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...why it is associated with equipment?i guess i don't really read the audiophile magazines and such, so a few months ago i had to look up this acronym. i understand it and why it applies to music, i s'pose...but what i don't understand is how it applies to equipment.
the music either has pace/energy -- i don't see how a component can impart this characteristic to a recording.
it seems like if a component "doesn't have PRaT" then what people are really saying is that component really kills the recording (assuming appropriate music was being used in the first place). all the talk of PRaT-challenged components just seems like flawed designs/gear.
can anyone help show me the error of my ways?
(if any of the gear i was using failed to allow music to convey it's own sense of rhythm and timing, then i would toss it out the window immediately; it seems like such a basic requirement that i don't see how someone would get anywhere down a road with equipment that hampered it.)
Follow Ups:
. . . eliciting such response.
PRaT.Yes, yes....well paced with even a little cliff hanger.
Rythmn....hmmmmm, well yes. Maybe an extra space between "change." and the "A".
Timing....Absolutely. Impeccable timing.
Regards,
HBThink I'll go home and listen to some music. All this talk of PRaT wears one out.
In your butt
Put the boogie in your butt
Put, put the boogie in your butt
In your butt
Put the boogie in your butt
I know that Rega turntables for example are supposed to have PRaT but evey one I have ever seen measured runs a bit too fast. Do they do this to artificially give a sense of heightened pace? Makes one wonder... Also, a turntable that doesn't have good stability of speed, ie. is always changing speeds slightly, can blur the sound and make it lose intensity.With speakers, I have found that a speaker seems slow when the bass is subjectively, not together, with the rest of the spectrum. This can be because of a boomy High Q design or a highly resonant cabinet.
With electronics it could possibly be phase shift, or distortion in the bass (a problem with some tube amps and probably why some tube amps sound "slow"). The older 1 bit dacs in cd players often made for a VERY boring sounding cd player (think Technics MASH or 1 bit players from Onkyo were dreadfully boring and lacking in PRat). I am not sure what the cause here would be, jitter perhaps?
Many SS amps sound "dead" dynamically, which I suspect is from excessive use of negative feedback, and this also makes for a non-PRaT boring sound.
I think certain distortions and imbalances in music reproduction make us feel that timing has been affected, even if everything is timed to atomic clock standards. I believe PRaT may well be simply the best description for a side effect of knowing something is wrong.It's possible that certain distortions and imbalances actually make us feel that PRaT has been improved. You've got to wonder why primitive setups exhibiting several percent distortion are favored by many as preserving something extra.
On the other hand, an off-center LP side kills PRaT quite literally for me. :)
After i refurbished and modded a Lenco idler wheel drive TT i discovered the importance of Prat. To me it's about precision on the time-line of music. It's about starting and stopping of notes. Attack, decay, sustain, release, in synthesizer terms.
Say you're playing Baroque harpsichord music, Bach Goldberg variations. When i play the record on a Thorens TD125 the notes are 'glued' together a bit, it sounds 'legato'. On the Lenco you hear each and every note apart from each other, it sounds 'staccato'.
On pop/rock/jazz with bass and drums Prat is about the original timing of the musicians, especially the rythm section. A good drummer can play slightly behind the beat if the song requires it, or on the beat or slightly behind it. The bass player puts his notes on top of the bass drum. It's the ability to reproduce the natural timing of the musicians that sets the big idler wheel drive TT apart IMHO.
"The torture never stops"
As musicians we connect the insturment pickup leadsm and mic leads and run them into their various preamps and a main mixing console.There is a great deal going on electronically.
We play cd's through the system while we take breaks. When we begin playing everyone in the room knows the difference between the cd sound and the live sound.
Night and day....
This is Pace Rhythm and Timing.
The closer your equipment comes to playing back the real deal the better.
This is not a volume, black background, holistically righteous sense of sound. It is all about what sounds real. In my book, the sound either sounds real or it doesn't.
Like others have said this is subjective so YMMV.
> > > As musicians we connect the insturment pickup leadsm and mic leads and run them into their various preamps and a main mixing console.
There is a great deal going on electronically. < < <uh, okay.
