How we could finally pin down flowery audiophile subjective descriptions

[NTK]

Quoting Doug Self:

The Dan Rather Approved Douglas Self Site

"Sinewaves are steady-state signals that represent too easy a test for amplifiers, compared with the complexities of music."​

This is presumably meant to imply that sinewaves are in some way particularly easy for an amplifier to deal with, the implication being that anyone using a THD analyser must be hopelessly naive. Since sines and cosines have an unending series of non-zero differentials, "steady" hardly comes into it. I know of no evidence that sinewaves of randomly varying amplitude (for example) would provide a more searching test of amplifier competence.​

I believe this outlook is the result of anthropomorphic thinking about amplifiers; treating them as though they think about what they amplify. Twenty sinewaves of different frequencies may be conceptually complex to us, and the output of a symphony orchestra much more so, but to an amplifier both composite signals resolve to a single instantaneous voltage that must be increased in amplitude and presented at low impedance. The rate of change of this voltage has a maximum set by the frequency response and amplitude capability of the channel and is not generally greater for more complex signals; you do not get hgher slew rate with bigger orchestras. You must remember that an amplifier has no perspective on the signal arriving at its input, but literally takes it as it comes.​

 

[pau]

Quoting Doug Self:

The Dan Rather Approved Douglas Self Site

"Sinewaves are steady-state signals that represent too easy a test for amplifiers, compared with the complexities of music."​

This is presumably meant to imply that sinewaves are in some way particularly easy for an amplifier to deal with, the implication being that anyone using a THD analyser must be hopelessly naive. Since sines and cosines have an unending series of non-zero differentials, "steady" hardly comes into it. I know of no evidence that sinewaves of randomly varying amplitude (for example) would provide a more searching test of amplifier competence.​

I believe this outlook is the result of anthropomorphic thinking about amplifiers; treating them as though they think about what they amplify. Twenty sinewaves of different frequencies may be conceptually complex to us, and the output of a symphony orchestra much more so, but to an amplifier both composite signals resolve to a single instantaneous voltage that must be increased in amplitude and presented at low impedance. The rate of change of this voltage has a maximum set by the frequency response and amplitude capability of the channel and is not generally greater for more complex signals; you do not get hgher slew rate with bigger orchestras. You must remember that an amplifier has no perspective on the signal arriving at its input, but literally takes it as it comes.​

Yes, 1st study or opinion that makes sense in real world. in the reviews this type of undestand of sound production would be welcome , compared to the 'sinewave flaw reveal' that in the end is only showing the flaws & way, not the truth.

PersonaIy think if the essence of sound would be taken more serious on this site, mayby you could get more artists not just purists to work on making better sounding products and towards the enjoyment of us all, not just the few ' objective & subjective' bandwagon.

The question on that message is same as my,

put a comples simphony 1000x sinewaves from simphony recording through your speakers and telll me thatt thee 'worst--better-best' universal truth' of the sitte holds any matter with real production outside of what we measure as 'truth'

in a common sense can this truth told here hold value as real science?

happy to agreee & disagree.

 

[peng]

Yes, 1st study or opinion that makes sense in real world. in the reviews this type of undestand of sound production would be welcome , compared to the 'sinewave flaw reveal' that in the end is only showing the flaws & way, not the truth.

PersonaIy think if the essence of sound would be taken more serious on this site, mayby you could get more artists not just purists to work on making better sounding products and towards the enjoyment of us all, not just the few ' objective & subjective' bandwagon.

The question on that message is same as my,

put a comples simphony 1000x sinewaves from simphony recording through your speakers and telll me thatt thee 'worst--better-best' universal truth' of the sitte holds any matter with real production outside of what we measure as 'truth'

in a common sense can this truth told here hold value as real science?

happy to agreee & disagree.

I don't understand your point enough to agree with disagree. I just know that NTK's point is logical, that is "..to an amplifier both composite signals resolve to a single instantaneous voltage that must be increased in amplitude and presented at low impedance.." Measuring using sine waves and measuring using music waves that is made up of multiple sine waves shouldn't make a difference as the amplifier will just amplify the signal continuously, on a moment by moment basis it is just an input voltage signal, whatever the waveform is, the amplify amplifies the voltage. If the output voltage can be shown to be exactly the same as the input voltage except in magnitude then if the listener hears a difference, or poorer sound quality then the issue is with the recording. You agree with that right?

Again, I don't understand you suggestion of "put a comples simphony 1000x sinewaves from simphony recording through your speakers and telll me thatt thee 'worst--better-best' universal truth' of the sitte holds any matter with real production outside of what we measure as 'truth'" Are you talking about measuring and comparing the sound from speakers to the recorded sound of a symphony? If so, how do yo propose to do it, and what truth are we seeking?