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In Reply to: RE: I wouldn't put much stock in THD measurements posted by YRY on September 06, 2016 at 17:25:55
I on the other hand have found a quite close correspondence between a speakers THD and how much I enjoy them.
IME >1% THD in the mid and treble is quite audible and annoying.
Luckily it is very easy to keep THD of the other components one or two orders of magnitude below 1%.
Follow Ups:
"Correlation", not "correspondence".
THD is just that: Total Harmonic Distortion. It says nothing about the spectral make up. A lot of 2nd and a little 5th sounds way different than a little 2nd and a lot of 5th.
Also, the difference in sound character from, say, one trumpet to another, or one saxophone to another, is highly dependent upon the relative strength of the various overtones of the fundamental, i.e., the make-up of the distortion produced by the instrument! This is why it's humorous when a person says that this-or-that speaker or system sounds "just like the real thing".
:)
The only people who could have any substance with a statement like that are recording engineers since they are usually the only ones who get to compare the real thing to what comes out of their speakers.
Unfortunately digital has democratised the recording process to such an extent that there are now a large number of 'engineers' and 'producers' who know very little and are seemingly deaf.
Are the real people that effect what we hear is stereo reproduction: They compile the recorded tracks from artists, musicians and performers in a listening room that doesn't muck resemble any room audio enthusiast listen in, played through loudspeakers and equipment that similarly doesn't reflex audiophile gear, onto a two or more channel "soundscape" they they create while adjusting "imaging", phase, tone, dynamics, and several other parameters to create the "Art" that becomes a pair of digital or Analog signals that reside on the "software" we send into our playback systems.
It is the miracle of desire and fallibility of human perception that allows us to emotionally respond to the playback as if it sounds "Real".
The fact that most of us do not recognized this, or if so, minimize this fact as "out of our control", is also a miracle - in a fashion - as it created the industry of hi-fi that we know and love.
Could you imagine perfect recordings? Standardized studios and environments with optimized mics and diffusion in the spaces to capture the essence of the wave forms that are then processed in a way to provide a consistent soundscape appropriate for the music performance - a listening position preferred by the engineer? The tracks also include metadata that will allow your home playback system to recreate that environment - based on a pre-assessed impulse response of your loudspeakers and room and stored in your equipment.
Actually the technology exists now for the implementation of such a process. We will likely see it in home theater reproduction first probably from Sony - in partnership with Dolby or DTS.
Personally, I like to spin my own - as a little rear reverb or presence boost on a track - Set the playback of my system so it is optimized for my preferences and pleasure. A little EQ to move Diana Krall and her piano a little further away in my living room - same for Frank S. but I can't get the band up front enough to be live with Frank. I'll add a little delay or reverb as needed - or I can spread the image a little, though that can be a little dicey if there is anything panned hard left or Right in the recording - or worse, when the engineer had already speread the image beyond left and right (think "dark side of the moon" synthesizer "helicopter".
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
You missed the point.
The point being that when it comes to people judging speakers recording engineers are usually the only ones who ever get to compare their speaker's output to the actual live voice/instrument.
Unlike recording engineers mix/mastering engineers and producers care little what the original performance sounded like, it is not even necessarily in their job description.
Their job is to make the recording sound like they THINK it should sound like.
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