Are audio companies all involved in a huge conspiracy? - Page 84

I don't see the humor. Perhaps you can make whatever point you are making using specific examples?

There's a pretty simple reason I proclaim science to be "on my side." It is.

You're kidding, right? The power supply in an amp is key. Are you trying to say that it does not matter?

I didn't read it that way. His context (always important) indicates an implicit "in isolation" qualifier to the statement.

I guess for people who can hear the difference in a black painted amp chassis and a black anodized amp chassis, the concept of "good enough to be transparent" seems a little foreign.

Interesting. My Canton Digitals were set up for flat, but I didn't react to it as bright, rather I thought it was lacking bass, so I made a new target curve with more bass.

In my opinion the "right" target curve depends first and foremost on the recording, i.e. the room curve of the mixing/mastering room. Second is spectral content of the first few reflections. Those reflections depend on speaker directivity and room geometry.

I agree that focus on perfectly flat measured response can be counter productive for musical enjoyment. I try to pick a house curve that works with the widest possible selection of commonly-used sources.

This begs the question of why prefer amplifiers with flat response when the overall system response will probably not be flat. My answer is that for individual system components, system integration is facilitated when as many components in the chain as possible are flat. The non-flat portion of the system is easiest to manage if it is segregated into one or just a few components.

I have worked with systems that have a rarely-adjusted system equalizer that tailors the system response for general use, and a separate user-adjusted equalizer that is used to make additional adjustments for specific situations and this is a nice strategy. In fact that is a common situation with live sound and monitoring systems.

That is the point, but I expect you don't see it that way just as those you accuse of being zealots don't see their behavior in that light.

As far as examples, no, would be a waste of time to quote back to you your own posts. Because to acknowledge them in context of being a zealot would also mean to acknowledge being a hypocrite.
Edited by whoaru99 - 3/21/13 at 6:26am

There is a difference. My statement can be challenged, examples provided that may support and/or contradict it, and we can move forward with a discussion about whether the evidence is in support of my statement or not and whether science in fact is or is not on my side.

You are perfectly free to start such a conversation, and put forth any specific examples of where science conflicts with my viewpoint. Short of that, you are simply making broad, false equivalences where none exist.

Sorry, you edited this at least twice while I was responding.

So you just want to throw out lables/insults/whatever such as zealot and hypocrite, but refuse to provide a single example to support such a statement?

There's a word for people like you. Quite a few, actually.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you use an av receiver and you select stereo the music goes into a dsp? Don't dps's always alter the sound?

Good point, my 1000w@4ohm ICEpower amps are the size of a VHS tape...

I think they're pretty benign these days, IMO they've really improved since Blu-ray and the hi-rez codecs came into play. I'm of the mind the benefit of room correction outweighs the potential negative of the DSP process anyways.
I do all my 2ch listening with RC engaged, including vinyl.

Most receivers have the option of pure direct to bypass the DSP's.

Not necessarily. Most AVRs even most low-end models, have a bypass mode that allows the input signal to remain in the analog domain, bypassing the DSP. This adds to the expense of making the AVR because the AVR needs additional analog components to do common kinds of processing such as input switching and the volume control. This processing could be done in the DSP but then every signal would have to go into the digital domain. Every current and past AVR whose schematic I've examined is made this way.

Not necessarily. A DSP is just a special kind of computer that is optimized for signal processing. It does whatever its programming tells it to do. It is entirely conceivable that a DSP will have a function that involves copying its input data to its output port. The sound is thus not altered. The output is a bit-perfect copy of the input.

When DSPs alter signals they are easily able to do so in ways that minimize the loss of sound quality.

For example a crossover implemented in the analog domain adds noise, disortion, and adds natural variations because real world parts are never perfect. The crossover slopes don't match perfectly and if the crossover operates on multiple channels, every channel is at least a little bit different.

The same crossover implemented digitally can be far more perfect and consistent. Its precision is limited only by the data processing power of the DSP which is now inexpensive to extend and is generally overkilled pretty significantly. All channels receive absolutely identical processing if that is appropriate.
Edited by arnyk - 3/21/13 at 8:32am

AFAIK, neither output trajnsistors nor tubes acutally "make" power. They simply control how power taken from the power supply flows out to the speakers. (which is to say an amp is, in a real sense, a modulated power supply). The usual beef about receiver power supplies is that they are inadequate to allow the receiver to output full rated power to all channels simultaneously. At some point, with equal test singnals to multiple channesl, the output devices' "demand" for power outstrips the supply's ability to provide power and the amps clip. Sometimes well below the levels they can reach when only running two channels at a time.

Typically multichannel or stereo standalone amps are designed to be able to output full rated power to all channels simultaneously. But they're generally plaaying in a different ball park than receivers.

The receiver's "limited" power supply only becomes an issue if it cannot supply enough power to allow unclipped output from every active channel with whatever speakers one is using, at whatever level one is playing, with the actual content one is listening to. Since movies don't really ever require simluteneous equal power in all channels, and most of us are using less than 5 or 10 watts per channel probably 80 percent of the time, it turns out that the "undersized" power supply sections are perfectly adequate to support actual, unclipped, good sound reproduction for most folks. People that listen far from inefficient speakers at high levels may have a different experience, and may find that the get audible distortion during loud passages. Time for a different amplification device.

