Replace resistor by low-inductance resistor - Is it audible?

[Mnyb]

Hmm ok but in circuit with proper amounts of feedback ? How much will be left then ?
Would one not worry more about parasitic capacitance and inductance of resistors in amplifier design eating up stability margins you need for applying the amount off feedback you want. If the resistor itself harbour some other low level nonlinear property will it not to be squashed by the feedback together with the magnitudes larger nonlinearities in the transistors in the same circuit ? But this was also addressed in an early post

But was not this tread originally about resistors in speaker crossovers ? Where it’s was not particularly picky about inductance as shown in measurement in the first posts .
Are we not all ok with conclusions that sand cast resistors was ok in speaker crossovers and special expensive low inductance audiophile types was not needed ?

 

[ctrl]

But was not this tread originally about resistors in speaker crossovers ? Where it’s was not particularly picky about inductance as shown in measurement in the first posts .

Thanks for the comment. Exactly, that's actually what this thread is about! And I would like the discussion to be limited to that again - a little off-topic is okay, but it should be closely related to the actual topic.

 

[KSTR]

This is not consistant with GedLee's AES papers.

Try it yourself, using pkane's Distort and Foobar-ABX. 10%(!!) of H2 or H3 @ fullscale not audible with test tone or reasonable music choice? Sorry, that's ridiculous.

 

[KSTR]

Vishay PTF resistors tested with the least distortion.

Vishay bulk metal film tested worse than CC resistors

Tested with a wheatstone bridge at 20 volts on a APx555 analyzer.

the 1000Hz test voltage is 20 volts the 1000Hz level on the plots is nulled because of the test bridge.
View attachment 122009View attachment 122010

Was this done with 1:1 and 1:[(1+1)//(1+1)] bridge arms or was it 3 "known perfect" reference R's and one DUT R? Did you also test at (way) lower frequencies where thermal modulation (if any) would show up more easily? Just being curious here....

 

[DualTriode]

Yes the measured distortion does stair step with frequency. It looks to vary with the temperature swing. Lower frequency allows longer to heat and in turn longer to cool per cycle.

The bulk foil resistors have less mass and as a result have a greater change in temperature per cycle. The larger change in temperature is a larger effect than the bulk foil resistor decreased Temco.

See the attached photo of one of the bridge circuits tested.



https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/parts/347259-causes-resistor-distortion-23.html

 

[DualTriode]

Try it yourself, using pkane's Distort and Foobar-ABX. 10%(!!) of H2 or H3 @ fullscale not audible with test tone or reasonable music choice? Sorry, that's ridiculous.

Believe what you like. Be careful to never test your belief.

But never ever run a FFT on that test tone you are speaking of to determine that there are no 4th, 5th and higher harmonics present.

 

[kristiansen]

C'mon, not again these false claims. Just because you cannot measure it (or cannot imagine a way how to do) this does not mean we can't. We can.
Once this pandemic is over I could visit you in Hillerød and show you... and introduce you to live blind testing and all that. Once you are able to detect a sound change, from say, an interconnect cable in your system in a DBT then I can measure the difference in situ as well (DBT is needed to make sure any signal change actually is relevant and only then it makes sense to start to search for that difference technically).

It could be nice. And hopefully this damn pandemic is over soon.
But I doubt you can teach me anything I know how unstable and easily impressionable our senses are . But it is not solved via blind tests rather on the contrary in my opinion.

The first accusation against blind testing is that the sound difference itself is unattractive, that's what the sound difference points towards that is interesting.
Seen in that aspect is a non-blind test is far better. Because when you know what you are listening to, you can constantly confirm or add new
listening impressions to your experience of an object, define the sound difference, and assess whether it points to better fidelity or worse and that is exactly what it is about. So that a list like this can be created.
Then it can be interesting to find connections between the heard and measured, it rarely gives clear connections,.
And you are forced into a sitioation where you must choose between believing in senses or measurement, I have chosen to believe in the ear/brain with good results. Others choose to say there's no audible difference if I can't make it plausible by measurement.

I mean blind testing is like playing the game find five errors between two images , while one constantly swaps the images without you knowing, you will never find the five errors.
At best, you will find a sound difference in blind testing, and what can you use it for?

Another accusation is the lack of standard, the standard only includes the method / statistics which works in medical science where the blind test concept originates from because there is only "one variable".
At hi-fi, there are at least the following : the listener, the stereo system, the music selection, the space.
Blind test therefore becomes more of a test of the mentioned variables than a test of the sound difference between two objects.. I mean there is plenty of evidence that this is the case.
Blind testing is indicative in a few cases, but in the vast majority misleading,and certainly not a proof of whether there is an audible sound difference between two objects.

Of course, blind test can be used if one wants to find the lowest common denominator, for example how much one can save on a speaker before the majority can hear it and other tasks in that style. That is not my goal, assuming it is not yours or ASR either

Ps it was a bit off topic, but blind test was mentioned, which it often does here at ASR.

