How much difference in sound quality will you hear between qutest and tone board ?

[solderdude]

It has nothing to do with my subjective findings of tubes (I even design tube amps).
It's just the 'sound healing' properties you attribute to them are incorrect.
You can disagree with that, I don't mind.

Yes, tubes do clip differently (depending on the circuit design and purpose) but they do not 'change' an already clipped signal unless the tube circuit 'soft clips' way before the DAC does.
In that particular case the harmonic distortion rises alarmingly when measured so is easier to measure than to hear.
Yes, they do add harmonics in a certain frequency spread (I make use of that in my designs on purpose) but does not improve fidelity.
This too is highly dependent on the circuit it is in. One can make a tube amp with almost no added harmonics as well.
It just takes more tubes, lots of feedback and good transformers within the feedback loop.

Tubes may leave you with a 'positive feel' when listening to music though.
You just prefer a colored rendition in that case.

 

[Calexico]

It has nothing to do with my subjective findings of tubes (I even design tube amps).
It's just the 'sound healing' properties you attribute to them are incorrect.
You can disagree with that, I don't mind.

Yes, tubes do clip differently (depending on the design and purpose) but they do not 'change' an already clipped signal unless the tube circuit 'soft clips' way before the DAC does.
In that particular case the harmonic distortion rises alarmingly when measured so is easier to measure than to hear.
Yes, they do add harmonics in a certain frequency spread (I make use of that in my designs on purpose) but does not improve fidelity.
It may envoke a positive feel for you when listening to music though.

I thought it was impossible to get a square with a tube. It's a mistake you re right
sure i like what they do to the sound.

 

[solderdude]

No perfectly possible to get a nice squarewave with tubes.

Below a 10kHz squarewave from one of my tube hybrid designs. (bottom trace = output, upper trace = input)

Below the same amp (60 Ohm load) with a 100kHz squarewave.

What you are referring to is soft-clipping which is often used in guitar amps to get a specific sound.
I made a soft clipping circuit in another amp (not tube design)
Below hard clipping (same amp, circuit not active)

Below the same amp but with softclipping in the circuit.

You don't need tubes to get soft clipping,

 

[Calexico]

No perfectly possible to get a nice squarewave with tubes.

Below a 10kHz squarewave from one of my tube hybrid designs. (bottom trace = output, upper trace = input)

View attachment 26940

Below the same amp (60 Ohm load) with a 100kHz squarewave.

View attachment 26941

Can you send me the amp?

 

[maxxevv]

I see.

Frequency response measurements of headphones and earphones are made using a dummy head. At high frequencies, these measurements are heavily influenced by the geometry of the dummy pinnae. Headphone and earphone measurements are therefore not accurate at high frequencies, as different pinnae will result in different resonances at different frequencies.

The most likely explanation is that the earphones are interacting differently with your pinnae than they are with the pinnae of the dummy heads used to take the measurements you're looking at.

In my case of curiosity, it probably had no direct relation to the pinnae, and if any, pretty minuscule at best.

It was from 4 different in-ear-monitors. Different models from the same manufacturer, with different levels of sibilance and different circumstances of manifestation.

i) 4 drivers, 2 Balanced Armature + 2 dynamic drivers : Evidently sibilant to the point of irritation even at basic listening volumes.
ii) 5 drivers, 4 Balanced Armature + 1 dynamic driver : Completely benign, no matter the volume I was comfortable with it was played back to.
iii) 5 drivers, 5 Balanced Armature : Borderline, on some tracks it will be an irritation, on some tracks its very much benign. Consistent at different volumes.
iv) 8 drivers, 8 Balanced Armature : Benign at low volumes. Discernible irritant sibilance once a certain volume threshold is passed.

So, without any measuring equipment, I can only guess that it has something to do with distortion at certain frequencies, distortion at certain energy thresholds probably from damping interactions with the overall assembly and maybe some form of resonance. I was trying to find if there were studies on how this actually can be described in terms of measurable phenomena. But so far, I have not been able to locate one.

