[kernelbob]

imo, the results I'm getting aren't the result of the room instead of the speaker.  My experience has consistently been that a wide dispersion speaker generates a more realistic result than a directional speaker.  I include all the drivers, so that off axis, all the drivers continue to integrate.  I have a good sized room, but other than using dispersion to avoid slap echo at the first reflection points, I haven't used or needed specialized damping or other room treatments (e.g. bass traps).

[Folsom]

Fatigue almost always starts with and ends with the power from the wall, and what's used to improve it.

Got a metal tweeter that ain't so easy on the ears? Oh it sounds fine with a power conditioner....

Most of what is being discussed has an affect on fatigue level, but isn't the source nor the best solution. I will say fresh electronic parts can be harsh until they get some time on them. You can get fatigue from anywhere, but in the realm of audiophile gear it's not common.

Unfortunately good power while improving everything, it can't stop lack of resolution from close wall loading, reflections, etc...

Here's a minor conundrum... If you're listening to music with fatiguing instruments like some brass and drums or whatever... The best stereos should reveal that it is fatiguing. It's a pleasant, hair raising, ear cinching type, but still fatigue.

[Ultralight]

Thank you EVERYONE for responding.

I am trying to ask question systematically, step by step which is why I asked about speakers first - but certainly appreciate the answers responding to the spirit of my question - which is how to avoid listening fatigue while retaing very accurate timbre which I think requires, among other things, fast transients and high resolution.  Good responses all, and quite helpful.

Off the top of my head in responding to some posts:

 I distinguish between dynamics and fast transients.  Dynamics is the difference in amplitude or volume of the sound.  Transient is how fast the sound is generated and ended when the signal ends.  Am I off? 

Also, I agree that there needs to be synergy so I do not think that I am prioritizing speaker over or below the entire signal chain.  I can't think of one thing that I would like to compromise.

As to uber $ speakers being able to reproduce very accurate timbre and yet without fatigue, I'm not surprised. (Tidal Piano looks fabulous .)  The trick is to find it on a budget....

Your comments are all helpful and appreciated.

UL

[geowak]

Thank you EVERYONE for responding.

I am trying to ask question systematically, step by step which is why I asked about speakers first - but certainly appreciate the answers responding to the spirit of my question - which is how to avoid listening fatigue while retaing very accurate timbre which I think requires, among other things, fast transients and high resolution.  Good responses all, and quite helpful.

Off the top of my head in responding to some posts:

 I distinguish between dynamics and fast transients.  Dynamics is the difference in amplitude or volume of the sound.  Transient is how fast the sound is generated and ended when the signal ends.  Am I off? 

Also, I agree that there needs to be synergy so I do not think that I am prioritizing speaker over or below the entire signal chain.  I can't think of one thing that I would like to compromise.

As to uber $ speakers being able to reproduce very accurate timbre and yet without fatigue, I'm not surprised. (Tidal Piano looks fabulous .)  The trick is to find it on a budget....

Your comments are all helpful and appreciated.

UL

You can find really good speakers at reasonable  prices. I paid $599 for one pair that I like ALOT. I paid $2900 for another pair with stands that I also like ALOT. Much of what you read about speakers is successful hype and advertisement. There is always a flavor of the day..... and also someone to tell you what sounds good. I went out for two months, and listened to as many speakers as I could in a 90 mile radius. After that, I bought what sounded the best TO ME.

[kernelbob]

Below is a link to a Nelson Pass article from the 2102 Burning Amp festival.  The last page is where he talks about how the brain processes auditory information and how that relates to listener fatigue.  Also, just above that he talks about the importance of absolute phase and why it makes a difference.  He discusses how 2nd order harmonics sound differently when absolute phase is reversed and even why British amps sound differently as a group from other amps.  Very interesting.

http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_f6_baf.pdf

Yes, clean power is important, but there are as many sources of listener fatigue as there are links in the reproduction chain.  For example, interconnects, speaker cables, and power cords can have a major impact.  This extends to the internal wiring of speakers and amplifiers, even down to the selection of solder.  Parts selection matters such as capacitors, resistors, diodes, etc.  The more revealing a system is, the easier it is to corrupt that level of quality somewhere along the line.

Oh, and of course more expensive doesn't guarantee better quality.  I've heard speakers in the six figure range that had poor imaging, wooly bass, and started to roll off highs at 18k.

[kingdeezie]

What about reflections causing listener fatigue? Everyone is focusing on the voicing of a speaker, which, you can't even accurately hear in an untreated room. 

This has been my experience. If you play a speaker with a healthy amount of volume, in an untreated room, you are going to risk listener fatigue.

Doesn't matter if you have 2K or 20K speakers.