That's more common than you think, and it speaks to human hearing capabilities, and also how we become accustomed to our rooms.
Our ability to hear (or perceive) bass at the same level as the rest of the spectrum diminishes as the frequencies gets lower.
Also people get used to "boomy" bass and have a tendency to perceive accurate bass as being anemic. I first saw that with people trying infinite baffle subs which are very easy to get flat and then similar responses as room corrections advanced.

So if using stereo mode it's possible it is going through a DSP but you are saying the effects should not be audible. Because I know receivers have a stereo mode and also a "direct' mode, but I imagine stereo mode involves a DSP of some kind.

How does it not affect sound quality? Can you explain it in laymans terms?

If the receiver is performing bass management, for example, the signal is passing through DSP that sends the lower frequencies to the sub. Has a better chance to be transparent than analog crossovers, just because no components can drift in value over time, or otherwise get out of spec. IDK if any other processing is even available in stereo mode

Newby here, but would like to add my .02. I've owned quite a few cheaper amps in my day, and really couldn't tell the difference till I bought my first ADCOM amp, definitely a noticeable improvement. Then years later, I purchased a amp with 4 times the power per channel, and noticed a huge difference in "fullness", but not too much difference in noise floor. Then one day on a whim, I replaced the rather expensive RCAJacks for balanced XLR jacks and found my nirvana.

Since then, I've not heard another setup that can hold a candle to mine, for any amount of money.

So in short, I recommend to anyone whom asks, is to spend just enough on an amp to get "true" balanced XLR type connections. Seems to make the most use of your money.

Have a great day.

Bass is one of those areas where the interpretation of "accuracy" makes a big difference. If "accuracy" means faithful to the recorded signal, that's one thing, but if it means you hear from a recording what you would have heard if you had been present at the event itself (when there was one), then (1) insensitivity of hearing at low frequencies is irrelevant to accuracy, and (2) people complain that there isn't enough bass because there actually is not enough bass.

(1) is obvious -- if you can't hear bass as well from a recording, then you wouldn't have been able to hear it as well at the event, either.

(2) is because a lot of bass present in real life does not get recorded, for some reason. People have to turn up the bass controls to compensate for the bass they know should be there but are not hearing. Take note of what you hear around you on a busy city street that has some truck traffic, then compare this to what you hear watching a movie with a street scene. No bass! Recently made movies are better than older movies for this, but there is still lots more bass in life than gets recorded.

"Boomy bass", to me, means mid bass, say in the 40-80Hz octave, or even higher. We hear it so much because, of course, it's easier to produce, but also because it's what gets recorded. I don't think people really like it.

Yes, the non-direct mode involves the DSP.


How does it not affect sound quality? Can you explain it in laymans terms?[/quote]

That is how digital works. Once an auiod signal is placed into the digital domain, if the bits don't change, the sound doesn't change. This is why digital is so highly prized for storing and distributing recordings.

 

Not quite - if the SPL at the venue is significantly higher than at home, then the bass notes will be easier to hear at the venue than at home. 

No, there isn't.

Zealotry isn't really about the message content, it's about the delivery of the message and or the devotion to it.

Likewise, few things open your eye to reality like the double blind power cord test does.

--Ethan

Sounds more like a case for enter sandman...

Given that we judge accuracy by what you hear at the venue, then by hypothesis, the SPL at home will not be lower, for an appropriate comparison. It may very well be that for practical reasons you don't want the home experience to be like the concert experience, but then, well, it's just not high fidelity you're talking about, anymore.

How do you do that, if you were never at the venue?

How do you do that for a multitrack studio recording for which there never was a venue?

How do you do that given that our memory of subtle sonic differences can last only seconds?
You don't get to redefine what high fidelity means. Your goal may be to make the home experience like the concert experience (and good luck with that, Bub), but that's not the same thing that most people using the term "high fidelity" mean.

Why should we try to do science, when people disagree about theories? Why attempt democracy, when gridlock is frequent? Life often presents difficulties. Kennedy said something about choosing to do some things because they are hard.

There are many definitions of the word zealot. Specifics and examples unless your aim is weak hollow insults.

As far as I'm concerned, you're simply complaining about the delivery because you don't agree with the content.

this simply makes no sense to me. I play at clubs, and go listen at clubs, and sometimes the levels are quite loud. I simply do not want to play music in my house that loud (at least not often). So I should get a boombox because I'm not driving my paradigms (or my Maggies or Fabers before them) loud enough to suit you?

The weird discussion (I think on another thread) about what is reverb got me thinking about another aspect of live versus recorded that I think is real. If I put a pair of mics in at ear level the middle to rear of a good symphonic hall, I think it's safe to assume that the sound reaching the mics is the same as the sound reaching my ears,. But I believe that if I play it back it will sound drenched in reverb and unrealistic. (Play around with the mixer for EastWest's fairly delightful Symphonic Orchestra virtual instrument here http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra. That "surround position is simply miced in the hall. It sounds too washy to me. I can't imagine ever using it without some close or stage mic mixed in.)

I think the difference is that microphones lack ears and brains. The sounds impinging on our ears get processed differently by our brains depending, I believe, on direction (discernable onaccounta those ear thingies) and how long after the initial impulse they arrive. A mic can't do that, so it ends up giving a 'perfect" (at least potentially so) recording of something that sounds quite unnatrual. TO ME. I am simply uninterested in discussing whether my or somebody eslse's personal aesthetic response to a particular recorded sound is superior. The answer to both is no.

I'm not saying it's difficult. I'm saying it's impossible. Whereas the standard understanding of fidelity—fidelity of the output signal to the input signal—is clear and useful.