Step by step surgery

[fas42]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Someone recently told me that it is important to be able to understand where there is something not quite right, and then be smart about trying things, to resolve what troubles you.

 

Could a good example of this be a person always being a smart arse, and never realising that it's somewhat offensive; and wondering why people react in a negative manner to their behaviour ... ?

[Ralf11]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Could a good example of this be a person always being a smart arse, and never realising that it's somewhat offensive; and wondering why people react in a negative manner to their behaviour ... ?

 

only if they post the same thing 20 times a day

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The experience that I've had, over and over again, is that it does matter - if I don't take it into account, I lose a lot of the SQ that matters - so these days I do this sort of thing automatically, it's part of standard housekeeping with any rig that I have input on. Yes, the precise why is hard to define; in part because the literature on this is so bare - I've tried to track down anything meaningful a number of times, and the number of articles that are useful are in the low, single digits 🙂.

If you think that triboelectric effect has any influence on the signal carried by speaker cables, it’s called your imagination. 

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One of the more likely scenarios, and this is pure speculation on my part, is that there is constant, low level static discharge occurring within the parts of the cable - and that this is causing a type of HF noise to be generated, and transferred to the conductors; just enough to impact the circuitry to which the cables are attached. Being careful with the cables, and the often mentioned "burning in" is enough to make the issue go away, in most cases.

 Not bloody likely!

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I understand that, I used styrofoam as an example because that material is the most susceptible to acquiring a static charge. That one side of the speaker cable is grounded, through the amplifier to the mains earth is ample to bleed off any static charge and negate any potential triboelectric effect. Again, if you think that you hear such a phenomenon, you are imagining things. But hey, if that what floats your boat, then who am I, etc...

 

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As mentioned earlier, take a recording "with strong treble, which is complex" - this should be very rich, intense, bowl you over with good vibes, highly satisfying listening - if it sounds messy, congested, something you can only take in small doses, where you're glad when it's over - then it's "not working".
 

In my experience that’s the fault of the recording or the production of same. Good recordings don’t have “messy, congested” highs!

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"Live quality" means that it sends the same type of signals to your brain as one gets when listening to the real thing - stand on the footpath as a marching band in full roar walks past, right next to you; there's a quality to the sound that nearly all hifi rigs have wet dreams about ... that's why one has to address aspects like static behaviours, IME.
 

Not only is that not possible for a number of reasons, but it likely never will be possible. The best we can hope for is that a state-of-the-art system is accurate to the recording. We can get damn close to that, and my system, playing recordings that I have made, achieves that quite easily. Does it sound like the real thing? Of course not, because the real thing can’t even be captured, much less reproduced.

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[Jud]

5 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

If you think that triboelectric effect has any influence on the signal carried by speaker cables, it’s called your imagination. 

Just wanted to mention Bruno Putzeys thinks differently.

[kumakuma]

44 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Could a good example of this be a person always being a smart arse, and never realising that it's somewhat offensive; and wondering why people react in a negative manner to their behaviour ... ?

 

All three clauses of your sentence are untrue. 

[STC]

2 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Someone recently told me that it is important to be able to understand where there is something not quite right, and then be smart about trying things, to resolve what troubles you.

Like this. 
 

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, STC said:

Like this. 
 

 

 

Is that Frank ???

[STC]

9 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Is that Frank ???

Definitely not Frank, just a crank. 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

If you think that triboelectric effect has any influence on the signal carried by speaker cables, it’s called your imagination. 

 

Not on the signal as seen by speakers, perhaps - but the output stage of the amplifier may be sensitive to HF noise ... I spent a few years exploring some of the issues in output stages of typical class AB amps, using Spice simulations - and it's obvious why it's hard to get this area working properly ...

 

The reality is that I do have to worry about speaker cables on my rigs - the local audio friend and I have spent many, many hours considering what he could do in this area - and he's always gained from trying things.

 

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In my experience that’s the fault of the recording or the production of same. Good recordings don’t have “messy, congested” highs!

 

Ahh, you haven't heard the "magic" that happens when a system gets into a good enough zone - the same friend above has a good collection of "terror tracks", from his albums, that we use to assess where he's at - on a "bad day" these are completely unlistenable to; on a good one, these rise up ever so high, become quite superb listening experiences, 🙂.

