[rajacat]

If every phenomena in audio can be measured with contemporary equipment why can't speakers, amps, etc. just be designed on the computer with spreadsheets and forgo a/b testing with ears?

Raj 

We have come a long ways toward that goal.   The ultimate engineering goal should that everything should be explainable and quantifiable, otherwise how can you repeatably design something?   

If you look at how we designed loudspeakers 20 years ago vs. what we do today we have tons of improvements in the art.    There is better models for transducer design using computer tools to simulate magnetic fields and flux.   We have Klippel & Dumax to better measure/analyze drivers.   We have tools that help us model crossovers and listen to them in real-time without having to rebuild them when we make a change.    We have better research about what is and is not obviously audible .

I've seen some people moan that there isn't anything new under the sun.   I often wonder what pace of change they envision.   It seems to me we are making plenty of progress.

Why do amps that measure virtually the same sound different.? I'm sure that the state of the art is progressing but d.b. seems to think that all the progress has ended and he can take his numbers and  determine exactly how an audio device is going to sound. Not now , maybe some time the future but I doubt it. Who calibrates the calibrators?

Raj 

[miklorsmith]

I welcome the thought.  If something so powerful is within reach, somebody needs to pony up for the love of community or dollars.  I've heard before how great things could be accomplished if minds were set to tasks.  Until it happens, it's an empty hand.

[eric the red]

How could I possibly say that Eric? I can now throw out all of my other test equipment, and replace it with just one unit. I'll save so much space! If I had only know about this earlier I could have saved a whole bunch of cash.
Now tell me Eric; how often does this unit have to calibrated?
            d.b.

Why don't you start a thread on measuring synergy in The Lab and leave the speculation to us yahoos here in Audio Central? You seem to be pretty sure that it can be measured, so why not do some measuring and tell us what you come up with? You seem pretty certain that synergy CAN be measured, so back it up.

[Kevin Haskins]

If every phenomena in audio can be measured with contemporary equipment why can't speakers, amps, etc. just be designed on the computer with spreadsheets and forgo a/b testing with ears?

Raj 

We have come a long ways toward that goal.   The ultimate engineering goal should that everything should be explainable and quantifiable, otherwise how can you repeatably design something?   

If you look at how we designed loudspeakers 20 years ago vs. what we do today we have tons of improvements in the art.    There is better models for transducer design using computer tools to simulate magnetic fields and flux.   We have Klippel & Dumax to better measure/analyze drivers.   We have tools that help us model crossovers and listen to them in real-time without having to rebuild them when we make a change.    We have better research about what is and is not obviously audible .

I've seen some people moan that there isn't anything new under the sun.   I often wonder what pace of change they envision.   It seems to me we are making plenty of progress.

Why do amps that measure virtually the same sound different.? I'm sure that the state of the art is progressing but d.b. seems to think that all the progress has ended and he can take his numbers and  determine exactly how an audio device is going to sound. Not now , maybe some time the future but I doubt it. Who calibrates the calibrators?

Raj 

I think with amplifiers it is easier to quantify than with loudspeakers.    You can measure signal in & signal out and compare.   There are fewer variables than with the loudspeaker-room interface.    If you have two amplifiers that measure exactly the same they will without a doubt sound exactly the same.    We can measure the changes to the signal with FAR greater precision and repeatability than our ears are capable of hearing.   

I think most subjective differences among amps is due to the fact that they DON'T measure the same.   They have different distortion spectrum's, they react to a load differently and they interface with upstream/downstream components differently.

[Dan Banquer]

How could I possibly say that Eric? I can now throw out all of my other test equipment, and replace it with just one unit. I'll save so much space! If I had only know about this earlier I could have saved a whole bunch of cash.
Now tell me Eric; how often does this unit have to calibrated?
            d.b.

Why don't you start a thread on measuring synergy in The Lab and leave the speculation to us yahoos here in Audio Central? You seem to be pretty sure that it can be measured, so why not do some measuring and tell us what you come up with? You seem pretty certain that synergy CAN be measured, so back it up.

