What do you want from PC Audio

[Abstraction]

Ashley--

I am really not in the market for any kind of gear right now. As I explained in an earlier post, I do not really like audio equipment. I try to get a system that I can live with, and forget about it for as long as I can, and listen to the music. But I have been living with audio for a long time, and it is like dope: you have to keep increasing the dose to keep the same effect. But I think I am about ready to quit thinking about gear for a couple of years. I need another big hard drive, but otherwise....

 

I am curious, however. Do you have a dealer in New York? I would go hear your active speakers.

 

Your design theory sounds right. But most half decently thought out high-end stuff is pretty close to the limit. Reproduced sound only gets so good. Then it is a matter of taste. All very expensive Scotch is good, but there is a considerable range.

 

The AC requirements, if I were looking for new gear, would be wearisome. For some reason, the AC in my current neighborhood if the filthy--my biggest problem in some ways. Much of my current gear is battery powered.

 

 

 

 

[AV-OCD]

Tim -

 

You said, "While headphones don't present a sound stage at all like the speakers do, really good ones, like high end Senns, AKGs, Beyers, Audio Technicas, etc. are devoid of the upper midrange harshness that is present in all but the very best speakers at high listening levels."

 

It's quite ironic that I would be referred to this site, and come across your comments about "upper midrange harshness" right after going through a year-long speaker auditioning process where it seemed like every speaker I listened to just sounded wrong in the upper mids. What made matters confusing was that several acquaintances had listened to the same speakers and did not hear any issues.

 

I wonder if we are hearing the same thing though, since I could hear the problems at moderate levels as well.

 

Can you describe the quality of the harshness you hear in most speakers, or does it change from one to the next?

 

[haiku1]

As you can see below I confess: I`m one of the "AVI Fanboys".

One thing that`s really hard for "Old School" audiophiles when they try to comprehend what 9.1s do, is getting rid of old theories!!!

Martin Grindrod, the mastermind (yes, he is a genius. Ash could tell you more.)who`s responsible for designing the AVI stuff, is ONLY thinking about getting the best sound quality for the customer. I`m quite certain if this would have meant to cost the customer 50.000 Dollars or more he would have done it. Now it costs a fraction and that`s where the problems start for most audiophiles. But this man has got a lot of common sense, something which is lacking here and there in our audiophile community. It wouldn`t be that bad if it wouldn`t cost the customer so much money!!!!

The only comment on a forum from Mart I could ever get a grip on so far has been on AC Mains and cables. He simply said electrons are electrons, there are no clean or filthy ones.

You`re dealing with an illusion here, Abstraction. I know you hear a difference when listening to your battery powered kit, but the fact is that you were told to believe there`s a difference. So in the end we are back to double-blind testing and I don`t know any other company apart from AVI, which has done them so consistently. The end product has been the 9.1. I really hope you get a chance to hear them.

I know that Ash and I maybe are stepping on a lot of toes and I apologize. You know, I also used to believe all the so called "audiophile truths" and wondered why I was never satisfied.

Since I am an owner of 9.1s I`ve reached MY "audiophile nirvana"......

 

Just my opinion

 

PS 9.1 mains cable are 3 metres long (Am I right, Ash?) and the speaker interconnect is 5 metres, which should be enough for most rooms.

 

[Ashley James]

IMO passive speakers are flawed to a point where the Industry needs to look for a better solution. The problem for the majority is that the crossover has to go in the 2 - 3 kHz region and it's usually possible to hear the outputs of both drivers for an octave or so each side, although more so below. In Three-way speakers it's worse because the out of band stuff under the mid sums.

 

The other problem is that all passive speakers boom although you may not know it. This is caused by the resistance in the crossover reducing the control that the Amplifier has over the cone (damping factor). The resultant "overhang and overshoot" extends right through the range and blurs and harshens the mid. The combination of extra energy from the crossover, the distortion caused by the components and the overhang in the bass driver is what anyone used to headphones hears immediately and doesn't like.

