We shouldn't be able to do this with sighted subjective listening, but we did...

[master]

I don't feel as if I like colored sound, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? However, I'll note two things:

 

- I've seen very, very few people refer to my speakers as colored, and no one I can recall has ever described my amp and pre-amp that way. So insofar as my equipment suggests my preferences, I'd say it suggests I prefer what others have often described as accurate.

 

- I've heard the system of the other person involved, and would not say he prefers colored sound either (but then I would say that, wouldn't I? ).

 

From my personal experience everything is colored, at least to some extent.

 

If that were not, every DAC and speaker would sound the same, especially when playing the same track. However, that's another discussion for another day and I don't want to be sidetracking this thread.

 

What I meant to say was that we all have a predisposition to liking a particular sound (even if it is with distortion). Sterile or brutally honest is anathema for most folks.

 

I have often wondered whether that is part of why people enjoy listening to records -- the slight clicks and pops are more "real" and immediate than the underlying music, so they fool us into thinking the whole thing is more "real."

 

A similar situation occurs when you watch video. If you look at a still image of a frame of video, you suddenly notice all its imperfections and its insufficient resolution. Put it in motion and our brain substitutes the "reality" of the motion for the imperfection of the indivudual frame.

 

A good point, and quite true too.

 

I have personally found myself tapping my feet and getting into the groove/music with certain types of sounds. What people will typically call the analog sound, particularly in a vinyl setup. It is a similar experience with tube amplifiers and digital to analog converters too, especially those that are on the warmer side like the Arcam or Rega.

[Jud]

Anything with distortion as obvious as you described is surely colored. It far more likely the other less obvious effects are to your liking than it is you are hearing some genuine better fidelity marred by imperfections. Especially as the effects go away with the distortion. It isn't impossible simply unlikely.

 

We can't say at this point "the effects go away with the distortion," merely that it's one possibility. The distortion could go away and the effects remain. Whether I and the second individual involved will continue to strongly prefer this version if/when the bugs are worked out remains to be seen.

 

That's the central point I want to keep coming back to. If *I* have a preference for colored sound (though as mentioned before, my equipment choices, so far as they indicate anything, don't indicate that), it's unremarkable. That *two* people have such a strong preference for the same coloration that it overcomes obvious distortion by a large margin versus the undistorted and presumably less colored version begins to require a fair amount of coincidence.

 

Please remember also that apart from the obvious distortions, the version I preferred sounded *more* accurate to me. Those drums ought to be forceful, immediate and real, enough to make someone who wasn't paying a lot of attention to the music jump a little, and that wasn't what came from the version without the distortions.

[Jud]

From my personal experience everything is colored, at least to some extent.

 

If that were not, every DAC and speaker would sound the same, especially when playing the same track. However, that's another discussion for another day and I don't want to be sidetracking this thread.

 

What I meant to say was that we all have a predisposition to liking a particular sound (even if it is with distortion). Sterile or brutally honest is anathema for most folks.

 

 

 

A good point, and quite true too.

 

I have personally found myself tapping my feet and getting into the groove/music with certain types of sounds. What people will typically call the analog sound, particularly in a vinyl setup. It is a similar experience with tube amplifiers and digital to analog converters too, especially those that are on the warmer side like the Arcam or Rega.

 

I don't think you've sidetracked things at all.

 

It may interest you to know that some people have described the sound of Spectral amplification equipment as brutally honest or even sterile. No one I know of has ever described it as "tube-like" or "analog."

 

For the record, I don't prefer the tube amps and preamps I've heard.

[sandyk]

Jud

Clicks and plops can happen with poorly implemented USB. It can also be due to other applications doing housework for example .

As an example this may even happen in a PC when listening to music while the email client is open and it does a regular scheduled check for new mail. Setting Audio at a higher priority or other processes to a lower priority, may help in that case.

If you record an output waveform where that is happening you may see glitches which show as small sections of missing data (<100mS) in the recovered analogue waveform.