Eric, with your meter we can reach new heights. We won't need audio magazines to give their opinions, all we need is a central clearing house to connect any piece of audio equipment to your meter for verification. I guess the real downside to all of this is Audio Precision is going to go out of business as we won't need them anymore.

Discussions like this will be non-existent as your meter will be the final arbiter in all arguments.

Happy Days are here again;
            d.b.

[aerius]

Why do amps that measure virtually the same sound different.? I'm sure that the state of the art is progressing but d.b. seems to think that all the progress has ended and he can take his numbers and  determine exactly how an audio device is going to sound. Not now , maybe some time the future but I doubt it. Who calibrates the calibrators?

Raj 

Because they don't measure virtually the same.  Sure if fire up a frequency response graph and check the output impedance, SNR, and THD a lot of amps will be pretty much the same.  But what about the other things, like ringing & overshoot on transients, the levels of the various distortion harmonics, how they recover from momentary overloads, suceptibility to RFI, and all the other things which people don't often measure?  Just because Stereophile doesn't measure them doesn't mean that these measurements don't exist.  Much more often than not, when two amps sound different, you'll see it somewhere in the measurements if they're detailed enough.

[eric the red]

How could I possibly say that Eric? I can now throw out all of my other test equipment, and replace it with just one unit. I'll save so much space! If I had only know about this earlier I could have saved a whole bunch of cash.
Now tell me Eric; how often does this unit have to calibrated?
            d.b.

Why don't you start a thread on measuring synergy in The Lab and leave the speculation to us yahoos here in Audio Central? You seem to be pretty sure that it can be measured, so why not do some measuring and tell us what you come up with? You seem pretty certain that synergy CAN be measured, so back it up.

Eric, with your meter we can reach new heights. We won't need audio magazines to give their opinions, all we need is a central clearing house to connect any piece of audio equipment to your meter for verification. I guess the real downside to all of this is Audio Precision is going to go out of business as we won't need them anymore.

Discussions like this will be non-existent as your meter will be the final arbiter in all arguments.

Happy Days are here again;
            d.b.

Wow Dan, what a thoughtful non-smarmy uncondescending out of character for you answer-thanks.

[Russell Dawkins]

You were correct in that equation. The fault is in the medium - vinyl or tape. In tape it can be caused by incorrect storage (tails in instead of out) or by a too-thin tape stock.
With vinyl it is a mastering decision involving, primarily, groove spacing choices as relates to signal level. If the groove spacing or pitch is inadequate, the "wiggles" in that groove affect the shape of the adjacent groove to an audible extent.

In neither case is the audibility of the effect connected in any way to the quality of the playback device.

It is a liability of the medium in general.

A cutting lathe has a button you can press during an abrupt soft to loud or loud to soft transition so that you don't hear something before it happens or hear it end twice.

If you were to use it for the entire record you wouldn't even fit a single song on an LP.

When CD came along everyone was saying you lose the ambience of the hall with digital when in fact the "lost" ambience was created by the medium and never existed at the actual event.

Digital has also a very low noise floor which is percieved as less high frequency response (recording engineers like to say digital has less high end when you can measure it to be completely flat).

Since digital has no groove echo, print through and extremely low distortion recordings sound thinner as well as lacking 'acoustic space'.

In fact that was simply the music that was made and how it was recorded, the fatter/fuller spectrum and acoustic space were being created in the medium by accident without the knowledge of those making the recordings.

When digital came along it clearly showed the recording process for what it was but everyone started saying it was the digital medium.

However you can measure the digital recording to be a precise replica of the original and also measure tape and vinyl mediums to have all sorts of additional ingredients that were being relied upon by the industry though most of them didn't know it.

In the age of digital recording engineers must understand that the acoustic space (both acoustics and background noise) are an integral part of a music recording and they must either capture it or create it when making the recording or end up with a lifeless disembodied recording.