 

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Not only is that not possible for a number of reasons, but it likely never will be possible. The best we can hope for is that a state-of-the-art system is accurate to the recording. We can get damn close to that, and my system, playing recordings that I have made, achieves that quite easily. Does it sound like the real thing? Of course not, because the real thing can’t even be captured, much less reproduced.

 

 

Umm, I heard a Bryston rig that I never laid a hand on deliver those sorts of sounds, some years ago too ... it replayed the punch of a drum kit, with ease.

 

Yes, SOTA must be accurate to the recording. But most people never hear how good those recordings are, ever.

 

You have a belief that the sounds of the real thing can't be captured ... all I can say is, Not bloody likely! 😜

[semente]

12 hours ago, Racerxnet said:

I have done very well in life and hope you have as well.

I've owned 2 businesses which provided quite well for me, and affords some of the finer things in life.

How about that Frank! 

 

🤮

[marce]

11 hours ago, Jud said:

Just wanted to mention Bruno Putzeys thinks differently.

If you mean this, its not an issue....

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked-page-2

[Jud]

3 hours ago, marce said:

If you mean this, its not an issue....

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked-page-2

Yep. There was an editorial postscript saying it was mostly or exclusively an issue in recording, though Putzeys himself proposed as a standard for audiophile (which I read as consumer) equipment “balanced transmission combined with sub-1ohm output impedance line drivers” to remove triboelectric and microphonics effects.

[marce]

I'll look further, but unless your using silver and teflon and not swinging your cables about I would think any effect would be minute...

[Speedskater]

Let's leave triboelectric & microphonic cable problems to hand held mics and musical instruments, where they can be a challenge.

[gmgraves]

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

You have a belief that the sounds of the real thing can't be captured ... all I can say is, Not bloody likely! 😜

That’s right. It’s not bloody likely that the real thing will ever be captured!  Too many physics and human problems. No microphone diaphragm can ever accelerate or stop as fast as the music can, because diaphragms have mass - much less than in the past, but still, they are not massless. Most microphones are colored, and they need to be absolutely flat in frequency response from subsonics all the way to supersonics. None are or are likely to be. They also need to be totally free of all distortion, in fact, the entire recording chain needs to be totally free of any distortion. Also, recording engineers need to know how to optimally place a stereo pair for perfect pick-up, and most don’t even try because a literal facsimile of the actual sound field is not even what the recording personnel are trying to do! That’s the “human” part of the equation.

And you are right again, in that I haven’t heard the “magic”. I also don’t believe in the tooth fairy (although I had an algebra teacher in high-school that I wasn’t too sure about), Santa Claus, or the concept of honest politicians! My reference system sounds like music, in so far as that’s possible. I’m a realist, that level of accuracy is basically what I feel that high-fidelity is all about. It’s pure technology. I’m not a neurotic audiophile grasping at straws (like cable elevators, cryogenically  treated tubes, $10K speaker cables, battery biased interconnects and USB cables, audiophile quality equipment fuses, phonograph record de-magnetizers, and other endless audio mouse-milk) in a futile effort to try to fool myself into thinking that such nonsense expenditures will make a positive difference in the sound of my system. There’s is no magic, just sound engineering practices. 

[fas42]

4 hours ago, Speedskater said:

Let's leave triboelectric & microphonic cable problems to hand held mics and musical instruments, where they can be a challenge.

 

Most things I found to matter in the audio game were from personal experience - not from reading fetish articles, 🙂. I slowly built up an awareness that how I dealt with cables affected the sound, and kept trying things - there were moments where I thought I had gone quite mad 🤩; because I did something completely trivial and 'meaningless' with how a cable was situated, and lost a good chunk of the SQ. Going around the circle a few times, a pattern emerged, and I could count on knowing the right move to make, next time.

 

The "why" it can have such an audible effect is still somewhat mysterious - no-one is taking it seriously, and no-one is doing the right type of measuring - but the real point is that one can make this nuisance completely go away, by taking simple measures. Similar to how industry in general has to worry about static discharge being a pain in the bum ...

