ok, let's come at this from a different direction.
when you hear more detail in a system, more ambient information being presented, more linear bass, greater dynamic range, greater microdynamics, more snap to the transients, and more textural nuance.....how do you determine what might be a lowering of noise floor, and what might be lowering distortion?
where does one 'effect' end and the other begin?
note that i do agree with you to an extent. in my situation i had a chance to see how my efforts resulted in changes during each step of the process. most times there were improvements to both noise floor and distortion.....in other words; things were both clearer and there was less noise. although mostly it was more one than the other. and it was mostly distortion being removed that yeilded the larger change. let's face it; there is a 'limit' to how much noise can be removed. OTOH the only way you know how much distortion can be removed is when you hear it removed. otherwise you are blissfully unaware. you have accepted the distortion as truth.
Mike understands there is a process and the only way to get results is to understand that the only thing that stands in the way of the music is distortion and noise. The removal of these 2 primary inhibitors will yield greater results than any room treatments. How much can be removed? A surpising amount, because most do not know it is there to a certain level and also there is a "mind set" that what really is the cause can't possibly be mitigated.
checking for noise verses checking for distortion.
you can hear the lead-in track, or between cuts on an Lp with 2 turntables side by side (i've done this many times) and compare the noise level. or do the same thing with arms or phono stages. you can turn up the volume with no music and hear the noise relatively as you try different things. but how do you find a source and system with zero distortion to A/B with? you cannot. you must discover distortion by finding ways to reduce or eliminate it. there is no quick fix to that process, and it takes an open mind and sometimes an open checkbook.
and anyone who thinks they don't have any distortion is delusional. it's a matter of one's reference. a year ago people (me included) thought my system was quiet and low distortion. on Saturday a friend brought over his Lenco tt built by the guy in Canada to compare to the NVS. it was suppose to be the very best....and touted as such all over the web. but the guys who said that don't have a Rockport or Beat (or master tapes) sitting there to compare. they lack a proper reference. the NVS smoked it and it was not close. both the Beat and Rockport would have done the same. but a large group of people are convinced it's the Bomb. it's a nice turntable on par with my Garrard 301, maybe just a bit different.
until you hear less distortion you might think you don't have any.
Not a TT person anymore..Still, I wouldn't expect a Lenco, any Lenco to beat a Rockport.. neither would I think that a Garrard 301 (isn't it an idler pulley model?) can challenge a modern day TT ...
Let's keep the discussion to noise, distortion is a different (but related) notion.
How did you find out that a driver was out of phase?
Not a TT person anymore..Still, I wouldn't expect a Lenco, any Lenco to beat a Rockport.. neither would I think that a Garrard 301 (isn't it an idler pulley model?) can challenge a modern day TT ...
Let's keep the discussion to noise, distortion is a different (but related) notion.
How did you find out that a driver was out of phase?
the title of the my thread is how noise and distortion relate.
i wouldn't expect a Lenco to compete, but that's my whole point...that a lack of a proper reference allows us to be delusional on where we are on these issues.
the out of phase driver is a long story i'll tell later when i get the time. it's documented here on the WBF and on my Audiogon system thread if you are in the mood to look. it's a painful, but ultimately wonderful story for my system development. it was very humbling.
checking for noise verses checking for distortion.
you can hear the lead-in track, or between cuts on an Lp with 2 turntables side by side (i've done this many times) and compare the noise level. or do the same thing with arms or phono stages. you can turn up the volume with no music and hear the noise relatively as you try different things. but how do you find a source and system with zero distortion to A/B with? you cannot. you must discover distortion by finding ways to reduce or eliminate it. there is no quick fix to that process, and it takes an open mind and sometimes an open checkbook.
and anyone who thinks they don't have any distortion is delusional. it's a matter of one's reference. a year ago people (me included) thought my system was quiet and low distortion. on Saturday a friend brought over his Lenco tt built by the guy in Canada to compare to the NVS. it was suppose to be the very best....and touted as such all over the web. but the guys who said that don't have a Rockport or Beat (or master tapes) sitting there to compare. they lack a proper reference. the NVS smoked it and it was not close. both the Beat and Rockport would have done the same. but a large group of people are convinced it's the Bomb. it's a nice turntable on par with my Garrard 301, maybe just a bit different.
until you hear less distortion you might think you don't have any.
checking for noise verses checking for distortion.
you can hear the lead-in track, or between cuts on an Lp with 2 turntables side by side (i've done this many times) and compare the noise level. or do the same thing with arms or phono stages. you can turn up the volume with no music and hear the noise relatively as you try different things. but how do you find a source and system with zero distortion to A/B with? you cannot. you must discover distortion by finding ways to reduce or eliminate it. there is no quick fix to that process, and it takes an open mind and sometimes an open checkbook.
and anyone who thinks they don't have any distortion is delusional. it's a matter of one's reference. a year ago people (me included) thought my system was quiet and low distortion. on Saturday a friend brought over his Lenco tt built by the guy in Canada to compare to the NVS. it was suppose to be the very best....and touted as such all over the web. but the guys who said that don't have a Rockport or Beat (or master tapes) sitting there to compare. they lack a proper reference. the NVS smoked it and it was not close. both the Beat and Rockport would have done the same. but a large group of people are convinced it's the Bomb. it's a nice turntable on par with my Garrard 301, maybe just a bit different.
until you hear less distortion you might think you don't have any.