Also suitable choices must be made when choosing accompanying instrumentation and how it is played to see that the music spectrum is as full as it should be, because a vocalist and two instruments in a sound booth will sound exactly like that on digital if you just record it and print it (recorded on tape then printed on vinyl the same thing might not sound like anything is lacking).

Of course for a lot music the distortion is part of the experience.

Many rock recordings are recorded on tape and transferred to digital later to get the high energy sound of a tape being overloaded.

I give up 

[Daygloworange]

Daryl,

Thanks for your insight into the differences of analog vs digital. Being someone who recorded for almost 20 years on analog, I was astounded at the transparency of digital as a recording medium. Being able to clearly hear spatial cues, low level artifacts, and not have the emphasis, compression, hiss, pitch problems, crosstalk, print through, aliasing, and distortion that comes with analog was truly a renaissance for me.

I have been a staunch supporter of digital for a long time as I progressed from the early days of digital sampling, and now, I wouldn't go back to analog if you paid me.

There are some neat effects from tape saturation and stuff that I do miss on certain instruments, but I still have analog tape and can use it for that, then "fly" it in, in the digital realm. So all is not lost.

As far as amps measuring the same and sounding different, I would agree that they are probably not being measured for every possible measurement that we know of. I'm sure you could take 2 of the same make/model amp and play them, and they would sound exactly the same subjectively, yet on a test bench, you could find minute differences due to manufacturing and component tolerances.

Cheers

[Dan Banquer]

"Wow Dan, what a thoughtful non-smarmy uncondescending out of character for you answer-thanks. "
My thanks to you Eric for giving me the gift I having been waiting years for: the chance to use the argument audiophiles usually make and turn it around 180 degrees. What's even better is that this will be archived for future use.
   Eric: you're the greatest,
               d.b.
 
 
 

[Daryl]

I give up 

Are you saying you havn't seen on audiophile recordings where the grooves get farther apart at certain points in the recording?

Of course I'm too young to remember such things but I was quite interested when Ken Kriesel who is old enough and used to make records laid it all out as well as some other interesting details in an Audio Magazine interview back in the late 80's.

This interview with Ken Kriesel was in stark contrast to most of the other interviews you read where 'guru' in the spotlight is obviously a fraud.

 

[mmakshak]

  Boy, I hope I don't get on the bad side(like Dan Barbour has).  I didn't read all the responses, but just the first page and the last post.  Were the 5 pages similiar?  I'm sure Dan has much more knowledge than most of the posters.  He sounds like an engineer.  Anyway, synergy just hit me this weekend.  I borrowed a Nuforce P-8 preamp, since my RGR developed a hum.  My amps are Nuforce 8.5's. We bought the P-8.  I'm not saying it is the best preamp out there(Although, unless you have big bucks, if you own Nuforce amps, I 'de suggest you audition the P-8), but it seemed-when combined with Nuforce amps-to give a coherence to all music.  When I audition at audio manufacturers, we usually listen to a cut here and a cut there.  That's how I listen to cd at home-usually.  Now, Alex(APL) said something about matching impedences or something.  Do we need to look at some measurement of output of a preamp and some measurement of the input to amps?  This would also apply to phono amps into preamps.

[Russell Dawkins]

I give up 

Are you saying you havn't seen on audiophile recordings where the grooves get farther apart at certain points in the recording?

Of course I'm too young to remember such things but I was quite interested when Ken Kriesel who is old enough and used to make records laid it all out as well as some other interesting details in an Audio Magazine interview back in the late 80's.

This interview with Ken Kriesel was in stark contrast to most of the other interviews you read where 'guru' in the spotlight is obviously a fraud.
 

If I hadn't seen grooves get farther apart with louder signals, why would I refer to this very thing in post #31 above, to wit, and I quote:

With vinyl it is a mastering decision involving, primarily, groove spacing choices as relates to signal level. If the groove spacing or pitch is inadequate, the "wiggles" in that groove affect the shape of the adjacent groove to an audible extent.

now I really give up!  