 

[solderdude]

Seen in that aspect is a non-blind test is far better. Because when you know what you are listening to, you can constantly confirm or add new
listening impressions to your experience of an object, define the sound difference, and assess whether it points to better fidelity or worse and that is exactly what it is about.

Do the following test (I have done this):
Use 2 cables you know sound different and one of your buddies can easily tell too.
Now let him take a listen and tell him cable A is playing.
Pretend you swap cables (but don't) and then tell him cable B is playing.
Now they can hear a difference without there being one... how's that for accuracy of sighted listening ?

I have actually tested people this way and it really works. They can clearly hear differences because they think there is.

 

[SIY]

It could be nice. And hopefully this damn pandemic is over soon.
But I doubt you can teach me anything I know how unstable and easily impressionable our senses are . But it is not solved via blind tests rather on the contrary in my opinion.

The first accusation against blind testing is that the sound difference itself is unattractive, that's what the sound difference points towards that is interesting.
Seen in that aspect is a non-blind test is far better. Because when you know what you are listening to, you can constantly confirm or add new
listening impressions to your experience of an object, define the sound difference, and assess whether it points to better fidelity or worse and that is exactly what it is about. So that a list like this can be created.
Then it can be interesting to find connections between the heard and measured, it rarely gives clear connections,.
And you are forced into a sitioation where you must choose between believing in senses or measurement, I have chosen to believe in the ear/brain with good results. Others choose to say there's no audible difference if I can't make it plausible by measurement.

I mean blind testing is like playing the game find five errors between two images , while one constantly swaps the images without you knowing, you will never find the five errors.
At best, you will find a sound difference in blind testing, and what can you use it for?

Another accusation is the lack of standard, the standard only includes the method / statistics which works in medical science where the blind test concept originates from because there is only "one variable".
At hi-fi, there are at least the following : the listener, the stereo system, the music selection, the space.
Blind test therefore becomes more of a test of the mentioned variables than a test of the sound difference between two objects.. I mean there is plenty of evidence that this is the case.
Blind testing is indicative in a few cases, but in the vast majority misleading,and certainly not a proof of whether there is an audible sound difference between two objects.

Of course, blind test can be used if one wants to find the lowest common denominator, for example how much one can save on a speaker before the majority can hear it and other tasks in that style. That is not my goal, assuming it is not yours or ASR either

Ps it was a bit off topic, but blind test was mentioned, which it often does here at ASR.

Uh huh.

At least try to make creative excuses for peeking, recognizing that controls on listening tests have not prevented listeners from demonstrating high sensitivity to all sorts of phenomena. Only the “magic” ones seem to escape detection, possibly because they’re imaginary.

 

[kristiansen]

Believe what you like. Be careful to never test your belief.

But never ever run a FFT on that test tone you are speaking of to determine that there are no 4th, 5th and higher harmonics present.

Believe what you like. Be careful to never test your belief.

But never ever run a FFT on that test tone you are speaking of to determine that there are no 4th, 5th and higher harmonics present.

It's a bit unclear to me if you think these THD measurements may be what many perceive as an sound signature ?.
If it's these small but measurable quantities that can give a relatively large audible sound difference, then there is something that can be pursued.
Came to think a little about The Carver Challenge, but here a lot of other things happened.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It could be nice. And hopefully this damn pandemic is over soon.
But I doubt you can teach me anything I know how unstable and easily impressionable our senses are . But it is not solved via blind tests rather on the contrary in my opinion.

The first accusation against blind testing is that the sound difference itself is unattractive, that's what the sound difference points towards that is interesting.
Seen in that aspect is a non-blind test is far better. Because when you know what you are listening to, you can constantly confirm or add new
listening impressions to your experience of an object, define the sound difference, and assess whether it points to better fidelity or worse and that is exactly what it is about. So that a list like this can be created.
Then it can be interesting to find connections between the heard and measured, it rarely gives clear connections,.
And you are forced into a sitioation where you must choose between believing in senses or measurement, I have chosen to believe in the ear/brain with good results. Others choose to say there's no audible difference if I can't make it plausible by measurement.

I mean blind testing is like playing the game find five errors between two images , while one constantly swaps the images without you knowing, you will never find the five errors.
At best, you will find a sound difference in blind testing, and what can you use it for?

Another accusation is the lack of standard, the standard only includes the method / statistics which works in medical science where the blind test concept originates from because there is only "one variable".
At hi-fi, there are at least the following : the listener, the stereo system, the music selection, the space.
Blind test therefore becomes more of a test of the mentioned variables than a test of the sound difference between two objects.. I mean there is plenty of evidence that this is the case.
Blind testing is indicative in a few cases, but in the vast majority misleading,and certainly not a proof of whether there is an audible sound difference between two objects.

Of course, blind test can be used if one wants to find the lowest common denominator, for example how much one can save on a speaker before the majority can hear it and other tasks in that style. That is not my goal, assuming it is not yours or ASR either

Ps it was a bit off topic, but blind test was mentioned, which it often does here at ASR.

