Ethan Winer's definition of Audio transparency

jkeny · May 12, 2012

From his youtube video:

"22:10 Aside from devices that intentionally add “color” by changing the frequency response or adding distortion, it’s generally accepted that audio gear should aim to be transparent. This is easily tested by measuring the above four parameters with various test signals. If the frequency response is flat to less than 1/10th dB from 20 Hz to 20 KHz, and the sum of all noise and distortion is at least 100 dB below the music, a device can be said to be audibly transparent. A device that’s transparent will sound the same as every other transparent device, whether a microphone preamp or DAW summing algorithm."

And here here , it is stated:

Ethan Winer, an acoustics expert, discusses how audio electronics can be defined as audibly transparent by four broad categories of measurements and he provides his personal criteria for complete transparency. He states that gear passing all these criteria will not contribute any audible sound of its own and in fact sound the same as any other gear passing the same criteria:

Frequency Response: 20 hz to 20 Khz +/- 0.1 dB

Distortion: At least 100 dB (0.001%) below the music while others consider 80 dB (0.01%) to be sufficient and Ethan’s own tests confirm that (see below).

Noise: At least 100 dB below the music

Time Based Errors – In the digital world this is jitter and the 100 dB rule applies for jitter components.

Some questions have already been asked on another thread by Amir & me

amirm said:
Ethan, is that 100 db S/N for transparency attributed to you correctly states your position?

jkeny said:
Is this not correct? If not what EXACTLY are your SPECIFIC criteria?
EDIT: Maybe this should be discussed in another thread?

So this is the branched thread where Ethan can hopefully clarify these criteria & answer some questions.

Ethan Winer · May 13, 2012

There's nothing to clarify. If the response is within 0.1 dB (or 0.2 dB) and all artifacts are 100 dB down, then the device is transparent. As I've mentioned elsewhere, often artifacts can't be heard even when they're much louder than 100 dB down.

--Ethan

amirm · May 13, 2012

Well, if we want to sleep easy knowing that our audio system is transparent no matter what content we throw at it, your 100 db number translates to about 17 bits of resolution in digital domain. This rules out 16 bit CD format as being transparent which ironically, agrees with Bob Stuart assertion:

It also translates into jitter requirements of 300 picoseconds/0.3 nanoseconds for a 20 Khz bandwidth channel.

On both of these basis, lots of mass market products flunk these requirements. Assuming you are not having second thought in what you presented at AES

, we have amazing convergence of views here as my minimum standard is 96 db. From my article on audio transport jitter: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/DigitalAudioJitter.html

" The one exception is Paul Miller of UK’s Hifi News who performs measurements of jitter on both interfaces. It is eye opening to see the measurements of mass market products done side by side this way. Here is an example measurement for the Onkyo TX-NR5007 AV Receiver:

S/PDIF: 0.79 ns
HDMI: 4.87 ns"

So at 790 picoseconds, this AVR misses the mark on even S/PDIF.

microstrip · May 13, 2012

Significant evolution. At 12-27-2010 07:42 PM WBF time, the threshold was 80dB.

And some people say that there is no recent progress in audio science!

mep · May 13, 2012

amirm said:
Well, if we want to sleep easy knowing that our audio system is transparent no matter what content we throw at it, your 100 db number translates to about 17 bits of resolution in digital domain. This rules out 16 db CD format as being transparent which ironically, agrees with Bob Stuart assertion:

Amir-Did you mean 16 bit CD format?

amirm · May 13, 2012

mep said:
Amir-Did you mean 16 bit CD format?

Yes, thanks

. I made the edit.

mep · May 13, 2012

Isn't Ethan going to pitch a fit that by his own definition 16 bit CD is not transparent?

microstrip · May 13, 2012

tomelex said:
(...) And I agree with Amir, folks do want to know at what point, their gear is transparent enough. Its very important. Equally, those that like the SET sound (and I am one) need to know there is no magic, no extra retrieval of detail, just added "distortions" that happen to make the music more interesting sounding...again..preferences... (...)

Tom,

Live is simple for SET owners - as their amplifiers have distortion above the values considered audible, it is a preference.

And the good qualities are just caused by this added distortion, nothing else. Curious that no one has been able until now to generate a SET sound using digital processing.

But you are happily living on an exception. Most modern tube equipment has specifications that are bellow the 80 dB or 90 dB specification. And sounds great! Is it still just a preference?