> > > We play cd's through the system while we take breaks. When we begin playing everyone in the room knows the difference between the cd sound and the live sound.Night and day.... < < <
duh.
> > > This is Pace Rhythm and Timing. < < <
how so? elaborate,please
> > > The closer your equipment comes to playing back the real deal the better. < < <
uh, yeah.
> > > This is not a volume, black background, holistically righteous sense of sound. It is all about what sounds real. In my book, the sound either sounds real or it doesn't. < < <
what's "sounding" real have to do with the topic?
> > > Like others have said this is subjective so YMMV.
This is just my take on things. < < <ya know, maybe it would be best if you just refrained from posting on topics that you have no understanding of or experience with. Then again, that wouldn't provide you with very much to blather about, would it?
"I can understand how one piece of equipment might make the rhythmic element of music more pronounced by clearly producing transients and may reproduce the “timing” more accurately by keeping a steady speed. I suppose its okay to say the equipment has “PraT” because it does a good job of reproducing these rhythmic qualities of the performance. But isn’t it sort of like saying, “my amp has a very expressive vibrato,” just because it reproduces that quality in a recording of Maria Callas?"I also find some 1/2 speed mastered pressings seem to impede PRaT as well.
...yes. I agree that "it would be better to suggest certain equipment impedes PRaT."I can't comment on the 1/2 speed masters, however. I own too few of them, and don't have the other versions to compare them to.
To paraphrase others below, equipment does not have PraT. Musicians do.As a musician, I know the difference between rhythm and tempo. Tempo is the rate at which the primary pulses of the music occur. A rhythm is a particular arrangement of sounds and silences relative to a given tempo.
In audio-speak, “Pace” seems to be roughly equivalent to tempo, and “timing” seems to be related to how well the equipment reproduces the performer’s rhythmic precision or lack thereof. “Rhythm” then, may be a kind of generality that includes both. This is fine as long as everyone is speaking the same language. However, those who use the term “PRaT” should be aware that the terms “rhythm” and “tempo” have very specific, objective meanings in music.
I can understand how one piece of equipment might make the rhythmic element of music more pronounced by clearly producing transients and may reproduce the “timing” more accurately by keeping a steady speed. I suppose its okay to say the equipment has “PraT” because it does a good job of reproducing these rhythmic qualities of the performance. But isn’t it sort of like saying, “my amp has a very expressive vibrato,” just because it reproduces that quality in a recording of Maria Callas?
IMHO we get into trouble when we start attributing things to the equipment that should be attributed to the performer, or the reverse.
The vibrato would not be more or less prominent because of the equipment used for playback.I think it's fair to say that the concept of prat is a perception, as any two pieces of working audio equipment ought to be playing the music at a steady and consistent pace, and therefore the tempo will always be equally steady on any equipment. Prat as it is referred to is a matter of how pronounced the rhythmic elements of the sonics are perceived, and I said sonics not the music. A musician playing with good or bad time will be playing with good or bad time regardless of the equipment used for playback. But with whatever timing they have, when they play something on their instrument, how the rhythmic energy of the transients are transmitted can come across differently when played back on different equipment.
So when people are referring to prat they are not referring to the musical timing or rhythm, they are referring to the way it's perceived in the playback.
You raise some interesting points, but either I didn't make myself very clear, or we'll just have to agree to disagree. ;)In response:
"The vibrato would not be more or less prominent because of the equipment used for playback."
Vibrato is a controlled (hopefully) variation in pitch and/or loudness in a sustained tone of an instrument or voice. It would seem that more accurate equipment might do a better job of getting the overtone series closer to correct and therefore portraying the pitch fluctuation accurately, and gear with better micro-dynamics would better portray the subtle loudness variations. So my analogy was intended to mean: If we say a piece of gear has better "PRaT" because it conveys the rhythmic elements of the recorded performance better, then we might as well say a piece of gear has better "VIBES" because it does a better job of conveying pitch and micro-dynamics.
Now, if we are talking about perceptions, then shouldn't we say that the LISTENER has better PRaT? As a listener, I seem to have the best PRaT after one beer. After three, my PRaT rapidly declines.
The original post asked why the acronym should apply to "equipment” instead of the music. In my humble opinion, it should not.
