What Do We Mean By "Resolution"?

[Carlos269]

One should not add wasabi to sushi, milk to coffee, and ketchup to omelette - unless the taste of the core dish sucks and you want to color it

You would be surprised to know how many well known, renowned, and astute high-end audio designers and manufacturers are making use, either knowingly or unknowingly, of this psychoacoustic phenomenon to enhance and differentiate their products.

Again, don’t get yourself in the deep end of the pool.

 

[Kingrex]

I use AddPower products. I gather it is an injected sine wave of sorts. Isn't that altering the sound to meet my taste. Yet it really enhances the music.

 

[Kingrex]

This thread got me thinking about speakers and room interactions. If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

Isn't a big part of resolution keeping reflected waves from cancelling certain frequencies were sound is lost. As well as keeping waves from coupling, where they oversaturate and bury other.

As well as timing errors that blur.

So what can you do?

Over damp and get rid of all reflections? I see all these engineeed rooms that appear as such. Isn't a big piece of resolution ridding outside influences to keep the primary signal pure?

 

[Carlos269]

I use AddPower products. I gather it is an injected sine wave of sorts. Isn't that altering the sound to meet my taste. Yet it really enhances the music.

The end result is what matters and if the AddPower products increase your musical enjoyment then more power to you.

You know I have to laugh, when I see the holier-than-thou purist audiophiles who use tube-rolling, footers, specialized equipment racks, grounding boxes, different phono cartridges and phonostages for particular sound, power and interconnect cable selection to fine tune their system as they don’t realize that it is nothing but altering the frequency response and phase timings of the signals reaching the listener‘s ears. This is altering the original signal which = distortion of the original sound signal and corresponding sound wave.

This thread got me thinking about speakers and room interactions. If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

Isn't a big part of resolution keeping reflected waves from cancelling certain frequencies were sound is lost. As well as keeping waves from coupling, where they oversaturate and bury other.

As well as timing errors that blur.

So what can you do?

Over damp and get rid of all reflections? I see all these engineeed rooms that appear as such. Isn't a big piece of resolution ridding outside influences to keep the primary signal pure?

Notice that I did not include bespoke listening rooms as these are the worst offenders and their owners are clueless about their actual contributions with any particular set system or pieces of equipment.

For those with no technical insight this audiophile hobby is one big swindle.

The best thing one can hope for and do is enjoy the music since this pursuit of the magical oasis has cost us all so much time and money.

Time to get out from under the dark cloud and go back to listening and enjoying some music.

 

[Blackmorec]

You need to educate yourself. I’m was not talking about random noise. There are plenty of Audio Engeneering Society (AES) technical papers on this topic that you can read. In addition to the pleasing affects of tube and transformer harmonic distortions that Ralph mentioned in his post above, there is also an audio effect by adding a “measured” amount of high-frequency distortion has been proven to increase clarity, intelligibility and enhance timbre in sound.

This “measured“ amount of small non-linearities (distortion) yield marked psychoacoustic effects that clearly improve sound. This is not some esoteric theory or textbook analysis, this concept is employed and enjoyed every day by all of us in telecommunications and entertainment technologies. One example is through Apple Logic Pro. And this technology is used like “salt” in the studio environment on many of the recordings that we listen to and enjoy as it is found in audio editing softwares such as Pro Tools.

Let me know if you need to learn more.

Hi Carlos, I am actually familiar with a few of those AES tech papers….initially going back many years to the discussions and comparisons of SS vs. tube electronics when engineers were trying to understand why users often preferred the sound of tube amplifiers with high measured distortion vs the sound of better measuring but apparently less pleasing SS gear.
As you say, some distortion and added harmonic content may be entirely desirable and would be equivalent to salting and spicing food, however that’s not what the discussion was about….a very specific, defined and correlated distortion.

To better define what I was talking about, let me rather quote Fluke and Wiki
Fluke
”Electrical noise is the result of more or less random electrical signals getting coupled into circuits where they are unwanted i.e where they disrupt information carrying signals. Noise occurs on both power and signal circuits but generally speaking it becomes a problem when it gets on signal circuits”
and Wiki
”In communication systems, noise is an error or undesired random disturbance of a useful information signal. The noise is a summation of unwanted or disturbing energy from natural and sometimes man made sources. Noise is also typically distinguished from distortion which is an unwanted systematic alteration of the signal waveform by the communication equipment“

I’m guessing the latter distortion is what you are referring to as being analogous to salt in a meal?

 

[Cellcbern]

This thread got me thinking about speakers and room interactions. If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

Isn't a big part of resolution keeping reflected waves from cancelling certain frequencies were sound is lost. As well as keeping waves from coupling, where they oversaturate and bury other.

As well as timing errors that blur.

So what can you do?

Over damp and get rid of all reflections? I see all these engineeed rooms that appear as such. Isn't a big piece of resolution ridding outside influences to keep the primary signal pure?

This thread got me thinking about speakers and room interactions. If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

Isn't a big part of resolution keeping reflected waves from cancelling certain frequencies were sound is lost. As well as keeping waves from coupling, where they oversaturate and bury other.

As well as timing errors that blur.

So what can you do?

Over damp and get rid of all reflections? I see all these engineeed rooms that appear as such. Isn't a big piece of resolution ridding outside influences to keep the primary signal pure?

Take the room out of the equation:

Trying the ZR Acoustics Panels

With the pandemic keeping me in the house much more than I'd like, I decided to remove, replace, retry, and validate all of the various tweaks (including acoustical treatments) I've added to my system/listening room over the years. My conclusion as a result of doing this over many months was...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Delta H Design

Check out SFSCS.org

deltahdesign.com

The Fifth Element #90

As a film title, Quantizing Hanson Hsu might not rank up there with Kissing Jessica Stein, but we work with what we have to work with. Hanson Hsu is the principal designer at Delta H Design, Inc., an acoustics and architecture firm based in Marina del Rey, California. Though he dabbles in some...

www.stereophile.com

https://sonicscoop.com/2012/12/12/delta-h-designs-zr-acoustics-removing-the-room-from-the-room/

 

[Atmasphere]

If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

The rear firing information of any speaker that makes it is very useful. But to take advantage of it, the speaker needs to be at least 5 feet from the wall behind it, so the reflected information from the rear of the speaker arrives at the ear at or longer than about 10milliseconds later. If this is the case, the ear can use that information as echo-location; in a nutshell improving the palpable nature of the soundstage.

A rear-firing port is a slightly different matter but also very useful. Bass frequencies are very long- 80Hz is about 14 feet. So in most rooms the bass is entirely reverberant below a certain frequency- certainly at 80Hz (the implication here is that the bass can be mono below about 80Hz with no ill effects)! The wall behind the listening position plays an important role- bass bounces off of it and can cancel incoming bass from the speakers. This is called a Standing Wave. When this happens you might experience bass everywhere in the room but the listening position (or there might be a boominess at a certain frequency if the bass waves reinforce each other). A rear firing or downfiring port allows the bass to exit the speaker in other directions than just the woofer itself- allowing several bass waveforms to reach the listening position at different times. This makes the standing wave less profound- the speaker is less 'room sensitive'.

Of course to really fix a standing wave you need a distributed bass array where subs are asymmetrically placed in the room to better break up the standing wave.

 

[Blackmorec]

You know I have to laugh, when I see the holier-than-thou purist audiophiles who use tube-rolling, footers, specialized equipment racks, grounding boxes, different phono cartridges and phonostages for particular sound, power and interconnect cable selection to fine tune their system as they don’t realize that it is nothing but altering the frequency response and phase timings of the signals reaching the listener‘s ears. This is altering the original signal which = distortion of the original sound signal and corresponding sound wave.

Hi Carlos,
I’m wrestling a little with the logic of the above. The original signal you are talking about is nothing more than a signal created by the initial choice of tubes, footers, racks, ground boxes, cartridges and phonostages…..there is no ‘original signal’ in the sense of ‘correct signal’, only the signal that these initial system choices generates. So if the user decides to change any or all of those components, they are simply changing the output from their original equipment choices to their new choices. If they find their new choices preferable, why not? They are for sure changing the frequency response and phase timings, but there’s nothing to say that the initial signal reaching the listener’s ears was accurate, correct or any other subjective measure you apply. In hi-fi, there is no ‘Original signal‘ in the sense of ‘correct signal’. All signals are just the outcome from a set of choices of tubes, cartridges, cables, racks etc.

 

[ddk]

Riveting thread, let's start another one;!

What Do We Mean By "Distortion"? ​

david

 

[bonzo75]

Riveting thread, let's start another one;!

What Do We Mean By "Distortion"? ​

david

why don't we just rename the thread title of one of the resolution ones- the posts will be the same

 

[DasguteOhr]

Riveting thread, let's start another one;!

What Do We Mean By "Distortion"? ​

david

becomes a short thread, everything that does not belong to the music. end

 

[Carlos269]

This thread got me thinking about speakers and room interactions. If your speaker is a dipole of any sort, or a rear ported speaker, it seems there is no way to eliminate out time reflected waves from influencing the primary sound wave. And then there are all the other waves from the side, top and bottom.

Isn't a big part of resolution keeping reflected waves from cancelling certain frequencies were sound is lost. As well as keeping waves from coupling, where they oversaturate and bury other.

As well as timing errors that blur.

So what can you do?

Over damp and get rid of all reflections? I see all these engineeed rooms that appear as such. Isn't a big piece of resolution ridding outside influences to keep the primary signal pure?

Hi Carlos,
I’m wrestling a little with the logic of the above. The original signal you are talking about is nothing more than a signal created by the initial choice of tubes, footers, racks, ground boxes, cartridges and phonostages…..there is no ‘original signal’ in the sense of ‘correct signal’, only the signal that these initial system choices generates. So if the user decides to change any or all of those components, they are simply changing the output from their original equipment choices to their new choices. If they find their new choices preferable, why not? They are for sure changing the frequency response and phase timings, but there’s nothing to say that the initial signal reaching the listener’s ears was accurate, correct or any other subjective measure you apply. In hi-fi, there is no ‘Original signal‘ in the sense of ‘correct signal’. All signals are just the outcome from a set of choices of tubes, cartridges, cables, racks etc.

I agree and I have been saying this for several decades now, the Absolute Sound is a fleeting oasis. Go back and read my postings from 20 years back or longer. The theme has not changed. This hobby of ours is Scientology at its finest. But once you figure that out you can still extract fun and joy from the hobby as I’m doing.

 

[Carlos269]

I agree and I have been saying this for several decades now, the Absolute Sound is a fleeting oasis. Go back and read my postings from 20 years back or longer. The theme has not changed. This hobby of ours is Scientology at its finest. But once you figure that out you can still extract fun and joy from the hobby as I’m doing.

This post got me thinking that in all this time some prominent audiophiles have still not seen the light and continue chasing the big yellow bus, to no avail. So there is no enlightenment for everyone …….just like in Scientology.

 

[Blackmorec]

The rear firing information of any speaker that makes it is very useful. But to take advantage of it, the speaker needs to be at least 5 feet from the wall behind it, so the reflected information from the rear of the speaker arrives at the ear at or longer than about 10milliseconds later. If this is the case, the ear can use that information as echo-location; in a nutshell improving the palpable nature of the soundstage.

A rear-firing port is a slightly different matter but also very useful. Bass frequencies are very long- 80Hz is about 14 feet. So in most rooms the bass is entirely reverberant below a certain frequency- certainly at 80Hz (the implication here is that the bass can be mono below about 80Hz with no ill effects)! The wall behind the listening position plays an important role- bass bounces off of it and can cancel incoming bass from the speakers. This is called a Standing Wave. When this happens you might experience bass everywhere in the room but the listening position (or there might be a boominess at a certain frequency if the bass waves reinforce each other). A rear firing or downfiring port allows the bass to exit the speaker in other directions than just the woofer itself- allowing several bass waveforms to reach the listening position at different times. This makes the standing wave less profound- the speaker is less 'room sensitive'.

Of course to really fix a standing wave you need a distributed bass array where subs are asymmetrically placed in the room to better break up the standing wave.

Hi there Atmasphere,
Quick discussion on this point. As far as I am aware, any soundstage information should be part of the original recording. For an echo to sound realistic it needs to have a combination of characteristics. It should have a time delay, which corresponds to the distance to and from the reflection point, it should have an amplitude that corresponds to the amplitude of the original sound, less losses for the distance travelled and it should have a frequency spectrum related to the original sound, with losses caused by the distance travelled and the resulting loss of amplitude. But we also need to remember that in music an echo isn’t a one time event….music is continuous so too therefore is the echo, so ultimately the echo becomes a low amplitude, delayed part of the signal….in other words a signal colouration.
And its that colouration that imparts the characteristic of the venue on the music. For example, music played in a large, reverberant church will sound echoey, while jazz played in an intimate venue will have a very impactful and dynamic character with little or no echo but a lot of energy, intimacy and presence. That’s the recording…..the soundwaves that leave the loudspeakers and impinge on your ears. Now add the reflected back wave from the loudspeakers, which will have a delay and decay related to the listening room size that is in no way related to the actual performance venue. Worse, the back wave will be exactly the same for every single recording, so in essence its simply a non-correlated reflection that interferes with and blurs the recording’s natural ambience.….Essentially one gets 2 soundstages….that which is embedded in the recording and different for every album or even every track plus the overlay of fixed room echo, which is applied uniformly to every recording.

 

[Kingrex]

why don't we just rename the thread title of one of the resolution ones- the posts will be the same

I have not read all the threads archived on this forum. I'm sure there are topics on how to achieve resolution. And I bet there is a topic on the "definition" of resolution. Or maybe it was buried in a how to achieve resolution conversation. Why waste time hashing over any topic. They are all covered if you look hard enough.

Rex

 

[Solypsa]

Room cues of the performance will be recorded. I believe @Atmasphere was referring to playback room cues. Our brains seem to like them...

Hi there Atmasphere,
Quick discussion on this point. As far as I am aware, any soundstage information should be part of the original recording. For an echo to sound realistic it needs to have a combination of characteristics. It should have a time delay, which corresponds to the distance to and from the reflection point, it should have an amplitude that corresponds to the amplitude of the original sound, less losses for the distance travelled and it should have a frequency spectrum related to the original sound, with losses caused by the distance travelled and the resulting loss of amplitude. But we also need to remember that in music an echo isn’t a one time event….music is continuous so therefore is the echo, so ultimately the echo becomes a low amplitude, delayed part of the signal….in other words a signal colouration.
And its that colouration that imparts the characteristic of the venue on the music. For example, music played in a large, reverberant church will sound echoey, while jazz played in an intimate venue will have a very impactful and dynamic character with little or no echo but a lot of energy. That’s the recording…..the soundwaves that leave the loudspeakers and impinge on your ears. Now add the reflected back wave from the loudspeakers, which will have a delay and decay related to the listening room size that is in no way related to the actual performance venue. Worse, the back wave will be exactly the same for every single recording, so in essence its simply a non-correlated reflection that interferes with and blurs the recording’s natural ambience.….Essentially one gets 2 soundstages….that which is embedded in the recording and different for every album or even every track plus the overlay of fixed room echo, which is applied uniformly to every recording.

 

[Big Dog RJ]

One should not add wasabi to sushi, milk to coffee, and ketchup to omelette - unless the taste of the core dish sucks and you wa

One should not add wasabi to sushi, milk to coffee, and ketchup to omelette - unless the taste of the core dish sucks and you want to color it

Ah ha! That's the very reason why I simply don't use subwoofers. The core dish is mighty fine!

Obviously, other's opinions will vary...
Definitely not required in my particular setup, afterall it RUINS the resolution.

Although, I do add milk to coffee, simply cannot drink coffee without it. Plain black coffee is darn awful, which goes to show the very essence of this topic/ question; Resolution has been defined in many variants, hence not one's own system is ever the same as any other system. Nor is anyone's room the same either. Thus, some do actually prefer milk in coffee, wasabi in sushi and of course sauce in their omelette... c'mon Maaate!

However, as mentioned in previous posts, one would certainly like to have a fully resolving system, otherwise why bother with all the fuss and high expectations, including expenditure...

I reckon, at the highest level of whatever Resolution and Resolving detail your system is giving, as long as you're enjoying the music, that's all that matters.

I just received the Mullard M8080 tubes, ordered from Watford Valves UK. It took 3 weeks and I'm heading off for some exciting vibes.
Cheers, and enjoy those fine tunes!
Best, RJ

 

[Atmasphere]

.Essentially one gets 2 soundstages….that which is embedded in the recording and different for every album or even every track plus the overlay of fixed room echo, which is applied uniformly to every recording.

As you know the room is an inescapable fact for anyone playing a system in a house. So the real issue is getting the soundstage of the recording to be reproduced in the room. Because of how our ear/brain system processes sound, that 10mS delay works quite well- you don't get two soundstages, just one. That sound stage can be very convincing, because your ear/brain system is using that delay to help figure out where the sound is coming from. Essentially when you hear a sound, the brain makes a copy of it and looks for other similar sounds in the near term. If it finds another (such as the reflected information) it uses it for echo location and blends it all as one, but with a good idea of where its coming from as well.

 

[Blackmorec]

As you know the room is an inescapable fact for anyone playing a system in a house. So the real issue is getting the soundstage of the recording to be reproduced in the room. Because of how our ear/brain system processes sound, that 10mS delay works quite well- you don't get two soundstages, just one. That sound stage can be very convincing, because your ear/brain system is using that delay to help figure out where the sound is coming from. Essentially when you hear a sound, the brain makes a copy of it and looks for other similar sounds in the near term. If it finds another (such as the reflected information) it uses it for echo location and blends it all as one, but with a good idea of where its coming from as well.

Hi Atmasphere,
you must be talking about the psychoacoustics Hass effect or ‘Law of first wavefront‘ where 2 sounds with similar spectral content arriving from the same direction within a short timeframe are summed and heard as a single wavefront rather than as an echo. So logically only one soundstage but a greater sense of spaciousness. So the key thing must be to keep the delay between direct sound and reflection within the Hass effect ‘window’ otherwise you will hear an echo, hence your mention of the crucial distance between back of speaker and wall. Have i now got that right?

 

[KostasP.]

I think not. Is this the one Kostas Metaxas?

Hello Carlos,

No, no, no..... I am not, although I have met him in the past. I am more "sinful" than he is!

Deflection rather than Reflection is often the norm here.