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From a recent review in positive feedback (Ecosse cables reviewed by Max Dudious) :"Twenty-five years ago I designed a rather simple crossover network for a pair of "monitor" sized loudspeakers, the crossover being of
the simple first-order type. It had one capacitor in the circuit, I think of five or six micro-farad value. I made one with a Mylar™ cap, and the other with a Polypropylene™ cap. I managed over some weeks to test if any of the members of my listening panel could hear any difference. I played a mono recording, and switched from left to right. Everyone immediately heard the difference. Some were amazed at the improvement just one clean capacitor could make. These days, all the better companies brag about what clean capacitors they use. But it wasn't always so."
Pair matching in speakers is not that good, figures of >0.5 dB are common.Further, the position of a loudspeaker in a room has a major influence on the sound, one just needs to read the works of Toole/Olive and Bech.
Each parameter on its own can result in a difference between the left and right speaker of a pair when playing a mono recording. Did the reviewer take these parameters into account in order to simply eliminate them? It doesn't look like, otherwise he would have mentioned it, to him it's the caps that are responsible for the perceived difference. And yet another myth is born.
Follow Ups:
No, Klaus, it is not a myth. People CAN hear the differences between different capacitors and between different resistors (amongst other things).. Instead of just reading about other people's listening experiments why don't you, Klaus, do some of your own listening experiments and find out for yourself what differences you can hear. Exactly as many other audio engineers have done over the years, and exactly as Peter and I have done over the 52 years we have been involved in the audio industry !!!Martin Colloms wrote an excellent piece on passive components in the January 1991 issue of Stereophile. To quote briefly :-
> > > Under the heading :- "The sound quality of passive electronic components: capacitors, resistors, inductors, cables."
On passive resistors.
> > > For example, listening tests have revealed audible differences between groups of metal-film and other types of resistor used in audio equipment. In these tests, the listeners had no interest or foreknowledge of the resistor types, and would not have known how to identify them even had they felt like trying......... < < <
On passive capacitors.
> > > All of the capacitors tested were used well within their ratings. Their internal design, foils and electrolyte chemistry were different, however...... The engineers involved were astonished to find that the capacitor differences were highly significant, determining between 20% and 30% of the overall performance of the amplifier...... No measurable differences were observed for the complete amplifier using any of these capacitors. < < <Martin further describes the differences in sound when using different materials for the printed circuit boards.
He says :-
> > > Conventional electronic wisdom indicates that while pcb quality may be relevant above 50MHz, it is of no importance to audio amplification. < < <And, yet, Martin's tests showed the different materials used for printed circuit boards to be significant with regards to the resulting sound !!!
Also, in Hi Fi News November 1994 issue, Martin wrote :-
> > Some years ago I published the results of listening tests on individual passive components. Not surprisingly I received a rather large and rather mixed postbag, with many letters of support, agreeing with our results.
But other letters were from more sceptical individuals, questioning what we (a group of classically trained electrical engineers and not loony golden ears) reported. However, my claimed identification of a single input capacitor was subsequently confirmed by Audiolab in a double blind..........
(And later in the article) :-
Yet the differences were there, right enough, and they were unexpectedly wide ranging. Remember that we were comparing a single 7k or so shunt resistor, the listeners could distinguish between two resistor types with the preferred one having superior dynamics, greater subtlety, with a more pure and more detailed treble, greater transparency, depth and ambience. A somewhat better stereo focus and tighter, cleaner bass were also apparent.
Once again we have an illustration of the fact that a single supposedly 'perfect' passive component can affect the sound quality. < < <I repeat, Klaus, do your own listening experiments. Why do you want to rely so much on written papers ? Why don't you try things for yourself and then try to work things out for yourself instead of constantly looking for what others (might or might not) have written ?
Are people's experiences only really valid, in your eyes, if they have been published somewhere where you can find them ? What you are insinuating is that when people claim that they can hear differences with different components or differences with different materials that, somewhere in their experiments, there is something else which invalidates their experience.
