Nah I nailed it before Mike
Though I guess I didn't talk about rise times.Is that from a ceramic driver?
What is "fast" ?
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Nah I nailed it before Mike
Though I guess I didn't talk about rise times.Is that from a ceramic driver?
Forgive me, I was kind of speed reading the thread lol.Nah I nailed it before Mike
Is that from a ceramic driver?
No......that is our $25K Endeavor Special Edition. Aluminium woofers. But all of our speakers have responses like this. The rise time has many facets to it. Internal damping, crossover topology, and the quality of the components to just name a few. The step response on all our different models damn near looks identical.
One thing I notice is that the best audio systems are often described as 'overwhelming'. Rise time is an objective and technical way to use the word fast. Subjectively it seems to me that the more musical detail that is presented, and the more emotionally engaging and musically real that detail is, creates a density of experience...as if 'more' is happening in the same frame of time vs a lesser system. Maybe if 'more' is perceived we feel this as speed? If 'more' is presented without being emotionally engaging and musically real we tend to say it is 'tiring' or 'clinical' .
Takes me back to the 90's and AS describing Spectral electronics as fast, it didn't make sense to me then and certainly doesn't today either. The only time I've used the terms fast or slow in audio context was in regards to speaker drivers.
david
david
Quite a red herring as that was the not the point at all. It is a subjective term and people were trying to explain how it was used, not that the platter moves in 32.32 as opposed to 33.33, or that a song finishes faster.
listen to a music track that lasts 5 minutes. It can sound slow and dragging or it can sound vital and energetic, but it still only lasts 5 minutes...so the difference has nothing to do with speed pe se.
I believe it was Martin Colloms who coined the phrase, Pace, Rhythm and Timing, PRaT for short. Essentially this refers to how the music sounds. Does the drummer sound like he’s groovin’ or like he’s about to fall asleep? Does the bass sound vibrant and energetic and bop along to add real rhythmic drive, or does it sound like he’s being paid by the hour and just following the score. Pianos and guitar....do they bring over all the clever, tension building pauses and subtle phrasing, weaving magical interplay’s with the rhythm section or are they just following the sheet music? Is the music engaging your senses, making you tap your feet or bouncing you out of your chair or is it just leaving you unmoved? Even slow music can have subtle but powerful rhythmic drive and energy.
In my vocabulary, the opposite of ‘fast’ in this context isn’t ‘slow’......rather its ‘boring’.
Of course, ‘Fast’ could also mean that you accidentally pressed the 45rpm button.
I believe it was Martin Colloms who coined the phrase, Pace, Rhythm and Timing, PRaT for short. Essentially this refers to how the music sounds. Does the drummer sound like he’s groovin’ or like he’s about to fall asleep? Does the bass sound vibrant and energetic and bop along to add real rhythmic drive, or does it sound like he’s being paid by the hour and just following the score. Pianos and guitar....do they bring over all the clever, tension building pauses and subtle phrasing, weaving magical interplay’s with the rhythm section or are they just following the sheet music? Is the music engaging your senses, making you tap your feet or bouncing you out of your chair or is it just leaving you unmoved? Even slow music can have subtle but powerful rhythmic drive and energy.
In my vocabulary, the opposite of ‘fast’ in this context isn’t ‘slow’......rather its ‘boring’.
Of course, ‘Fast’ could also mean that you accidentally pressed the 45rpm button.
listen to a music track that lasts 5 minutes. It can sound slow and dragging or it can sound vital and energetic, but it still only lasts 5 minutes...so the difference has nothing to do with speed pe se.
I believe it was Martin Colloms who coined the phrase, Pace, Rhythm and Timing, PRaT for short. Essentially this refers to how the music sounds. Does the drummer sound like he’s groovin’ or like he’s about to fall asleep? Does the bass sound vibrant and energetic and bop along to add real rhythmic drive, or does it sound like he’s being paid by the hour and just following the score. Pianos and guitar....do they bring over all the clever, tension building pauses and subtle phrasing, weaving magical interplay’s with the rhythm section or are they just following the sheet music? Is the music engaging your senses, making you tap your feet or bouncing you out of your chair or is it just leaving you unmoved? Even slow music can have subtle but powerful rhythmic drive and energy.
In my vocabulary, the opposite of ‘fast’ in this context isn’t ‘slow’......rather its ‘boring’.
Of course, ‘Fast’ could also mean that you accidentally pressed the 45rpm button.
Yes precisely.
Exactly, so why would anyone use the term fast if you’re not talking about speed? We must rid this from the audiophile vocabulary. I suggest banning people who continue to use it.
fast = complete......including the time component. and this is a relative concept. how close to perfectly executed can we get?
starting and stopping properly, but dropping or adding information while doing it is not properly fast.
starting and stopping properly, but dropping or adding information while doing it is not properly fast.