Regards

Alex

[esldude]

Jud

Clicks and plops can happen with poorly implemented USB. It can also be due to other applications doing housework for example .

As an example this may even happen in a PC when listening to music while the email client is open and it does a regular scheduled check for new mail. Setting Audio at a higher priority or other processes to a lower priority, may help in that case.

If you record an output waveform where that is happening you may see glitches which show as small sections of missing data (<100mS) in the recovered analogue waveform.

Regards

Alex

 

Good suggestion.

[esldude]

I don't think you've sidetracked things at all.

 

It may interest you to know that some people have described the sound of Spectral amplification equipment as brutally honest or even sterile. No one I know of has ever described it as "tube-like" or "analog."

 

For the record, I don't prefer the tube amps and preamps I've heard.

 

Personally I never considered it brutally honest. In the way back when, it was near unique in sounding delicate, detailed, never hard on its own, and simply honest. You had an overwhelming sense of rightness that you were hearing no editorializing by the Spectral gear. Not overly neat nor soft nor anything.

[esldude]

We can't say at this point "the effects go away with the distortion," merely that it's one possibility. The distortion could go away and the effects remain. Whether I and the second individual involved will continue to strongly prefer this version if/when the bugs are worked out remains to be seen.

 

That's the central point I want to keep coming back to. If *I* have a preference for colored sound (though as mentioned before, my equipment choices, so far as they indicate anything, don't indicate that), it's unremarkable. That *two* people have such a strong preference for the same coloration that it overcomes obvious distortion by a large margin versus the undistorted and presumably less colored version begins to require a fair amount of coincidence.

 

Please remember also that apart from the obvious distortions, the version I preferred sounded *more* accurate to me. Those drums ought to be forceful, immediate and real, enough to make someone who wasn't paying a lot of attention to the music jump a little, and that wasn't what came from the version without the distortions.

 

As always with only two data points it could as likely be coincidence as not.

 

However, the audio world is rife with such situations. Compression is one. Just a little compression will seem to make everything better to very nearly everyone. A moderate amount even will seem best by the great majority.

 

When done skilfully a little reverb of the right type also will seem far better to nearly everyone.

 

These are colorations pretty much no one is immune to even when generally preferring precise uncolored playback gear.

 

So what you are describing is interesting, but hardly unique nor difficult to believe nor requiring coincidence to be so.

 

It also shows why in my opinion, we should strive for the most accurate playback possible, and then color it to taste without guilt about doing so. It is mixing up accuracy and preference that I dislike.

[jabbr]

It may interest you to know that some people have described the sound of Spectral amplification equipment as brutally honest or even sterile. No one I know of has ever described it as "tube-like" or "analog."

 

Not "analog"? That is a real shame ! Brutally honest is a "good thing" Sterile, not so much ...

[master]

Brutally honest is a "good thing" Sterile, not so much ...

 

In my case both have not been such good things, Genelec speakers were way too sterile to be any fun, and most of my equipment is on the forward/bright side, and they really show up everything downstream for exactly what it is, totally unforgiving. This pretty much makes bad mastering unplayable on my systems.

 

On the other hand, they are extremely fun on a Bose speaker sound dock, though they invariably lose all of the detail.

[sdolezalek]

The "distraction" theory is one that occurred to me, and the proof of that pudding will come if/when the bugs are worked out.

 

However, those drums are quite dramatic (if you have Tidal/Roon, listen to Shadowfax's "Another Country"), so I don't know that distraction is a good explanation there.

 

To me the drum's on Shadowfax's "Another Country" are dramatic but unrealistic. They have an overly sharp attack and no natural decay, as though someone intentionally tried to emphasize certain frequencies. I found that I could achieve a similar effect through some of the iZotope settings in Aurdirvana, but as "dramatic" as they felt at first, I found them tiresome for longer listening sessions.

 

The one effect that seems never to tire me is when a variety of different live recordings can successfully depict the space they were recorded in. By that, I mean that a small venue sounds small and a concert hall sounds like one. When I reliably hear those subtle cues across a variety of content, then I'm comfortable that I have things dialed in properly.

