Truth and Tonality: can they co-exist?

[JackD201]

Tim,

You KNOW it's not all about resources. You also know how bean counters and design by committee can kill any project. Both small and big companies can come up with both excellent products and total dogs. I'm a bit younger than you so you might have missed the boom box era. The big corporations were the worst marketing offenders selling "mini-components" with a gazillion watts PMPO to unsuspecting teenagers like myself, kids for crying out loud, when, in hindsight, I could have spent my saved up allowance for a second hand set of 60s to 70s vintage f**ing brown and ugly (to the Star Wars generation anyway) Hi-Fi but 100 times better sounding.

Oh boy, I think I just realized what pushed me into Hi-end audio!

Jack

 

[garylkoh]

When I was in college in London, thieves broke into my room and stole my boom box with flashing lights and all. They left the Creek integrated, Rega 2 and Mission speakers. Probably was too ugly for them to want to take

 

[JackD201]

We were all dummies once upon a time. Hahahahahaha!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

You KNOW it's not all about resources.

I do. And I suspect you know that resources can't be discounted.

You also know how bean counters and design by committee can kill any project.

Yes, I know that too. But what we're talking about here are flagship products designed to make a point, not mass market boom boxes. The 980, S2000 and 840 are, as you characterized them yourself, from "the best large hifi corporations in the world," and you were right, they should be judged against "the best of audiophile." We agree; these three integrated amplifiers merit comparison to similarly-powered products from the likes of Krell and Mark Levinson; they merit comparison to the very best of the high end. Which is exactly why, to go back to the original point, I think the "upper ranges of midfi" is the best place to find impeccably built, neutrally voiced electronics. Would Krell or Mark Levinson be even better? Maybe. But at $2500, each of these "midfi" integrated amps will leave you thousands of dollars to spend on better speakers. And that's where I'd put my money on sonic impact.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

If you're trying to say that some boutique manufacturer of high-end amplifiers has deeper pockets, greater R&D ability and better engineers than Harman International or Yamaha, well, that's even sillier. Can a couple of guys with vision and drive turn out a product that is superior to the research, engineering and design teams of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world, bent on making a point with a flagship product?

Sure, it could happen. The thing that is incredible is that audiophiles seem to think it happens almost every time.

Tim

I do not have anything against upper ranges of midfi but I respectfully disagree with your conclusions about the value for money and use of development resources in this segment integrated amplifiers.

I do not have the time to check all of them, but I googled one of your quoted pieces, the Yamaha AS2000. All the technical solutions that are presented have shown long ago in audiophile products developed by audiophile companies. Well, not all - audiophile products do not use tone controls , but the shown summing tone control system has been also used for years.

We should also consider that market strategies also changed - audiophile companies saw that this segment of price (around usd 2500) is interesting for them and developed integrated amplifiers for it - I was told that the Krell S300i is a very successful amplifier.

One think is curious - audiophile companies sites are always eager to show pictures of the internals of their equipment showing you where your money goes - many midfi ones mainly show external pictures, front and back panels .

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

All the technical solutions that are presented have shown long ago in audiophile products developed by audiophile companies.

Sure. All the technical solutions have been used, long ago, in pro audio products as well. I'm not saying there's anything new here, or that this stuff is superior to all high end. What I'm saying is that, if you're looking for truth, not tonality, we have every reason to believe it is equal to the high end, and a pretty terrific value. But the evidence of that is not in the basics of the designs, but in the measurements and the listening.

With that said, I don't own any of them and believe that the best performance for the pound is to be found in individual amps and drivers, purpose-designed or chosen for each other, built into well-engineered active systems. These top midfi amps, and most high-end and pro amps, are inefficient and overbuilt because the designers have no real idea of what kind of load the end user is going to throw at them. It works pretty well, but it's not exactly the best way to do things.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

(...) What I'm saying is that, if you're looking for truth, not tonality, we have every reason to believe it is equal to the high end, and a pretty terrific value. But the evidence of that is not in the basics of the designs, but in the measurements and the listening.
With that said, I don't own any of them and believe that the best performance for the pound is to be found in individual amps and drivers, purpose-designed or chosen for each other, built into well-engineered active systems. These top midfi amps, and most high-end and pro amps, are inefficient and overbuilt because the designers have no real idea of what kind of load the end user is going to throw at them. It works pretty well, but it's not exactly the best way to do things.