[Racerxnet]

I can send you some used toilet paper to try! 😁

 

MAK

[fas42]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

That’s right. It’s not bloody likely that the real thing will ever be captured!  Too many physics and human problems. No microphone diaphragm can ever accelerate or stop as fast as the music can, because diaphragms have mass - much less than in the past, but still, they are not massless. Most microphones are colored, and they need to be absolutely flat in frequency response from subsonics all the way to supersonics. None are or are likely to be. They also need to be totally free of all distortion, in fact, the entire recording chain needs to be totally free of any distortion. Also, recording engineers need to know how to optimally place a stereo pair for perfect pick-up, and most don’t even try because a literal facsimile of the actual sound field is not even what the recording personnel are trying to do! That’s the “human” part of the equation.

 

That's nonsense, George, and you should realise that ... 😜

 

Air vibrating is physics, and a microphone relies on good ol', simple principles to make it work ... if it can register the frequencies that the human ear is sensitive to, then everything that matters will be captured.

 

To repeat, I have been amazed at times how much information is there in the oldest, most primitive recordings - the nuances are there, the clues about the acoustics have been caught - I have had many 100 year old recordings pumping out at maximum volume, and all the vibe of what happened, back then, in the recording space comes through with full force ... quite remarkable ...

 

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

And you are right again, in that I haven’t heard the “magic”. I also don’t believe in the tooth fairy (although I had an algebra teacher in high-school that I wasn’t too sure about), Santa Claus, or the concept of honest politicians! My reference system sounds like music, in so far as that’s possible. I’m a realist, that level of accuracy is basically what I feel that high-fidelity is all about. It’s pure technology. I’m not a neurotic audiophile grasping at straws (like cable elevators, cryogenically  treated tubes, $10K speaker cables, battery biased interconnects and USB cables, audiophile quality equipment fuses, phonograph record de-magnetizers, and other endless audio mouse-milk) in a futile effort to try to fool myself into thinking that such nonsense expenditures will make a positive difference in the sound of my system. There’s is no magic, just sound engineering practices. 

 

Yes, sound engineering practices do matter ... what kills the "magic" is that last little weakness that someone didn't 'respect'.

 

Why I can speak so 'authoratively' about this is that I got the magic by complete fluke the first time - and it bowled me over, by the sheer specialness of the change - there was no going back from that moment on; how the world worked was forever changed, for me.

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

I can send you some used toilet paper to try! 😁

 

MAK

 

That's borderline offensive.

BTW,  you don't need toilet paper when you talk shit .

[Racerxnet]

Sorry,

 

I'll try to be more supportive to Frank!  

 

Carry on.

 

MAK

[kumakuma]

54 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Air vibrating is physics, and a microphone relies on good ol', simple principles to make it work ... if it can register the frequencies that the human ear is sensitive to, then everything that matters will be captured.

 

So you would have us believe that recording is easy but playback is hard?

 

The reality is that they are, in fact, essentially mirror images of the same process and both suffer from the same technical limitations and issues.

[kumakuma]

59 minutes ago, fas42 said:

To repeat, I have been amazed at times how much information is there in the oldest, most primitive recordings - the nuances are there, the clues about the acoustics have been caught - I have had many 100 year old recordings pumping out at maximum volume, and all the vibe of what happened, back then, in the recording space comes through with full force ... quite remarkable ...

 

You have fallen into the intellectual trap described in this article:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

 

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

So you would have us believe that recording is easy but playback is hard?

 

Yes. All the microphone has to do is produce an electrical signal, in a very simple mechanical to electrical contrivance, and then pass then on to some type of recording mechanism - a USB microphone is a perfect example of how easy, how compact that can be.

 

Playback requires the manipulation of very large amounts, in comparison, of electrical energy - and that where things get unstuck ...

 

[fas42]

9 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

You have fallen into the intellectual trap described in this article:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

 

 

No. I can listen to an ancient recording on a normal setup, and it sounds truly awful - a cartoon, nothing to do with real musicians, a Disney nonsense - the difference when it is replayed well is quite dramatic.

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

No. I can listen to an ancient recording on a normal setup, and it sounds truly awful - a cartoon, nothing to do with real musicians, a Disney nonsense - the difference when it is replayed well is quite dramatic.

 

Swing and a miss!

 

Perhaps actually read the article and think about how it applies to your example.