@wahab Your assumptions are incorrect. I have electrostatic speakers and I can hear the upstream electronics quite plainly, as can anyone who comes here to visit. I had one visitor here on two occasions before the dac was as good as it is now.
Here is some of his description of a visit:
When I was there, Mark's speakers were one of the Soundlab behemoths, probably the Majestic series, which is a large electrostat. There were subs for the very bottom end. This was powered by high power amps. Front end was one of the DACs Mark was probably experimenting with. Vinyl was the new SP-10 Mk3 with a laser cartridge (?) plus a custom preamp for the cartridge. My speakers are a two-way, 15 inch pro woofer plus large horn mated to a compression driver.
The first thing I noticed was that the electrostats could play loud with little to no distortion. Much more so than my horn speakers, which can go plenty loud. I had heard electrostats before and was always disappointed that I couldn't turn it up without hitting the limit. On these, the limit is high enough that you can enjoy realistic sound levels and stunningly low distortion.
This low distortion from the speakers resulted in a lot of transparency and ability to hear down into the preceding components. And it is those components whose sound we are interested in. What I heard was an extremely natural, live-sounding tempo. This was a revelation to me. Even on music I am very familiar with, the tempo was much slower and much more natural. It was unbelievable really. On one piece of music, I had to check with Mark that he was playing the exact same recording I had heard so many times. The difference was that stark. You would want your system to have this ability to get the tempo (or flow, or beat, or whatever you want to call it) exactly right.
And of course all the other stuff, such as natural timbres and textures of instruments and voices was there. But the tempo was the standout thing for me. We listened to the vinyl too and of course that sounded very good, probably goes without saying.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/dac-recommendation.376015/post-7560022
Here is some of his description of a visit:
When I was there, Mark's speakers were one of the Soundlab behemoths, probably the Majestic series, which is a large electrostat. There were subs for the very bottom end. This was powered by high power amps. Front end was one of the DACs Mark was probably experimenting with. Vinyl was the new SP-10 Mk3 with a laser cartridge (?) plus a custom preamp for the cartridge. My speakers are a two-way, 15 inch pro woofer plus large horn mated to a compression driver.
The first thing I noticed was that the electrostats could play loud with little to no distortion. Much more so than my horn speakers, which can go plenty loud. I had heard electrostats before and was always disappointed that I couldn't turn it up without hitting the limit. On these, the limit is high enough that you can enjoy realistic sound levels and stunningly low distortion.
This low distortion from the speakers resulted in a lot of transparency and ability to hear down into the preceding components. And it is those components whose sound we are interested in. What I heard was an extremely natural, live-sounding tempo. This was a revelation to me. Even on music I am very familiar with, the tempo was much slower and much more natural. It was unbelievable really. On one piece of music, I had to check with Mark that he was playing the exact same recording I had heard so many times. The difference was that stark. You would want your system to have this ability to get the tempo (or flow, or beat, or whatever you want to call it) exactly right.
And of course all the other stuff, such as natural timbres and textures of instruments and voices was there. But the tempo was the standout thing for me. We listened to the vinyl too and of course that sounded very good, probably goes without saying.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/dac-recommendation.376015/post-7560022
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Ed, at one time every dac designer in this forum was under NDA with ESS if they had a legal copy of a datasheet. Is it your position they were all consultants?
When something that is not measurable at all seems to sound better it means that you are actually in a psychological state
such that it make you perceive the thing as sounding better, same way as some doobie smokers will find some musical piece
sounding more harmoniously than ever once they are under effect and even if the piece is of average musical execution.
It goes the same with someone who is not under such effect, the weather, the temperature, the fact that one is particularly
rested and not feeling slightly hungry or being euphoric, these psychological conditions have orders of magnitude more importance in sound perception than the illusory belief of DACs infinitesimal linearities differences being audible.
There is no such thing. Nobody said something wasn't measurable. The question if anything is whether an AP FFT analyzer is the only way to measure things that matter for audio reproduction. The answer is a resounding, No! And AP won't deny what I just said either. I'm right and AP is right. FFT analyzers have their uses, but they don't tell you everything. There is more to audio than nonlinear distortion and noise floor. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in audio forums who don't know about any more than those two things. And often their understanding is very basic.