Tim

As it is becoming usual we end up disagreeing because of the reductive characteristic I now associate to the "truth" (may I say "your truth", as I do not like the idea of calling the truth to something that is not absolute) .

Happily your version of the truth is much less dogmatic than others in this forum, and as it does not have the comfort of the dogma protection, can be debated.

The opinions about active / passive speakers will surely diverge if the objectives of the systems is different, and are enthusiastically being carried in another thread.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

As it is becoming usual we end up disagreeing because of the reductive characteristic I now associate to the "truth" (may I say "your truth", as I do not like the idea of calling the truth to something that is not absolute) .

Really? You think defining truth in hifi as the highest possible fidelity to the input signal is reductive? We will have to disagree, as I think anything less is either additive, or just sloppy.

The opinions about active / passive speakers will surely diverge if the objectives of the systems is different, and are enthusiastically being carried in another thread.

Yeah, we'll have to disagree on that one as well. While there are good and bad active systems, to be sure, the basic results of well designed and implemented active systems are lower distortion and better driver control. I would think those objectives consistent with any reasonable definition of high fidelity.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

Really? You think defining truth in hifi as the highest possible fidelity to the input signal is reductive?

You only refer to highest possible fidelity measured with the same instruments and the same criteria that were used for 50 years, considering that nothing else can exist. This position is not acceptable for me. Your perceptual findings are framed by the conditions you have referred for the kind of listening you enjoy and consequently support. It is why I call it "your truth" - it is true for a limited group of people, that share your finding and I respect.

Yeah, we'll have to disagree on that one as well. While there are good and bad active systems, to be sure, the basic results of well designed and implemented active systems are lower distortion and better driver control.
Tim

What are you calling "better drive control"?
BTW, it is curious that people always admit that implementing active filters with operational amplifiers is intrinsically better than a passive version filter, forgetting that loudspeakers units are non ideal and that passive components placed in series and parallel with speakers in passive filters can have complementary functions. Sometimes we are attracted by the simplest solution, easier to explain, that we can easily understand and enhances our feeling of being an elucidated mind.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'd love to elucidate my mind. What measurements am I missing?

Tim

 

[JackD201]

Two things some passive xo's do. To my knowledge only one of these can be done actively.

1. Driver Correction

2. Impedance Correction/Matching

 

[microstrip]

I'd love to elucidate my mind. What measurements am I missing?

Tim

Analysys of distortion level versus level and frequency
Even better - spectral analysis of distortion versus level and frequency.

These are multivariable parameters - it should be very interesting to study them, correlate them with sound quality and try to extract a meaninful set of values to summarize these results. Some audiophiile researchers developed some work on it in the past, but soon found that it too hard, forget about it or became manufacturers, keeping their secrets.

Consider recent tube gear. They measure excellently, sometimes better than the upper midfi we discussed, and each brand still has a different sound, but share a family resemblance. No current study can correlate it with measurements, but the manufacturers should know how thye get it - I do not believe it due to hazard.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I do not believe it due to hazard.

Neither do I. If they're getting something that is not showing up in measurements, but is showing up consistently in their products, they know something we don't know.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

Microstrip brings up a great point. Manufacturers like keeping quite a lot of things close to their vests. Some claim to have developed proprietary "models". Quite a lot of gear, I'd say even most, especially electronics are designed and toyed with in simulators before a single solder is made on a bread board. So maybe they really do know a lot of things we don't and they don't want us or competitors to know either. At least it hasn't reached a point where they're incorporating self destruct mechanisms. Hahahahaha!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Microstrip brings up a great point. Manufacturers like keeping quite a lot of things close to their vests. Some claim to have developed proprietary "models". Quite a lot of gear, I'd say even most, especially electronics are designed and toyed with in simulators before a single solder is made on a bread board. So maybe they really do know a lot of things we don't and they don't want us or competitors to know either. At least it hasn't reached a point where they're incorporating self destruct mechanisms. Hahahahaha!