I think the fact that this thread has generated so many responses speaks to the vagueness of the term PRaT. It means so many different things to different people, that its use becomes problematic… again, in my opinion, one of which everyone has.
My 2 cents,
Sam
I think the main thing is that it sounds like you have not experienced a difference of that sort with equipment. I have, and I am not coming at this because I have an idler table and nothing does prat like my system. Not at all the case, I have a belt-drive and for all I know the prat of my system is very average. But I have heard the difference, most notably in rolling different tubes in my linestage, and also in switching CD players. I also have a friend who's digital setup anyway definitely has more prat than mine. So I have heard the difference, and it's a difference that is strictly related to the sonics not the music as we're talking about the same recordings compared. So it makes sense to me to refer to the prat of given components, but I could see how it would be hard to understand for someone that hasn't experienced it. I would agree that it is a somewhat misleading acronym as those terms are more commonly applied to musical aspects as you describe, but it does make some sense if you think of it in the abstract way of how those elements are portrayed by a system.
I think our disagreement is just in the usage of terms. I most certainly have heard all kinds of changes in my system, including more or less prominant rhythmic energy, as a result of every little change I make. I've heard big differences as a result of different tables, cartridges, tubes, and most recently, going from medium sized to very small, firm rubber feet under my LP12 greatly improved the portrayal of rhythmic energy.My take on all this is simply that I wouldn't say that the smaller feet have PRaT, I would just say that the other feet got in the way of the PRaT that was recorded in the music. The table, with the smaller feet, does a better job of revealing what's in the recording than the same table with the bigger feet. That's just a different way of describing what's going on. Some folks say "my team lost," others say "the other team won."
I'm glad that we agree that PRaT is a somewhat misleading acronym. But my problem with the term is not because I haven't heard the quality refered to as PRaT change with different gear playing the same source material. I have.
Best regards,
I think we'll just agree to disagree, and clearly we're not all that far apart. I do think that it is a sonic element related to the playback equipment and not simply a matter of how well something reveals what's on the recording. For example, I think prat is one of the significant advantages that vinyl (specifically as opposed to analog) has over digital. I don't think that is because the digital lacks detail, sometimes if anything it has more detail and many would argue that it portrays the recording more faithfully than vinyl, but they way the sound travels and the listener feels the vibrations of the strings or the plucking of the bass or the stick striking the cymbal is completely different, and (IMO) it has more impact coming from vinyl. I don't think that's a matter of what's on the recording, it's a matter of how the signal is generated and transmitted to the listener.Anyway, no need to hash it out as I think we just disagree, but what I'm saying is at least an explanation of why people attribute what they describe as prat to a piece of equipment rather than to a recording or musicians.
...and one thing I certainly agree with completely is that vinyl has some special qualities, accurate or not, that make me enjoy it more.Thanks for a civil, intelligent exchange. If we all agreed completely on everything, there would be no reason to discuss anything, except to say "Ditto!!"
Best,
i think sam's right-- to a point. recordings aren't as simple as a perfectly transparent microphone put into a perfectly presenting space with a perfectly transcribed to tape perfect performance of a perfect musician-- there's a LOT of gear between the performer and your ears if its on a record, and a lot of manipulation of the recording between the mind of the artist and your turntable! the ENTIRE process is one of aesthetic judgement (good or bad)-- so when PRaT comes into the picture-- i think what you said about prat either BEING or not-- i don't believe it can be 'added'-- just subtracted. usually there's a lot of folks in the chain trying to keep it... but by the time it gets to the end user... the entire process is started again with system design, and that can be TOTALLY jacked up.. i've heard a lot of PRaTless systems, to be sure. but that's all synergy- the entire PROCESS is synergy in keeping musical integrity- with wildly varying degrees of success in aesthetic choices from the selection of the instruments played to the hookup wire in the speaks. to some people.. they don't care.. all they want is background music.. so it's not an issue, and at 55 db, prat is invisible. and if you look at a lot of modern recordings-- music is reduced to a bandwidth blob of non-dynamic blast. even the most pratty stuff would reproduce exactly that.. a blast of garbage out from garbage in. system design is the same as that FM pop radio vs. a fantastically recorded ella fitzgerald gem. they perform different functions, and the tools that created them are as different as a teaspoon and a chainsaw, as are the aesthetics.SO.. PRaT is largely meaningless outside the continuum of this stuff. you can't have PRaT at all without earmarks, or it makes no sense-- so semantically, i can't know i'm making sense to you unless you've heard XY or Z displaying prat. any piece of gear, looked at in this way, has a hell of a matrix to make it through- and if it's lucky enough to not bung up music that's good, well recorded and mixed, well mastered, and well played back through a system composed of components that preserve the integrity of the original performance.. it MIGHT have prat! but then... what's the meaning of any ONE of those terms in regards to 'WELL'..
ugh.. only the french theorists could argue this forever.. google 'semiotics'...
yrs
... i understand and appreciate your post.
....because the music involves you in a way that captures your full attention.Another signal that you've got some prat going is when you, --without thinking about it--, start moving your body to the rhythm of the music. It's a subconscious thing. It just moves you.
Conversely, a sign that you DON'T have any real prat going is if you have to analyze the situation to figure out if you do.
-Steve
hi, steve:
just curious if you read my original post. i understand what "pace, rhythm and timing" are (and to me they are inextricable from *music*, so the notion of listening to or owning a system or component that stole "PRaT" from the music is incomprehensible to me.the post wasn't about "how to get" PRaT in a system but, rather, why people attribute "PRaT" to a component. sorry if that wasn't clear in my original message.
Yes, through your comments it was apparent to me that you have a handle on what the term means but rather you're looking to draw attention to how various people use the term.I think Pete addressed your concerns fairly well when he noted that a component, or group of them, can't add pace rhythm and timing. Rather, the system hardware can subtract or corrupt the musical intent.
I would add that a good system should manage to get out of the way of the music.Perhaps I didn't make the intent of my comments clear so I'll take this opportunity to elaborate. My comments weren't about "how to get" prat but rather how to identify if you've got it. And that if you have to think very much about it, then it is probably lacking somehow.
btw my comments weren't addressed so much with you, the original poster, in mind but to anyone interested.
how's that?
-Steve
user510's system
So true Steve....I ususally have 2-3 tables up and running at any one time. The Prat value is different on all three and usually all three sound great.
I love this hobby because as you find what you need, then when you tune the sound right there is magic in the music.
Unfortunately there are a great deal of things going on in a system. Just one perfect product or item does not a system make. Sorry Shakespeare.....I didn't mean to slay your material.
...your comments and the clarification. thank you for taking the time, steve!
And so his sound was lean. I think that's it...
I think it can be confusing if you think about some recordings "having" more or less prat. All recordings have a prat element, which I equate a great deal with the energy of the transients. The more energy in the transients, the more prominent the rhythmic aspect of the music and assuming the rhythm is steady that will be perceived as "pace". One piece of equipment may highlight that aspect of the sound more than another. On a given recording, the prat may be a make-or-break element, IOW the rhythmic energy is the primary redeeming quality of it. But I think any recording has that element whether it is the drums of a rock band or the bowing of a violin.
To paraphrase others below, equipment does not have PraT. Musicians do. HTML tag not allowed
Take a look at Martin Colloms' seminal Stereophile article on this subject. Although it's almost 15 years old now it's still the best explanation / speculation I've seen for how some components can screw up temporal relationships in reproduced music.
i know what the concept is -- but this was meant to be a discussion of how a component can "have PRaT", which gets tossed about freely by some.there are a myriad of ways a component can "f- up the music", such as destroying the tonal balance, making complex music sound muddled, wrecking dynamics, etc. that's a pretty obvious thing to understand...but what continues to mystify is how a component can "have PRaT".
nt
components DO NOT possess pace, rhythm or timing. At best,they can only attempt to preserve those qualities that are still present in the recording . Gear or systems that are said to "have good PRaT" just don't screw up the temporal and dynamic relationships in music as badly as others.
*confused by the audiophile terms*could a room without PRaT kill the PRaT of a component (idler)?
yes. for example,an overdamped listening room can hinder dynamic contrasts and soften note attack robbing the music of life and in the extreme even negating temporal cues and rhythmic accents.
sounds more like having characteristics that remove PRaT instead of innately "having PRaT"...but it's all semantics.the whole term (the way i see most use it) is kind of a joke.
actually as soon as I read or hear someone referring to "PRaT" as if it were some singular & specific sonic/musical characteristic rather than as a generalised musical concept or a philosophical camp/approach, my internal alarms start flashing.
I personally try to avoid the term "PRaT" as much as possible when describing sonic portrayals of gear & systems. I much prefer to elaborate separately on those key temporally based elements such as how a given component,etc handles pacing/flow, dynamic contrasts, timing precision, rhythmic drive or the completness of note shapings and the clarity of musical lines and the relationships between performers,etc.
for meter, rhythm, and tempo. All are elements of music. Has nothing to do with general concepts or philosophies. These are specific elements of music that can be conveyed on paper by composers using the given western or eastern musical structures. I am not a composer and perhaps there is one that reads this site that can comment further.As far as audiophilia, it's whether the piece of gear can present these elements accurately is what we likely agree on. I always assume that when someone mentions PRaT, they are talking about whether the gear accurately portrays the rhythm and tempo in music. Where the semantics get messed up is when they say gear *has* *more* or *less* PRaT than other gear. But, I'm smart enough to read between the lines and know what they really mean.
If someone says their turntable *has* *more* PRaT when placed on a Neuance shelf, I understand that, all other things being equal, the Neuance shelf helps to portray those *specific musical elements* called rhythm, tempo, and meter more accurately. "Preserve" is also an incorrect term. None of us were likely there in person when the music was recorded and even if so, memory loss...so we will never know what it is that needs to be "preserved".
can't see how anyone would disagree.
terms kind of makes me, perish the thought, long for the good old days back in the '70's when I held closely to the spec sheets that were available for various components on sale. Perish the thought. Right?
I remember rumble figures and speed stability information and when I, and I'm sure others did the same, made close comparisons between the various models of turntables, for example. Some listening tests thrown in with consideration for ergonomics and visual appearance and you likely made a choice you could live with for about 20 years. Now we seem to be mired in pseudoscience and extreme subjectivity with the occasional testimonial from a manic reviewer who has just heard the holy grail, astronomically priced and out of reach by most, that we are somewhat lost in my opinion. Shun mook pucks, cd demagnitizers, 100k turntables, fad diets, weapons of mass destruction and on and on.. We are sounding more like neurotic narscisists, some of us with more cash or credit than good sense who have gotten lost in the wilderness.
Sure I like tubes, full range drivers, and other audio esoterica, but I think that crazies and charlatans have really muddied the waters these days. ....and what was this post in response to? Oh yes, PRAT. How about WTF?
What about tubes. 12AU7 is a 12AU7?
I think listening is of major importance and have always done that before buying components. That has always been a major consideration for me when buying equipment. It just seems to me that we have taken the subjective criteria, actually the so called reviewers have done so, to the extreme, and have attempted to work harder at being Elmer Gantry than, oh, let's say Julian Hirsch. Remember that guy?
I just think we have gone overboard on the subjective and metaphysical side of things and need to be a little more grounded in how we evaluate things. That's all. I think the industry is taking advantage of a lot of people and has some of us chasing ghosts.
I have deleted my previous posts in fear that I was being too subjective. ;-)The term "musical" be one of those ghosts. I keep seeing that term and of course you always want something that is 'musical', right? That's the gig after all. Same goes for PRaT.
You have to do a lot of reading to replace actual listening to get close to a sense of what your are searching for. I think that terms like PRaT and 'musical' should be ignored and look for other indicators of what the reviewer/commentator/poster is talking about, matching that to a growing list of data. You have to look around and thru what someone reports. In other words, you have to sense what the guy means. The good thing about this palce is you get the chance to ask direct questions ...
and just by stats? so that would mean my 33 1/3 +1% speed table would be outside the perameters. But is has so much PRaT!
O.k. Fair enough. BTW, the Stereophile article referenced on this thread is worth checking out.
I'm just casting my vote for balance, sanity...and science.
...you and i think more alike than different."PRaT WTF?" is a brilliant title for the thread. wish i'd labeled it tat way!
.
