Best music for testing PRaT

Oh, all right, you knew what I meant you damned pedant!

-- Ian

 

OK Gary, accepted Including your posts I might add.

 

snigger, not very far.

 

Think you may be onto something there. Certainly concurs with today's listening experiences.

Are you sure it's the speakers? Or is it the room. Rooms can be treated. Full range systems needn't be expensive if they include a decent subwoofer.

Speaker cabinet resonances can be put to good use by a skillful designer

 

Mmm I'm not convinced. A track to truly illustrate my point, one to perhaps act as some kind of reference regarding the control and resproduction of bass and sub-bass is LFO by LFO. If your system presents this track as it is meant to be heard (and doesnt blow a gasket in the process) then you have convinced me the lower frequencies are not important for good reproduction (IMO anyway).

 

I am coming more and more to the conclusion that a lot of the time the room gets unfairly blamed for resonances, when it is in fact due to the speakers eg port resonances etc. Its certainly the case in my system where I have some emphasis at 70-80 hz which I thought was the room. Change speakers and that resonance disappears, only to be replaced by another one lower down. speakers often have much more influence than the room IMO.

 

When I got my sub (MJA Pro50) I thought it was excellent and really made an improvement to the nether regions of my system - I even spent considerable time and pissing about with room response software to get it integrated properly which did make a significant difference.

However, when I started my amp search and was auditioning a few at home I disconnected the sub from my stereo system so as to make valid comparisons without the sub muddying the waters. I was so impressed by the cleanness and tightness of the bass that I got (even with my existing Arcam amp) that I haven't hooked it up again and now only use it for DVDs.

Add to that that I changed the absolute phase of my system (switched around the speaker cables) so that it would be "correct" (the DAC64 inverts phase) and that made it nigh on impossible to integrate the sub (I tried, allthough not very hard). When I finally get my new preamp and power amp I'll give it another serious go (with all the software again) but I don't think it will be possible.

With the speakers wired up correctly (system nominally "out of phase") I had the sub's phase setting at 90deg to be perfectly integrated. Now that I've effectively shifted the phase of the speakers by 180deg there's no way I can effect that change on the sub as it's phase dial only goes from 0 to 180. The "correct" setting (to match what I had before) would be to set the sub's phase at 270.

TBH, I really don't miss the sub much at all. When I had the Krell KAV-400xi in my system the Dyns on their own sounded like I had the sub switched on . I'm hoping that with the 400+ WPC (into 4ohms) of my new amp that bass response and control won't be a problem :MILD:

Michael.

 

I agree completely michael, I have travelled much the same road as you. I have found with a better source and amp that the bass is more than deep and controlled enough, an the sub just muddies the waters. The bass weight, timing and control I get out of the system now is way ahead of what it was when I had the sub. OK so I have nothing below 35 hz, but even with dub bass and dance, I dont really miss it.

 

I didn't day that low bass wasn't important. Just very very difficult to get right, so much so that it's usually not worth the effort (certainly not for me, anyway). Most systems I've heard that do the thunderous low bass thing don't do much else that well, and it's in the "much else" that most of the music is IMO. (This is a generalisation, I've heard some do it very well. But, I repeat, none of them were cheap.) I wouldn't want a system that did one thing well, I have a far too eclectic music taste for that. Losing some low bass is the least musically damaging all-round compromise for the widest range of music IMO. Farty or boomy bass will drive me out of a room faster than anything else, and I suspect that's true of others too.

I also have the suspicion that many people think they have something close to full frequency reproduction when, in fact, they don't have anything like it. An orchestral crescendo at realistic orchestral volume usually exposes that.

But I agree with you about music taste influencing speaker choice, no question about that, and it's usually forgotten in these sorts of discussions. The classical music types here seem to be the hardest to please on the whole, and I can understand why, orchestral music really does require something quite exceptional to sound anything like the live experience.

-- Ian

 

Something like titian's setup maybe?

Seriously though, I agree to some extent but I also think that orchestral music is much more sensitive to the recording quality. Last night I listened to a Wagner CD (DG Overtures & Preludes - purists, you may vomit now ) - actually the Prelude and Libestod from Tristan (the Karl Bohm recording which is supposed to be excellent) and I was distinctly underwhelmed. It all just sounded thin and tinny.

Worried (I haven't listened to that CD for ages) I got out one of my reference classical CDs: Holst's "The Planets" (Decca, Montreal Symphony with Charles Dutoit) and found everything to be in order . This recording never ceases to amaze me with the incredible "I'm in the concert hall" feeling I get from it. Compared to the Wagner it was just chalk and cheese, no contest.

I'll have to get out the actual Bohm recording I have of Tristan (the whole opera) to see if it suffers from the same poor quality. It's possible that in making the compilation CD they screwed up the recording.

Incidentally, the Wagner recording is from 1966, supposedly during the "golden age" of classical recording whereas the Holst is from 1987, supposedly one of the worst periods for recording quality

Michael.

 

Oh, it's all right, could be better I suppose.

As references go, it's not bad...!

-- Ian

 

I'd agree that changing a pair of speakers for example (that have rear ports) for a pair that dont, may lessen the effect of room boom in an under-damped room.

I also think that bad set-up (especially speaker positioning) is frequently a factor too.

From experience of having rear ported speakers and a boomy room though, less than 100 quids worth of materials and a lot of DIY can pretty much fix the problem, without the vast expense of new kit.

This has the added benefit of an improvement in sound quality. No matter what kit you buy in the future, it will always sound better in an acoustically treated room IMO. A bit like drinking champagne from a fluted glass instead of a bucket!.. asti spumanti, tesco's own brand or bollinger it will still taste nicer!

....ALTHOUGH! sometimes you can swap kit out for like-for-like prices if you're careful, which is another option of course.... taking us back to where we started

 

It was recorded 'as live' with an audience at Bayreuth an act at a time. IIRC the orchestra lives under the stage there so I wouldn't necessarily expect the recorded sound to be conventional in tone or soundstage.

Anyway it's the performance that counts, and this one is pretty good....

(Still don't know what 'PRaT' means though)

Paul

 

All very true

Michael.

 

Still don't know what 'PRaT' means though

Paul, don't be obtuse ;-)

I think GTM's explanation probably covers the essence of what is meant by PRaT: timing accuracy, the absence of smearing (which I suppose is down to the drivers moving exactly when they're told and stopping exactly when they're told).

I really don't know why people always get so worked up over words. Yes, "pace, rhythm and timing" probably contains one or even two redundancies; yes, "musical" has become a hifi marketing cliché (it's practically forbidden on the Mana forum as I had to find out once!). Nevertheless, anyone who is into hifi and has a bit of an ear for music should be able to infer what is meant. (And you probably are. But people like a good argument!)

I believe "musical" (and it's non-identical twin "PRaT") is used so much by marketing people because a layman will more readily understand the perceptive side of things which could be described objectively, i.e. with the language of science (on second thought, "PRaT" probably belongs somewhere in the middle). There was a need to differentiate -- using simple language -- between that aspect of hifi performance and tonal accuracy. Taking these two aspects of hifi performance as a given, if you condemn the word "musical" you might as well condemn the word "natural" (when the latter is used to describe tonal accuracy).

 

Now there's a piece of music that deserves full frequency range reproduction The low E in the organ part at the end of Saturn is a bit too much for my poor Quad 22Ls to cope with convincingly, but at least I can hear what note it's supposed to be now...

 

Yep, the end of Saturn really does test bass extension but my Dyns cope surprisingly well. When I had the sub I didn't really think it was significantly "better" in any way. What frequency is that low E I wonder? I could work it out...but I can't be bothered

I heard The Planets at last year's Proms (BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Richard Hickox) where they obviously used the Albert Hall's organ and I have to say that the low E isn't actually that audible in real life! You feel it more than hear it

Michael.

 

Well, it's either 20.6Hz or 41.2Hz (see here). I think it must be 20.6 as 41.2 is easily audible - so that's low

Michael.

 

An acoustic double bass, as in a classical orchestra, goes down to 41Hz [as does an electric 4 string and 8 string. a 5 string goes down to about 33 Hz - killer B]

 

Yep. The start of the last movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade is good for hearing that bottom B IIRC - the last flashy solo for the violinist before the orchestra comes in is underpinned by an open B string whuuuuuuuh I believe it is the 20Hz E in Saturn BTW (although I'll try to have a look at a score if I can get my hands on one to check) - my Quads are probably just throwing up some overtones as they shouldn't go anywhere near that low. Edit: And FWIW I think that B should be more like 31Hz than 33, otherwise it'll be a C