Yet another bold claim...

umm.. Am I missing something here about the null test. But what about the accuracy of the amp being used to amplify the difference signal?? Surely it's own distortion and frequency characteristics are going to have an impact on the amplitude of the difference signal. EG if the actual level produced by the difference between input/output of the test amp is -60db at a particular frequency and the amp being used has a +10db frequency response at this point the level will now become -50db. God knows what random affects distortion and phase characteristics of the "amplifying" ampifier will have.

Am I just being stupid here?

GTM
 
The amp used to listen to the difference signal is not important. It won't have a significant effect, or at least, any effect it has is not important and won't significantly alter what you hear. An amp that varies by +/-10dB in its resposne over the audio range would have to be catastrophically bad.

Once you get to a difference signal that is very small then the S/N ratio of the "amplifying" amp will be an issue but at that point you aren't able to make accurate judgements by ear anyway so you have to resort to using a scope to monitor the difference signal.

Michael.
 
accurate as it applies to speakers is a term I think that comes from the recording studio, and simply as far as I understand it to mean, means a flat amplitude response, or in other words, no portion of the frequency spectrum varies too much from the other
OR...sounds on reproduction like it was recorded.
it is by the latter definition a subjective and individual term, not absolute or scientific.

So you don't get a slightly louder mid wrt the bass, or a slightly emphasized treble.
Quite how this makes something 'sound' better is beyond me.
The idea is that it will give mixing and mastering engineers a better picture with which to do their job.
You absolutely cannot judge the way a pair of speakers or amps sound, simply by looking at the flat graph, and then saying..its flat, so it sounds better.
The frequencies are all in balance, but that does'nt tell you about string 'tone', brass 'raspiness', detail, breathiness, clear voice, all that.
ditto with an amplifier.
The only test if you love music is to find something you like the sound of.that is all there is to it.
the fact that some antique amps measure dreadfully, but sound wonderful is pure proof, sure its not wrong to try to improve figures, and better technically, that is progress and science, but to claim objective=subjective is nonsense, as anyone who has looked at graphs, figures, and listened will know.
how we so complicate things.
 
Ok... let me put it in a different way:

I enjoy music when I listen my car stereo. However, it is music that I clearly identify as music coming from a radio. Therefore, I am listening but driving at the same time or looking outside the window contemplating the landscape.

When I want to have the ilusion of listening to a live performance I listen to my true Hi-fi. I put myself in front of the speakers, I turn up the volume and I am completely absorbed by the music. I'm there with a sole purpose: being emmotionaly moved by the music, as much as I can. In order to acomplish that I try to imagine a live performance because it is that way that I am able to reach the highest satisfaction. When I have accuracy I stop imagining so much and start to really feel the live preformance and because my brain isn't so busy in imagining anymore, I can be now emmotionaly moved to a much higher degree.

Enjoying music to the highest degree means accuracy. That's why we don't listen to a gramophone anymore... do you?
 
In answer to my last post, a couple of people said that emphasizing the importance of a 'Null Test' and low distortion in amplifiers is appropriate, however whilst shopping for CD players/Speakers a search for low distortion/flat response isnt necessary because they're all designed that way.

Unfortunately, IME that is untrue.

I've read many articles by many CD player and speaker designers over the years, and many technical reviews which explain how designers engineer in a bass-mid hump simply to make the product more interesting to listen to. One example would be WAD speaker designer Noel Keyward. Meridian, Arcam and many other common day to day names have typical responses in technical reviews which illustrate a deliberate attempt by the designer to get a desired finished sound. This sound is far from ruler flat.

Due to this, it seems folly to me to go for broke in so-called ''accuracy'' with amplifiers, and ignoring the innacuracies of the rest of the chain.

I really do believe that its possible to have that studio ideal of ruler flat responses and zero distortion. If thats what appeals, the products are out there. I'll leave you to enjoy the (rather dull sounding) result, just please dont invite me over for a listen!! :D
 
Ok, but what we are saying is that technical accuracy in a system does not ALWAYS provide the most 'real life' sound / illusion.

Do you disagree with this BD?
 