 

Both Martin and I had been aware of the problem for years and we'd been struggling to find a solution. We've been quite successful because our Neutron 5s sound better than most just using 2nd order Linkwitz Riley textbook filters at 3.4 kHz. However the endless calls from customers on a budget, trying to find reasonable amplifiers that don't sound unacceptably harsh or clip on voices, or boom, or blow the bass drivers, have been extremely disheartening. This and the fact that an increasing number of people are posting on various Forums to ask why their iPods sound better than their hi fi made us realise there had to be a better way. I don't know the figures but an iPod Touch probably has a Class D output stage with a 50 dB dynamic range and people are finding it better than very expensive hi fi!!!!

 

The solution, in our opinion, is to build not only Active speakers, but also ones that contain the DAC and preamp, to allow generous headroom (in our case 250 Watts RMS on the Bass Drive and 75 on the tweeter), to use much steeper filters than are practical in passive speakers, and a bass driver with a far greater bandwidth than is normal. This way the roll off of the drive unit is not interfering with the action of the crossover and phase integrity is maintained. Otherwise it's all textbook engineering, good buying practice, modern manufacturing techniques together with a liberal coating of bullshit repellant.

 

Our US agent www.overtureimports.com will be able to advise if you'd like to hear a pair.

 

There is a lot more to them than the above description and whilst I'd like everyone to buy ADM9.1s and praise them to the hilt, I do see that on Chris's Forum that would most unfair, so instead I hope I've encouraged everyone to consider active speakers, to use headphones to try to identify flaws in passives ones and to remember that enormous amounts of money can be saved in this instance buy paying for a technically better solution.

 

Ash

 

 

[tfarney]

...is pretty hard to describe, though I know it's not present in my Senns or my Etymotics. I can't tell you if it is crossover distortion, phase distortion or just clipping. I can tell you that it's not there, even when pushing my Ety ER6s very hard with the compromise of an iPod Nano, so I suspect it's not clipping. It manifests itself as a slight edginess in upper mids and is particularly noticeable on vocals. And it is exacerbated by multiple voices in harmony or unison, which sound congested by comparison. It is, like all problems worse on some recordings.

 

I have no idea if Ash's speakers solve the problem, because I haven't heard them, but I know I've found it missing in some good active, bi-amped and tri-amped studio monitors and PA systems and in one passive speaker system that, while it was not a single full-range speaker, used a single driver to cover everything from the midrange up to 20,000 hz (actually everything from 100 hz to 20,000 hz). The other drivers were only there for deep bass and super-aural trebles. It was Vienna Acoustic's "The Music."

 

Tim

 

[AV-OCD]

Tim -

 

You used one of the exact words that I do for the midrange harshness I hear in many speakers - edgy. I would add to that "grainy" and sometimes "wiry" or "raspy".

 

I have heard many of the Vienna Acoustics speakers, and they are one of the only other speaker brands that sounds smooth through the upper mids / lower treble to these ears. I believe that they cheat a bit in there design to get this sound by dishing out the 3-4 KHz range in the on-axis. It works, but some people find the VA speakers sound too laid back because of it. I don't, but that is probably because I am so opposed to the alternative.

 

You can add one other brand of speakers to your list of non-harshers -- Wilson Benesch out of the UK. They are not cheap though and Ashley's offerings are probably a much better value.

 

[Ashley James]

I think it's very difficult to pinpoint the problems that are being described because when you listen to a separates system each bit might be affecting the others.

 

Harsh, wiry or raspy is another way of saying distortion and it could be the speakers, but it might be the pre/power combination that might not do it if the DAC didn't have residual RF on its outputs. And I can think of one brand that has made a virtue out of selling harsh and boomy amps for years. Basically for good sound, the more power you have the better and you tend to need even more if the speakers are Three way. However extra power brings more distortion, so that's a balancing act too.

 

As I explained earlier, one way to cover up extra energy in the treble region is to design a "laid back" speaker, which generally means soft bass and limited dynamic range. Bass and Treble behave like weights on Scales, which is why a flat amplitude response is so meaningless. distorted treble might measure flat but sound over bright.

