focus on the parts or to dissect the sound. I think this is what ddk talks about when he says that real music is not "bits and pieces". Really good systems, likewise, can not be broken down into parts.

I was asked the other day to describe what I remember from the sound of Rockitman's system. I failed utterly, because what I remember is the music he played for me and how damn natural it all sounded. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. This stood in stark contrast to the first time I heard his system when it sounded like a "wall of sound", loud and big and dynamic. The next time, it was about how intimate the night club sounded, how jamming was Duke Ellington's band, etc. I'll never forget "Mood Indigo" on that AS2000, large Wilson speakers, massive Pass amps. It was like I was there. "Fast" was the furthest thing from my mind.

 

[tima]

About a year ago I started this thread "What is "fast"? It asks about use/meaning of the word 'fast' largely from the perspective of subjective listening descriptions, although responses also cover electrical characteristics.

Ralph Karsten (@Atmasphere) recently made a post in the current thread "DSD to Vinyl Versus Analog Tape to Vinyl" where he mentions the speed of a system and its relation to what I'll call 'limbic level listening'. Rather than continue that discussion in (yet another) digital vs vinyl thread I thought to follow-up in this thread. Two quotes from that thread to set the context:

From a review I did for The Audio Beat on the Lamm M1.2

"If you ask him about assessing sound quality, Vladimir [Lamm] will tell you first that "It is important . . to know how the real orchestra sounds. We choose a reference point based on live music and compare to this point," then, once so prepared, "the problem of sound-quality assessment is almost completely solved in the first 10-15 seconds of listening at the intuitive level."

The experience we have listening to music at that "intuitive level" is rooted in primitive limbic functions of awareness -- deep in our lizard brain. McGill University scientists observed that consonance and dissonance will light up the limbic systems responsible for pleasurable and negative emotions appropriately. The non-cognitive experience of music can trigger areas in the brain sufficient to cause the release of endorphins; when they reach the limbic system’s opioid receptors, feelings of satisfaction ensue. In his book What to Listen for in Music, American composer Aaron Copland talks about this in different terms, describing how a fundamental aspect of enjoying music takes place on a "sensuous plane," which is "a kind of brainless but attractive state of mind [that] is engendered by the mere sound appeal of music."

If a component or a system breaks the fundamental rules of human hearing, our music-listening brain reaches a kind of tipping point where processing of music occurs less in limbic areas and more in the cerebral cortex. If my ear/brain system detects distortion, for example an excess of third-order harmonics that cause increased loudness or forwardness from that trumpet section over there in right field, in an instant it can happen: focus is triggered, the eyes open and the non-inferential immediacy of our musical enjoyment collapses."

I've been telling people something like this for years. If the limbic system finds something that 'doesn't compute' the music processing is unconsciouslyT transferred to the cerebral cortex. When that happens the emotional involvement, the foot tapping, the desire to move with the music is all decreased or gone entirely. When you are auditioning cables its with the cerebral cortex, not the limbic system.

Things that help keep the processing in the limbic system:
*The 'speed' of the system- there's a tipping point for that
*if the distortion signature is able to mask higher ordered harmonic content (many tube amps do this, hence the tubes/transistors debate)
*The ear converts distortion into tonality and pays greater attention to it than actual FR. So the distortion has to be kept down to prevent coloration; the brightness of solid state or the crispness of early digital are two good examples of audible colorations.

You can accurately predict that if a system obeys the above 3 points it will sound more emotionally involving than a system that does not. If you are going to design audio equipment for a living with the idea of actually doing the best you can rather than just to make money, you have to apply engineering principles in such a way that the human hearing perceptual rules are supported (this would seem elementary but many designers seem to ignore the ear's perceptual rules). One of the most important of these is how the ear perceives sound pressure, which is thru the perception of higher ordered harmonics. That is why its so important to keep them down (or masked).

Yes, you have been telling something like this to people. I remember some of our conversations on the topic and you clearly had an influence on my own views as has Mr. Lamm. Thank you for being a mentor in an easy way. I'm vaguely recalling your mentioning a relevant research paper from ... GE was it? ... but I never could find a copy. Melchior?

The three bullet points you list provide further explanation. I have not seen the first item 'til now. I don't know if there is any correlation between what you say about the relevance of "the 'speed' of the system' and its tipping point.

You made some excellent posts on Audiogon about design and OTLs. For example:
"IOW what we want to do is engage the human limbic system rather than the cerebral cortex. So in addition to distortion issues, the circuit or system has to be fast enough; if too slow the processing of the sound moves to the cerebral cortex. IOW the experience of the sound becomes intellectual instead of toe-tapping." 09/10/2010 from the thread Thought on OTL amps

Ralph, could you expand on 'speed' of the system? TIA

 

[Atmasphere]

Ralph, could you expand on 'speed' of the system? TIA

Yes. Everything has to have speed. On the electronics side, there should be high speed slew rates; lots of bandwidth is required unless you have a ton of feedback (in excess of 35dB). For example even though our OTLs are tube amps, the risetime of the output section is about 600V/uS- in the same realm as some of the fastest solid state amps. Not surprisingly, this works out to a lot of bandwidth too, which is needed since our OTLs have no feedback (this is to prevent phase shift, which is part of the deal; phase shift can color the sound of the system and mess with the soundstage).

This speed is instantly audible. Mind you speed is not the same as brightness which is a coloration often brought on by distortion! A system can be fast without being bright; one sign is that it will be more detailed. When you have relaxed and greater detail at the same time that's a good sign.

Loudspeakers have to be fast too. This is why ESLs can be so convincing; they have high speed. When the industry moved away from field coils in the 1950s hifi was too young to be able to know what was being left behind. But FC drivers and ESLs have something in common- when the signal is applied to the loudspeaker, the motive force does not sag so the speaker does not slow down. In both cases this is because a power supply is present to provide what is needed to make that happen. In permanent magnet drivers, when you put current through the voice coil the magnetic field sags with it. IIRC neodynium does this the worst (which is why it took a while for driver manufacturers to figure out how to get neodynium motors to work right). Alnico, while being the weakest magnet structure, has the advantage of being more easily focused in the voice coil gap and otherwise sags the least, which is why Alnico has the following it does. Field coils take that to the next level and its all about speed, just like carbon fiber diaphragms and the like. The speed is important because of that tipping point in the brain- you really want to keep the music processing in the limbic system.