Speakers are least important

[PeterSt]

You are all right.

No, wrong; you are all wrong. Right.

[rando]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

A memory that has stayed with me is hearing a piano recital at the Sydney Opera House, sitting not in the "best seats" but still at a reasonable distance from the instrument; in the early years of experiencing the SQ that I talk of. And ... it was disappointing; the impact just wasn't there, compared to the sense of hearing good reproduction of piano, at an intimate distance.

 

And don't get me started on how egregious pop and rock "live" concerts sound ... .

 

Maybe you could start with a venue Aussie pianists record in or at least avoid the commonplace and unenthusiastic sure failures.  

[Abtr]

10 hours ago, esldude said:

Try REW.  It will do sweeps and show distortion very clearly.  Sweeps are better for finding distortion than white noise.  White noise can somewhat identify basically the response.  In rooms you need to window for better results and sweeps accomplish this better than white or pink noise.

 

But sine sweep measurements (taking the SPL for each individual frequency) will not show harmonic distortion.

[semente]

10 minutes ago, Abtr said:

But sine sweep measurements (taking the SPL for each individual frequency) will not show harmonic distortion. 

 

I think that they call it a sweep because it consists of sine wave signal sliding from the lowest specified frequency to the highest.

[semente]

 

[Abtr]

3 minutes ago, semente said:

I think that they call it a sweep because it consists of sine wave signal sliding from the lowest specified frequency to the highest.

 

Yes.

[Ralf11]

11 hours ago, Rexp said:

 piano keys being gently caressed 

 

that is only one type of emotional impact...

 

what about jarring dissonance?  metal nuts?

 

those are also a type of emotional impact. 

[4est]

12 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

But you think you can only hear the emotion in music on a very well crafted high end system?  Perhaps I simply misunderstood you? 

 

We often don't agree on things, such as RAM in a music server having an audible effect, but this is rather basic and I was surprised to see any disagreement at all. 

 

-Paul 

 

P.S. I do love my little Harbeths. But I also love the Maggies. And the ancient Advents.

 

 

I think what they are getting at is not the emotion in the standard sense, but the micro-dynamic ebb and flow that are often referred to as PRaT, swing or toe tapping-ness. It has been my experience that this is hard to get and easy to lose, and most average systems do not have it all. I mean no offense Paul, and I am not trying to put airs on, but I tend to agree with their take.

[Paul R]

2 minutes ago, 4est said:

I think what they are getting at is not the emotion in the standard sense, but the micro-dynamic ebb and flow that are often referred to as PRaT, swing or toe tapping-ness. It has been my experience that this is hard to get and easy to lose, and most average systems do not have it all. I mean no offense Paul, and I am not trying to put airs on, but I tend to agree with their take.

 

No problem, to each their own and on top of that, there is a huge spectrum of audiophiles. PRaT to me is rather a synergy thing more than the result of gear being high end. You can get plenty of PRaT from very modest gear I think, if the components are well designed to work with other. Also, it is at least partly environmental, as in a listening room vs at a Barbecue party. 

 

I do think that PRaT is totally a different thing than the emotion in the music however. The emotion in music is art, not tech. At least, it is to me from where I am at on the Audiophile spectrum. 🙄

 

I am quite sure it will be different for other people though, and that is quite okay with me too.

[davide256]

12 hours ago, Rexp said:

Wrong. Good high end gear presents the low level details in the music, like piano keys being gently caressed that creates the emotional impact. 

 Musical expression  or bodies can be caressed... keys are stroked. Your simile has bad cognitive disonance

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Abtr said:

But sine sweep measurements (taking the SPL for each individual frequency) will not show harmonic distortion.

If course they can and do. I'llL post examples later.

[4est]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

No problem, to each their own and on top of that, there is a huge spectrum of audiophiles. PRaT to me is rather a synergy thing more than the result of gear being high end. You can get plenty of PRaT from very modest gear I think, if the components are well designed to work with other. Also, it is at least partly environmental, as in a listening room vs at a Barbecue party. 

 

I do think that PRaT is totally a different thing than the emotion in the music however. The emotion in music is art, not tech. At least, it is to me from where I am at on the Audiophile spectrum. 🙄

 

I am quite sure it will be different for other people though, and that is quite okay with me too.

Oh, I tend to agree that it can come from modest gear. IIRC, this was in response to an equipment change, not just about high end gear. Average to me was about net quality, not costs. As I stated, I find it hard to get and easy to lose...

[semente]

47 minutes ago, esldude said:

If course they can and do. I'llL post examples later.

