Keith_W
Major Contributor
I did a quick search and could not find an answer to my question, so if this has been asked and answered before, please direct me to the thread or merge this with an existing thread.
Like most audiophiles, I started off as a subjectivist. I listen to music, I know what I like, I then go on a journey to buy equipment that provides sound reproduction that I like. Along the way, I started to learn that measurements can predict aspects of performance that I like and dislike, so I started paying attention to them. These days I have a full active system with 8 DAC channels, 8 power amps, each directly connected to its own driver with all sorts of corrections done by DSP, so I can really tailor the sound to my liking and would make most purist audiophiles cringe. In the end it is my music system which I use to listen to music, so if I don't like the sound of the Harman curve I do away with it (which I did). My own target curve that I have tuned the system to create is quite different. I guess you could call me an objective subjectivist. I use objective methods, but in the end my music listening is subjective.
Sorry for the preamble, but I had to go on that to describe one aspect of objective audio that continues to elude me: dynamics.
In subjective terms, not only does this mean that there is enough headroom to go from soft to loud without the amplifier clipping or the speaker distorting, it also refers to the sense of ease that the system is able to reproduce soft-loud transitions. There are microdynamics and macrodynamics, but after years of listening I have decided that these two phenomena are one and the same. There is no such thing as a speaker that has one and not the other.
I was wondering if there is a measurement that predicts how "dynamic" a speaker would be. Impulse response?
Also, is there such a thing as DSP which would improve the dynamics of a system by exaggerating the contrast between voltage spikes in the signal?
The reason I ask is because my system is a hybrid one: horns for mids and treble, and conventional drivers for the sub (20 - 80Hz) and bass (80 - 600Hz). There is an obvious disconnect between the conventional drivers and the horns, and I can tell you it is NOT the frequency response, NOT amplifier headroom, and NOT distortion, and I have all the measurements to prove it. Well, not with me right now because I am in a hotel room. The conventional drivers just sound ... less dynamic, and I can not explain why using measurements. So please tell me where to look.
Like most audiophiles, I started off as a subjectivist. I listen to music, I know what I like, I then go on a journey to buy equipment that provides sound reproduction that I like. Along the way, I started to learn that measurements can predict aspects of performance that I like and dislike, so I started paying attention to them. These days I have a full active system with 8 DAC channels, 8 power amps, each directly connected to its own driver with all sorts of corrections done by DSP, so I can really tailor the sound to my liking and would make most purist audiophiles cringe. In the end it is my music system which I use to listen to music, so if I don't like the sound of the Harman curve I do away with it (which I did). My own target curve that I have tuned the system to create is quite different. I guess you could call me an objective subjectivist. I use objective methods, but in the end my music listening is subjective.
Sorry for the preamble, but I had to go on that to describe one aspect of objective audio that continues to elude me: dynamics.
In subjective terms, not only does this mean that there is enough headroom to go from soft to loud without the amplifier clipping or the speaker distorting, it also refers to the sense of ease that the system is able to reproduce soft-loud transitions. There are microdynamics and macrodynamics, but after years of listening I have decided that these two phenomena are one and the same. There is no such thing as a speaker that has one and not the other.
I was wondering if there is a measurement that predicts how "dynamic" a speaker would be. Impulse response?
Also, is there such a thing as DSP which would improve the dynamics of a system by exaggerating the contrast between voltage spikes in the signal?
The reason I ask is because my system is a hybrid one: horns for mids and treble, and conventional drivers for the sub (20 - 80Hz) and bass (80 - 600Hz). There is an obvious disconnect between the conventional drivers and the horns, and I can tell you it is NOT the frequency response, NOT amplifier headroom, and NOT distortion, and I have all the measurements to prove it. Well, not with me right now because I am in a hotel room. The conventional drivers just sound ... less dynamic, and I can not explain why using measurements. So please tell me where to look.