In that regard I'm sure EdGr could school you some, as could some other people reading this thread. No reason why it should always be me as the only one trying to point out things often ignored, glossed over, or plain misunderstood. Noise, or what goes for noise, is a huge one. THD as a metric should be an easy one yet it remains a big problem. These are subjects we talk about over and over in this forum, but proper scientific understanding doesn't seem to stick.
Just a quick throw-in:
It is true that we have a fairly extensive arsenal of measurement technology -> which can also be used on an interdisciplinary basis and the collected data analysed.
However, it is the evaluation and thus the evaluation criteria -> the weighting of the metrics and their influence on all other values that are decisive.
The choice of methods for scientific work also plays a decisive role for the content and quality of the work.
From an engineering point of view, the field of audio signal amplification is now quite simple. From a philosophical and medical point of view, it is possibly infinite.
The appeal that has already been made several times in this thread that we should do our homework is funny, if it weren't also laughable at the same time - the question of the chosen language (and the information) is clear: it must be appropriate for the target audience.
When I hear or read FFT, it triggers completely different areas in my brain than it does in the brain of an ambitious hobbyist.
But my handicrafts are also just a hobby, often also a form of compensation - this is where I can express myself.
For me personally, the technical-physical side is unveiled, as you progress you develop tools and can read every hieroglyph. For me, a circuit is plain text, i.e. conclusions about behaviour are immediately available - a kind of reliable prediction.
If measurement records are available and the determination procedure is known, it is even easier.
Interestingly, however, this often does not correlate at all with the listening impression at home. For example, I may not like an LS (the resulting illusion), but if I change the amp, the displeasure suddenly disappears.
Tracing the correlations and finding the real cause could be the ultimate goal of this thread as a source of inspiration. Because there will be a very simple explanation for this phenomenon, which can be observed and documented on a daily basis.
Subsequently, I suspect that this also explains some of the discrepancies between the numbers of the metrics.
greetings,
HBt.
It is true that we have a fairly extensive arsenal of measurement technology -> which can also be used on an interdisciplinary basis and the collected data analysed.
However, it is the evaluation and thus the evaluation criteria -> the weighting of the metrics and their influence on all other values that are decisive.
The choice of methods for scientific work also plays a decisive role for the content and quality of the work.
From an engineering point of view, the field of audio signal amplification is now quite simple. From a philosophical and medical point of view, it is possibly infinite.
The appeal that has already been made several times in this thread that we should do our homework is funny, if it weren't also laughable at the same time - the question of the chosen language (and the information) is clear: it must be appropriate for the target audience.
When I hear or read FFT, it triggers completely different areas in my brain than it does in the brain of an ambitious hobbyist.
But my handicrafts are also just a hobby, often also a form of compensation - this is where I can express myself.
For me personally, the technical-physical side is unveiled, as you progress you develop tools and can read every hieroglyph. For me, a circuit is plain text, i.e. conclusions about behaviour are immediately available - a kind of reliable prediction.
If measurement records are available and the determination procedure is known, it is even easier.
Interestingly, however, this often does not correlate at all with the listening impression at home. For example, I may not like an LS (the resulting illusion), but if I change the amp, the displeasure suddenly disappears.
Tracing the correlations and finding the real cause could be the ultimate goal of this thread as a source of inspiration. Because there will be a very simple explanation for this phenomenon, which can be observed and documented on a daily basis.
Subsequently, I suspect that this also explains some of the discrepancies between the numbers of the metrics.
greetings,
HBt.
The starting point would be the assumption that in an ideal amplifier I only exchange the DUT, in this case the LS, in a quasi rotation test with other LS (solutions, conversions). Always operated with the ideal amplifier.
Now I select the loudspeaker that somehow doesn't seem to be quite so great in terms of its qualities to create a sound illusion that I like at the moment.
If I can exclude the physiological, or what I call ‘momentary’ sound, so much the better.