Your quote Klaus :-
> > > Further, the position of a loudspeaker in a room has a major influence on the sound, < < <If you do your own listening experiments you can have complete control on the POSITION of the loudspeaker/loudspeakers !!!!
Regards,
May Belt.
which does not mean that I believe that what they hear is real. As long as those listening tests include parameters which are not controlled or even considered, sorry, then I can't accept the results as being valid. Which is exactly the case for the above mentioned cap-in-a-crossover story.People's obervation are valid only when the experimental circumstances are without flaws. That's what publishing and peer-reviewing is about. One can look at those circumstances and judge how much validity can be attributed to the results.
Playing a mono recording and switching between right and left speakers which are not pair matched and which are not in the same, i.e. identical location within the listening room do not represent flawless experimental circumstances. Period. So in this particular case "there is something else which invalidates the experience", yes.
I did my own listening experiments, that's why I don't have any special audio rack, or footers or platforms, or cables. That's why I'm about to abandon vinyl and copy all my records to CD. That's why I think that Acoustic System Resonators is a scam. That's why I don't have photographs on the freezer. Life's too short so I prefer enjoying my favorite music instead of doing listening experiments.
Klaus
> > Life's too short so I prefer enjoying my favorite music instead of doing listening experiments. < <And that is why you don't know what affects sound !!!!! It's amazing really. Fancy being proud that you don't do listening experiments !!
Other people HAVE taken the trouble to do listening tests !!
Regards,
May Belt.
...what's he doing here if ho doesn't care about sound?Tentative answer: Enjoys being a pain in the butt.
I think I have a pretty good idea of what affects sound and of what does not. And it's because I have a pretty good idea I have chosen the gear I have (yeah, I know, bjh, "perfect.period.", yawn...)Smoking weed, drinking single malt or taking an aspirine affects sound, but that's no reason for me to use either of these.
> Fancy being proud that you don't do listening experiments !! <It's you who says I'm proud! Given the many other things in life listening tests simply have a close to zero priority.
True, Toole, Olive, Bech, just to name a few. And it's because these people have taken the trouble one can say that Dudious' test is invalid.
a
["Smoking weed, drinking single malt or taking an aspirine affects sound, but that's no reason for me to use either of these."]By acknowledging such affects you make the case of challengers. By the way, do you use them together?
x
Don't you mean 'Jung and Marsh' ? I did write about cap non-linearity in 1979 in 'Omitted Factors in Audio Design' in 'Audio' but I did not mention dielectric absorption, which I did find important with a different sort of distortion test, after reading 'Jung and Marsh's article on cap selection.
What is amazing about Klaus is that he does not know or understand cap distortion. This is one of the fundamental factors that separates mid fi from serious hi fi. It can be measured by just about anyone, who is technical, IF they were so inclined.
The interesting thing about caps is that this distortion is not usually measurable at mid frequencies with sine wave or SMPTE IM distortion, partially because of the symmetry of the test waveform (music is not as symmetric as a rule) and because coupling caps are virtually shorted out in the midband, but caps have serious voltage drop across them when used as either low pass or high pass filters, which they invariably are at some practical portion of audio source frequencies.
...I can remember the first time reading them even!
It's about an experimental setup that is seriously flawed yet the experimenter draws "valid" conclusions.btw., can't find your article, it's listed in the 1979 author index but it's not in any of the 1979 issues.
Further, has cap distortion ever been subjected to (published) controlled listening tests and if yes, what were the results?
That's a dumb question, Klaus. Since when do we have double blind tests on non-linear cap distortion? If you like to listen to distortion, be my guest. It adds that slight 'edge' to the sound that is typical of mid fi.
I can't find my 'Audio' article date at the moment, but you will get the same info from:
IEEE Mar 1978, IEEE Audio and Electroacoustics meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma pp 263-266.
Why don't you get some test equipment and measure it yourself? Ever actually get your hands on test equipment?
Especialy from the consumer's perspective.
Overnight I started building my kits with mil-spec polycarbonate caps in hermetic cans.