I have observed similar differences when playing with Opamps and listening with the same set of earphones / headphones. But that has other issues as other factors such as power output, circuitry interactions may come into play. So, I shall not go into that territory, since even fluctuations in volume as a result of differences in opamps may have an effect. So too many factors to pile over.

Rather like to look at how its possible to identify discernible sibilance from measurements.

Question: Would the REW frequency decay readings go some way in identifying such a phenomena ? Since its somewhat like a form of extended frequency "ringing" ?

 

[solderdude]

Can you send me the amp?

You can buy my tube designs online (I don't sell them myself, I don't profit from sales nor is it my company)
The soft clipping amp is a one-off and not for sale.
Schematics are freely available.

 

[peanuts]

higher end pushpull tubeamps are not that different from transistors. they can have quite low distortion also. i do understand where he is coming from though, i enjoy my tubeamps also, usually prefer them in horn setups etc. but i also understand they have some problems on paper.
one thing i found is that design issues in loudspeakers results in people buying obscure electronic components with low power, high output impedance, high distortion etc, to smear over problems...

 

[Blumlein 88]

Shanon say that sampling a frequency at the double of its rate is enough to reconstruct it perfectly i agree. But it needs calculation to obtain it. If you don't make calculation the wave will be squarish at 20khz for a 40khz sampled signal. More steps you calculate between samples more close it becomes to the ideal wave.
The theory say that the math is known to reconstruct perfectly the wave.
Are the dac enough sophisticated to apply the whole math for reconstructing?
And there are different methods of discret interpolation and each one have are better when more calculation is done.
You can interpolate from one sample before and after or from averaging two sampes and make more or less iterations etc...

Go back and watch that video. The fellow shows you a 20 khz sine wave which is then sampled and reproduced digitally and the output isn't squarish in the least. It is still a sine wave even though each wave is only being sampled by about 2.1 samples.

 

[andreasmaaan]

In my case of curiosity, it probably had no direct relation to the pinnae, and if any, pretty minuscule at best.

It was from 4 different in-ear-monitors. Different models from the same manufacturer, with different levels of sibilance and different circumstances of manifestation.

i) 4 drivers, 2 Balanced Armature + 2 dynamic drivers : Evidently sibilant to the point of irritation even at basic listening volumes.
ii) 5 drivers, 4 Balanced Armature + 1 dynamic driver : Completely benign, no matter the volume I was comfortable with it was played back to.
iii) 5 drivers, 5 Balanced Armature : Borderline, on some tracks it will be an irritation, on some tracks its very much benign. Consistent at different volumes.
iv) 8 drivers, 8 Balanced Armature : Benign at low volumes. Discernible irritant sibilance once a certain volume threshold is passed.

So, without any measuring equipment, I can only guess that it has something to do with distortion at certain frequencies, distortion at certain energy thresholds probably from damping interactions with the overall assembly and maybe some form of resonance. I was trying to find if there were studies on how this actually can be described in terms of measurable phenomena. But so far, I have not been able to locate one.

I have observed similar differences when playing with Opamps and listening with the same set of earphones / headphones. But that has other issues as other factors such as power output, circuitry interactions may come into play. So, I shall not go into that territory, since even fluctuations in volume as a result of differences in opamps may have an effect. So too many factors to pile over.

Rather like to look at how its possible to identify discernible sibilance from measurements.

Question: Would the REW frequency decay readings go some way in identifying such a phenomena ? Since its somewhat like a form of extended frequency "ringing" ?

But you haven't measured these earphones on dummy pinnae that are modelled on your pinnae. You don't know what is causing the perceived excess sibilance. Yes, it may be resonances, it may be a frequency response issue, it may be (less likely IMHO) nonlinear distortion. We just don't know!

What we do know is that if we measured these devices using your pinnae, the measurements would show us any and all problems that you could be hearing.