NorthStar · May 13, 2012

Nice to see Ethan with much more freedom around here. :b

MylesBAstor · May 13, 2012

tomelex said:
Bold by me. Micro, I know you are technical in this field from previous posts, and you belive in your ears first, thus of course, many tube amps sound great, but if they have a transformer output, they have timing errors, and the standard THD tests and FR tests don't check for that. So, just about any transformer output tube amp, will have timing errors in relation to the original recorded signal, and probably not the same as any other solid state unit, but atleast that will always be a difference, as well as the spectrum output, of which tube push pull generally has way less of the higher harmonics, say past third. Third will be dominate in a push pull most of the time. Additionally, you will have feedback effect from the speakers as bob carver talks about, if there is feedback in the tube unit output.

Yes, tube or solid state, is still just a preference, but measurements can show how the amps are different, whether the differences are what make you prefer one or the other.

Again, lack of ENOUGH measurments, on purpose, by manufacturers, causes this perpetual issue of tube vs solid state. If you want the absolute most transparent amps, sorry, by even standard measurments, tube units are not in first place. Saying that, tube units are fine and I have no ax to grind with them.

Tom

You know Tom we've been thru this before. When I asked you what SOTA tube amps you've listened to, you admitted none. Again, Have you heard any of the top current tube amps from VAC, ARC, cj, VTL, CAT,WAVAC, McIntosh, etc?

And guess what. Solid state has other issues that subtract from their musicality. How about switching issues for one? Great if younhave a claa A amp but then you are often limited in how big a wattage amp you can design. And if you google Ralph Karsten over at Agon, look up what he says about SS amps having to deal with driving speakers at higher impedances. Explains a lot of the coldness of SS.

Phelonious Ponk · May 13, 2012

tomelex said:
Post 2 and 3 above are significant, very significant.

Those that believe that their ears are superior to measurement techniques simply dont understand their limitations.

two things hard for some to do:
-- Understanding limitations in their hearing system, there are physical limits
-- Understanding preferences and not acknowledging that we know little about how the mind deals with what
is presented to it....IOW, if you could hear "something" 80db down, but measurements show it is not there,
your mind played a trick on you. Limitations. Hard to accept by many.

I would hopt that long term readers of WBF have accepted that preferences are not measurements, and preferences do not trounce measurements, and that we can, and have been able for some time, to measure every little itty bitty nuance of the signal, down to well below 120db for a long time. The fact that the manufacturers dont is not that it is not possible, thats just high end audio, which is a preference driven area if there ever was one.

Just to clarify here, I am not against preferences.

And I agree with Amir, folks do want to know at what point, their gear is transparent enough. Its very important. Equally, those that like the SET sound (and I am one) need to know there is no magic, no extra retrieval of detail, just added "distortions" that happen to make the music more interesting sounding...again..preferences...

and while I am at it, IMO there are two roads heavily traveled in audio...

one is the road of measurments, which seek to identify that the signal that exits the speaker is the same signal that exited the microphone (if there were no processing that is)

and

the other road of preferences, which likes to decide, if the sound of system matches somehow the sound of the live event, which is impossible to do with two channel stereo...but can be close enough for many, and often times, requires the signal to become more exciting than just the replication of the signal that exited the mike.

Tom

You had me until you got to the end there, Tom. Given the time, money and room for 3 or 4 systems, I could even see myself owning an SET system and some very interesting speakers based on full-range drivers. I'm even with you all the way up to "the signal that exits the speaker is the same signal that exited the microphone" vs "more exciting than just the replication of the signal that exited the mike." "More exciting" is surely subjective, but I can live with that. But you lost me when you implied that a signal more exciting than the one than the one that recorded the live event, could be more like the live event. It can't. It can only be less like the recording unless it's distortions are miraculously similar to distortions that occurred at the live event but were not captured by the microphone.

Impossible? No. Give typewriters to enough monkeys....

Tim

JackD201 · May 13, 2012

An amp being transparent by these metrics doesn't automatically mean it will sound the same as anothereven in an anechoic environment.

Not to worry, when the expert learns it he'll probably add the missing factors to his moving target definitions.

cooljazz · May 13, 2012

tomelex said:
....we can, and have been able for some time, to measure every little itty bitty nuance of the signal, down to well below 120db for a long time.
Tom

Wow...this is really good news! Because I've been puzzling over how I can measure dynamics that occur with more than two indiependant frequencies. You know...more than just a single sinewave or two. Something more like what would happen when playing music. I really eager to dig down and see how different devices react when under something more like music conditions and not just a single tone.

Dynamics and more than just a simple tone. What kind of testing is it that gets me there??

CJ

JackD201 · May 13, 2012

cooljazz said:
Wow...this is really good news! Because I've been puzzling over how I can measure dynamics that occur with more than two indiependant frequencies. You know...more than just a single sinewave or two. Something more like what would happen when playing music. I really eager to dig down and see how different devices react when under something more like music conditions and not just a single tone.

Dynamics and more than just a simple tone. What kind of testing is it that gets me there??

CJ

Now here you go giving clues where to look on your very first post. LOL.