You are lacking the concept of fidelity. Fidelity has a recognizable end goal. You believe in sensitive improvement with no end. The belief that ever increasing sensitive tuning allows never ending improvement.

 

[pogo]

Here is a possible measurement method:

3D Step Response Measurement - The sound quality of the reproduction made visible

The 3D Step Response measurement shows the behaviours of the sound reproduction in the non swung-in state. This measurement is very important to judge the reproduction of impulses. As testsignale preferably half sinus oscillations of different frequencies at the same time are used, since acoustic events are essentially based on these modes of motion.

View attachment 83902



The frequency response is totally inadequate for the judgement of sound quality. The frequency response is measured with non-changing (Static) signals such as sinus waves or calculated noise signals. Against that, a music signal consists of changing (Dynamic) signals. The study of music signals shows that the sound quality of a musical instrument is determined by impulses. Especially the first impulse, the stroke of a guitar string, the impact of a piano cord, the hit on a drum and the blow of an organ pipe or brass instrument is important for the sound. In the Step-Response, all acoustic parameter information of the sound reproduction is contained. This consists of the frequency response, phase response and swing-in behaviour. There for the display is so complex, that the sound quality judgement based on the measurement is not possible. That is why the 3D Step-Response measurement was developed. By the measurement, the Step-Response is analysed and displayed in a 3D graph. The 3D measurement shows the impulse reproduction for each single frequency with use of an additional frequency axis. The measurement makes it for the first time possible to analyse the sound quality through measurement technology.

(Source: Kirchner elektronik)



Testing is not incorrect in what it measures, but in what it does not measure. You have to swim against the stream to reach its source

 

[ctrl]

Here is a possible measurement method:

Repeatedly posting excerpts from the promotional brochure of a measurement program manufacturer (identical posts in the capacitor thread) are not evidence that there are relevant differences in the audible frequency range between a sand-cast resistor and a low inductance resistor.

As said here and in the capacitor comparison, there are no significant differences in burst decay either.

However, common sense helps here too, if it were so, then every store selling luxury resistors would point out exactly these differences - I am not aware of any that present such measurements.

In Arta, burst decay is determined in a different way from the Kirchner measurement system:

The direct measurement of burst decay patterns needs lot of time, as for every frequency sine burst
response have to be generated and measured separately. A faster way to get burst decay envelope on
various frequencies is to use measured impulse response and convolve it with shaped sine burst signal.
It gives burst response. To get burst decay envelope a Hilbert transform can be used [47].

ARTA uses more efficient estimation method. A complex Morlet wavelet analytic signal is used in
convolution with system impulse response. Magnitude of that response, also known as wavelet
scalogram, represents the envelope of the shaped burst response decay.

The Arta manual also gives the reason why it ignores the rise time during burst decay:

Note: The system response to the shaped sine burst has two characteristic time regions: rise time and
decay time. By little more analysis it can be shown that logarithm of decay envelope lasts much longer
than the logarithm of the rise envelope. That is the reason why we are almost exclusively interested in
the monitoring of the burst decay envelope.

 

[egellings]

It's much ado about nothing as far as analog audio signals go.

 

[pogo]

Repeatedly posting excerpts from the promotional brochure of a measurement program manufacturer (identical posts in the capacitor thread) are not evidence that there are relevant differences in the audible frequency range between a sand-cast resistor and a low inductance resistor.

That is correct and I am only drawing your attention to another measurement method which, from my point of view, uses the 'more correct' test stimuli as described before and represents three further signal quadrants which are also relevant for sound reproduction analysis.

Again:
Testing is not incorrect in what it measures, but in what it does not measure.

 

[MarnixM]

In 2015 I needed a RLC-impedance peak correction network for a specific cross-over filter. Did a test:

Building this RLC network a small side problem came up. I needed a high load resistor (>= 25 Watt) but nearly all of them are wire wounded, having bad reputations towards inductance caused by the wounded resistor wire ( = coil). So with the use of LIMP I measured a combination of 3 x 10 Watt parallel MOX resistors, a 25W thick film, low inductance resistor and a classic 25W WW cement resistor. I measured 2.9μH for the MOX combination, 1.8μH for the thick film and 4.8μH for the WW cement resistor. Conclusion; for speaker crossover networks expensive low inductance resistors are always an unnecessary investment and simple MOX combinations and cement ones (less than 2 Euro’s) work well. Even the value of 4.8μH for the WW cement resistor is about 7.5 times lower as the typical (not even the maximum!) tolerance of the used coil in the correction combination.

 

[solderdude]

Yep, no need to worry about the inductance of a resistor when it basically is in series (so added) to a 560uH inductor ?

When the resistor is in series with say a tweeter that has 100uH inductance the 5uH is already a 5% increase which also does not seem to be very problematic.

 

[fpitas]

It's much ado about nothing as far as analog audio signals go.

Yes it is. But I use 2W metal film resistors in series with my horns so I can feel smug. It was worth every penny!