Now I reach into the shelf and swap the amp, with a bit of luck I will very quickly find a representative that is not ideal, but fits the DUT (the LS) much better - in terms of the illusionary magic sound.
Only when the result is reproducible,
can I get to the bottom of the cause - for this I need very clear correlations in advance (and I simply have to know the test subjects with their genetic code).
I can't do anything with alternative sciences and /or faith.
#
As an empathetic person, the story looks a little bit different.
A U D I O
I don't see a connection in any posts here: AUDIO and electronics, amplification;-)I refer to homework:
Solved means "all ins and outs are known" at this point, there are no unknown variables left anymore.
It also means solved from a pure technical point of view.
Solved from a non-technical point of view was already many decades ago.
Just dive into the world of biology, neuro-science, evolution-science and psycho-acoustics.
The fact that people just believe something else or are unaware/unacquainted on a personal level, doesn't change any of what is actually going in reality.
haha, well to be honest, there is also a fair amount of real engineers spreading very confusing information and sometimes even misinformation.
In fact, I have seen some extremely capable professional engineers going downhill that way.
So it was meant as a far more general message.
You can't blame the receiver if the messenger already spreads the wrong information to begin with.
Which can be very tricky if some of those messengers got a certain status over the years.
Being a good electronics designer or engineer doesn't make you all of a sudden a good scientist or a good overal-acoustics engineer.
In fact, I only know a few (and REALLY a few) who get the whole bigger picture.
Then explain the different sonic potential of a ReVox B750 and a Crescendo Millenium;-)
... concerning the power amp circuit only, without consideration of "pre"-amplifiers, components, conversion and more;-)
This also applies to pure scientists and not just engineers. Engineers are by no means automatically scientists.
This topic is worth a separate discussion thread in both the narrow and broad sense - but (also) only of limited academic and psychological interest.
Bye,
HBt.
What is that for kind of strange question?
As if someone can magically explain differences without even knowing the amplifiers?
Btw, your question already makes a huge assumption, because it heavily implies that there ARE sonic differences.
Which leads to the wrong approach straight from the start;-)
So I would suggest to send all the technical data (measurements) and do some blind AB and ABX listening tests under different conditions with enough people (aka sample size);-)
Than ask that same question again;-)
"(...) of real engineers spreading very confusing information and sometimes even misinformation" presupposes knowing the "truth"-) It is therefore an assertion that cannot be substantiated. Especially as the field of audio electronics and amplification is far more complex than is taught and researched at conventional institutes.
Unfortunately, commonly, averagely educated engineers, for example, want to draw the AUDIO electronics discourse into their low-complexity, differentiated and categorized field. And unfortunately, the majority follows the majority and does not look for a "science". This is also physical, scientific - and should be included by engineers in their actions, for example in their participation in discourse;-)
Unfortunately, commonly, averagely educated engineers, for example, want to draw the AUDIO electronics discourse into their low-complexity, differentiated and categorized field. And unfortunately, the majority follows the majority and does not look for a "science". This is also physical, scientific - and should be included by engineers in their actions, for example in their participation in discourse;-)
That's not only a problem in audio, but for ANY kind of field of research.
Experiments have to be done by ourselves, human beings, plus we can only get a finite sample size.
So by absolute definition and fact, results and (worse) conclusions will be intentionally or unintentionally be influenced and biased.
On top of that, (sometimes major) mistakes WILL (again) intentionally or unintentionally be made.
Even at most scientific studies, this is being skimmed over, if even taught at all.
One of the solutions that can be extremely helpful, is just to very simply take a step back and have a good overview what is going on, and what the implications will be in the bigger picture.
Something most people very rarely do.
Most of the time they only just go deeper into the rabid hole instead.
Not even thinking anymore about the fact that they went onto a totally wrong path to begin with.
In some cases because they just simply missed a very obvious sign at the start clearly showing them already.
Isn't human psychology a fascinating thing?
It even involves engineering and audio!!!
"One of the solutions that can be extremely helpful, is just to very simply take a step back and have a good overview what is going on, and what the implications will be in the bigger picture."
I agree;-)
You have homework to do: