Blind taste test, different transfer equipment (jazz)

[NorthSky]

Nothing like a couple of days on the water and even fresher air to start the week.

To reiterate (for the third time?) there is no vinyl involved anywhere in this comparison. Since there is no sharp rock dragging through a piece of plastic there would be no RIAA either. Tape Project use IEC EQ. It is impossible for the preamps to be "flat", think about the RIAA curve, there will always be some deviation depending on the implementation if it is done in hardware. The only perfectly flat EQ would be if it were done digitally.

Copy and paste of the first post:

A sample from a famous jazz album, one done with tube equipment and one done all solid state. See if you can pick which is which, which one you enjoyed the sound of more or anything else you feel like adding. The levels are not perfectly matched, so feel free to do that if you wish. No cheating by analyzing the files in software

This was not a tubes vs solid state, are tubes better than solid state (or vice versa) or any other holy war. It was a fun, non scientific poll and I admitted early on that it should have been reworded to say which one did you prefer the sound of more. I'm sorry the mere mention of vacuum tubes gets some peoples blood boiling...

"Bob I will be doing more of these, but they won't be with equipment differences but with different digital versions/mastering. And the polls will clearly be which one do you prefer. "

And my subjective opinion on which one I prefer, it is the tube DHT unit which sounds closer to the HDTracks hi-res file.

@amirm would you know of any software I could use to analyze the distortion in the files?

That is exactly how I saw that poll. And you said so too before.

* By the way, which file was the tube DHT version? ...What is it again that you like about it?
It's all good man, I respect your choice, even if it is totally the opposite of mine.
You prefer file number one, really?

 

[NorthSky]

My, you must really be a youngster. Or I'm just so damn old I can't imagine someone that didn't come to audio from a tube background.

John Fogerty (CCR) prefers his tube amp for his guitars.

* I remember tube TVs.
And I never owned a tube audio component, but true, I am quite young (16) . I got time left to explore .... and besides with the cost of heating bills on the rise here on our igloos up north ....

 

[NorthSky]

I can't believe that Justin Bieber is ours! ...Maybe he should go tube all the way? ...I wouldn't mind missing few notes and few frequencies and using less hi-res.
...Put some indistinct warmth in his vocals and his band.

 

[Sal1950]

John Fogerty (CCR) prefers his tube amp for his guitars.

* I remember tube TVs.
And I never owned a tube audio component, but true, I am quite young (16) . I got time left to explore .... and besides with the cost of heating bills on the rise here on our igloos up north ....

Save those fairy tales for the little bitty kids Bob.

 

[NorthSky]

I just want to conform to the TOS of this site. Higher learning, and having fun while @ it.

 

[fas42]

My, you must really be a youngster. Or I'm just so damn old I can't imagine someone that didn't come to audio from a tube background.

Nope. My first serious effort was a kit using the old 2N3055, etc trannies, which didn't last that long, actually . The closest I got was another kit, for a tube guitar amp, which I put together for my younger brother - started him on his musical journey in life, which he continues to this day - teaching music to young kids.

 

[amirm]

@amirm would you know of any software I could use to analyze the distortion in the files?

No I don't. It is a complicated problem. If there was a test tone, we could do that.

 

[amirm]

To reiterate (for the third time?) there is no vinyl involved anywhere in this comparison. Since there is no sharp rock dragging through a piece of plastic there would be no RIAA either. Tape Project use IEC EQ. It is impossible for the preamps to be "flat", think about the RIAA curve, there will always be some deviation depending on the implementation if it is done in hardware. The only perfectly flat EQ would be if it were done digitally.

Copy and paste of the first post:

A sample from a famous jazz album, one done with tube equipment and one done all solid state. See if you can pick which is which, which one you enjoyed the sound of more or anything else you feel like adding. The levels are not perfectly matched, so feel free to do that if you wish. No cheating by analyzing the files in software

This was not a tubes vs solid state, are tubes better than solid state (or vice versa) or any other holy war. It was a fun, non scientific poll and I admitted early on that it should have been reworded to say which one did you prefer the sound of more. I'm sorry the mere mention of vacuum tubes gets some peoples blood boiling...