It is not subjective if it can be measured. People do speak of "fast" rise times. Perhaps they can explain what they mean by this. Tima is asking if it can be measured or if it is perceptual, or both.
Driver movement makes more sense to me, but people do describe Spectral as being fast, and Pass as being slow. I don't know if that is their perception, or some measurements, or both that are indicating that.
For once i don’t agree with you David, when i went from older Krell FPB amps to MBL amps i was struck mainly by the increase in speed and bass agility. The top amp from back then all seem a little sluggish compared to current top amps. I have recently had increased focus on speed in general and TT speed in particular, thanks for all the help to you, Francisco and Bill Carlin in that quest. I have been surprised by how little a slight speed variation impact the music, compared to abundance of power and torque does. I vastly prefer a somewhat erratic high power motor to a very speed stabil smaller motor.
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Yes that can be measured, as well some technical details related to driver specs. Leading edge attack of cartridge and any reason for change of voicing between koetsu and vdh can be technically explained by someone. But from a listening perspective none of them will change in speed of song which is imo quite a silly point to bring In.
Pass is slow, and spectral is fast. By that alone I am not saying one is better than the other. Those who don’t like spectral will argue the speed comes at a cost of truncation of note, decay, or whatever, but those are separate points to be discussed for or against a component. I like Tannoy, but they are slow. And there could be faster speakers I don't like. But when you listen to spectral, you do get the feeling of speed. The fastest I know is the AER when run with extremely low watt amps like Mayer 46, with Vyger red sparrow, and yamamura. There are so many inner inflections and nuances so music is moving fast. We are getting the impact at more frequent intervals is the best way to put it..It slows down with higher watt amps, with pivot, or with other carts.
In Tang's system, the vdh sounds faster than the other carts. Of course the LP doesn't run faster for one cart. It is a descriptive phrase, and while listening, easy to relate to instead of trying to be difficult. Some Woofers or panels do start and stop fast, but as I mentioned in an earlier email, apart from the speaker, the amp shouldn't be under driving it or over gripping it, then you lose the speed
Many here have described it pretty well. Unfettered rapid dynamic rise and fall times without sidebands, overshoots, undershoots or lags, especially in the upper midrange and high frequencies, seem to create a subjective sense of speed.
I am not so sure that damping is the same thing, because one might presume that damping could also remove information, creating 'false' speed.
I am not so sure that damping is the same thing, because one might presume that damping could also remove information, creating 'false' speed.
I've done some simple measurements on rise times of cheap department store speakers. As long as they weren't pushed past their limits they reproduced the leading edge of transient signals I made for them with near perfection. It was the trailing edge where things took time to settle down. I think "fast" can perhaps refer to how quickly the speaker can stop. I've been trying to understand what it is that I like so much about horns. I was told originally that they can reproduce steep wavefronts. But my cheap speaker measurement showed the little direct radiators produce perfectly steep wavefronts at moderate volume. Horns don't necessarily settle down that quickly because they have mouth / throat and compression chamber reflections. But I perceive them as "fast" sounding. I'm starting to suspect that the delay time between the sound first reaching my ears and then the first room reflections has something to do with it. Looking at a 1 second steady 500 hz tone, I see that at the listening position it's volume is all over the place. It starts off quickly reaching full volume, and then starts tapering off as some cancellation reflections come in, and then gets louder again as more reinforcing reflections arrive later. That's adding dynamic detail to the signal reaching my ears that isn't really in the recording. I did not see such a dramatic effect with wide dispersion direct radiators.
Listening to acoustic instruments live they never sound "fast" to me. I would describe them as bold, vivid, and rich, detailed and free from electro mechanical transducer effects. I'm tempted to compare the audio speed effect to the sharpening effect in a picture. I like properly applied sharpening. It compensates for the lack of resolution and 3d depth to some effect and just generally looks good to me, like an artistic effect. The real world never looks sharpened. Just smooth and detailed.
Listening to acoustic instruments live they never sound "fast" to me. I would describe them as bold, vivid, and rich, detailed and free from electro mechanical transducer effects. I'm tempted to compare the audio speed effect to the sharpening effect in a picture. I like properly applied sharpening. It compensates for the lack of resolution and 3d depth to some effect and just generally looks good to me, like an artistic effect. The real world never looks sharpened. Just smooth and detailed.
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For once i don’t agree with you David, when i went from older Krell FPB amps to MBL amps i was struck mainly by the increase in speed and bass agility. The top amp from back then all seem a little sluggish compared to current top amps. I have recently had increased focus on speed in general and TT speed in particular, thanks for all the help to you, Francisco and Bill Carlin in that quest. I have been surprised by how little a slight speed variation impact the music, compared to abundance of power and torque does. I vastly prefer a somewhat erratic high power motor to a very speed stabil smaller motor.
This time it's the chicken before the egg, your speaker's drivers moving faster and with more control using more powerful electronics!
david
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