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In Reply to: What is PRAT? nt posted by sser2 on October 24, 2006 at 17:37:15:
PRAT is an acronym, created by English HiFi journalists, for Pace, Rythm And Timing."A Prat" is a common English term that sort of translates into "a jerk", "a dumb ass", "a klutz" - or more closely perhaps: "a pain in the ass"!
There is, of course, no connection between these two completely different concepts...
Follow Ups:
Pace, Rythm and Timing are characteristics of music performance. What it has to do with audio equipment? Timing is probably related to slew rate or rise time, but pace and rythm?
Can I assume that you've never had a vinyl setup? Try listening to the same recording (especially rock/pop) on a good vinyl setup and also on CD. Obviously, a lot depends on the pressing and the remaster but you should get the picture. CD tends to strip away that foot-tapping rythm that some music has.
will do nicely.
I have a vinyl rig, and I use it most of the time. 95% of my music is on vinyl, but very little rock,indeed. If I am getting it right, there are some aspects of rock music revealed by good equipment, and they are called PRAT? Is there PRAT in classical or jazz?
I hope so - or I'd find the performance kinda boring I expect.Muaic is music, no matter the style, and while the notes played may be exactly the same - there's a world of difference between a given classical piece's performance by a world class professional orchestra and a small town amateur one. Also a similar difference between a top jazz or blues trio, and the kids down at the local bar.
And the key differences IMO are Pace, Rythm and Timing - and the overall consistancy of these factors between all the memebers of the group.
Now how it's important in hifi terms - technically - there can be many guesses. Frequency bumps in the response is a common one - regulation (or not) of the powersupplies is another - but lack of phase shift in the bass end is to me a vital contribution to great music playback "feel".from any music.
As a viny user, maybe this will help you understand it better:
A friend has recently changed from a Gyrodeck T/T (high mass platter, low power motor) to a Voyd T/T (low mass platter - three powerful motors) and reports a HUGE inprovement in PRAT!
Why? We can only guess, surmise, speculate...but he loves it!
I have no technical knowledge in this area but I personally perceive this as the lower resolution of CD losing the trailing edges (or decay)of musical notes/sounds. In rock/pop this prevents the notes flowing into each other, hence the apparent loss of rhythm. In classical it stops the complex sounds overlapping and therefore sometimes makes classical seem more detailed, but less natural. Ever go to an orchestral concert after listening to loads of CD's and your first thought is that the orchestra sounds a bit loose and jumbled? This is purely my own perception and lots will probably disagree.And yes, Ozzie, I think it can be faked in the bass region - my Theta which was good at PRAT, was very bass-heavy in general.
Alan, from my limited exposure to it, the Thetas were pretty good at darn near everything. The first digital playback that I ever heard that could image was a Theta DS Pre (? had a Pro version as well) on out through a fine set of Theil CS5s. The original designer, the digital wizard that he was, was pretty cool as well. Mike something or other???
Ozzie, Yes the Theta (Miles) was pretty good and I sometimes regret selling it for its musicality. But it did overplay the bass a bit as well as rolling off the top end. When I first got the VSE Sony I was stunned by how much high frequency I had been missing. Sometimes think about getting a Gen V DAC for redbook output from the Sony (but I invested my spare cash in a turntable instead - first for 15 years :)
"but I invested my spare cash in a turntable instead - first for 15 years :)"You obviously did it right in the first place. It might not have been such a bad idea if even for having a standard for qualifying changes in your very fine step up and pre amp devices. That is, if you are the same Alan Sutherland that I think you are. An A is listed by your name, not an M.
Alan, I have a Gen Va that I use as a benchmark for various mods to a SCD-1. After a clock upgrade and some other serious tweaking to the SCD-1, the Sony DAC & analog section surpasses a Gen Va in every way by a good margin, including taught, extended bass-- always a strength with Theta. However a Gen Va does beat a stock SCD-1's RBCD.
...it's good to get someone's view who's heard both. To be honest, I just don't have the rack space for more kit anyway and I'm pretty happy with the 777ES in VSE L5+ form. But the Theta remains one of my favourite upgrades.........
HowdyIt's amazing how once you hear good bass you never want to go back and similarly once you hear good highs you never want to back.
I just auditioned a Krell system: LAT-1000 speakers, Evolution One mono blocks (tho they are two blocks/channel :), SACD Standard, Cardas speaker wire. Tho the bass was fine (if not as detailed as I expected), the garbled high freqs were quite distracting. You couldn't locate the cymbals and other percussion in a single position in the sound stage at all on "Blues in Orbit" track 3 and you couldn't tell what the washboard was on The Vivino Blues Brothers "Blues Band" track 9 (in fact the salesman said "What's that distortion in the right speaker?", you should have seen his face when I said "On a system with good resolution you can clearly hear it as a washboard in it's own space.")
Hi Ted,I think Krell have a reputation from many years back which they just haven't lived up to since, and while I've heard a couple of good systems utilizing older Krell amps I've been thoroughly unimpressed with what little exposure I've had to newer designs.
My impression is that perhaps they put too much faith in measurements and not enough in listening. :0)
HowdyThe number of filter settings on the SACD player made me think they just didn't know what sounded good :)
I thought the speakers showed promise, but I'd have to hear them with a good source, etc.
Try some early 60s Miles Davis with Anthony Williams jamming on the skins.I have to wonder if some magazine writers just wanted to move some 90s CD players that they liked, but were not all that great in the mids and highs. OK, but not great. Great pace, rythm and timing... Personally, I'd rather leave it to the musicians playing.
HowdyAfter you've heard a system destroy PRAT it becomes a lot more obvious.
The first time people say "This sounds slow!" even tho we all know that the tempo of the music is correct you see the lights coming on in their heads about PRAT.
It's amazing what a change in cables can do at times in this regard, but that's even more controversial :)
it's interesting that our brains can perceive something as "fast" or "slow" even though they are both exactly the same source material played at exactly the same tempo.i suspect it has something to do with how our ears interpret transients and perhaps harmonics.
i'm currently in the middle of finalising the mixing and mastering of a massive 4-disc album project. i've found that playing around with harmonic exciters and even very slight level changes (particularly for bass and drums) can cause a subjective shift in the pacing of the music.
there's one particular song that's been very problematic, i've probably remixed it about a dozen times now, but it's interesting that very small level changes can change the "feel" of the song to change from "plodding" to "too intense" - the challenge is getting it to sound "just right".
HowdyI agree about the transients. Tho we are in general insensitive to phase, we are sensitive to phase in transients (since transients are less well defined when their phase is mucked with.) So I believe that PRAT is related to the relative phase response vs. freq in transients, tho I have no idea if late highs relative to lows is "faster" or "slower".
Just as attitude and body language can speak volumes without a word, we pick up on a collection of subtle cues that lend a very distinct sense of whether the music is being propelled or dragged along. In either instance the tempo is the same, and the recording will finish at the same time, but the vital life and energy is just MIA on the one. Perhaps a descriptive analogy might be the difference in actual and perceived energy between a tug and a barge. Both are traveling at the same speed, but the tug is doing so with palpable force.
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