PRaT

[puroagave]

since getting back into audio ive been seeing the descriptor PRaT in relation to an audio components sound. as best i can tell its an acronym for pace, rhythm and timing. i gather it was coined by a British hifi dealer in the 70s. and more widely used today than i can remember.

as a descriptor, to me its meaningless! its usually used in the context of "i cant describe the sound so ill just say it has PRaT" well, if music itself didnt have PRaT what would it sound like and what does that have to do with describing audio? it also annoys me its often used in comparing British gear as opposed to American hifi, Linn and Naim users come to mind. you often read broad statements like big, heavy high-powered American [insert non-British] amps cant have PRaT by their very nature...huh?

what am i missing? someone school me on this.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

You're not going to get any argument out of me. As useless as "musical" and twice as presumptuous (Really? Your amplifier can effect the pace, rhythm and timing of the musical performance? Really?). The best I can figure, it means, at best, good transient response, at worst, components tuned to a trebly edge that gives the illusion of crisp detail...right up to the moment that it drives you from the room.

Tim

 

[amirm]

I am not a fan of the term either.

 

[microstrip]

Rob,

We debated PRAT in an a previous thread:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?3181-The-audiophile-vernacular/page2

 

[Ronm1]

Sorta like Je ne c'est quoi,but I know it when I hear it!

 

[fas42]

Seriously, it's a reflection of system tune -- what sort of distortion spectrum you're listening to. An easy way to "pick" it is some track with a decent backing on drums. With PRaT, it sounds like the muso's are pumping hard to keep up with the beat, there's a sense of urgency about the whole thing; without PRaT it sounds like the drummer's along for the ride, he's looking at his watch, waiting for knock off time ...

When "PRaT "is bad, I keep feeling I want to pull out a whip, and crack it hard over the heads of the players, tell them to get a move on; the music is just listless, lifeless ...

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Seriously, it's a reflection of system tune

Of course...

Tim

 

[fas42]

Of course...

Tim

Yes, though there are other ways of doing it ...

Reminds me of a chap who had quite a high performance sedan, who never felt the engine was quite responsive enough, lacked a little bit of "punch". Having quite substantial funds, he kept buying new engines that the custom engineering shops told him would transform the quality of his acceleration. And in fact now and again he checked this, and was impressed by the fact that 0 - 60 mph times were better by up to 0.45 seconds, at one point. Some of the previous engines he sold to other car enthusiasts, but a number just lay around gathering dust in the garage. Someone suggested to him that his current engine could be improved by someone with specialist knowledge, but he was quite scornful of such an approach. "Only the engineering shops who produce these fantastic engines know what's going on, what has to be done to get better performance -- I'm not going to trust my baby to amateurs !!", said he ...

Frank

 

[mep]

I can think of one thing right off that could affect the perception of pace and timing (which are so interrelated that they are really one and the same). If you have speakers with underdamped woofers, they will have a tendency to keep moving when they should be at rest. Whatever they are pumping into the room when they should be in a rest position isn’t good. This could certainly have the ability to muddy up the sound and smear the timing. You could make this matter worse by having a tube amp with a very low dampening factor (and all tube amps have low dampening factors).

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes, though there are other ways of doing it ...

Reminds me of a chap who had quite a high performance sedan, who never felt the engine was quite responsive enough, lacked a little bit of "punch". Having quite substantial funds, he kept buying new engines that the custom engineering shops told him would transform the quality of his acceleration. And in fact now and again he checked this, and was impressed by the fact that 0 - 60 mph times were better by up to 0.45 seconds, at one point. Some of the previous engines he sold to other car enthusiasts, but a number just lay around gathering dust in the garage. Someone suggested to him that his current engine could be improved by someone with specialist knowledge, but he was quite scornful of such an approach. "Only the engineering shops who produce these fantastic engines know what's going on, what has to be done to get better performance -- I'm not going to trust my baby to amateurs !!", said he ...

Frank

Did the "special knowledge" lie with some guy in a garage with an aging Corolla who swore that if he tightened the oil filter, wrapped blue electrical tape around the vacuum hoses, welded the spark plugs to the block and held his mouth just right, that every now and then, for a little bit, it would out corner a TOTL Porsche?

HIs lack of trust was well-placed.

Oh, and if boomy bass altered time signatures a lot of bands would never be able to count the measures.

Tim

 

[fas42]

Did the "special knowledge" lie with some guy in a garage with an aging Corolla who swore that if he tightened the oil filter, wrapped blue electrical tape around the vacuum hoses, welded the spark plugs to the block and held his mouth just right, that every now and then, for a little bit, it would out corner a TOTL Porsche?

But just imagine if it wasn't such a Porsche, but rather an assembly of very expensive components: a chassis from one supplier, an engine from a second, the suspension from a further, etc, who all swore over a bible that their part of the affair was fit to be inserted into the finest of all Porsches. Further, all you had a vague sheaf of notes barely decribing how to add each bit in to the whole, let alone how to do it optimally. And to top it off, no brackets and nuts and bolts were automatically furnished to combine the parts, and there was a ferocious fight amongst the suppliers of those items. One said you need to have your head read unless you went completely stainless steel, another was fanatically obsessed about his ultra special heat treatment for the steel bolts, which had to be finished in a special non-slip coating, etc -- confusion reigned. And then the poor consumer/ driver to be, had to tie this all together himself best he could in his completely empty garage: nothing there to check that anything really worked as it should.

For that version of the Porsche, there is more than a slim chance that that Corolla might do some things better ...

Frank

 

[RogerD]

One of those things that you know it when you hear,feel,and dance to it. I would think it goes together with clarity,speed and dynamics.

 

[NorthStar]

since getting back into audio ive been seeing the descriptor PRaT in relation to an audio components sound. as best i can tell its an acronym for pace, rhythm and timing. i gather it was coined by a British hifi dealer in the 70s. and more widely used today than i can remember.

as a descriptor, to me its meaningless! its usually used in the context of "i cant describe the sound so ill just say it has PRaT" well, if music itself didnt have PRaT what would it sound like and what does that have to do with describing audio? it also annoys me its often used in comparing British gear as opposed to American hifi, Linn and Naim users come to mind. you often read broad statements like big, heavy high-powered American [insert non-British] amps cant have PRaT by their very nature...huh?

what am i missing? someone school me on this.

Hi,

I am a member at several audio sites in the UK,
and those are simply terms the Europeans and the Brits like to use that's all.

And here in Canada we have also our own audio terms, same as the Americans.

Pace, Ryhthm are like guts, gusto, verve, tempo, foot-tapping, ...
Timing is like sync, there, here, presence, etc.

Italians have their terms too. And Germans. And French people (from France) ...

At the end it's all about Music to your ears and heart.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

But just imagine if it wasn't such a Porsche, but rather an assembly of very expensive components: a chassis from one supplier, an engine from a second, the suspension from a further, etc, who all swore over a bible that their part of the affair was fit to be inserted into the finest of all Porsches. Further, all you had a vague sheaf of notes barely decribing how to add each bit in to the whole, let alone how to do it optimally. And to top it off, no brackets and nuts and bolts were automatically furnished to combine the parts, and there was a ferocious fight amongst the suppliers of those items. One said you need to have your head read unless you went completely stainless steel, another was fanatically obsessed about his ultra special heat treatment for the steel bolts, which had to be finished in a special non-slip coating, etc -- confusion reigned. And then the poor consumer/ driver to be, had to tie this all together himself best he could in his completely empty garage: nothing there to check that anything really worked as it should.

For that version of the Porsche, there is more than a slim chance that that Corolla might do some things better ...

Frank

I'd say when you put together your kit Porsche, you made a lot of really bone-headed decisions if the parts didn't work together well, because let's face it, chrome plated or heat treated, it's still gonna kick the Corolla's butt. Where you'll run into trouble is if the parts are just plain incompatible. You know, like you try to put a chevy short block in it, or fit metric nuts on to standard bolts. But what the heck, if you're trying to build a DIY Porsche, and you don't know any better than that, you're gonna get out-gunned by a little red wagon.

Tim

 

[fas42]

I'd say when you put together your kit Porsche, you made a lot of really bone-headed decisions if the parts didn't work together well, because let's face it, chrome plated or heat treated, it's still gonna kick the Corolla's butt. Where you'll run into trouble is if the parts are just plain incompatible. You know, like you try to put a chevy short block in it, or fit metric nuts on to standard bolts. But what the heck, if you're trying to build a DIY Porsche, and you don't know any better than that, you're gonna get out-gunned by a little red wagon.

Tim

Actually, you're very close to getting a reasonable comparison: instead of a Corolla, let's go for a very boring Impreza, just another basic runabout in the same class, and an old one too. Whooops, wait a minute, that's the core of a Subaru WRX, if I add on the exciting bits from the parts catalogue the car turns into a little terror, one that was able to scare the pants off a few Porsche owners back those years ago.

Yes, there are major additions like a turbocharger setup, major enhancements to the base capability. But to relate back to the audio world, things like having a greatly improved power supply compares very nicely to that type of go-faster modification.