Much of today's solid state equipment is completely devoid of Pacing and Rhythm. The equipment is so over-engineered that they soften and slur the natural pace and rhythm of the music just so that they can sound inoffensive on all types of musical recordings or sources.
I have noted this in line stages, phono stages, and CD players. The good news is that there are more and more exceptions to this every year. Apparently the designers are now learing how to build a proper solid state device.I have yet to own a vacuum tube piece of equipment that destroys the music in this regard. However, I understand that there are some of those out there too.
Turntables are also guilty of lack of "making music". There are lots of opinions out there as to what ingredients make a "musical" one vs. one that is smooth-quiet-and-dead. I have found that there are many causes and reasons why certain turntable systems sound musically dead. One thing is for sure, a generalization about thick acrylic platters being the culprit, or some blame low torque motors, or the use of lead in the platter or base, simply isn't correct. The turntable system as one unit can contain any or all of these "flawed" components and still sound absolutely alive and vibrant.
System synergies sometimes mask the flaws of a given component. That makes it a whole lot of fun when you make a change and discover that something isn't quite right.
Have fun on your journey to musical bliss :-)
Cheers,
Me, I'm just a lawnmower, you can tell me by the way I walk....
-Ray
"Have fun on your journey to musical bliss :-)"thanks.... i am there, actually. :)
i just see some of these terms tossed around quite a bit, so it made me curious as it just didn't make intellectual sense to me that gear could have or add PRaT.
what you presented describes gear failing to convey elements of a recording (which i understand).
You have the right idea - no component can add to the PRaT of music, they can only present it accurately (I hate to say "accurately" but that's what comes to mind), or hose it up.What you're having trouble with may be the mental shorthand a reviewer or other uses to describe "that characteristic or characteristics of a design which allows the musical content to be conveyed essentially intact". :-)
Much easier to say "it has PRaT", although it would be just as easy and more accurate to say it preserves PRaT.
Don't I sound like a prat, talking like dat? ;-)
Now there is something to be said about a component's tonal emphasis which may have the effect of maximizing or minimizing certain instruments which make up the rhythm section of a performance.
Thus if the bass or the drums are artificially recessed the music may seem to lack drive or rhythm. Warmth in the mid-bass is supposed to make certain types of music sound more rhythmic. A setup that emphasizes leading edge transients may sound more snappy.
In that sense, a component can artificially change the perceived drive, rhythm, pace and such. Good, bad or indifferent. One example that works for me is You Can Call Me Al, from Graceland. If you don't have tight, fast bass down to 35Hz that tune just slogs along. But with proper mid/lower bass it's impossible to sit down while listening to it. So yeah, some systems have (preserve/emphasize) PRaT and some don't. ;-)
Hope some part of this was helpful. No I wasn't drinking (but maybe I should have been).
Good one Pete.VPI and Basis TT do not preserve PRAT. So those guys who use these TT and talk about PRaT do not know what they are talking about.
I always wondered the same thing. This table has prat, that table does'nt, I had this table & it did'nt have prat so I bought this table & it really has prat, bla-bla-bla. Sounds can be so different to each person. I figure if it gets my foot taping, its got prat.
nt
...pep up those lifeless recordings.why not have 2 setups (or front-ends)...one that can add PRaT when necessary, and another that can take it away when there's "too much".
(see link below)
i scanned the article but didn't really see the relevance if only to say that certain components are clearly better than others.does this answer why PRaT is attributed to a component rather than to, simply, music? can a component *add* PRaT, or can it only kill a recording? i'd believe the latter but i am puzzled by the talk that often goes on.
> > > can a component *add* PRaT...? < < <no but some gear mistakenly said to have good PRaT may actually be highlighting musical characteristics in such a way as to enhance the "impression" of good dynamics or manipulate the way one percieves the attack of notes thereby accentuating rhythmic landmarks.ex:You can have what appears excellent rhythmic drive by truncating the trailing edges of notes or the space between them but the music's humanity and expression will have actually diminished as a result.