OK, I must say I am still a bit confused as to what test we took. Yes, it comes with age .

So did we listen to two different tapes, one created with tube and another with solid state? Or is it one tape, with the pre-amp being tube in one, solid state in the other?

 

[RayDunzl]

@amirm would you know of any software I could use to analyze the distortion in the files?

Here's a handwaving explanation of why Music isn't (usually) used for delicate measurements.

I blew across the top of a little glass bottle and recorded it - and got a very nice sine wave. The harmonic distortions were 45-50dB down to start.

A sine is a starting point for the 'sound' of most any musical instrument. Then the construction of the instrument adds harmonics to a fundamental, which are harmonic distortions of the fundamental, which gives the instruments a large part of their individualized sound.

If measuring distortion, a trombone is beyond belief in the traditional distortion measurement - Harmonic Distortion. It has the fundamental and a long train of harmonic overtones, at high levels, some as high or higher than the fundamental, depending on how you blow it.

The measurement problem with a musical source becomes separating the good distortion (sound of the instrument) from the bad distortions (the good distortions being distorted).

I suppose you could do it, wouldn't be easy.

If you say "This is the overtone series and relative levels of the trombone against which I will measure distortion", and the player changes his embouchure, then timbre (and the harmonic series has changed).

So what to do?

You do da best you can, and feed pure (sine) tones (because the are mathematically defined) into the gear and measure to see how (mathematically) the sine has been adulterated. Maybe multiple tones are sent, but they are still a known (mathematical) input.

Blowing a Bottle - one note, a relatively low-distortion sine wave is emitted, The first peak is below -45dB: (I'm surprised at the relative purity of the tone)

Anything except one peak (in the second diagram) is noise/distortion/harmonics/enharmonics, provided the input were a perfect sine.

As a "percent distortion", this is around 0.005% by my consulting a relevant calculator. (That surprised me too)

Blowing a Trombone (one note) - the fundamental and a series of harmonics are emitted. The sine wave (fundamental) is modified by the higher frequency components.

If measuring 'distortion' as a percentage, it's over 100% for this note, and what does that mean when applied to this otherwise (relatively) undistorted recording of a horn note?

Same Trombone fundamental, different embouchure, differences in the harmonic series:

These displays are one instrument. Add instruments of different types and the result is chaos, though it is music. Maybe that's why we like music. It's ineffable.

So, with music as a source for measurement, any good ideas that I don't know about to measure the trivialities within its reproduction?

 

[fas42]

So, with music as a source for measurement, any good ideas that I don't know about to measure the trivialities within its reproduction?

The good thing about the "chaos" of music is that the brain is extremely experienced, competent in its ability to unravel the complexity. It would be a technical nightmare trying to get instrumentation to sort it out, but the mind does it with ease - I'm thinking here of a recent album by Lou Reed and Metallica - Lou is in the foreground, very softly reciting the lyrics of the song, and the heavy metal group are in the background, revving up the thrash to maximum, the volumes are roughly equal. For most systems this album would be a total disaster, the confusion between the two sound sources would be diabolical in the listening - yet, on a competent playback setup, the two completely separate, occupy their own distinct spaces - and the mind easily sees the two musical contributions happening, not chaos.

 

[hvbias]

Thanks guys, I figured it would be impossible to analyze given the complexities of real music. I'll put up another one of these in a couple of weeks, this time with two different digital masterings done by professional mastering engineers. They will both be sourced from CD and only adjustments will be to bring up the volume to level match. I've done a brief test and came to the conclusion which one I liked more which went against popular opinion.

 

[hvbias]

OK, I must say I am still a bit confused as to what test we took. Yes, it comes with age .

So did we listen to two different tapes, one created with tube and another with solid state? Or is it one tape, with the pre-amp being tube in one, solid state in the other?

Same tape. Two separate tape preamplifiers.

 

[amirm]

Same tape. Two separate tape preamplifiers.

Excellent. Thank you .