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Post by lionear on Feb 16, 2016 11:22:37 GMT -5
For example, if what you hear when you listen to a speaker APPEARS to disagree with the measurements, then perhaps your measurements are incorrect, or perhaps you simply don't know how to interpret them... or perhaps, in order to understand the difference, you'll need to take a class in room acoustics... So we can find ourselves in a situation where "what you hear... appears to disagree with the measurements". OK, I agree! But there are other, and significant, possibilities: The measurement that would correlate with what you hear hasn't been invented yet, or no one thought about applying an existing measurement in that specific context, or an existing measurement has not been performed at a sufficient level of precision, etc. This is what happened with THD, TIM, dither and jitter. I'm sure there are more examples. The way to account for those possibilities is to trust your ears. We can say: I have no idea why, but this thing doesn't sound correct to me. And the fact that I can't explain or quantify something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It may be vague - but there are things in Nature that are unknown. It's not possible to know everything there is to know about any field. Measurements, in order to be useful, need to be simplifications of reality. We need to know what the simplifications are, and whether they can trip us up in a specific situation. Check out the "spherical horse" - boingboing.net/2010/10/30/a-science-joke-for-y.html. There are more examples - I searched for "spherical horse" on Google.) So to answer monkumonku's original question: what measurement do we perform on the headphone to figure out why some people describe it as "clinical"? If there's no measurement for "clinical", are we allowed to describe a component that way? |
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Post by audiobill on Feb 16, 2016 11:33:11 GMT -5
So if all of Emo's amps measure virtually the same in every important respect, and only differ in power that no one really needs, I guess there's no point in spending more than the minimum.
Not.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 16, 2016 11:48:18 GMT -5
I like that document very much - and would HIGHLY recommend it to every audiophile... I think it emphasizes several very important points... and it's nice to see them codified so concisely. https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1116-3-201502-I!!PDF-E.pdf |
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Post by monkumonku on Feb 16, 2016 12:48:40 GMT -5
So to answer monkumonku's original question: what measurement do we perform on the headphone to figure out why some people describe it as "clinical"? If there's no measurement for "clinical", are we allowed to describe a component that way? Well actually that wasn't my original question but it is a good question - what exactly does "clinical" mean. Based on what I've read, synonyms are "cold" and "sterile" - like technically correct but it doesn't move the listener emotionally. Maybe sort of like someone reading from a book in monotone - they accurately pronounce the words but it sounds boring because there's no feeling on the speaker's part. Regarding audio, that's like saying it reproduces the signal accurately but all the gear along the way imparts no "feeling" to the music. While that's how I interpret what people write when they describe "clinical" that isn't a valid comparison. There's different ways to read the same words out of a book and some sound more interesting or exciting than others. In an audio sense, what we would be concerned with is an accurate reproduction of the speaker reading those words, not the accuracy of how he pronounced those words or read the passage. And if the audio reproduction was "accurate" then what we heard through a system ought to sound just like the guy doing the speaking in person. If it does, then I'd say you could describe what you are hearing through the system as accurate and/or neutral because it doesn't alter anything. So my original point was when people connote negative things to a sound that is too "accurate" or "neutral" through their system, then why would the original (live) source of that sound not also be thought of negatively as well? If one enjoys the live performance and the sound system conveys an accurate, neutral rendition of it, then one ought to enjoy the rendition through the system as well. If they don't then they are probably using the wrong words to describe what they are hearing - it is not in fact "accurate" or "neutral." |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 16, 2016 13:03:36 GMT -5
I somewhat agree... although I tend to disagree on some of the specifics. Contrary to what many audio vendors would like you to think, most of the frequencies and signals involved in audio, as well as many of the technologies themselves, HAVE in fact been thoroughly and accurately measured. The idea that cables are a complex device that still isn't thoroughly understood is simply a myth, promulgated mostly by companies selling expensive cables that have no actual merits - so they have to invent mythical and magical ones. Audio signals, in electrical form, are actually quite simple and not at all difficult to transmit very accurately from one place to another; and a lot of science has been done on how cables work, and on metallurgy, and on the properties of various dielectrics... far beyond the point of audibility. The only part of that