[Tyson]

What about reflections causing listener fatigue? Everyone is focusing on the voicing of a speaker, which, you can't even accurately hear in an untreated room. 

This has been my experience. If you play a speaker with a healthy amount of volume, in an untreated room, you are going to risk listener fatigue.

Doesn't matter if you have 2K or 20K speakers.

You are right, the room is the biggest obstacle to good sound.  I recently moved to a dedicated room in my basement, and just moving from an acoustically terrible main/living area to a well built space for audio was a giant improvement.  Most people can't do this, so room treatments are the next best thing. 

I would also say that 16-44 is an inherently fatiguing storage/playback medium.  I listen almost exclusively to 24-96 (and above) or DSD recordings nowadays and have been able to compare the same recordings/masterings at different resolution levels and it's no contest, DSD wins every time, with 24/192 a bit below, 24/96 a middle 3rd place, and everything else way below that.....

[*Scotty*]

Tyson I have a possible cure for your 16/44 problem. Borrow a Auralic Vega and try it out with your problematic 16/44 recordings.
 I had one in the house for an over-nighter and it did things with 16/44 recordings that I just could not believe. Never mind what it did with Hi-Rez recordings.
 You never know it might work for you.
Scotty

[DaveC113]

Tyson I have a possible cure for your 16/44 problem. Borrow a Auralic Vega and try it out with your problematic 16/44 recordings.
 I had one in the house for an over-nighter and it did things with 16/44 recordings that I just could not believe. Never mind what it did with Hi-Rez recordings.
 You never know it might work for you.
Scotty

Agreed, the Vega has a very relaxed presentation, totally void of typical digital harshness. The Sony HAP-Z1ES is particularly good with redbook too, allowing you to choose to upsample to DSD or not. I just leave it on since it gets rid a lot of the hardness or whatever tends to ride along with lower res PCM.

[rajacat]

Here's a review of the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series. The reviewer claims that it makes 16/44 sound as good as high def. $16,000  http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/599-berkeley-audio-design-alpha-dac-reference-series-review/
" A DAC that can make standard resolution (16/44.1) material sound as good as high resolution is a true game changer. The advanced digital filtering algorithms created by Berkeley Audio Design do exactly that with 16/44.1 music. I know of no DAC available today that can reproduce Redbook CD content as well as the Alpha DAC RS. Period. If I could afford it and my job allowed it, the Alpha DAC RS is the only DAC I'd use for the foreseeable future."

[JLM]

Distortions fall into 2 camps: omission and commission. 

Power aberrations (the term engineers use for all non-perfections) from the power plant to your component is an example of commission.  To me, distortions of commission are the most fatiguing as the mind is forced into trying to resolve the errors. 

Omission could include lack of bass response.  In this case the mind naturally augments (to a degree).  Another example is non-imaging (listening to mono) the mind simply ignores the entire imaging concept.


I'm too old school to put much value into tweaks (interconnects, cabling, power cables, footers, racks, cable lifts, etc.).  Have tried them all to little effect.  Have heard power aberrations, but never at home (even in an old home with a expensive power conditioner to very little effect).  Have heard room treatments, but again barely at home (probably due to my speakers/near-field setup).  Rooms - yes, isolation (mechanical/domestic issues), shape, then size are all significant factors.


Yes, I own $300/pair speakers that I enjoy very much.  They don't come close to pushing all my theoretical buttons like my $3,000/pair speakers, but if I lost them I'd probably just add a swarm to the cheaper ones and not look back.


GIGO - I do appreciate, but I'm a "speaker guy" so I'll vote for speakers (to my ears) as the most important factor in the audio playback system.  If we all heard the same thing the same way and audio answers were simply black and white solutions we'd all be using the same gear and would "only" be music lovers, not also gear heads.

[DaveC113]

Well, a good source is a good source and should be able to work in any system, speakers vary a lot more, have a lot more leeway for personal preference, and won't work in any system or room so it only makes sense to put speakers first. But it's a system and balance is important...

[*Scotty*]

Hypothetically speaking, it would be all to easy to assemble a system full of components with a host of non-linear errors and blame the messenger in the form of the loudspeakers for telling the truth about what is happening to the signal upstream from them. This would set one up to make  a  buying decision that trys to cover up the damage done to the signal upstream from them. This is roughly analogous to putting a bandaid on a death wound.
 I think a closer approach to High Fidelity reproduction might result from the purchase of a more truthful or accurate to the source pair of loudspeakers and then attacking the problems that exist in the rest of the components in the system.
Scotty

[kernelbob]

Scotty, you make a good point.  Long term, a purchase of "a more truthful or accurate" speaker is a key starting point to identify high (or low) quality components as one assembles a high quality component chain.