Headphone/earphone measurements' accuracy is limited to the dummy head upon which the measurements were taken. That's the basic problem here.

When it comes to something like a loudspeaker, whose anechoic measurements stand independent of the particular physical quirks of the listener, the measurements tell us all we need to know.

 

[Calexico]

But you haven't measured these earphones on dummy pinnae that are modelled on your pinnae. You don't know what is causing the perceived excess sibilance. Yes, it may be resonances, it may be a frequency response issue, it may be (less likely IMHO) nonlinear distortion. We just don't know!

What we do know is that if we measured these devices using your pinnae, the measurements would show us any and all problems that you could be hearing.

Headphone/earphone measurements' accuracy is limited to the dummy head upon which the measurements were taken. That's the basic problem here.

When it comes to something like a loudspeaker, whose anechoic measurements stand independent of the particular physical quirks of the listener, the measurements tell us all we need to know.

Alcohol can make music sounds sibillant too. I've a question about sibilance. Do the freq responses of headphones are made to lower the sibbilant frequencies? (Cause with some headphones there are never sibillances that can be present on speakers)

 

[Frank Dernie]

I blocked only the second forum member I have blocked this morning, UK time, and the forum has been much more pleasant since he with the most susceptibility to the placebo effect I have ever come across isn't polluting my feed.

 

[Frank Dernie]

But you haven't measured these earphones on dummy pinnae that are modelled on your pinnae. You don't know what is causing the perceived excess sibilance. Yes, it may be resonances, it may be a frequency response issue, it may be (less likely IMHO) nonlinear distortion. We just don't know!

What we do know is that if we measured these devices using your pinnae, the measurements would show us any and all problems that you could be hearing.

Headphone/earphone measurements' accuracy is limited to the dummy head upon which the measurements were taken. That's the basic problem here.

When it comes to something like a loudspeaker, whose anechoic measurements stand independent of the particular physical quirks of the listener, the measurements tell us all we need to know.

The sound of in ear monitors are not influenced by pinna shape, ear canal resonance yes, pinna no.

 

[andreasmaaan]

The sound of in ear monitors are not influenced by pinna shape, ear canal resonance yes, pinna no.

Yes, that's true The basic point though is that the ear's geometry is a factor here that is not accounted for in measurements taken on a dummy head.

 

[Soniclife]

I blocked only the second forum member I have blocked this morning, UK time, and the forum has been much more pleasant since he with the most susceptibility to the placebo effect I have ever come across isn't polluting my feed.

I've joined you, there is only so much dull idiocy you can put up with.

 

[Soniclife]

Yes, that's true The basic point though is that the ear's geometry is a factor here that is not accounted for in measurements taken on a dummy head.

Are you saying that no one is measuring IEMs with some sort of average ear?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Are you saying that no one is measuring IEMs with some sort of average ear?

No not that, I'm saying rather that any dummy ear used to measure them will likely have different geometry from that of the end user.

 

[Calexico]

With all your explanations I conclude that i always prefer a sound colored to my taste than a transparent sound.
It's not because of the theory as i was guessing but because of sound coloring of some components i selected empirically.
Having a neutral dac permit to control the color of the sound with the output stage and i should consider the ones that are coloring to my taste if i want a new one. I think i won't enjoy totally transparent audio.

Maybe i'll change my mind.

Thank you everybody.

 

[Soniclife]

No not that, I'm saying rather that any dummy ear used to measure them will likely have different geometry from that of the end user.

The eternal problem with measuring any form of headphone.

How far from the ear do drivers need to be before you don't need to worry about different shaped ears and heads?

 

[andreasmaaan]

The eternal problem with measuring any form of headphone.

How far from the ear do drivers need to be before you don't need to worry about different shaped ears and heads?

That's a great question I'm not sure of the answer...

 

[SIY]

The eternal problem with measuring any form of headphone.

How far from the ear do drivers need to be before you don't need to worry about different shaped ears and heads?

When the ears cease to be a significant perturbation in the acoustics of the space.