[semente]

Distortion was something like occasional clicks and pops plus a very obvious "flutter" with steady tones that was particularly evident to me in the midrange. Neither was the least euphonic in any way.

 

Edit: Type of music - for me, a lot of Shadowfax lately. At least from DR values and my ears, it seems to be well recorded.

 

Hi Jud,

 

Did you listen to Mario's recordings?

 

In my opinion, it's not possible to evaluate accuracy of playback using "processed" studio recordings, even the best ones such as Blue Coast's or 2Lno's.

This kind of recording, with it's sonic effects and colourations and fabricated or manipulated spatial representation will never sound natural or realistic, not even in the most accurate of systems...

The result of your judgement will only tell you what kind of presentation you prefer.

 

One must start with an adequately mic'ed, natural sounding recording (both from a tonal and spatial perspective) in the first place if we're to achieve any meaningful results from our listening assessment.

 

R

[semente]

As always with only two data points it could as likely be coincidence as not.

 

However, the audio world is rife with such situations. Compression is one. Just a little compression will seem to make everything better to very nearly everyone. A moderate amount even will seem best by the great majority.

 

When done skilfully a little reverb of the right type also will seem far better to nearly everyone.

 

These are colorations pretty much no one is immune to even when generally preferring precise uncolored playback gear.

 

I agree with your comments on the subjective qualities of some types of distortion.

 

In my opinion and experience, the amount of dynamic compression is directly proportional to the "soundstage" effect.

 

Correlated harmonic distortion also adds to the sense of "spaciousness" and a recess in the upper-midrange/lower-treble can also increment this effect.

 

So what you are describing is interesting, but hardly unique nor difficult to believe nor requiring coincidence to be so.

 

It also shows why in my opinion, we should strive for the most accurate playback possible, and then color it to taste without guilt about doing so. It is mixing up accuracy and preference that I dislike.

 

I second this wholeheartedly.

 

R

[PeterSt]

Jud,

 

The only merit of some sort I see you writing about, is that the imaging seems more believable to you, but about there is stops (for me). And then still you won't know what reality was, especially with multitrack studio recording.

 

Imaging/soundstage was more believable, "solid," "coherent," "immediate." Re clarity, instruments sounded more "like themselves" to me.

 

I don't see how "clarity" will be about more real instruments, although it will contribute (when it would be about the real clarity as the word tells literally).

 

My main issue, though, is this :

You talk about accuracy as your best measure, but you actually don't talk about that at all. Accuracy should be as in accurate numbers and not as the outcome of the multi page formula; When the formula seems to represent reality, well, it just does that. We don't say the formula is accurate, I'd say.

But why this BS ?

 

Because accuracy in music as such is a very technical thing, once you know what to listen for. Example :

When my speakers are faster than any transient in the music source is (this is not so, but alas), they can be accurate; they can follow all up to 100%. This represents a sound in itself.

Side note : to this regard the result of the sound can never be accurate, because digital filters can not be - the famous tradeoff between Time and Frequency domain, digital playback assumed. Still, we can imagine that a smeared time domain will never ever be observed as accurate (as in the numbers) because it just is not; it is smeared and you can hear it (with the reference of non-smeared). It is literally averaged, while it also could be the discrete number of the source (no ringing, frequency domain totally off).

 

Feel what I'm getting at ?

 

Difficult thing of course is that while the time domain could be 100% accurate, how to observe/judge the frequency domain which at the same time will be "100%" off. Is that a less realistic instrument perhaps ?

I have no answers to that, except for that we might wonder how we'll judge it as individuals. I mean, I may like each guitar while you may not like any of them, knowing that you play some. Or at least it could be so that the few you play yourself are recognized as unrealistic.

Sure you get that ...