I consider myself very lucky to have local audiophiles like Mike and Bruce who set extremely lofty goals for us mere mortals. As fabulous as their rooms sound, they pale by comparison to the quality of their owners!
I visited with Mike 10 days ago, and we listened to a bunch of vinyl that I brought, and also some of his tapes. His system is definitely sounding very, very good. I thought that the pace and rhythm on the new tt was quite a bit better than the Rockport. There was something very captivating about the drive and musical engagement displayed. This was with my own music that I listen to all the time.
I want to throw in my $.02 worth here. As many of you know, I recently switched from using a VPI TNT/SDS/ET-2/Benz Glider SL combo to a Technics SP-10 MKII/SME 312S/Benz Glider SL on my very custom made/custom machined plinth. The drop in noise/distortion was beyond what I ever expected to hear. On the best vinyl, the noise floor is actually the sound of the tape hiss coming from the master tape. As the LP moves between bands, the tape hiss disappears and the noise floor damn near fades to black between cuts. Breathtaking, and I thought I would never achieve that.
I have reached the point where I’m trying to chase all noise and residual hum out of my system. I recently bought a Krell KPE Reference phono stage which is super quiet and this has helped as well. While I used to love the sound of my Counterpoint SA-2/SA-5.1 combo, the SA-2 was noisy because tubes really can’t amplify a low output MC cartridge without adding noise. When you are dealing with signals that are mere thousandths of a mv, you are into the noise floor of tubes.
I also took RogerD’s advice and star grounded the majority of my components. I bought a chunk of copper and had holes drilled and tapped so I could screw all of the ground wires to the copper block and run that back to a single ground point. That eliminated a residual hum from my Ampex 350s that I just knew I could eliminate.
Things are definitely heading in the right direction.
I want to throw in my $.02 worth here. As many of you know, I recently switched from using a VPI TNT/SDS/ET-2/Benz Glider SL combo to a Technics SP-10 MKII/SME 312S/Benz Glider SL on my very custom made/custom machined plinth. The drop in noise/distortion was beyond what I ever expected to hear. On the best vinyl, the noise floor is actually the sound of the tape hiss coming from the master tape. As the LP moves between bands, the tape hiss disappears and the noise floor damn near fades to black between cuts. Breathtaking, and I thought I would never achieve that.
I have reached the point where I’m trying to chase all noise and residual hum out of my system. I recently bought a Krell KPE Reference phono stage which is super quiet and this has helped as well. While I used to love the sound of my Counterpoint SA-2/SA-5.1 combo, the SA-2 was noisy because tubes really can’t amplify a low output MC cartridge without adding noise. When you are dealing with signals that are mere thousandths of a mv, you are into the noise floor of tubes.
I also took RogerD’s advice and star grounded the majority of my components. I bought a chunk of copper and had holes drilled and tapped so I could screw all of the ground wires to the copper block and run that back to a single ground point. That eliminated a residual hum from my Ampex 350s that I just knew I could eliminate.
Things are definitely heading in the right direction.
when you hear more detail in a system, more ambient information being presented, more linear bass, greater dynamic range, greater microdynamics, more snap to the transients, and more textural nuance.....how do you determine what might be a lowering of noise floor, and what might be lowering distortion?
Mike, I am nervous about getting too objective or subjective as I'll just get blasted. Probably will anyway...
Fundamentally, to me distortion is correlated to the signal and noise is not. You can pull a lot of detail from below the noise floor by averaging, such as is performed by your ear/brain system (dither works like that), but distortion will remain. I think we are more tolerant of pure noise than distortion of the same level. Or distortion in general, particularly spurs that do not line up harmonically (IMD is the usual example; sampling can also move spurs to Bad Places). So, while a high noise floor is annoying, to me distortion is generally more important for real-world systems. Of course, the largest source of distortion in most any system is the speakers.
The things you list can be impacted by either, of course. Noise or distortion can mask low-level detail (ambient information, microdynamics) and either can limit the dynamic range, or instance. More snap in transients, well, that sounds like lower linearity and wider bandwidth with greater damping factor so leans (to me) toward lower distortion. More linear bass is clearly a distortion thing. I do not know what "textural nuance" means but suspect it can be tied to either noise or distortion.