I admit that I stole them from my employer.
"That's a dumb question, Klaus. Since when do we have double blind tests on non-linear cap distortion?"Really.....and yet the conclusions you draw from the measurements of this form of distortion and implement in your designs are supposed to be audible? At least that is what the reviewer or whoever claims in Klaus' post.
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
Sure, I investigated flow of surfactant solutions in porous media.Distortion, every time I put on a record, there's plenty of it, so yes, I listen to distortion every day:-)
making a complete fool of yourself isn't so bad over there!
Sorry your vinyl playback gear is so lame.
As remedy I suggest the AES Disk Recording Anthology, vol. 1 and 2.
Soon as I finish War and Peace.
give it top priority after War and Peace.
But what do they know?
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007
i cant fathom that ARC and many other electronics makers would waste their efforts loading their product with superior caps and resistors if there werent a sonic benefit.lets just say that the madisound group needs a bit more education and experience.
...regards...tr
> i cant fathom that ARC and many other electronics makers would waste
> their efforts loading their product with superior caps and resistors
> if there werent a sonic benefit.Audiophile kit is made to be sold. If customers are buying kit with a particular gizmo and your hardware does not have this gizmo what is a rational manufacturer going to do?
A good example of this discussed recently in these pages is Roger Russell's latest speaker which uses an audiophile brand wire despite his well known web page discussing the performance of wire. I think it is fairly safe to assume that this was not used because of any belief in superior sound on the manufacturers part but because he judged the extra cost for the branded wire would increase the attractiveness of his speakers to his customers.
i will just suppose that ARC, counterpoint, and cj equip sounds glorious in SPITE of the fact they all use premium inner components. they might just as well have sourced from ratshack.
This is the situation. We use good parts, BECAUSE they sound better, especially when listening over a long period of time, than other parts. We, and that includes AR, would like to find cost effective parts that sound great. It would lower our manufacturing costs and some of this could be passed on to the consumer. I suspect that most AR customers don't care what brand or type of cap is being used. They just want it to sound better than a mid fi alternative that they could easily get at a local outlet.
Good parts usually measure better also. It may be difficult to measure the differences so almost no one tries, because it was just too difficult. However, listening comparisons, especially over a period of time, bring out what works, and what doesn't work.
i of course believe that components like wondercaps and vishay resistors actually DO sound better. when i got my sp3a1 into the system, not much else i've heard compares in sound.the conspiracy i refer to is the one that is alluded to at critics corner where the reviewers conspire with the makers for profit (as IF).
...regards...tr
rw
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No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
otherwise the result could be ugly.You were flying high until the penultimate sentence, where you made a bunch of assumptions to validate your conclusion, without any evidence to back them up.
You assumed that the pair matching in the speakers was outside of 0.5 dB tolerance (BTW, how audible is 0.5 db? It was always my understanding that the decibel scale was chosen to reflect the smallest perceptible increment of loudness change, i.e. 1 db). You assumed that placement differences between the right and left speakers would account for a different perceived sound. Tell me, experimentally, have you verified this audible difference, beyond the audible effect of really gross placement differences, like putting one speaker on the floor in a corner and other other speaker on a stand 2 meters from the nearest wall and 1 meter above the floor?
By the time you get to your final sentence, "Another myth is born" I hear the sound of "kersplat" as you do a face plant at the bottom of the ravine below, your leap of faith having fallen a bit short.
When you look at available pair matching data of speakers you see that they are rather in the > 1 dB than in the < 1 dB range. The thresholds of detection of audible differences are well known from psychoacoustics.And no, I did not verify the effects of speaker position on sound myself, that has been done by Toole/Olive and Bech. You just need to read their engineering papers in JAES and JASA.
A 0.5dB peak or valley in a very narrow frequency range would be hard to hear unless the program showcased it.On the other hand, a 0.5dB rise over a couple of octaves in the treble would probably be audible on much program material; if not as such, then as the proverbial increased "airiness."
In any case, I think Klaus' 'chute didn't open this time. ;-)
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