 

As I've said before, IMO, all these problems will exist until each manufacturer in the chain properly understands the others needs or until the system is a single one that has been properly implemented.

 

You've probably gathered that I'm a bit angry about this at the moment because I've had two customers in trouble and reluctant to believe me because I've told them the nasty harsh treble they are experiencing is caused by an incompetent and underpowered amp. It's 60 Wpc, it comes from a reputable manufacturer, has had a rave review from a mag and it can't drive a genuine 8 Ohm nominal impedance 5" two way at normal listening levels without becoming unacceptably harsh and strident. I reckon you need much more power than that to call it hi fi, but it's perfectly possible to design little ones that clip nicely so you don't hear it, but manufacturers don't need to with reviewers as good as this one!

 

Ash

 

 

 

[tfarney]

"I have heard many of the Vienna Acoustics speakers, and they are one of the only other speaker brands that sounds smooth through the upper mids / lower treble to these ears."

 

I get to hear Vienna's Haydens, Bachs and Mozarts daily, and I hear the problem in them, too. It's not as bad as it is in many speakers, but it's there, in the case of the Vienna's, not so much a graininess as a lean, hard upper mid. Very subtle, mind you. These are excellent speakers and I have no problem recommending them to any customer willing to put a LOT of power behind them (they are regrettably 4 ohm...), but they don't have the midrange purity of good cans. Hardly anything does...

 

Tim

 

[mpmct]

Can you guys give some specific examples of these things,

and a rough description of how loud one needs to go to hear them?

Could 'shouty' as you used it Tim ( non-AV-OCD ) also be

described as 'beaming' -- and are they both maybe similar

to ... a referee's whistle at close range?

Does the graininess Tim ( AV-OCD ) include sibilance artifacts?

Or not necessarily?

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"I think it's very difficult to pinpoint the problems that are being described because when you listen to a separates system each bit might be affecting the others."

 

Hi Ashley - I'm not so sure I agree with you 100%. I do agree on a very high level with your statement, but a well put together separates system with great system synergy is every bit as capable as an integrated powered speaker based system. A well put together separates system will make it easy to pinpoint the aforementioned problems. Just because all the components in an all-in-one system reside inside one (or two) box doesn't make them immune to all the problems of a separates based system. An all-in-one system still has a DAC, Preamp, Amp, speakers etc ... To use your own words, "...each bit might be affecting the others." Granted an all-in-one system gives you a better chance at resolving these issues before a product is sold, but this chance doesn't mean the system is inherently better than a separates system.

 

I am a strong proponent of powered speakers and believe they can offer the best theoretical sound quality. In my case I wish there were more options on the market for powered speakers. In your case the less options, both powered and separates, the better :-) In the short term of course because competition will lead to better products for everyone.

 

[mpmct]

Powered and active are two different things, yes?

 

Powered speakers might still have a passive x-over,

but an active system splits the signal before it's delivered

to the amps, and the amps drive the transducers directly

and only with the signal-range that's appropriate.

That's where the game changes, as I understand it.

EG: Linkwitz Orions need only about 40-60W per driver --

because of their active x-over -- and because they are

open-baffle too, with exception of tweeters.

 

 

 

 

[mpmct]

I think someone posted this link previously, if not in

this thread than in another. Regardless, and granted that one could argue Mr. Stuart is talking his book, he does do a respectable job

of explaining the basics of active versus passive, I think ...

 

http://uk.cinenow.com/videos/318-meridian-bob-stuart-on-digital-dsp-loudspeakers

 

 

 

[shenzi]

Active speakers have the crossover at line level before the power amps. The amps drive the speaker units directly, which is one of the advantages. There's no passive xover to throw impedance or phase all over the place.

 

When a crossover is split to allow a separate power amp to drive each half (in a two way) it's usually termed bi-amped. It has the advantage of helping prevent clipping in the bass amp causing the same in the treble but otherwise has most of the problems of a standard passive speaker.