Welcome to the forum cooljazz.

jkeny · May 14, 2012

tomelex said:
Those that believe that their ears are superior to measurement techniques simply dont understand their limitations.

two things hard for some to do:
-- Understanding limitations in their hearing system, there are physical limits
-- Understanding preferences and not acknowledging that we know little about how the mind deals with what
is presented to it.......
Tom

Those that believe that their limited measurements are somehow giving them the full picture simply dont understand their limitations.

two things hard for some to do:
-- Understanding limitations in their measurements system,
-- Understanding measurements and not acknowledging that we know little about how the measurements relate to what we hear .......

bblue · May 14, 2012

Ethan Winer said:
There's nothing to clarify. If the response is within 0.1 dB (or 0.2 dB) and all artifacts are 100 dB down, then the device is transparent. As I've mentioned elsewhere, often artifacts can't be heard even when they're much louder than 100 dB down.

Assuming that 'coloration' of a device due to the type of components used, wiring, general topology, is a form of an artifact and detracts from being transparent, I have a hard time believing that all amps meeting this criteria will sound exactly the same.

There's a world of different amps and preamps that one could consider highly transparent and would seemingly meet the criteria, that add a touch their own color to the sound. Or are you saying that ANY coloration is a lack of transparency by your definitions and can be explained away by one or more of these artifacts?

--Bill

Ethan Winer · May 14, 2012

amirm said:
Well, if we want to sleep easy knowing that our audio system is transparent no matter what content we throw at it, your 100 db number translates to about 17 bits of resolution in digital domain.

I didn't say that 100 dB is needed. I'm quite sure that 90 dB is plenty. And as I'm sure I said many times, even 80 dB is probably adequate to guarantee transparency related to distortion and noise artifacts. Speaking of distortion, worrying about 0.01 percent (-80 dB) in the face of 0.5 to 10 percent from your speakers is misguided IMO. Indeed, this puts a more reasonable perspective on the false need for hi-res mediums and low jitter. Related, your graph ignores masking.

--Ethan

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Ethan Winer said:
I didn't say that 100 dB is needed. I'm quite sure that 90 dB is plenty. And as I'm sure I said many times, even 80 dB is probably adequate to guarantee transparency related to distortion and noise artifacts. Speaking of distortion, worrying about 0.01 percent (-80 dB) in the face of 0.5 to 10 percent from your speakers is misguided IMO. Indeed, this puts a more reasonable perspective on the false need for hi-res mediums and low jitter. Related, your graph ignores masking.

--Ethan

So let's see where you stand now in these shifting sands of your definition?
Your original statements were that a device is audibly transparent when:

Frequency Response: 20 hz to 20 Khz +/- 0.1 dB

Distortion: At least 100 dB (0.001%) below the music while others consider 80 dB (0.01%) to be sufficient and Ethan’s own tests confirm that (see below).

Noise: At least 100 dB below the music

Time Based Errors – In the digital world this is jitter and the 100 dB rule applies for jitter components.

Now your position is that Noise at least 90dB below, no sorry 80dB below. Is this your final position or do you need more wiggle room?

jkeny · May 14, 2012

From the other thread here

Ron Party said:
Oh yes, I understood what he posted. I also understood your post, which was nothing more than words to the effect of "I'm right, your wrong." What I don't understand is what it is which you are right about nor, for that matter, what it is about which he is incorrect. I also understand that is the capital A audiophile way: attack a person rather than the substance of the post. Fortunately here at WBF we try to focus on the post, not the poster, and one will be admonished to stick to this simple rule. So do you have anything of substance to add, e.g., reliable, repeatable, demonstrative proof, not opinion, that artifacts 100 dB down are audible?

See by this very post you visibly demonstrate that you don't understand what's being said - Linear phase shifts is != artefacts.
Artefacts have nothing to do with my tests - the word was used by Winer, not me - again from the other thread here

Ethan Winer said:
I've seen people take liberty with facts before, but never this badly. And never when it's so easy to prove they lied. So I say that artifacts 100 dB down are inaudible, and often when only 80 dB down or even louder. Then you post files with artifacts only 39 dB down, and that somehow proves me wrong? Wow, just wow. Your sheer chutzpah is amazing.

--Ethan

So Ron, I'm afraid your strawman has already collapsed

Ron Party · May 14, 2012

My? I've not made any claims, so your deflection is inapposite.

Like always I'm trying to learn here which is why I asked you whether you've anything to refute Ethan's claim. I do understand what you have posted. I also understand the methodology you claim to have used in support of the claims you have made. This thread which you started, the latest in a series of bulldog attacks against Ethan, is about Ethan's claims. So I ask again, do you have any repeatable, reliable, proof of anything to refute Ethan's (not my) claim? So far I've not read it.

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