 

Once you got the notion of what accurate is to the sense of how I imply it, you will never talk about accuracy as in "sounds realistic" any more. That is just another phenomenon. So ... I would never talk about my system as "all sounds realistic" because I can't know in the first place (never mind I feel I am mighty close these days). What I sure dare say though is that my system is super accurate, and whether I can show that depends on the dials of the day. Example of that : I must have been playing with XXHighEnd's "Low" filtering (for 32/705.6) for more than 6 months, until something finally started to bother me and I went back to the "High" setting only 3 days ago. And it is so much more accurate ...

Can I say that all sounds more realistic now ? no, not anywhere (at least not in this case). But a flavor was able to disappear, which was exactly which annoyed me to begin with.

 

When I went through the thread this morning, I first wanted to tell you about what Ricardo just has said, although he did not really emphasize it. Now together with my remark about it, please take it as crucial :

 

The less accurate the representation is, the more "stage" will appear in front of you. It is just smear ...

Many tricks exist to widen the sound stage, but all the tricks do is spread the energy.

And again you'll get that energy won't get lost but also can't be gained ... So what was accurate hence pinpointed previously, now is spread.

When such a thing happens, the fun lasts for 10 minutes, because the inaccuracy (hence smear) starts to bother.

 

Last remark which will make all moot :

Start out with a heavily smearing source and all will be arbitrary. It is "wrong" to begin with, so any influence can make it better but just as well worse. Or better for such music and worse for the other.

 

Peter

 

PS: Think of this one :

For me, no Regen will make the music better as it implies the opposite of accuracy. Now think of how a strange beast I must judge the Intona as it does not imply better accuracy that I can find. It does one thing only : imply more realism. There's also 100% consensus about the both in "my group". I see no Regens anywhere and I see Intonas everywhere.

[sandyk]

PS: Think of this one :

For me, no Regen will make the music better as it implies the opposite of accuracy. Now think of how a strange beast I must judge the Intona as it does not imply better accuracy that I can find. It does one thing only : imply more realism. There's also 100% consensus about the both in "my group". I see no Regens anywhere and I see Intonas everywhere.

 

Peter

> 2,000 Regens supplied , and very few unhappy customers, suggests that perhaps your forum findings are Biased due to being used mainly with only one type of DAC , which is your own design. Perhaps you are a wee bit biased there too ?

Note that I am NOT saying that it isn't arguably among the best DACs available !!!

Neither does everybody agree that Horn speakers such as you prefer are the best option.

There is no doubt that the much later available Intona Isolator does an even better job than the USB Regen on it's own, yet quite a few members report getting a further improvement in SQ when using the Regen in tandem with the Altona Isolator.

 

Regards

Alex

[PeterSt]

Hi Alex,

 

Be careful that you're not changing the subject. My subject (and in the end the thread's, I'd say) is about accuracy.

 

This is nothing about bias but about knowing what accuracy is, which coincidentally is also known to Jud. Not to you, unless you used a NOS1a in good fashion.

Remember, there is only one filter around with zero ringing (and which is still a real filter) : ...

 

2,000 Regens supplied , and very few unhappy customers

 

That is the whole point !

Now ask Jud how he could fall into the bugged pitfall.

Shall we now start about the sh*t DAC again ?

 

Please stop this subject, unless it is about accuracy and what that might be or I'll give you to the subjectivists police thread. ;)

(yes, you are doing just that)

[sandyk]

Hi Alex,

 

Be careful that you're not changing the subject. My subject (and in the end the thread's, I'd say) is about accuracy.

 

This is nothing about bias but about knowing what accuracy is, which coincidentally is also known to Jud. Not to you, unless you used a NOS1a in good fashion.

Remember, there is only one filter around with zero ringing (and which is still a real filter) : ...

 

 

 

That is the whole point !

Now ask Jud how he could fall into the bugged pitfall.

Shall we now start about the sh*t DAC again ?

 

Please stop this subject, unless it is about accuracy and what that might be or I'll give you to the subjectivists police thread. ;)

(yes, you are doing just that)

 

Peter

Speaking of accuracy, if your DAC is so damn good, then why are you still able to hear differences between .wav files with identical check sums ? (grin)

Be careful too, as some of your posts come very close to unpaid advertising. (wink)

 

Kind Regards

Alex

P.S.

