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In Reply to: RE: A very simple. effective, objective and reliable method could stop the game posted by beppe61 on July 22, 2014 at 04:23:28
Hi, i am sure that with a rightly designed series of test signals and the right analyzer (not the human ear) it could be done easily and effectively
Given the fact that many have tried and failed over the past century, I think that's simply wishful thinking. I find wisdom in the words of H.H. Scott engineer Daniel von Recklinghausen:
"If it measures good and sounds bad, -- it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, -- you've measured the wrong thing."
Follow Ups:
Do you have any specific example for this ?
I agree that the system should be tested as a whole in the actual listening environment
the problem is that sometimes very scientifici designers become unscientific
I have seen a video of a very good engineer equalizing a recording by ear ... this is just ridiculous ... what is the sense of eq a sound ?
It is like photoshopping musics ... is not accurate.
It is not realistic.
I am obsessed with distortion.
For me a low distortion system cannot sound bad. It is impossible.
Distortion must be measured on all the chain of course and it can be done quite easily.
Measurement on only one piece of the chain can tell something but the final test must be in the listening room.
Kind regards,
bg
Amplification:
Beginning in the 70s, designers of solid state gear went amok with their new "fix-it-all" tool called negative feedback. If a little was good, more was always better. That lowered output impedance (good), lowered measured harmonic distortion (at least with sine waves), but created problems. The top end of the Crown D-150 amp I had as a teenager sounded like sandpaper on top and was closed in.
Hard sounding amps today are pretty rare, but many engineers still lean to heavily IMHO to using high levels of NFB as a crutch. The result is overly cool and thin sound. Perfect example is now defunct Halcro. You felt as though you were listening to the symphony in the tundra. Mind you, I use live unamplified music as my objective. Does that sound like a piano? A cello? A guitar. I don't like overly "warm" or thick sound either. But many current amps that "measure well" don't sound good to me. While I haven't heard every one, I don't like switching amps either. They may be neutral in tonal balance, have great THD specs, but sound lifeless to me and lack the body of the real thing.
Measures good, sounds bad.
Speakers:
All speakers are flawed in some way(s), so value judgements come into play here. On the other hand, I prefer those whose sins are that of omission - my stats can't do 20hz nor can they play 120 db. But that is not something that you always notice. Especially since I never really want to listen that loudly anyway. I'll mention one case of a JBL speaker I heard a couple of years ago. It was a vintage bookshelf monitor that exhibited very neutral and entended response. Upon first listen, it was fine. It wasn't long before I noticed its weird soundstaging. Perhaps it was intended for nearfield listening only, but at a "normal" distance what you heard was the sonic equivalent of a funhouse mirror. The woofer had a consistently wide polar response across its range as did the superlative dome tweeter. Wide soundstage at the top and bottom. The midrange, however, was run at too high a crossover frequency to the tweeter such that it beamed horribly at the transition. Pinched with an instant transition to the wide dispersion of the tweeter. I found listening to it always distracting and synthetic.
Measures good (in some ways), bad in others that always stuck out (to me at least) like a sore thumb. Which is why I'm a full range electrostat fancier. I value coherency and uniform directivity for a speaker's entire response - while somewhat limited in range and ultimate output it may be.
Hi and i agree i have to modify my opinion
First it is very difficult for me to admit the measurements are useless
Why designers spend big money to buy instruments then
I can agree that some measurements cannot related with sound quality but i am sure that the most gifted audio designers have developed proprietary test protocols that are not what we see in the magazines for instance
This is part of their knowledge and so they do not disclose this happily and this is perfectly understandable
Speaking of the Crown i suppose it had impeccable distortion figures in the high freqs ... so this means to me that this specific measurements do not correlate with sound quality.
For speakers i am more convinced that distortion measurements really tell many things but i also see that they are quite uncommon
Moreover if you take a low distortion high eff and easy to drive speakers also amps sound better
One day instruments will tell us the whole story
I am sure of this
Kind regards,
bg
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