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2.108.1.16
In Reply to: RE: Psychoacoustics is about correlating what we hear with what we measure posted by hahax@verizon.net on November 29, 2016 at 20:28:56
I don't think the poster you replied to was talking about what sounded real, but what they liked.
SET amps have higher THD than most well-engineered SS amps, but they still have a following.
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They have high second harmonic primarily because they are non-linear. They amplify the positive side of a signal differently than the negative side which is compressed relative to the positive side. Second harmonic is very pretty and a very musical distortion.
It is also inaudible up to about 2%...with a pure sine wave. This means that with real music, even higher levels are likely to go unnoticed.
Keith Howard reported that even predominantly 2nd harmonic was not better sounding than an undistorted file when he made digital files with added distortion of different types. He did find; however, that a monotonic pattern (i.e. with even and odd harmonics falling away exponentially) was the least damaging of the file. This is totally consistent with what Hiraga was claiming and also what Cheever found.
All odd harmonic patterns, even at low levels, were the least pleasant and all even patterns were in the middle somewhere. Most well designed push/pull amps will have predominantly odd harmonics.
The human ear/brain is accustomed to a monotonic pattern, which is what the ear mechanism generates on it's own. Therefore, masking is pretty good if that pattern, at a given SPL, is followed closely.
Since there is no electronic equivalent to the undistorted file, the best we can do at this time is to have the least damaging pattern.
Note, Mr. Howard did not find ANY of the patterns Euphonic and preferrable to the undistorted original.
Yes, but still nonlinear based on THD. To me they present the "illusion" of a live performance, which is fine with me.
I think a lot of that has to do with the relative lack of distortion at high frequencies, which is superior with SETs, at least at modest powers. This definitely helps with the 3d effect of images and soundstage. HF distortion flattens both due to how these high frequency distortions are perceived.
Hi... new to this.
Interesting discussion about something I have no idea about.
Does that mean that a hybrid bi-amp situation where a tube amp powers the tweeter and a solid state amp the woofer could be worth the effort?
It could be worth the effort but this does not mean that.
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