In ADC/DAC design it is very desirable to have all distortion spurs 10 dB or more below the noise floor so they contribute very little to the SINAD (signal to noise and distortion ratio, which in turn is used to calculate effective bits of resolution). In practice, that rarely happens... Dither helps decorrelate sampling spurs from the signal and makes the sampling noise floor more "white" and pleasing to the ear.
Mike, I am nervous about getting too objective or subjective as I'll just get blasted. Probably will anyway...
Fundamentally, to me distortion is correlated to the signal and noise is not. You can pull a lot of detail from below the noise floor by averaging, such as is performed by your ear/brain system (dither works like that), but distortion will remain. I think we are more tolerant of pure noise than distortion of the same level. Or distortion in general, particularly spurs that do not line up harmonically (IMD is the usual example; sampling can also move spurs to Bad Places). So, while a high noise floor is annoying, to me distortion is generally more important for real-world systems. Of course, the largest source of distortion in most any system is the speakers.
The things you list can be impacted by either, of course. Noise or distortion can mask low-level detail (ambient information, microdynamics) and either can limit the dynamic range, or instance. More snap in transients, well, that sounds like lower linearity and wider bandwidth with greater damping factor so leans (to me) toward lower distortion. More linear bass is clearly a distortion thing. I do not know what "textural nuance" means but suspect it can be tied to either noise or distortion.
In ADC/DAC design it is very desirable to have all distortion spurs 10 dB or more below the noise floor so they contribute very little to the SINAD (signal to noise and distortion ratio, which in turn is used to calculate effective bits of resolution). In practice, that rarely happens... Dither helps decorrelate sampling spurs from the signal and makes the sampling noise floor more "white" and pleasing to the ear.
great answer, thank you. and i learned a few things. it makes sense about the signal relating to distortion and noise being more a system thing.
that some sonic issues are affected by both noise and distortion does go to the point that solving noise and distortion go hand in hand. that has been my experience. they are different, but connected.
my meaning for 'textural nuance' is the subtle clues about the reality of sounds. can the type of cymble be recognized? can you resolve the venue in your mind's eye from what you hear? are things smoothed and rounded with sonic artifacts, or does the truth of real sounds come thru? not sure what better term to use.
Fundamentally, to me distortion is correlated to the signal and noise is not. You can pull a lot of detail from below the noise floor by averaging, such as is performed by your ear/brain system (dither works like that), but distortion will remain. I think we are more tolerant of pure noise than distortion of the same level. Or distortion in general, particularly spurs that do not line up harmonically (IMD is the usual example; sampling can also move spurs to Bad Places). So, while a high noise floor is annoying, to me distortion is generally more important for real-world systems.
This I would dispute: from a technical, measuring, viewpoint I would imagine most times the speaker would do less well, but from the far more critical point of view of distortion that is "pleasing to the ear", the speakers, in my experience, are way ahead of the electronics. Forced to choose for life on a desert island, for me it would be a slam dunk: sorted out electronics with poorer speakers, wins over sorted out speakers with poorer electronics every time ...
my meaning for 'textural nuance' is the subtle clues about the reality of sounds. can the type of cymble be recognized? can you resolve the venue in your mind's eye from what you hear? are things smoothed and rounded with sonic artifacts, or does the truth of real sounds come thru? not sure what better term to use.
Curious, Mike, how close are you, or are you already there, to invisible speakers, or extremely large sweet spot, or however you would choose to phrase such an experience?
Curious, Mike, how close are you, or are you already there, to invisible speakers, or extremely large sweet spot, or however you would choose to phrase such an experience?
my speakers are slaves to the sound/mixing/mastering engineers......in other words, if the music is layed down to be holographic and escape the speakers, it will. the drivers do not announce themselves at all, but hard left hard right is hard left hard right.
my speakers are 73 inches tall, and weight 575 pounds each (not quite as heavy as Steve's X-2's....but still heavy). they are approx 118 inches from my ears. with the lights down you would never know they are there.
my room has 100% hard surfaces below, behind, beside, and above the speakers. and 100% of those surfaces have diffusion as a part of them as part of the design. so, no musical energy is lost, and all that energy is allowed to develop as a soundstage. so yes, it is holographic in spades.
i will say that my choice in music rarely allows for any sound to be localized to the direction of the speakers; and my room has always been a space machine, only now much more so.
the other issue is how specific formats resolve themselves in space. each one does it differently.
it's said that the system that tells you the most differences between each recording is the one telling you the most truth.
Not to sound like a sycophant, but one of the biggest improvements over the 36 months in Mike's system has been the illusion of space. Not just sound stage size and depth, but the recreation of the unique space that each recording is created in; be it a concert hall or small recording studio. The room/system certainly allows you to recreate the physicality of Led Zeppelin, but also let's you hear the delicate sounds of the Quartteto Italiano in a small acoustical space. Pretty cool!
my speakers are slaves to the sound/mixing/mastering engineers......in other words, if the music is layed down to be holographic and escape the speakers, it will. the drivers do not announce themselves at all, but hard left hard right is hard left hard right.
my speakers are 73 inches tall, and weight 575 pounds each (not quite as heavy as Steve's X-2's....but still heavy). they are approx 118 inches from my ears. with the lights down you would never know they are there.
my room has 100% hard surfaces below, behind, beside, and above the speakers. and 100% of those surfaces have diffusion as a part of them as part of the design. so, no musical energy is lost, and all that energy is allowed to develop as a soundstage. so yes, it is holographic in spades.
Sounds pretty good to me, congratulations! From what jazdoc says, it sounds like you can whip up the enormous soundstage of Led Zeppelin I without much trouble ...
it's said that the system that tells you the most differences between each recording is the one telling you the most truth.
Not to sound like a sycophant, but one of the biggest improvements over the 36 months in Mike's system has been the illusion of space. Not just sound stage size and depth, but the recreation of the unique space that each recording is created in; be it a concert hall or small recording studio. The room/system certainly allows you to recreate the physicality of Led Zeppelin, but also let's you to hear the delicate sounds of the Quartteto Italiano in a small acoustical space. Pretty cool!
Mike, I am nervous about getting too objective or subjective as I'll just get blasted. Probably will anyway...
Fundamentally, to me distortion is correlated to the signal and noise is not. You can pull a lot of detail from below the noise floor by averaging, such as is performed by your ear/brain system (dither works like that), but distortion will remain. I think we are more tolerant of pure noise than distortion of the same level. Or distortion in general, particularly spurs that do not line up harmonically (IMD is the usual example; sampling can also move spurs to Bad Places). So, while a high noise floor is annoying, to me distortion is generally more important for real-world systems. Of course, the largest source of distortion in most any system is the speakers.
The things you list can be impacted by either, of course. Noise or distortion can mask low-level detail (ambient information, microdynamics) and either can limit the dynamic range, or instance. More snap in transients, well, that sounds like lower linearity and wider bandwidth with greater damping factor so leans (to me) toward lower distortion. More linear bass is clearly a distortion thing. I do not know what "textural nuance" means but suspect it can be tied to either noise or distortion.
In ADC/DAC design it is very desirable to have all distortion spurs 10 dB or more below the noise floor so they contribute very little to the SINAD (signal to noise and distortion ratio, which in turn is used to calculate effective bits of resolution). In practice, that rarely happens... Dither helps decorrelate sampling spurs from the signal and makes the sampling noise floor more "white" and pleasing to the ear.
just because everything sounds 'more different' does not mean that what you hear is somehow 'hyper detailed and in your face'. the whole issue is that it's more real. you can look at a row of trees or flowers and they might be similar, but they are not identical in the real world. they have individuality. and commuunicating that individuality is a valuable part of system performance. real flowers and trees are not digital 'bit perfect' copies.
if a system truely gets out of the way of the musical message then these things happen and there is just music. but no doubt the system does become a microscope of subtle things. i have worked on all the little things in my media, sources, amplification, cables, racks and isolation, speakers, speaker footers, power grid and room to make sure that everything is working together.
on Sunday i was messing around with things. the A10 U8 footers underneath my amplifier need to be 'disturbed' every 60 days or so because with the heat and weight of the amp they can lose their 'mojo' and settle. so i took them out one by one as the music was playing and messaged them, and put them back one by one. i use 5 under the amp to try to get them into their operating weight better than 4. for grins i added a 6th footer. as i set the amp down i could hear the increase in 'air' and 'foundation' to the music. the noise floor dropped, the system became more linear. it was weird. my guess is that up till that point i had not really found the right amount of footers....and maybe 7 would be better still....i'll have to try that. but the system does communicate subtle things very well.
and i don't think that my system is unique in communicating subtle things, i hope i'm not inferring that.
Mike, I'm sorry if you thought I was implying you were on that particular "road": that in fact is the title of quite a famous article by Peter Qvortrup that's to be found quite easily on the net, which in fact strongly argues the validity of how you assess your system's performance!
I agree with everything you mention in that last post, especially the delicacy with which you have to select exactly the right number or value of something to get the optimum sound. The better the system, the fussier it becomes!
I think the last time I commented on audio in general on a thread with you, you weren't very partial to how well CD was able to sound on your system. Is this still the case? If so, you're probably very close to getting digital to "come good", my experience has been the better the system, the worse CD sounds until the last issue is resolved, and suddenly the sound snaps into place ...