The thing is, in the audio world, at the core of electronic circuits, there are not that many radical differences between low end, and high end machinery. Fancy parts only do incremental things, and electrical devices in the main don't wear out: they either work or don't work. If you look at raw spec's there may be very little nominal performance difference between an ambitious, audiophile component and a mass-produced, part plastic encased consumer item.

So why does the expensive unit normally perform better? Well, largely because of attention to detail: high end equipment is largely bespoke, and you pay for that. The designers have really, really invested a hell of a lot of time and energy into working out some of the finer aspects of what matters to make it perform -- partly to suit people's taste -- and people experience acquiring a better end product. May not be brilliant value for money, but still definitely superior to mass market items. Now, none of that precludes someone outside the arena of high end audio manufacturing replicating many of the same investigations and fine tuning of equipment, and achieving similar results. Not necessarily the same results, but similar in intent: getting the best from the raw materials, the electrical parts, through testing, investigating, fiddling, over and over again ...

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Actually, you're very close to getting a reasonable comparison: instead of a Corolla, let's go for a very boring Impreza, just another basic runabout in the same class, and an old one too. Whooops, wait a minute, that's the core of a Subaru WRX, if I add on the exciting bits from the parts catalogue the car turns into a little terror, one that was able to scare the pants off a few Porsche owners back those years ago.

Yes, there are major additions like a turbocharger setup, major enhancements to the base capability. But to relate back to the audio world, things like having a greatly improved power supply compares very nicely to that type of go-faster modification.

The thing is, in the audio world, at the core of electronic circuits, there are not that many radical differences between low end, and high end machinery. Fancy parts only do incremental things, and electrical devices in the main don't wear out: they either work or don't work. If you look at raw spec's there may be very little nominal performance difference between an ambitious, audiophile component and a mass-produced, part plastic encased consumer item.

So why does the expensive unit normally perform better? Well, largely because of attention to detail: high end equipment is largely bespoke, and you pay for that. The designers have really, really invested a hell of a lot of time and energy into working out some of the finer aspects of what matters to make it perform -- partly to suit people's taste -- and people experience acquiring a better end product. May not be brilliant value for money, but still definitely superior to mass market items. Now, none of that precludes someone outside the arena of high end audio manufacturing replicating many of the same investigations and fine tuning of equipment, and achieving similar results. Not necessarily the same results, but similar in intent: getting the best from the raw materials, the electrical parts, through testing, investigating, fiddling, over and over again ...

Frank

Uh huh.

Tim

 

[LL21]

since getting back into audio ive been seeing the descriptor PRaT in relation to an audio components sound. as best i can tell its an acronym for pace, rhythm and timing. i gather it was coined by a British hifi dealer in the 70s. and more widely used today than i can remember.

as a descriptor, to me its meaningless! its usually used in the context of "i cant describe the sound so ill just say it has PRaT" well, if music itself didnt have PRaT what would it sound like and what does that have to do with describing audio? it also annoys me its often used in comparing British gear as opposed to American hifi, Linn and Naim users come to mind. you often read broad statements like big, heavy high-powered American [insert non-British] amps cant have PRaT by their very nature...huh?

what am i missing? someone school me on this.

For me, i do find that some amps or systems seem slow, while others seem lightening quick. While i think we can think of systems that seemed hyper-detailed, i think it was Jeff Fritz who said he'd never heard of anyone complain of a system being too fast...but definitely too slow.

An extreme example...take a knife and slice through the woofer surround (i had a torn surround once)...the bass just 'blaps' and there is no ability to keep pace with the bass.

Or take a better more realistic example, take a poorly damped woofer cone where the amp also is not delivering as much detail...a large, bass thwack does not have the initial snap, explosion and then decay...it is just one long rumble. That long rumble will disrupt the sense of pace, rhythm and timing because the rumble is not delivering the snap in the middle of the rumble that would make it be in synch with the rest of the music. The impression can be that it seems 'slow' or lacks 'pace'.

it is tougher in the mids to hear/articulate, but when mids are too soft, colored, muddled, then the details of the string attack can disappear, and you just hear the long note...again the loss of the attack itself means for that millisecond you dont have the 'snap' and the note then does not seem as well timed.

one man's defintion/understanding.

 

[FrantzM]

currently listening to a Bose Wave Radio

It has all the PrAT you'd want

What a ridiculous concept... and to think it has endured all this time .. No wonder we have our Machina Dynamica and Lessloss and Coconut sound striving !

Out of this discussion this thing, I can't get myself to call it "concept", is pure nonsense !

 

[NorthStar]

The Brits can also hear jitter better than most other people; and they mention it in their reviews.
And they talk avout pace, timing, foot-tapping, etc.

...According to them, because they are used to listen to those type of things.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

What would be the diff between PACE and TIMING?