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In Reply to: RE: we agree on the bit about the OPT at least. posted by morricab on October 12, 2021 at 07:28:26
"ven though you might not consciously hear them because they are masked by the lower ordered harmonics, the ear does respond to the higher orders because the ear/brain system uses them to sense sound pressure (fundamental tones without overtones being pretty rare in nature...). "
I don't think this is right. Can you provide a reference for this?
Which part?
My understanding is that you detect the "loudness" only if it is unmasked...masked is masked and you don't sense it. Otherwise, SET amps would probably not sound as good as they do (and they DO sound good when done right).
OK- now that part doesn't sound right to me? Are you really saying that if the higher orders are completely masked, that you'd not be able to tell how loud the sound is? I'm not talking about filtering out the higher orders, I'm talking about how an amplifier makes distortion just so we're clear.
You are right that high order harmonics not being masked will impact sensation of depth perception and loudness.
I don't recall making a comment about depth perception with respect to the higher orders. If I did do that, it was a mistake.
BTW, the low order harmonics do no mask all higher order harmonics. It only masks relatively near neighbors. A bit more masking occurs when the ears own distortion rises with SPL level and this expands a bit to even higher orders but if you have significant higher order harmonics at low volume (by this I mean 7th and above), these will not be masked and will show up in the "character" of the amplifier...even at extremely low levels.
If this is correct then the reason why tubes are smoother than solid state goes away. Tube amps make more higher ordered harmonics than solid state amps do. By rights they should be harsher. But they aren't and the big difference being that in a solid state amp the lower orders are suppressed.
If you refer back to Jean Hiraga though I think you can see why he says an exponential decay is important- the lower orders are thus able to mask the succeeding orders. What this comes down to is what is the formula for the exponential curve describing this decay? You and I differ in this regard (I think...). I prefer the cubic since the decay is more rapid.
Follow Ups:
Sorry Ralph this is kind of a dumb comment on your part. Loudness perception is only in small partially determined by high order harmonics. Masking unnatural ones (as all non_linear artifacts are unnatural) only prevents the unnatural excess of loudness that has the effect of also making things sound closer than they should because depth perception is dependent on the relative HF content. High order distortion impacts HF perception the most and pushes the sound forward in an unnatural way.
Masked is masked, it means you don't hear it. 2nd and other low orders are largely masked by the ear\brain's own self_distortion. The extension of that masking does not go beyond the next couple harmonics, so all the high order stuff is largely unmasked.
Cubic is wrong. It is the pattern as well as the decay...Keith Howard demonstrated this as well. One might speculate why...I personally think it has to do with the gap in the harmonic spectrum breaks up the masking effect... and our ear\brain evolved to hear natural sounds in an exponential decay if harmonics...that is how the ears own distortion pattern looks...not cubic.
I totally concede that I say dumb things. Do it all the time. But in this case, I've no idea to what you're referring- do you have a link? I'm also interested in the Keith Howard thing, but there are a lot of Keith Howards out there.
So far, a cubic non-linearity seems to have a good pattern. Since the harmonics drop off at a faster rate, and since the overall distortion is considerably lower at any given power level than you see in an SET (quadratic), the result is more neutral and smoother. Its easy to hear too. So you have measurement, the subjective experience and the math all on the same page. But I would like to see what Keith Howard was/is up to.
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