equation that is complex, or not fully understood, is the mechanism whereby people imagine they hear things that aren't there. (Interconnect and speaker cables are a quite simple and well-understood subject; MARKETING interconnects and speaker cables is interesting and much less clearly defined; and, in fact, a much more complicated subject altogether.) Now, the differences people hear between DACs fall into the category of not understanding how to apply existing measurements... Other than the standard measurements like THD, and IMD, DACs vary considerably in terms of their transient response, and many DAC chip vendors publish pictures actually showing the response of their products to a transient signal (or describe it verbally). However, most people don't know how to correlate those measurements with what they hear; they don't know what "short pre-ringing and long-post-ringing" or "symmetrical ringing" sound like. So, instead, they either fall back on trying to apply the measurements they are familiar with, which work well for analog amplifiers, but not well at all for DAC; or they get totally confused when presented with the measurements that make sense of how DACs sound; or they throw up their hands in disgust and loudly declare "measurements don't work for DACs - just pick the one that sounds good to you". However, in the latter case, this doesn't mean that the information "isn't available", nor that "nobody knows how to use the information"; it simply means that people have CHOSEN to avoid training themselves to understand what the information means. In other words, and in the words of the ITU document that Yves posted, they have chosen NOT to become expert in the subject of evaluating DACs. (And I will admit that, in some subjects, becoming expert can "take all the fun out of it", but it can also prevent errors and lots of wasted time.) In the case of your discussion about headphones with MonkuMonku, "clinical" is a word that may mean different things to different people (for example, to me it suggests that the equipment being described is very accurate, which I would consider to be a major plus). So, by all means you are free to use any word you like, but just bear in mind that, unless we all use a more or less standard vocabulary, other people won't know what you mean, and you won't know what they mean. One great example is tube equipment.... there is a huge, varied, and only somewhat consistent vocabulary used to describe tube amplifiers. They could be smooth, or mellow, or rolled off, or fluid, or dull, or smeared, or natural sounding, or heavy on distortion, or organic, or not clinical, or sparkly.... but, while each of those words probably means something to each of us, do we all really know what we're talking about when we use them? And are we sure we know what they mean when other people use them? If I said that a certain tube amplifier sounded rolled off, but organic, and not at all clinical, would you have any idea if that meant you'd probably like it or not? However, if I were to describe an amplifier as being a single ended triode, 20 watts at 15% THD, with a monotonic distortion curve, and a harmonic structure that contained mostly second harmonics, with a relatively flat frequency response, but with a slight boost around 2k... most people who understand those terms would have a pretty good idea what that amplifier would sound like... because each of those terms has a specific meaning. And I think that gaining this ability to discuss a subject with others (and be able to tell what each other means) well justifies the effort necessary to "develop a little actual expertise on the subject". The fact is that there are literally dozens of "common and well known" measurements that can be used to describe a typical amplifier... and it's also true that many of those measurements are simply different ways of viewing the same data, or are redundant with other measurements, and with knowledge of the circuits involved. For example, Transient Intermodulation Distortion started out as being "not well understood", and therefore the audible problems it caused seemed mysterious; then it passed from there to being VERY well understood; and now it has completed the journey into the collection of well understood problems to be avoided. (If you're familiar with how modern circuitry works, you can tell whether TIM will be likely to occur by examining a few circuit parameters, and can confirm its presence or absence by other standard measurements. If the THD rises sharply just below 20 kHz, especially at higher power levels, then your design almost certainly has insufficient slew rate, which will almost certainly lead to TIM and several other audible problems... and, if your design doesn't have that shortcoming, easily confirmed by other measurements, then you don't really need to worry about TIM. Therefore, there's no reason to bother to measure or specify TIM any more.) Therefore, if you hear something odd that the three or four VERY common measurements don't seem to describe adequately, it makes sense to examine some of the OTHER readily available measurements before deciding that "it just can't be measured". For example, if what you hear when you listen to a speaker APPEARS to disagree with the measurements, then perhaps your measurements are incorrect, or perhaps you simply don't know how to interpret them... or perhaps, in order to understand the difference, you'll need to take a class in room acoustics... So we can find ourselves in a situation where "what you hear... appears to disagree with the