 

Regarding separates, whilst I agree with Chris that you can balance out a system with separates, I think it is more art than science and can be an expensive and frustrating experience. It is also prone to voodoo. When a reviewer tunes his system with the loudspeaker cables, you know there is something wrong somewhere.

 

The best speakers I have heard - apart from electrostatics - used a single driver from 200Hz to 30kHz. But it was also a cone driver which has some theoretical advantages over dome HF units. It was a small scale production run so it was never going to be mainstream.

 

Having heard Ashley's speakers, I think they score in being highly integrated and coherent, the components being closely matched throughout. They're a superbly elegant engineering solution, which can't be said for a lot of hi fi, particularly in the high end. (Ooh, I know let's make a class A amp the size of a small car to make sure it can drive the flavour of the month incompetently-designed high end speakers with 1 ohm impedance.)

 

Without wanting to sound like a broken record, I think single, widerange speakers can do it but you need to be prepared to scale down some of your expectations. They're something of a cross between headphones and full scale listening.

 

[mpmct]

Yes. That's why I am so interested in what Linkwitz,

NaO, Emerald Physics, and AVI are all doing:

Elegant, efficient, best sound.

 

I currently have Emerald Physics CS2s, and I am finally free of 'boom', which I might have OCD aversion too similar to the

'beam' and upper-mids distortion others have mentioned.

It might be the open-baffle, it might also be the active amplification,

and the DSP. I don't really know. But I sure enjoy what I'm hearing.

 

In any case, I think it's very exciting that all of these

technologies allow us better sound, for reasonable expense,

( and getting more reasonable all the time ), and that companies

like AVI and the others exercise the temerity to push forward

with this stuff. I know next-to-nothing, but I would bet my bonus

( if they don't cancel it this year! ;- ) ) that this is where

the real 'bang for the buck' lives, and where the future of audio will 'out'.

 

I don't know if horns are distorting as Ashley has mentioned,

at least as they're implemented nowadays. I really don't know.

I don't know if DSP has as many downsides as it does advantages, as many have suggested. But the technology I'm enjoying now is orders of magnitude better *sounding* than what I've experienced before.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Chaos]

I agree completely with the original post, regarding going to a concert and hearing mainly the PA system. This is one reason I go to few concerts or clubs.

 

I tend to prefer headphones for a similar reason: my living room has bad acoustics, and I'm in a fairly noisy area. Quiet music is buried by ambient noise.

 

Years ago, I came to the opinion that recorded sound would never duplicate the live experience. I've done quite a bit of recording and have spent much money on playback equipment. It's not the same. Listening to a recording can still be good, if the music is good and the people doing the recording knew what they were doing. How many CDs do you have on which the recorded cymbals are just an anonymous crash? Each cymbal has its own tone. This should come out in the recording and playback.

 

Beyond that, I want music with heart. I have no idea how to describe it, but I know it happens. I have two recordings of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. One is well recorded, precise, and... dead. The other has what I call "heart."

 

I want all the factors to come together: the music, the musicians, the recording, the post-production, and finally the playback. Good recordings are rare, but magical when they show up. Putting the music on a computer mainly makes it easier to listen to what I want, and certainly is no worse in quality than any other playback means. It's one of the few technologic solutions I've run into that really is an improvement.

 

[tfarney]

First of all, I think it's a testament to this forum that we can have this conversation and remain so level-headed about it. This conversation would go downhill very quickly on many audiophile forums.

 

Second, I'm not sure I can describe the distortion that is missing in my headphones any better than I have. I probably mis-stated when I said it was volume related; it's really not. It's there at moderate volumes, it just becomes intrusive and impossible to ignore when you turn things up. Terms that come to mind are grainy, glare, shout, harsh, hard, lean, strident...the same terms that are used to describe clipping, jitter and almost all distortion in the upper mids and treble. I'm afraid that's probably not much help.