> > > i am puzzled by the talk that often goes on. < < <
So am I.The usage has become popularised and misused by many that simply haven't a complete grasp of the concepts. In fact, I would hazard to guess that most think PRaT is just about "toe-tapping" or "slam".
nt
hmph..syntactically.. it seems wierd. hearing it... that's a different thing.
a squishy springy belt drive table can sound CLEAN, but just be short on drive... just seem a little saggy in the dynamics, a little slow, a little ponderous. (mind you.. not ONLY springy belt drives aren't pratty..) seems like the drummer's lazy.. the bassist is laying back-- everybody's a little on the bored side.
swap in a drivey table like a td124 or a garrard, mebbe a high end technics direct drive. that performance tightens up a bunch-- everybody has a cuppa coffee, the drummer's snapping it, the bassist is dead on.. transients crack, and you feel like the ensemble's really ON..
BUT your requirement for sound may not incorporate SNAP, or PRAT... it may just be 'clean' or 'quiet'. a lotta 'tables are both of those.. just kinda syrupy and bland.. mebbe a little whitewashed. that's not always LISTENERS.. sometimes it's hifi companies deciding what's best.. e.g. the early days of CD's threatening vinyl.. so manufacturers made quiet tables.. but at a cost.
it's tough.. you've got a lotta flavors out there! but hopefully that sort of helps get the 'prat' idea!
i guess PRaT to me = MUSIC. how could one have music without pace, rhythm and timing?i suppose that as long as i've been involved with audio (which is far less than many around here, i'm sure), if i listened to some component(s) and PRaT was missing, then I just assumed there were major fundamental problems.
however, i felt (and still feel) like pace, rhythm, and timing are connected to MUSIC not to COMPONENTS.
also, i'm not sure if your post is intending to say this, but are you saying that no belt-drive has PRaT (if we even accept the notion that a component can have it or not -- versus just fail to convey PRaT that was within the recording or "kill the music"), whereas all idlers and DDs do?
i'm not sure i believe that in an absolute sense, as i've heard all sorts of terrible equipment using most any kind of technology...while i've also heard experienced that good examples of each technology. it may take more $ or better engineering to get any particular solution to work, but i think they all have their merits.
again...i'm just wondering why PRaT gets associated to a device rather than to music.
Heinrich Heine wrote that music is "spirit, but spirit subject to the measurement of time." My tendency is to speak about 'timing' and include what in the acronym is intended by the P and the R.The semantics for describing components tends to be somewhat shaky. Hopefully some information gets imparted and communication occurs. Describing sound and describing music are hard.
I'm coming to the view there are characteristics applicable to music and characteristics applicable to the experience of hearing music reproduced through a stereo system. Both can be helpful when describing how components 'sound'. For example, a deep soundstage can be an attribute of one's experience listening to a stereo system, but we tend not to think of it as an attribute of music. Perhaps it is part of a listening context, an ambience, but you won't hear a conductor urge his orchestra to play with a 'deep soundstage'.
On the other hand, music as a performing art, occurring in time, involves timing as an inherent characteristic. Composers typically include explicit timing marks on their scores, both in terms of a time signature (beats per measure, what note value the beat represents) and in terms of tempo markings, eg. allegro, presto, andante, etc. Regardless of the components in your stereo, timing is, as you suggest, associated to music and the timings involved in the making of music are independent of that music's reproduction. Timing along with dynamics, and tonality *are* characteristics of music, regardless of whether it is heard through a stereo or experienced in the concert hall.
Go over to the Music asylum and you'll find discussions about the interpretation of the same piece of music by different conductors and sometimes those speak of things such as Maestro so-and-so taking the Scherzo too fast, which yields a poorer performance than some other. As the orchestra's 'master clock', the conductor is on the input side of timing, attempting to get all the musicians in the orchestra, not just on the same page, but together at the exact same spot in score at the same time. If enough musicians are 'off', the result may be an audible distortion of the composer's intent.
The PRaT business is one angle on how well the recorded music gets reproduced via a stereo, one way of attempting to describe the experience of listening. Presumably one values a reproduction that is no quicker or lanquid than the original. PRaT makes up one aspect of the relative veracity of music through the component or system under evaluation.
