Those who own Audioquest cable...what do you think?

[Sal1950]

Perhaps not...but

 

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if we can't hear above 18-19kHz.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if most tweeters roll-off long before.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if this will trigger the >10dB resonance of most rigid-domed tweeters.

 

R

 

Marketing?

[Teresa]

Perhaps not...but

 

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if we can't hear above 18-19kHz.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if most tweeters roll-off long before.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if this will trigger the >10dB resonance of most rigid-domed tweeters.

 

R

 

I am curious about this >10dB resonance of most rigid-domed tweeters, can you explain why that happens and if these tweeters have limited response?

 

I have EMIT tweeters that are -3dB at 45kHz, so I guess I am safe playing high resolution digital recordings.

 

No one says humans can "hear" above 20kHz. There are many theories on why ultrasonics are important to the reproduction of natural acoustic instruments which have overtones as high as 102kHz. One I think is plausible is that ultrasonic overtones effect the timbre of audible frequencies down as low as 1kHz.

 

I gathered together many of the theories in Are Ultrasonics Important? Current Theory and High Resolution Digital

 

Also see A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz

[sandyk]

Perhaps not...but

 

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if we can't hear above 18-19kHz.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if most tweeters roll-off long before.

Why do we need -1dB at 40kHz if this will trigger the >10dB resonance of most rigid-domed tweeters.

 

R

 

Why did Sony originally sell tweeters with a genuine response to 100kHz when SACD was introduced, but before they dumbed it's frequency response down after some poorly designed amplifiers couldn't handle ultrasonics too well and started to smoke and blow fuses?

Why do Barry Diament's 24/192 recordings have GENUINE musical content to past 65kHz ?

Why are we even bothering with MQA if there is no point in frequency extension beyond 20kHz ?

More recent research shows that hearing response isn't limited to 20HZ to 20kHZ, but it's the RISE time of the waveform that matters.

This has been discussed many times previously, and I couldn't be arsed getting into more silly arguments with the usual know-it-all sceptics who insist that 16/44.1 is all that is needed, and the higher res formats including 24/192 and the latest DSD is a waste of time.

If your speakers start rolling off just before 20kHZ then take a nose dive, try listening with a decent pair of headphones which often have usable response to past 40kHz.

[mansr]

Why did Sony originally sell tweeters with a genuine response to 100kHz when SACD was introduced, but before they dumbed it's frequency response down after some poorly designed amplifiers couldn't handle ultrasonics too well?

 

Because they could.

 

Why do Barry Diament's 24/192 recordings have GENUINE musical content to past 65kHz ?

 

Because he believes it makes a difference.

 

More recent research shows that hearing response isn't limited to 20HZ to 20kHZ, but it's the RISE time of the waveform that matters.

 

Same thing.

 

If your speakers start rolling off just before 20kHZ then take a nose dive, try listening with a decent pair of headphones which often have usable response to past 40kHz.

 

Nobody ever said a little safety margin wasn't prudent.

[Sal1950]

Well we know subsonic sounds are detectable thru feelings and could easily be 100% objectively proven. I don't totally discount ultrasonics but if it's detectable that would still have to be proven to me thru objective testing.

[gmgraves]

Did they have microphones back then like Barry D. uses, which are only -1dB down at 40kHz ?

I believe that there are now also Laser based microphones available with even better specifications.

 

Well, yes, they did They had omnidirectional calibration mikes from Brüel & Kjær (B&K) since the 1960's that went out to 40-50 KHz. I didn't say that there weren't companies innovating, but I wouldn't call these improvements "technical advances" or the microphones with these improvements mainstream mikes.

[gmgraves]

Among the newer microphones made for high resolution digital is the Sanken CO-100K whose frequency response extends to 100kHz. Here is a user report from Michael Bishop, recording engineer & producer of Five Four Productions Ltd.

 

 

Why stop there? Let's have microphones that are flat to 1 MHz, or 10 MHz. After all, Audiophilia Nervosa has no boundaries, so why should practical things like frequency response or the size of audio files?

[gmgraves]

Why would we need -1dB at 40kHz to record music?

 

R

 

Well, that's sort of my question. The only advantage that I can see is that normal condenser mikes usually have a resonance peak somewhere between 8 and 20 KHz. By extending the microphone's frequency response way into the ultrasonic region, we can perhaps push that peak out beyond the range of human hearing, and have flatter response within the audio passband.

[gmgraves]

I strongly agree with this and those are some of my favorite golden age labels. I feel for "major label" classical and jazz the 50's to the 60's are the best and for "major label" rock the 60's to the early 70's are also the best. After those years all the major labels went downhill fast, instead of being basically natural photographic styles of recording, they became a highly processed gimmicky production-styles of recording.

 

People invented all these tools to process audio and I believe that is the download fall of the major labels and what gave birth to the rise of original audiophile recordings, audiophile from the microphones to the finished product as they went back to the microphoning techniques of the golden age. Sheffield Lab used a single stereo microphone, the Robert Woods / Jack Renner team at Telarc used three microphones inspired by the Mercury Living Presence recordings of which they were fans, just to name two audiophile companies. Basically the major labels departed away from accurately representing music to making productions instead, and audiophile labels continue to fill this gap.

 

Did you know Bert Whyte also engineered a lot of Crystal Clear Direct to Disc LPs?

 

P.S. I knew you meant acoustic versus electronic music not reproduced music. When music is reproduced with electricity in our homes, acoustic music still sounds acoustic and electronic music still sounds electronic.

 

Yes, I did. In fact I have known Crystal Clear's founder, J. Tamblyn Henderson for many years (he's associated with Reference Recordings nowadays). And I knew Bert Whyte personally, and we both wrote for Audio Magazine here in the States for a number of years.

[Jud]

Why stop there? Let's have microphones that are flat to 1 MHz, or 10 MHz. After all, Audiophilia Nervosa has no boundaries, so why should practical things like frequency response or the size of audio files?

 

My amp's flat to 1 MHz, so I guess after the mikes, speakers are next.

 

Interesting that amp design came from a Grammy-winning record producer. It's not because he thinks people can hear 1 MHz, but because designing for that capability confers other advantages. Whether the thinking behind wide bandwidth mikes and speakers is similar I frankly don't know.

[gmgraves]

Excuse me kind sir but that is exactly what you said, notice it was a quote from your post #644. Here I'll show you again with a copy/paste

"In a classical performance, no electronics is required at all for people to hear the performance the way the composer and the conductor meant for it to be heard."

 

The operative word here being PERFORMANCE as opposed to RECORDING.

 

George, I really do like and respect you. But your superior attitude towards popular music and your generalization that it is all crap not deserving of striving for accuracy in a audio system takes the conversation away from having any chance of being constructive. You have blinders on bro. Yes I've said classical is not my cup of tea and I only have around 25 or 30 albums collected over the years to compare with what other "golden ears" were hearing and never really listened to them again. But I've not disrespected you for your tastes or insulted classical in general.

 

Neither do I disrespect you for your tastes, and I haven't insulted pop music either. I am only discussing the use of the word "accuracy", and I still ask: If the performance doesn't exist outside of a studio, what are we being accurate to, and how would we know even if it were? We all know (or should) what a saxophone or a violin or a live piano sounds like, and when they are simply and accurately recorded, we we can all tell. But how do we know what a Fender guitar is supposed to sound like after it's been through a fuzz box, or other sound altering electronic gizmo and had artificial reverb superimposed over it or been multiplied with sound-on-sound or sound-with-sound? The word accuracy simply doesn't apply here. There's nothing wrong with that, and I've said so, but for some reason you seem to equate my disagreement with your word choice here as some kind of cut aimed at your music. The fact is you seem to be looking for phraseology that you can construe as a criticism of rock and pop even when none is intended because you know that I don't value the stuff.

 

You really should be supporting the pop music community since classical only contributes much less than 3% of the industry's income.

 

You really should be supporting the classical music community because it only contributes less than 3% of the industry's income. Actually, it is a matter of complete indifference to me how little of the music industry is contributed by classical music. The best thing that ever happened to classical music was when the major labels abandoned it. The stuff being recorded today is far better than the quality was when in the late 60's and 70's when RCA, Columbia, EMI and etc. embraced multi-miking and multi-track for classical recording. Do you know that at one point in the early '70's, Columbia was recording the NY Philharmonic with Bernstein using 1 microphone per instrument and two 48-track 2" recorders locked together for 96 total tracks??!!!. Do you have any idea how horrible those recordings sound? It sounded NOTHING like a symphony orchestra and image? Don't make me laugh. It had no soundstage, no imaging, just a straight line of musicians lined up between one's two speakers. The absolute Nadir of music production.

 

If it weren't for us baby boomer rockers the high end industry would only be a glimmer of what it is today.

 

You really can't convince me that that's a good thing. Probably without the Baby-Boomer rockers, the equipment wouldn't be as expensive as it is now, either. Did you ever consider that?

 

Got to be about a million equipment and speaker/headphone reviews out there that for the last 43 years used Dark Side Of The Moon as reference.

Sorry sir but popular music is not irrelevant nor are it's fans.

il saluto

 

I've never said that it was irrelevant. It's just irrelevant to me, personally. I'm a baby-boomer, I grew up in the 50's and 60's and I never liked rock. Even as a teen, I couldn't stand it. But I do realize that my tastes aside, it is hardly irrelevant as most people like it and it has spawned a number of huge industries. So please stop looking at every comment I make as being a slight to pop and rock music.

[gmgraves]

Marketing?

 

 

The bottom line is that we don't any more than we need 192 or 384 KHz sampling rates. They just uselessly make the files larger.

[CR250]

Excuse me kind sir but that is exactly what you said, notice it was a quote from your post #644. Here I'll show you again with a copy/paste

"In a classical performance, no electronics is required at all for people to hear the performance the way the composer and the conductor meant for it to be heard."

 

George, I really do like and respect you. But your superior attitude towards popular music and your generalization that it is all crap not deserving of striving for accuracy in a audio system takes the conversation away from having any chance of being constructive. You have blinders on bro. Yes I've said classical is not my cup of tea and I only have around 25 or 30 albums collected over the years to compare with what other "golden ears" were hearing and never really listened to them again. But I've not disrespected you for your tastes or insulted classical in general.

You really should be supporting the pop music community since classical only contributes much less than 3% of the industry's income. If it weren't for us baby boomer rockers the high end industry would only be a glimmer of what it is today.

Got to be about a million equipment and speaker/headphone reviews out there that for the last 43 years used Dark Side Of The Moon as reference.

Sorry sir but popular music is not irrelevant nor are it's fans.

il saluto

 

You're twisting his words around. The statement is fact, not opinion. When you go see classical music live, there's usually no electronics involved. The instruments being played are not amplified. The sound goes directly from the instrument to your ear. With rock and most other genera's, you listen to the music through a PA system, not directly. Since when did stating relevant facts in a discussion become an insult?

[sandyk]

The bottom line is that we don't any more than we need 192 or 384 KHz sampling rates. They just uselessly make the files larger.

 

George

Just because you are unable to hear and appreciate the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/192 or DSD, doesn't mean that others, including me, can't.

 

Alex

[Sal1950]

My amp's flat to 1 MHz, so I guess after the mikes, speakers are next.

 

Interesting that amp design came from a Grammy-winning record producer. It's not because he thinks people can hear 1 MHz, but because designing for that capability confers other advantages. Whether the thinking behind wide bandwidth mikes and speakers is similar I frankly don't know.

In a pinch you could use it for a rf linear amp. WOOT

[Sal1950]

The bottom line is that we don't any more than we need 192 or 384 KHz sampling rates. They just uselessly make the files larger.

 

24/96 is more than enough. The stuff Mario is doing at that rate is as good as it gets, as he also obvious believes, as does Mark Waldrep and other HDA recording engineers.

When I do buy HDA I'll never pay more money for anything higher than 24/96. Doesn't cost the labels or the sellers like HDTracks a penny more to produce the different PCM and DSD speeds, selling all the different releases in multiple sampling rates for more money as you work your way up is pure marketing hype. And they'll be more coming. They'll want to sell those releases to you again and will have to come up with a "new and improved" bit bucket. OH WAIT, now we have MQA.

Just dang silly.

[sandyk]

Sal

What is your age and upper HF hearing limit ? At your age should you be able to benefit from any format greater than 16/44.1 ? If you can, as you appear to be able to do so judging by your replies in Mario's thread etc., how do you explain your ability to do so to someone like esldude, for instance ? The same applies to Mr. George Graves. (grin)

Alex

[Sal1950]

Sal

What is your age and upper HF hearing limit ? At your age should you be able to benefit from any format greater than 16/44.1 ? If you can, as you appear to be able to do so judging by your replies in Mario's thread etc., how do you explain your ability to do so to someone like esldude, for instance ? The same applies to Mr. George Graves. (grin)

Alex

66 and maybe 10k I think. Ears were exposed to numerous fire fights, etc in VN 1969 plus I worked in very noisy mechanical/machine shops for well over 30 years.

 

Definitely not if the only measure at work is upper frequency hearing.

But using that as a yardstick neither should anyone else since the VERY upper limit of human hearing is 20K

But people are claiming that there is something else at work beyond FR in the sound of HDA. Has to be if you claim to hear the differences in the various top sampleing rates. To claim your hearing the upper frequency limits of a PCM 384 or DSD 256 file would just be beyond ludicrous.

 

Personally I never claimed to hear any of this HDA magic. I like the others were mainly able to help Mario because the things we were listening to/for were well within the FR of normal hearing, the sound of drums, bass guitar, and electric guitar and the reverberate field of his room. Wouldn't have needed any kind of HDA to critique the things Mario wanted to look at, we could have done just as well with Redbook. That's not to say his released recordings don't sound better because of 24/96 sampling, they very well could but that was really outside of our needs for his tests.

[esldude]

My amp's flat to 1 MHz, so I guess after the mikes, speakers are next.

 

Interesting that amp design came from a Grammy-winning record producer. It's not because he thinks people can hear 1 MHz, but because designing for that capability confers other advantages. Whether the thinking behind wide bandwidth mikes and speakers is similar I frankly don't know.

 

Though Keith Johnson and Rick Fryer have said otherwise in interviews about the 1 mhz bandwidth, Demian Martin, who designed their earlier gear told me the key parameter was fast fall or release times after a transient signal. An ignored factor in many designs. The wide bandwidth was actually a side effect of making that happen and not a key design goal. So it isn't the bandwidth, it is the fast release after a signal has passed.

[YashN]

key parameter was fast fall or release times after a transient signal. An ignored factor in many designs. The wide bandwidth was actually a side effect of making that happen and not a key design goal. So it isn't the bandwidth, it is the fast release after a signal has passed.

 

It is indeed the case, but rise time is equally if not more important for timbral accuracy and soundstage and rhythm, so why is it people are still talking about not needing gear with large frequency bands because 'we can't hear bec Nyquist'?

 

It isn't a side-effect, it's a requirement but the advantages for SQ are in things other than frequencies.

 

Same thing for higher resolution files and formats: allows better SQ through gentler filtering, less phase issues, more accurate transient reproductions.

 

Yet, people are still talking crap as if all we hear are frequencies (bec Nyquist).

[sandyk]

It is indeed the case, but rise time is equally if not more important for timbral accuracy and soundstage and rhythm, so why is it people are still talking about not needing gear with large frequency bands because 'we can't hear bec Nyquist'?

 

It isn't a side-effect, it's a requirement but the advantages for SQ are in things other than frequencies.

 

Same thing for higher resolution files and formats: allows better SQ through gentler filtering, less phase issues, more accurate transient reproductions.

 

Yet, people are still talking crap as if all we hear are frequencies (bec Nyquist).

 

A big +1

[Teresa]

Why stop there? Let's have microphones that are flat to 1 MHz, or 10 MHz. After all, Audiophilia Nervosa has no boundaries, so why should practical things like frequency response or the size of audio files?

 

Well, the highest overtone of an acoustic instrument is 102.4 KHz so I don't see a reason for going beyond 100kHz. My favorite currently working engineer Michael Bishop of Five/Four Productions (previously Telarc) uses the Sanken CO-100K microphone and records at 11.2MHz DSD. Some have been released on SACD, however the vast majority are only available on stereo CD despite the fact that he records in pure DSD in multichannel and stereo. Perhaps someday these will be available at least as DSD downloads.

 

Has nothing to do with Audiophilia Nervosa but more accurate reproduction of not only the fundamentals but also all the overtone series. Anything that makes recorded music sound more like live music is important to me. Doesn't mean I have to replace any of my lower resolution recordings, just the ability to get new audiophile recordings at even higher resolution.

[esldude]

It is indeed the case, but rise time is equally if not more important for timbral accuracy and soundstage and rhythm, so why is it people are still talking about not needing gear with large frequency bands because 'we can't hear bec Nyquist'?

 

It isn't a side-effect, it's a requirement but the advantages for SQ are in things other than frequencies.

 

Same thing for higher resolution files and formats: allows better SQ through gentler filtering, less phase issues, more accurate transient reproductions.

 

Yet, people are still talking crap as if all we hear are frequencies (bec Nyquist).

 

You need enough rise time for the frequency and size of the signal. More isn't helpful on the rise time. You can have a 1 mhz circuit after a 20 khz signal and it will reproduce that signal with excellent fidelity. Yet have no steeper rise time than a circuit with only 20 khz bandwidth. The issue on the release time as I recall had to do with transistor junctions being heated by the signal and then changing the transfer characteristic for a short period of time and not dropping off as fast as the signal input did. Again in that case the wide bandwidth was a side effect not a primary goal or requirement.

 

One would think an excellent switching amp has an advantage vs analog amps in attack and release times. Whether true or not, and nothing I had in mind at the time, the first good switching amps I heard in person instantly reminded me of the sound of a Spectral amp. I wouldn't call them equal, but there was some similar sound quality as I perceived it. Switching amps don't have megahertz bandwidth.

 

And one more point I would mention, rarely with music is the higher frequencies where the steepest rise times occur. Rise time is a product of frequency and amplitude. In music higher frequencies are mostly at much lower amplitude. Yes there are exceptions, but they are just that exceptions not the norm.

[YashN]

My amp's flat to 1 MHz, so I guess after the mikes, speakers are next.

 

Interesting that amp design came from a Grammy-winning record producer. It's not because he thinks people can hear 1 MHz, but because designing for that capability confers other advantages.

 

I never paid attention to your amps before this, although I do know about your DIY DAC and the Vandersteens.

 

Went to their page reading a bit about their technology. Wow! I like the philosophy and approach.

 

What were your first impressions of them?

[sandyk]

Demian Martin, who designed their earlier gear told me the key parameter was fast fall or release times after a transient signal. An ignored factor in many designs.

 

Or perhaps he was really talking about a quick recovery from such an overload instead of the amplifier latching up and blowing a fuse or worse ?