 

Third, I suspect that "synergy" may be the greatest audiophile voodoo of all. Of course impedances should be matched and the load of the transducers should be driven by amps with ample headroom, but beyond these very basic things, the source, preamp and amp should simply be as quiet and neutral as possible. The only synergy necessary should be choosing transducers that present a sound that suits your music and tastes. If some DACs sound better with your PlatinumBrick2 amplifier, then something is not neutral, and you are simply adjusting the coloration of your system through your choice of components. While this is probably very good for audiophile manufacturers and dealers, for audiophiles, it is simply a very expensive and time-consuming method of turning the tone knobs...well, if audiophiles actually had tone knobs...

 

Tim

 

[AV-OCD]

I've had shouty speakers, but this is a problem in the middle of the midrange as opposed to the upper mid, I believe. I think that some shoutyness can be attributed to beaming of the midrange, but also due to the room.

 

Grain is below the sibilance region. Think top of the of the voice, horns and some strings. Sibilance, according to my informal research falls between 7-9 KHz, grain for me is between 3-6KHz.

 

The bottom line for me is, does he human voice sound real / natural? I don't hear grain or sibilance in every day life when speaking with others. This is my reference.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Tim - With all do respect I'm a little confused by your characterization of the word "synergy." You seem to be downplaying "synergy" as a contributor to the final sound of a system or the fact that it may be difficult to achieve "Synergy." If active speakers like Ashley's are theoretically superior because all the components are designed to work great to work great with each other, doesn't that suggest that "synergy" plays a huge role in the final sound quality? Wouldn't active speakers be the worst solution if "synergy" wasn't that important or that hard to achieve? Actives take away all choices in amplification and don't offer an upgrade path etc...

 

Calling synergy "...the greatest audiophile voodoo of all..." really puzzles me. Getting components that work together very well can actually be tough. Especially since we all don't have unlimited budgets. We have to accept some design and sonic compromises with every purchase.

 

As usual, I enjoy the truthfulness of your comments and I eagerly await your response.

 

 

 

Note: I'm a big fan of active speakers and only offer the above questions for illustrative purposes only.

 

[Ashley James]

We don't hear much at 7-9 kHz, the stuff that annoys is between 1.5 - 3 kHz and you can prove this with your iTunes equaliser. Below 1 kHz, phase problems, usually in three way speakers, cause the pain.

 

I think I know why Tim has been disparaging of synergy; I think hi fi has stagnated technically and gestated to become a cash cow for high end shops. We, like many companies have always made complete systems, but found it practically impossible to get them reviewed as such. It's a case of being in a "shoot out" between" CD players, Integrated Amps, Loudspeakers or whatever, so people buy the combination recommended by reviewers who had probably never heard a complete system from any of the companies involved. For us it was always a headache. I well remember getting about six amplifiers back once, because the sound had "changed". The amp had been reviewed with crap speakers and people went straight out and bought them. Four believed us and changed them and two drove us made for nearly a year because they believed the magazine. The same thing happened with CD players with the same result. I've come to the conclusion that reviewers are like kids in a sweet shop; everything is delicious and they can't wait to try it all.

 

In France they take it a step further. Agents agree amongst themselves the combination of separates to be sent in for review, or one just assembles a system from his range and sends that in. The idea is hide anything that stands out and discuss the different "musical presentations", so that people will, over time, sample each and all and it'll keep the business going.

 

None of this is much help to Music enthusiasts who've all but been driven off and since Ebay etc appeared, it hasn't been much use to the dealers either, because equipment fanatics can buy S/H for less than half price now. Many of the big dealers have been doing installations to fill the gap and selling hi end gear with it to push the price up, but this isn't so easy now because it's getting very competitive and customers now understand they don't need a multi thousand pound/dollar music server, that any old Dell will do and stream video and music perfectly to a PS3, Sonos and many more!

 

The whole lot needed a rethink in my book so we "rethunk it"

 

Ash

 

I'm not arguing against system synergy, I merely explaining how it has been manipulated.