measurements". OK, I agree! But there are other, and significant, possibilities: The measurement that would correlate with what you hear hasn't been invented yet, or no one thought about applying an existing measurement in that specific context, or an existing measurement has not been performed at a sufficient level of precision, etc. This is what happened with THD, TIM, dither and jitter. I'm sure there are more examples. The way to account for those possibilities is to trust your ears. We can say: I have no idea why, but this thing doesn't sound correct to me. And the fact that I can't explain or quantify something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It may be vague - but there are things in Nature that are unknown. It's not possible to know everything there is to know about any field. Measurements, in order to be useful, need to be simplifications of reality. We need to know what the simplifications are, and whether they can trip us up in a specific situation. Check out the "spherical horse" - boingboing.net/2010/10/30/a-science-joke-for-y.html. There are more examples - I searched for "spherical horse" on Google.) So to answer monkumonku's original question: what measurement do we perform on the headphone to figure out why some people describe it as "clinical"? If there's no measurement for "clinical", are we allowed to describe a component that way? |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 16, 2016 14:15:50 GMT -5
Exactly.... I don't WANT my system to IMPART feeling to the music. If there's feeling there to begin with, then I want my system to accurately reproduce it, but I certainly don't want my system to change it. Wouldn't that be a bit like saying that you want dinner plates "that make the food taste good"? (Dinner plates should certainly NOT make your food taste bad, but do you really expect them to make it taste better?) All I can think of is that many people really don't like the way many of their recordings sound, and they somehow expect their playback equipment to fix them.... and I have two problems with that: 1) I think it's unreasonable to expect or require your stereo system to fix a bad recording, or a bad performance, or one you simply don't like. 2) I also can't imagine how a stereo system could actually do it if I wanted it to.... because there's no way to know what a given recording SHOULD sound like. Could it really be true that people want their system to GUESS how the recording should sound, and alter it accordingly? How can they hope that a random adjustment that works well for one source will work equally well with another, rather than the exact opposite, and make it sound worse? So to answer monkumonku's original question: what measurement do we perform on the headphone to figure out why some people describe it as "clinical"? If there's no measurement for "clinical", are we allowed to describe a component that way? Well actually that wasn't my original question but it is a good question - what exactly does "clinical" mean. Based on what I've read, synonyms are "cold" and "sterile" - like technically correct but it doesn't move the listener emotionally. Maybe sort of like someone reading from a book in monotone - they accurately pronounce the words but it sounds boring because there's no feeling on the speaker's part. Regarding audio, that's like saying it reproduces the signal accurately but all the gear along the way imparts no "feeling" to the music. While that's how I interpret what people write when they describe "clinical" that isn't a valid comparison. There's different ways to read the same words out of a book and some sound more interesting or exciting than others. In an audio sense, what we would be concerned with is an accurate reproduction of the speaker reading those words, not the accuracy of how he pronounced those words or read the passage. And if the audio reproduction was "accurate" then what we heard through a system ought to sound just like the guy doing the speaking in person. If it does, then I'd say you could describe what you are hearing through the system as accurate and/or neutral because it doesn't alter anything. So my original point was when people connote negative things to a sound that is too "accurate" or "neutral" through their system, then why would the original (live) source of that sound not also be thought of negatively as well? If one enjoys the live performance and the sound system conveys an accurate, neutral rendition of it, then one ought to enjoy the rendition through the system as well. If they don't then they are probably using the wrong words to describe what they are hearing - it is not in fact "accurate" or "neutral." |
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Post by pedrocols on Feb 16, 2016 14:28:37 GMT -5
I personally think that there is soooooo much more involed than purely experiencing a live performance than experiencing the same music in a home environment. The live event is just totally different and comparing the two is as silly as it can get. If you tell me you experience the same accurate or neutral or whatever you wanna call it at the live event and at home let me please politely tell you that you are full of it....
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Post by pedrocols on Feb 16, 2016 14:32:29 GMT -5
In addition, I also think that accurate and neutral might not be subjective when it comes to measurements but when it comes to the actual listening with your own ears it is as subjective as innacurate or the ear pleasing experience you get from tube amps....
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 16, 2016 15:55:22 GMT -5
Absolutely. Are you trying to make it sound like that symphony orchestra is playing in your living room, and you're sitting on the conductor's lap, or do you want your living room to magically disappear and you're transported to the concert hall? Odds are that you're not going to be able to accomplish either; instead you're probably going to have to aim for some sort of compromise or melding of the two experiences. And that's assuming that the sound quality of the live performance is really good - and worth reproducing. I usually listen to rock and pop music. Most rock albums are recorded in a studio, often one instrument at a time, where the musicians only ever "play at the same time" once they all meet on the mixing board. So, in that case, the very idea of "an original live performance" is a fiction. And, when I go to see my favorite band play live, I'm often listening to them over the PA system at some night club - which sounds much worse than the system I have at home. The experience is lots of fun; but the actual sound quality isn't at all something that I want to reproduce. Therefore, what I'm looking to get at home is sort of "what it would sound like IF the band was playing in a venue with good acoustics and someone had made a nice quality recording of it". And, in that situation, there is in fact no "original" to compare things to.... so I'm stuck doing the best I can to eliminate the things that would produce obvious coloration or distortion to the original. (For example, I may not be able to reproduce the exact lighting in Rembrandt's studio, but I'm pretty sure that putting blue glass over the paintings, them lighting them with pink spotlights, will make them less like the original rather than closer to it.) I personally think that there is soooooo much more involed than purely experiencing a live performance than experiencing the same music in a home environment. The live event is just totally different and comparing the two is as silly as it can get. If you tell me you experience the same accurate or neutral or whatever you wanna call it at the live event and at home let me please politely tell you that you are full of it.... |
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Post by audiobill on Feb 16, 2016 18:35:27 GMT -5
Keith, I really must object. Do you realize you're arguing for the "accurate" reproduction of a "performance" that never occured in real time?
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Post by lionear on Feb 16, 2016 19:54:13 GMT -5
Exactly.... I don't WANT my system to IMPART feeling to the music. If there's feeling there to begin with, then I want my system to accurately reproduce it, but I certainly don't want my system to change it. Wouldn't that be a bit like saying that you want dinner plates "that make the food taste good"? (Dinner plates should certainly NOT make your food taste bad, but do you really expect them to make it taste better?) All I can think of is that many people really don't like the way many of their recordings sound, and they somehow expect their playback equipment to fix them.... and I have two problems with that: 1) I think it's unreasonable to expect or require your stereo system to fix a bad recording, or a bad performance, or one you simply don't like. 2) I also can't imagine how a stereo system could actually do it if I wanted it to.... because there's no way to know what a given recording SHOULD sound like. Could it really be true that people want their system to GUESS how the recording should sound, and alter it accordingly? How can they hope that a random adjustment that works well for one source will work equally well with another, rather than the exact opposite, and make it sound worse? Well actually that wasn't my original question but it is a good question - what exactly does "clinical" mean. Based on what I've read, synonyms are "cold" and "sterile" - like technically correct but it doesn't move the listener emotionally. Maybe sort of like someone reading from a book in monotone - they accurately pronounce the words but it sounds boring because there's no feeling on the speaker's part. Regarding audio, that's like saying it reproduces the signal accurately but all the gear along the way imparts no "feeling" to the music. While that's how I interpret what people write when they describe "clinical" that isn't a valid comparison. There's different ways to read the same words out of a book and some sound more interesting or exciting than others. In an audio sense, what we would be concerned with is an accurate reproduction of the speaker reading those words, not the accuracy of how he pronounced those words or read the passage. And if the audio reproduction was "accurate" then what we heard through a system ought to sound just like the guy doing the speaking in person. If it does, then I'd say you could describe what you are hearing through the system as accurate and/or neutral because it doesn't alter anything. So my original point was when people connote negative things to a sound that is too "accurate" or "neutral" through their system, then why would the original (live) source of that sound not also be thought of negatively as well? If one enjoys the live performance and the sound system conveys an accurate, neutral rendition of it, then one ought to enjoy the rendition through the system as well. If they don't then they are probably using the wrong words to describe what they are hearing - it is not in fact "accurate" or "neutral." I don't want the system to impart feeling into the music, either. But I also don't want the system to rob music of feeling (if it was present in the recording). Gear that does this has, in the past, been referred to as "clinical". I think it would be wrong to call it "too accurate", and it isn't what I'd call "neutral" - that word has a specific meaning in the vocabulary developed by HP. For me, there's no such thing as "too accurate" or "too neutral". Accuracy and neutrality are good things and we can't have enough of that. That's why we pick a different word... like "clinical". Examples of gear that are "clinical"? Yes. Romy the Cat described Spectral amps as "Imagine a hot day, and you quench your thirst with a big glass of sand". (Romy was being witty, and I'm paraphrasing. Spectral amps were very good, and its character was a very good match for the Duntech Sovereign speaker.) But "clinical" is just my term. And it's true that one can communicate effectively on things like "frequency response" but much less effectively on concepts like "clinical". If it was possible to engineer it, one could create a control for it, like a Treble and Bass control. |
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Post by Axis on Feb 16, 2016 19:59:40 GMT -5
I have suggestion. Do not take measurements and live in a fool's paradise. It's a paradise !  |
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Post by pedrocols on Feb 16, 2016 20:04:35 GMT -5
I have suggestion. Do not take measurements and live in a fool's paradise. It's a paradise ! If it ain't broke don't fix it...  |
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Post by yves on Feb 16, 2016 20:40:24 GMT -5
Keith, I really must object. Do you realize you're arguing for the "accurate" reproduction of a "performance" that never occured in real time? If the recorded mix is pretty decent, then if the mastering engineer did a fine job, I see no sensible reason why nobody would want to accurately reproduce the finished product. That is, except perhaps if everyone thinks the music itself just plain sucks. However, speakers and headphones aren't capable of accurately reproducing recorded sounds. So instead, we're dealing with various techniques that can help the listener feel a better connection to the music, as well as can help the listener stay focused on the music itself rather than be distracted by electronic artefacts that are a constant reminder of the fact we are listening to a stereo system. Our brain selectively suppresses impairments, makes them less prominent and or less irritating during our music listening experience. It does this depending on an elastic, time-variant set of criteria not all of which are reasonably well known and understood, and, in the specific case of audio information having gone missing, our brain actually even fills in the blanks (with varying degrees of success). If you had to choose between a large reduction of one type of error a system makes and a small reduction of another type, what would you choose? The true answer to that question is it depends on how sensitive your ears are to this specific type of error under those specific circumstances at that particular point in time, as well as depends on how annoying you find the specific occurrence of it, in that particular context. A highly revealing system can be fatiguing to listen to because it shifts the listener's attention towards the imperfections that are part of the recording, causing the music to be perceived as "uninvolving". |
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Post by pedrocols on Feb 16, 2016 20:51:09 GMT -5
I bet you that even the mixing engineer does not remember how the specific track he mixed the night before "sounds" until he goes back to the recording studio! There seemed to be quite a few members here with golden ears that can even hear how accurate or how neutral is the reproduction from something that they haven't even heard before....In addition, by the time you get home from that live event or concert with spectacular sound, your brain is already contaminated and as hard as you can try or pretend you can never never ever ever will be able to know or remember how that concert sounded and you are not going to be able to never ever never ever know for a fact if your system is reproducing that event accurately or maybe close to accurate.....Then again this is the case if you use your ears to listen...  |
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Post by lionear on Feb 16, 2016 21:35:34 GMT -5
Absolutely. Are you trying to make it sound like that symphony orchestra is playing in your living room, and you're sitting on the conductor's lap, or do you want your living room to magically disappear and you're transported to the concert hall? I personally think that there is soooooo much more involed than purely experiencing a live performance than experiencing the same music in a home environment. The live event is just totally different and comparing the two is as silly as it can get. If you tell me you experience the same accurate or neutral or whatever you wanna call it at the live event and at home let me please politely tell you that you are full of it.... But of course!!!! I want the living room to magically disappear and be transported to the concert hall. If the recording was in Carnegie Hall, I want to be there. If it was somewhere else, I want to be there. Not sit on the conductor's lap, though - that's too close. The mics would be at a spot which recreates the experience of the orchestra between row E to row H. This has been the Holy Grail of High End audio since the 80's. |
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 16, 2016 21:42:54 GMT -5
So if all of Emo's amps measure virtually the same in every important respect, and only differ in power that no one really needs, I guess there's no point in spending more than the minimum. Not. Actually - maybe... If you are driving normal to high sensitivity speakers, for example, then you'll not be able to tell the difference between the Mini-X and the XPR-1s (theoretically). In fact, even with less sensitive speakers (DefTech SM-65s), we couldn't tell any difference between the Mini-X and an XPA-2. Really. But we were playing the speakers at "normal" levels. I'm convinced that when operated within their power envelopes, then no, one needs not buy power that you don't really need. And, in fact, sometimes lower-powered amps can sound better (even MUCH better) than higher powered ones. The only true test is what the amp sounds like to YOUR ears. |
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Post by 509Paul on Feb 16, 2016 22:45:55 GMT -5
I have always been curious why people think they need 1000 watt monoblocks when they might only use 1/8 of that power.
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Post by novisnick on Feb 16, 2016 22:48:27 GMT -5
I have always been curious why people think they need 1000 watt monoblocks when they might only use 1/8 of that power. Have you heard them?  |
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Post by 509Paul on Feb 16, 2016 22:52:07 GMT -5
As of yet, no. I don't think my Polks would change much with that kind of power though. If I had some Martin Logan panels I would have nothing other than monoblocks.
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