However, the quandary is how to identify a high quality speaker design before the rest of your system is up to snuff?  If you audition speakers in a fatiguing system, the one that softens transients, smooths over hardness, etc. may be more tolerable over one that is revealing of upstream quality.  One suggestion is auditioning a candidate speaker or a another speaker from the same product line in a home installation.  This can give you a good idea of the potential performance and the design goals of that designer.  I'm sure there are AC members that would be willing to give you an audition of their systems.

[Steve]

A few points I think are worth considering.

1) Some masking distortion problems can be perceived at the -90 to -100db levels. IT depends upon the source, equipment and venue. Thus inner detail may be missing because of masking. The ear is extremely sensitive to some forms.

2) Power supplies are typically lacking in filtering stages. Two or three stages is going to allow the rectifiers, power transformers, in coming
power to influence one's perception.

3) The actual definition of "distortion" by "scientists" includes only harmonic and intermodulation distortions (HD, IMD).
However, any change in output vs input should be considered distortion. Thus alterations in frequency response (FR), soundstage,
transient/risetime, harmonic structure, channel separation of output vs input should be should be considered distortion.

4) Actual components may be nearly as detrimental as speakers since the FR deviation occurs over many if not all octaves from 20-20khz. Typical speaker/room deviations are less, and often times less than 1/3 of one octave. According to Rane, less than 1/3 octave is almost indistinguishable even with large dips/peaks.

Just some things to ponder.

Cheers

Steve

[Tyson]

For assembling a system, I'd say start with the speakers and amps, those are both based on technology that is both very old and also not evolving very quickly.  In other words, stable.  On the other hand DAC's are a relatively new technology and are evolving quickly, so therefore are a volatile and not stable.  Allocate most of your time/money/effort to the parts that are likely to stay with you the longest.  Then build or buy some room treatments, drop the system into a decent room, pull the speakers at least 3 feet from the front wall, and enjoy.  Use Power Conditioning, cables, wires, caps, etc... to do the last 5% fine tuning and you are done.  These tweaks can be bought, but are also easily built, if you are inclined to experiment and also save $$.

[Steve]

I would alter the order slightly. I would start with the preamplifier first, since it is the only component that can be listening tested for absolute
accuracy, input to output. (Of course interconnect cables need to be tested (ICs), and I have sound that all coppers to be the most accurate. Keep the IC capacitance low though.) Once the accurate preamplifier is determined, one doesn't have to worry about it.
If an integrated amp is used, skip to amp/speaker combo.

If I must compromise, I keep the chalkboard experience to a minimum when auditioning.

Cheers

Steve

[Folsom]

Hypothetically speaking, it would be all to easy to assemble a system full of components with a host of non-linear errors and blame the messenger in the form of the loudspeakers for telling the truth about what is happening to the signal upstream from them. This would set one up to make  a  buying decision that trys to cover up the damage done to the signal upstream from them. This is roughly analogous to putting a bandaid on a death wound.
 I think a closer approach to High Fidelity reproduction might result from the purchase of a more truthful or accurate to the source pair of loudspeakers and then attacking the problems that exist in the rest of the components in the system.
Scotty

It looks like we have some agreement.

Cords are the last thing to toy with. You should love your stereo before you step into them.

Most stereos need some PFC to sound round and smooth to the ear the way they should; without it a very treble capable system may be unbearable, which is what probably inspired the original post. There's effects of noise on amplification, digital conversion, etc, are heard but the noise itself isn't typically. I will say there are some signal caps that literally are unlistable, however some become listenable with time. Other fatigue sources are typically errors, lack of notch filter, runaway oscillations, or whatever.

The second biggest contributor to fatigue that's not power per say, is electrical resonances/ringing. The sound from this is probably upwards of at least half of what people want to correct in their room and experience as fatigue in reflection. You don't know a resonance is there till it's gone. Different designs will cause different concerns for resonances, and not all solutions that dampen them actually sound good in themselves.

[*Scotty*]

The second biggest contributor to fatigue that's not power per say, is electrical resonances/ringing.

If this actually is where the problem lies then we are talking about a design fault in the circuit, the regulators or some kind of problem in power supply design.
 If the problem is of this nature then it will require replacing the offending component with another one that does not have these design faults.
 I don't think a power filter is always a necessary first step, I think the components have to be intrinsically good enough in the first place that the quality of the AC power is a significant limiting factor to their overall performance.
Unfortunately in a great many systems this is not the case.
Scotty

[Folsom]

Resoances aren't addressed as much as they could be, but many obvious ones are. They're often smaller or less significant than many think to bother addressing. And again, sometimes the solutions aren't any better.

I've found no level of components to be exempt from better power so far. The XLS has two CMC's and more, and yet it sounds better on a conditioner!