 

 

[AV-OCD]

I can here plenty of midrange harmonic content that extends up to as high as 16KHz, and for certain I can make a singer sound more or less sibilant by tweaking the 8K filter in iTunes. I also find boosting 4-6K is more annoying than anything below 3K, despite the fact that I know the human ear is supposed to be the most sensitive between 2-4K. My ears are tuned a bit higher I suppose. ;-)

 

[shenzi]

I've also grown suspicious of this term. Reviewers imply that the right components add together to make a great sound but if they were neutral in the first place, and the amp had adequate power, all you would need to do is choose the speakers to suit your room and tastes. From reviews I read in the 80s and 90s, it seemed the inadequacies of one component (too much bass, for example) were being balanced out by inadequacy in another (too little bass).

 

The pace and rhythm thing was interesting too. I did eventually buy the amp which sounded more lively and engaging than a very boring class-A competitor. But I accept that part of the attraction, the nimble sound, could be due to a slightly rolled off bass. It suited perfectly a pair of speakers I built which have a slight 2nd harmonic excess in the bass (according to the designer). I'll be interested to see how the amp fares when I finish his other, technically more accurate design.

 

As Tim says, the synergy thing might never have happened if we'd kept the tone controls.

 

[Abstraction]

Many silly arguments could be eliminated in audiophile discussions if we would recognize that the frequency response curve of human ears is probably almost never flat and wildly variable.

 

[tfarney]

"Synergy -- I've also grown suspicious of this term. Reviewers imply that the right components add together to make a great sound but if they were neutral in the first place, and the amp had adequate power, all you would need to do is choose the speakers to suit your room and tastes. From reviews I read in the 80s and 90s, it seemed the inadequacies of one component (too much bass, for example) were being balanced out by inadequacy in another (too little bass)."

 

What Shenzi said.

 

Theoretically, synergy shouldn't be an issue at all (appropriate matching of impedance, power to load, etc, is another matter). Practically, I'm sure it is, much more often than not, gearheads attempting to balance out the colorations of one component with the colorations of another and enjoying the excuse to play with gear. And more power to them.

 

Is it voodoo? A question of semantics, I suppose. If you have a pair of bright, 4 ohm speakers you are attempting to drive to fairly high listening levels with a fairly neutral, 8 ohm, 40 watt amp, you will certainly have achieved the antithesis of synergy. Will substituting an amp with a warm sound signature help? Probably. But properly driving the speakers, or choosing speakers efficient enough for the amp in the first place would actually solve the problem.

 

There are specifications that should line up properly in order for components in a system to work together well. Impedance and power to load are on the list, which I'm sure is a bit longer and could probably be filled in by someone like Ashley. But this should be easy for manufacturers to measure and publish and relatively easy for enthusiasts to follow. When, instead of identifying a few specifications and matching them, they indulge in the vague, tweaky tone control of the ambiguous game of synergy, you'll have to excuse me if I see boys and toys rather than a disciplined search for fidelity. But there is, of course, nothing wrong with the tweaking game as long as we can readily admit that we're seeking a tone we like, nothing more. But it rarely stops there. The tweakers, by nature, seem to need to believe that what they seek is absolute realism (which they define as something elusive and other than accuracy whenever the data fails to support them), all the while painting with the impressionist's brush and describing the results with questionable poetry.

 

Now...where was that post on PRaT?

Tim

 

[tfarney]

Geez, it's my day off, I have too much time on my hands and you're making it so easy for me to flex my grumpy old curmudgeon muscle!

 

"Shenzi I don't know if this one crossed the Atlantic, but it is a must have for a certain brand of audiophile in the UK."

 

Yes, of course this one made it across the pond. And how is PRaT distinguished from meaningful and perfectly serviceable terms like slew rate and transient response? By imagining that our hifi gear might actually affect the accuracy of the artist's performance.

 

How does that old blues song go? "Don't start me talkin'...I'll tell everything I know..."

 

Tim

 

[Ashley James]

Tim

 

In the UK we have streets called Butt St. and in America it's a derogatory term, just the same as a prat over here is another word for idiot! You'd think the loony tunes would be anxious to steer away from something so open to misinterpretation!

 

Ash