Consider cables as an audio component and think of an audio waveform in time.. The topology of the wires in an IC or speaker cable can have an effect on a cable's inductance and a cable's dielectric can have a capacitive effect. If a signal at time A is stored then released later at time B it interferes with the signals that should be arriving at time B and the overall signal loses some of it phase coherence. The net effect is not that much different than the second violins being an eighth of a second behind everyone else. In a stereo system the result is a distortion on the timing of the signal passing through the cable. You may not notice, or you may hear, for example, a slight blurring or smearing of the leading edge of a note. Add up the cumulative effect across time and the reproduction is less true to the original. Think about the time alignment factor of a speaker's design - the point being to get all signals at different frequencies occuring at time A to arrive at your ears together.
Describing the PRaT of a component is one way to describe and assess this sort of distortion or its relative absence. There are other semantics that amount to the same thing. The description of a component as transparent or clear might be understood as an assessment of its phase coherency. Less temporal distortion may yield an experience of more detail, or longer decay or more higher order harmonics - its not just a question of whether the component got rhythm, but some folks may parse it out that way in their descriptions. Different reviewers use different words and concepts. Some components do the timing thing better than others. A component that is ill adept doesn't yield an effect like playing a record at 31-1/3rpm, but music through it may not be as vivacious or lively. I think its something you'll notice more by comparison between different components.
So while timing is indeed a characteristic of music, the relative accuracy of music's reproduction depends (in part) on the absence of timing distortions. Or that is one way to think about it. Heine also said 'when words leave off, music begins.'
. . . is an AC-synchronous/belt-driven turntable running 1% to 2% too fast.When selling such turntables, be sure to pooh-pooh quartz direct drive, and talk about the motor "hunting around" for the right speed.
I am sure that the nad i have is fast. i wouldn't have it any other way. I think it is an attribute. sort of like certain order harmonics.additionally i have heard it said that the DDs have 'drive' and 'purpose.' Idlers have a very 'direct connection' and serious forward movement.
... is that things like 'drive' and 'serious forward movement' imply an additive element.PRaT either exists in music or not, right? if so, can't it either be conveyed or lost?
i could see someone saying:
"a [insert favorite belt-drive table that is out-of-favor with an idler crowd] killed the PRaT of this record."i do not understand:
"[idler- or DD-of-choice] really has PRaT."(i've heard some great belt-drives and some terrible ones, as i've heard some great and some lacking DDs & idlers....so i'd rather keep the implementation of the technology out of the discussion.)
I have heard cartridges that did not ahve this PRaT thing.For instance the Denon DL-160 has PRaT out the ass, ass they say. Perky, exciting, on top of the beat. fast on detail. I have heard anotehr cartridge that was more detailed but a bit boring. Too smooth. [there's another amorphous term for you] And the Dl-103 has TONE as it's forte.
Sometimes terms like speed, tone, smooth, can convey better than this PRaT term. Paced, rhytym, and timing may really mean different things to different people. Maybe we can come close with the other terms...
But we are ultimatly talking about equipment the entire time ...
...we all make our choices.when people say that component X has PRat, can i assume that it adds "pace, rhythm and timing" to otherwise bland records? :) i do have some duds in the collection where the musicians could have used a bit more inspiration @ the session. :)
i can understand your point about gear NOT having the ability to convey something....but adding pace/rhythm/timing seems to be, well, assinine!
It's a crap shoot ! If you werent there at the time of the
recording of the music how do you know if a component is adding
or taking away the pace rythem and timing. It's only a guess.
Of course IMHO
...that unless one was "there" it's hard to say what "should be there" on the recording (although that's kind of standard audiophile stuff).however, pace and timing doesn't seem to fall in the same category. how do you think a "component is (could be) adding" pace, rhythm and timing? subtract? yes. add? fill me in, please....
A component might be said to emphasise certain areas of the frequency spectrum at the expense of others, which might appeal to a particular listeners set of musical priorities.The LP12 is often stated to be at or near the top of the tree in the PRaT department, but it isn't regarded as a strictly neutral design. The traditiona; Naim sound has often been described similarly, hence the apparent synergy of these products when used together.
Again, all in IMHO.
I don't really think about anything other than neutrality. I agree though that a lot of the tables that are supposed to have "prat" or less tha neutral and have more of a "sound" and sometimes it;s a good sound, like a thorens 124. But, i think some of the high end tables will give you that slam and neutrality.
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