It is possible, but I wouldn't get too carried away with it. Yes if a line of electronics has a signature sound and if, even after comprehensive measurement, the source of that sound cannot be found, that might lead one to conclude that they've got something truly new up their sleeve, that they know something we don't know. But comprehensive measurements are really hard to come by, and true innovation, in an industry this mature, is exceedingly rare. The odds lean heavily in favor of deliberate alteration of tone left unmeasured in the manufacturers specs.

Tim

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Just a simple point ... SOme research suggests that we are not even measuring the right paramters.. Whatever we hear or perceive can be measured ... That doesn't mean we know, yet, how to measure everything ... While I no longer subscribe to many audiophile orthodoxies, I do believe that we are not measuring the right things .. Some people on the scientific community are reearching better ways to measure electronics, amongst thme Dr Earl Geddes.

I also belive trying to describe our perceptions with words is dificult and that leaves us often with a strange and imprecise vocabulary ("air". "space", "Continuousness", "Black Background", "Organic", "Image Density" , etc are some of the myriads words or terms used and abused by audiophiles to describe some of their sometimes real perceptions ... I, for one although an owner and admirer of the Benchmarks HDR find its top end somewhat lacking "air" with respect to some other DACs ... It could be that upon listening someone else describes it differently ..what is certain and easily verifiable, knowledge removed if one wishes, is that compared t the best DACs the treble reproduction of the Benchmark is markedly different .. so is its bass but that's another side of the same argument ...

The better components get the truth right and by extension the "tonaity" if it was in the recording. Any component which invent or presents that "tonality" in every recordings included those we know should not have it , is flawed ... that we like that component doesn't change anything ..

 

[microstrip]

(...) But comprehensive measurements are really hard to come by, and true innovation, in an industry this mature, is exceedingly rare. The odds lean heavily in favor of deliberate alteration of tone left unmeasured in the manufacturers specs.

Tim

Comprehensive measurements are not hard to do at all for manufacturers or testers - we are discussiing the fantastic capabilities of current generation of audio measuring instruments in another thread - and the idea that unless there is true inovation we do not get significantely better products is false.

I can not understand how you can conclude "lean in favor of deliberate alteration of tone left unmeasured in the manufacturers specs". Consider that for example (this can be a technical nonsense, use it only to illustrate my point) , that a a manufacturer finds that suppressing some type of distortion is more important than another type, and he suppresses mostly this first type. Is he altering the tone?

 

[fas42]

I, for one although an owner and admirer of the Benchmarks HDR find its top end somewhat lacking "air" with respect to some other DACs ... It could be that upon listening someone else describes it differently ..what is certain and easily verifiable, knowledge removed if one wishes, is that compared t the best DACs the treble reproduction of the Benchmark is markedly different

This is interesting, Frantz, a little while back we were discussing how the Benchmark should be neutral as anything you can buy, but in your case it doesn't "feel" right. To try and get a handle on it, as it performs on your system, with specific musical examples: if you replay crash cymbals, or massed violins at high levels, what do they sound like? Like the real thing, or badly broken?

Frank

 

[fas42]

why is it that each new reference from these manufacturers does not always get better THD on that simple test each time?

Because these days the manufacturers are aiming for tonality, not truth ...

Frank

 

[garylkoh]

Because these days the manufacturers are aiming for tonality, not truth ...

Frank

I'm one manufacturer who believes that the more truth I can achieve, the more tonality can come through. You can measure truth, but you can hear tonality (there are probably ways to measure some of the fuzzy-wuzzy audiophile attributes described by vague and imprecise vocabulary but I don't have the means to). So, no matter which side of the fence you are sitting on, you have to measure some, listen some, measure some, listen some more and measure some more. When it is a new product, I always start with measurement and get it to some point where the measurements point to it being beneficial to listen to it. When it is refining an existing product, I still measure, but spend more time at the first step listening.