 

I was experimenting with a new mic the other day and caught something a bit extraordinary:

 

 

I wonder what is generating the spikes in the background/noise-floor above 1kHz?

[Abtr]

57 minutes ago, esldude said:

If course they can and do. I'llL post examples later.

 

Possibly, with a sine sweep, harmonic distortion may show as elevated base frequencies, but not as the actual harmonic frequencies.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

I was experimenting with a new mic the other day and caught something a bit extraordinary:

 

 

I wonder what is generating the spikes in the background/noise-floor above 1kHz?

I don't know that is interesting and bears some investigating.  What microphone is in use?

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Abtr said:

Possibly, with a sine sweep, harmonic distortion may show as elevated base frequencies, but not as the actual harmonic frequencies.

Okay you can see in the above post with REW how this ferrets out harmonic distortion and graphs it for this continuous slow sweep. 

 

Here is one where I changed scale and you can see continuously by frequency during the sweep what the THD was.  I'm showing total and 2nd and 3rd, but you can show however many harmonics you wish.  This is from a speaker. 

 

 

Here is another way a sweep can be viewed.   This is a slow sweep of an AVR.  The background goes gray at -110 dbFS.  You see faint blue lines that are harmonic distortion between about -108 db and 97 db in this case.  You also see the twin tone IMD sweep which has some lower level 2nd harmonic and the IMD difference tone at 1 khz which lies below -100 db.  All available as it happens at the frequency and multiples of the sweep. 

 

 

 

[semente]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

I don't know that is interesting and bears some investigating.  What microphone is in use?

 

I'm using this cheap USB one:

https://www.steinigke.de/en/mpn13030923-omnitronic-mic-mm-2usb-usb-condenser-measurement-mic.html

 

The College plant-room/workshop is underneath my sitting room, and there's a nursery next door.

My bet is on the nursery did it. 😁

[Abtr]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

Okay you can see in the above post with REW how this ferrets out harmonic distortion and graphs it for this continuous slow sweep. 

 

Here is one where I changed scale and you can see continuously by frequency during the sweep what the THD was.  I'm showing total and 2nd and 3rd, but you can show however many harmonics you wish.  This is from a speaker. 

 

 

Here is another way a sweep can be viewed.   This is a slow sweep of an AVR.  The background goes gray at -110 dbFS.  You see faint blue lines that are harmonic distortion between about -108 db and 97 db in this case.  You also see the twin tone IMD sweep which has some lower level 2nd harmonic and the IMD difference tone at 1 khz which lies below -100 db.  All available as it happens at the frequency and multiples of the sweep. 

 

 

OK, thanks. I suppose the software measures the speaker output at each input frequency and performs e.g. an FFT to get the relative SPL of each fundamental frequency and its harmonics. The FR plot on its own does not show the harmonic distortion. Do you agree?

[semente]

6 minutes ago, Abtr said:

OK, thanks. I suppose the software measures the speaker output at each input frequency and performs e.g. an FFT to get the relative SPL of each fundamental frequency and its harmonics. The FR plot on its own does not show the harmonic distortion. Do you agree?

 

I agree with the underline sentence but it is possible to measure THD using a sweep.

 

The rule of thumb with measurements is that each one of them quantifies one single unique parameter of performance. And I could add that to achieve a reasonably representative picture of an equipment's performance we need a comprehensive set of measurements.

[semente]

10 hours ago, esldude said:

I don't know that is interesting and bears some investigating.  What microphone is in use?

 

P.S.: strangely it looks as though the intensity of the "harmonics" drops and then rises again like the FR of the speakers at the top...

[esldude]

16 minutes ago, Abtr said:

OK, thanks. I suppose the software measures the speaker output at each input frequency and performs e.g. an FFT to get the relative SPL of each fundamental frequency and its harmonics. The FR plot on its own does not show the harmonic distortion. Do you agree?

I agree the FR from a sweep shows the fundamental.  It might include distortion too, but even at -40 db (1%) the contribution to the total signal level is pretty much nothing.  90 db SPL and 40 db SPL distortion adds to less than 90.1 db SPL.  

 

If you pair the sweep rate with the size of the FFT correctly you get results in each bin of the FFT that pretty much match what you get if you played a single frequency and measured distortion.  

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, semente said:

 

P.S.: strangely it looks as though the intensity of the "harmonics" drops and then rises again like the FR of the speakers at the top...

Well, does this measuring microphone always do this or these speakers always do this.  I'd record even with a smart phone and see what is there.  Looks like it would show it up with a smartphone.