I disagree with that Tenson. I don't really see how it can be true. The most real life sounding system must by definition be the most accurate one (provided we're talking about a live recording of course).

Michael.
 
Chris, if manufacturers are tuning their gear to give a "house" sound then that really is a terrible shame. What people should be looking for (and manufacturers striving to make) is not the Naim sound or the Arcam sound or the Krell sound but the real sound.

In an interview with HiFi Choice in the Oct 2002 edition Doug Graham of Naim is asked about "the Naim sound" and replies:

If people refer to a 'Naim sound' they usually talk about speed, dynamics and low coloration. I think that this is all good, and surely what other manufacturers strive for.
When people ask 'how it sounds' we normally say 'great', but the difference is that we're talking about the music not the gear. What we're trying to do is get close to the music. We don't really want the equipment to 'sound'.

As Markus Sauer recently said on a thread over on PFM in response to people moaning about the change in the Naim sound:

Markus Sauer said:
Hi-fi should not produce Naim-sound. Nor should it produce Krell-sound, Avondale-sound or whatever-sound - it should sound like its input. Hats off to Naim for trying to get closer to this goal.
Click to expand...
I completely agree.

Michael.
 
bottleneck said:
Meridian, Arcam and many other common day to day names have typical responses in technical reviews which illustrate a deliberate attempt by the designer to get a desired finished sound. This sound is far from ruler flat.

:D
Click to expand...

That's why Rotel 1062 is such a bless... how can you possible know what accuracy is when, as you rightly put it, the industry deliberately attempt to get a desired sound?

You say you don't like accuracy, but you never listen to it... did you?

As for the speakers and Cd players not being accurate (not so much with some CD players) I assure you that a virtually perfect amplifier, like Tube Dude's amp, still does and will do a MAJOR difference in any system. I guess every system has its bottleneck...

We have to start from somewhere... try the 1062!
 
Well I wasn't talking about a live recording.

Unless you ONLY listen to live COMPLETELY un-altered recordings then technical accuracy doesn't necessarily mean a more realistic sound.

Believe me, there is so much done to most recordings to change them from the original live sound that a little more, done by the system itself, isn?t going to make it any less accurate to the original sound that came from the performer in that studio booth.
 
Tenson,

So what you are saying is simply this:

Since the sound has been so corrrupted we should try to compensate for with our systems to aproximate it to the real sound that we've never known...

I'm hearing you say... no, we should look for whatever sounds better to our ears.

And I answer you, there's nothing that sounds better than reality. And since the signal is already corrupted, in order to get the best approximation to the original I think ít is perfectly clear that we should NOT corrupt it any longer.
 
Tenson said:
Believe me, there is so much done to most recordings to change them from the original live sound that a little more, done by the system itself, isn?t going to make it any less accurate to the original sound that came from the performer in that studio booth.
Click to expand...
Sure, but there's no point in adding yet more corruption to the signal that's on the CD - at least that way you're seeing each recording in its true light, which IMO can only be a good thing.

Michael.
 
BerylliumDust said:
since the signal is already corrupted, in order to get the best approximation to the original I think ít is perfectly clear that we should NOT corrupt it any longer.
Click to expand...

It is not perfectly clear.

I could agree with you if you said something like... I trust the engineers and producers to make this music sound it's very best and so I want an accurate system that is not going to change what they made.

What you are saying though, is that your accurate system will make the recording more like the original performance, even though you have no idea what that was. So yes, the signal is so corrupt already that 'corrupting' it more may just undo some of whatever made it less realistic.

For example.... I run a dynamic expander on a lot of my music. I am changing the signal from what is on the CD, yet because they compress most music when recording; it will in fact make it closer to the original un-altered sound. This would show up as being different from the input on a null test and therefore 'worse'. However, it is my opinion that a dynamic range closer to real life makes the music sound more real.
 
Bit of a leap of faith to think that random distortion is undoing the crap that the sound engineers subject the recording to though, don't you think?
 
Yes but it's not always random as we have pointed out. Manufactures will tune their equipment to what they think sounds best.
 

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