This is nothing about bias but about knowing what accuracy is,

 

Do you REALLY want me to go there with that one in open forum ? (I am referring here to my question)

PPS.

Do you know which DAC acg was using ?

[PeterSt]

Btw, I forgot to start out with this :

 

I only try to bring forward a possible reason for judging what you guys did, Jud. This assumes that the representation of the buggy device is actually less accurate, which we don't know at all. Otoh, I wouldn't know what kind of distortions can exist that does not make it less accurate (to my sense of the meaning of "accuracy") unless ...

 

it would be about a filter and the frequency domain is violated.

But maybe others know more reasons.

 

So what I wanted to start out with is the : "Assumed that it is about less accuracy in the buggy device" ...

... which of course I could do only after explaining what I mean by it.

 

The next thing (or actually the very first) which was in my mind would be this :

 

... ASSUMED you were not fooled by those who gave you the device, as in placebo stuff ...

 

But I forgot that too.

So to be honest I would put my money on something like that. In the realm of the provider mixed things up and the buggy one was actually the good one.

[PeterSt]

Speaking of accuracy, if your DAC is so damn good, then why are you still able to hear differences between .wav files with identical check sums ? (grin)

Be careful too, as some of your posts come very close to unpaid advertising. (wink)

 

Hey Alex - I wasn't talking about good as such at all. Did I ? If anything, I was talking about violating the frequency domain, something most (more than 2000) people prefer not to do. So no, no advertising at all.

And for the non-free I have been banned. Hahaha.

 

if your DAC is so damn good, then why are you still able to hear differences between .wav files with identical check sums ?

 

Okay, now you lost me. Should be my hearing aid ?

[lmitche]

Jud, do you mean operationally buggy as in connectivity issues or SQ buggy?

[sandyk]

So what I wanted to start out with is the : "Assumed that it is about less accuracy in the buggy device" ...

... which of course I could do only after explaining what I mean by it

Peter

Did you miss Jud's comment about clicks and pops ?

Alex

[sandyk]

Hey Alex - I wasn't talking about good as such at all. Did I ? If anything, I was talking about violating the frequency domain, something most (more than 2000) people prefer not to do. So no, no advertising at all.

And for the non-free I have been banned. Hahaha.

 

Did your hearing aid blow up due to the loud " cannon" shot sending your horn speakers to destructive levels ?

 

Okay, now you lost me. Should be my hearing aid ?

 

Peter

Did your hearing aid blow up due to the loud "cannon" shot in ONE of those comparison tracks sending your horn speakers to destructive levels ?

Was acg also using a Phasure NOS DAC ?

Regards

Alex

[PeterSt]

Was acg also using a Phasure NOS DAC ?

 

Alex, With what ? when ?

[PeterSt]

Did you miss Jud's comment about clicks and pops ?

 

Not really, but it wasn't profound to me for a reason as such (to the plopper sounding as the better one). But if you tempt me :

 

Say that something gets charged (capacitance) more than designed. Now we have a higher current which once in a while (over-charged) pops out (it has to). Now the sound will be :

 

- more euphonic;

- more clear (as in clarity);

- more profound (as in strong);

- more focused (but this is a dangerous one).

 

Is that what you wanted to hear (from me) ?

 

Solution : improve the design instead of solve the bug as such (something which can't bear the current).

So if you don't mind I changed my mind : the buggy one *is* the better sounding one. And it is for the reason that the bug coincidentally shows a better sound indeed. Skip the accuracy sh*t.

Jud & Co just heard right.

 

Btw, I am serious.

 

Regards,

Peter

[sandyk]

Alex, With what ? when ?

 

Peter

When 3 C.A. members recently listened to,(April 28th?) and reported back about my uploaded comparison .wav files of

" Unter Donner und Blitz Polka, Op. 324" that had identical .md5 checksums.

Alex

[sandyk]

Is that what you wanted to hear (from me) ?

 

Peter

Even Dennis agreed with the possibility I suggested in post 29.

Alex