what is about listening test
I got my engineer degree (1971 in Japan) long time ago , may be my knowledge not too up date now but, still I can build tube amps by my new design. audio is a hobby for me just for fun and I would like to join here to talk about how I think in the listening test although my English isn't good enough. in listening test I think it can divide to two parts , one by sensitive of the ear to what frequency and distortion, and this factors also can be measured out . the other one is by feeling or by brain's memory in compare to other system's sound or to the real sound, like the density of the sound , emotion, clearness, 3D sound stage,lively etc.those feelings also so personal can't be measure out and shown by numbers. my first post in this forum is talking a elastic thread replace the belt of a belt drive TT has a wonderful result, the idea came from the designer of SPJ, she sent a roll of thread ($20) to my partner who own the SPJ TT, after we try and found out there are big different with the original rubber belt which come with the set, the difference is lively and live less ,we try more non elastic material like sewing thread and fishing line, same result, finally we found similar elastic thing only $4 a roll in local store.the reason of this cause I guess is that the elastic thread works as a spring to naturalize the very little change of speed in turning . and this change can't be measure out by our equipments in hand but can detect by ear. after with the new elastic thread also found the driving motor has same difference between motors, like a chain reaction, one part got better will find others not good enough, and also I found a direct drive TT is the best motor in driving to a belt drive TT, the listening test of this mods didn't need repeat more than one time because difference is so big, I don't know will it be the same in other systems because it will depend on the quality of the whole system, first it need to catch up the different between lively and live less because there are no measurement for that feeling. in a digital source, I don't know they will have same level of difference of lively between transports or DACs in listening test ?
tony ma