[Daygloworange]

Is that a Goodyear Eagle, or a Bridestone Potenza ? 

Just kidding! 

Cheers

[Daryl]

I give up 

Are you saying you havn't seen on audiophile recordings where the grooves get farther apart at certain points in the recording?

Of course I'm too young to remember such things but I was quite interested when Ken Kriesel who is old enough and used to make records laid it all out as well as some other interesting details in an Audio Magazine interview back in the late 80's.

This interview with Ken Kriesel was in stark contrast to most of the other interviews you read where 'guru' in the spotlight is obviously a fraud.
 

If I hadn't seen grooves get farther apart with louder signals, why would I refer to this very thing in post #31 above, to wit, and I quote:

With vinyl it is a mastering decision involving, primarily, groove spacing choices as relates to signal level. If the groove spacing or pitch is inadequate, the "wiggles" in that groove affect the shape of the adjacent groove to an audible extent.

now I really give up!  

Well Russell you quoted me and highlighted a part of my post in red then simply said "I give up".

I simply had no idea what your point was since you didn't elaborate.

So what don't you agree with, that is the question.

Daryl

[Dan Banquer]

"I think most subjective differences among amps is due to the fact that they DON'T measure the same.   They have different distortion spectrum's, they react to a load differently and they interface with upstream/downstream components differently."

Thank you Kevin: I and a few others have said about as much, which is archived here, and I'll add noise and grounding to the above.
                   d.b.

[Russell Dawkins]

Daryl, at least you are remaining civil and that is the only reason I am sending this once more after twice having said I give up.
Yes, I know that grooves are spaced wider during the loud bits. In fact a key part of the vinyl mastering engineer's skill set is knowing just how close the grooves can be and still retain an acceptable amount of pre/post echo.

Initially I was objecting to your saying that the audibility of this was a function of the quality of the record playback system, and this lengthy and boring sidetrack resulted.

to wit (reply #13)
"...Now you are in the realm of tube amplifiers with output impedances of several ohms, passive preamps with output impedances of several killiohms, phonographs with extreme distortion levels, poor S/N ratio, frequency response and not only play the intended groove but play the adjacent grooves as well (the "lost" ambience you lose on CD's...for those with common sense it's called groove echo)..."

while I'm at it you say this, in the same post:

"...Then technical details become unimportant (who understands them any way) and are replaced by meaningless B.S. and improper spelling of words which add to the mystique..."
.. then go on to make three spelling mistakes in the following sentence - killiohms, ambience and CD's. (kilohms, ambiance and CDs).

I really don't have time to go further with this.

[Russell Dawkins]

 

 

When you complete the picture by mentally adding the stylus, cantilever, cartridge and arm and then visualizing the speed at which the groove goes by it's amazing that serious damage isn't done after just one playing and that anything in the high frequencies can be cleanly tracked.

[Kevin Haskins]

"I think most subjective differences among amps is due to the fact that they DON'T measure the same.   They have different distortion spectrum's, they react to a load differently and they interface with upstream/downstream components differently."

Thank you Kevin: I and a few others have said about as much, which is archived here, and I'll add noise and grounding to the above.
                   d.b.

Sure, your welcome.      I wouldn't want that to be taken as a comprehensive list.   My only point is that we can measure differences that are audible, and those that are not. 

I think the main problem is that there are some offended that things are measurable.   I'm not sure why that is an issue.   It doesn't hurt my feelings either way.   

Whether it is practical to measure and quantify things is a different issue.   Also, statistical methods won't ever appeal to individuals as a particularly helpful measurement to determine their own subjective preference.

[Daygloworange]

When you complete the picture by mentally adding the stylus, cantilever, cartridge and arm and then visualizing the speed at which the groove goes by it's amazing that serious damage isn't done after just one playing and that anything in the high frequencies can be cleanly tracked.

Unless my grasp of physics is totally off, I've always wondered how much variation there would be in the frequency response of a new vinyl recording when compared to one that has had a diamond stylus dragged through it's grooves hundreds of times.

Cheers