"Things that cannot be measured"

[solderdude]

My point was simply that one should not mock folks who ask if an amplifier will give them an improved sense of soundstage or liveliness for simply having used those terms.

If folks come on here to ask if an amplifier can bring and improved sense of soundstage or liveliness then they will be told amplifiers can't / won't do that. Regardless what they believe. Some respondents may be a bit too adamant about this as this has been answered many times on here. To 'believers' this may come across as 'mocking'.

That if you care to actually use science for understanding instead of denigrating, you might find that what folks refer to as liveliness in a system is quite demonstrable to say frequency response above 15khz.

Where is this demonstrated to be sounding 'lively' ? Lively recordings and speakers usually have some elevation in the upper mids.

And that the "audiophool" apparently term of sound staging is the relative perceived position of objects relative to the speakers.

The word audiophool is reserved for a totally different type of person and has nothing, no... absolutely nothing to do with how people express themselves about soundstage nor that these people can not express themselves in technical terms.

That this also could be measured with various amounts of rigour.

So yeah there can be science applied to the perception of soundstage and perceived sensation of liveliness.

Of course it can.

The arguments people had with me were literally saying things I had never said. Like that I had said an amp could change soundstage. or that I had asked questions about how the amp sounded wondering if I should buy it. I was the person who owned the amps. They were jumping over themselves to try to find some straw man fault with an argument that they constructed for me. I simply explained science.

What science were you explaining ?

Edit: Ah I see you cannot answer the above question any more... never mind.

 

[test1223]

If folks come on here to ask if an amplifier can bring and improved sense of soundstage or liveliness then they will be told amplifiers can't / won't do that. Regardless what they believe. Some respondents may be a bit too adamant about this as this has been answered many times on here. To 'believers' this may come across as 'mocking'.

I would argue that (pre-) amplifiers with a stereo potentiometer as level control often provide significant channel level differences (which change with the position of the potentiometer). These can lead to a worse perception of the soundstage, due to significant channel mismatches!?

 

[Galliardist]

l

Beyond good engineering metrics, there will always be personal taste.

Bass heads will perceive bass slanted equipment as superior.
Detail (whatever that is) aficionados will perceive “resolving” equipment as superior.
Vocals lovers will perceive accurate mid-range reproducing equipment as superior.
Etc.

Engineering metrics are excellent and necessary as a barrier to clear; beyond that it’s all about individual preferences, which cannot be argued or denied.

Of course.

However, that was not my point. What I am claiming is tmisattribution of the reason for a sighted preference leads to expensive and unnecessary design choices, and to remarkable claims about products.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Of course.

However, that was not my point. What I am claiming is misattribution of the reason for a sighted preference leads to expensive and unnecessary design choices, and to remarkable claims about products.

This a thousand times this.

 

[raif71]

 

[Haskil]

There's a decent online test for that

DEMO / MUSINGS: Let's listen to some jitter simulations with sideband distortions...

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

I am well aware of this Archimago test article and the comments that follow. But rereading it obviously interested me again. And I concluded that the test I had done with the QSC device in question had in fact only shown the capacity of the DAC used to pick up the jittered signal! And therefore the maximum jitter rate generated before the sound was cut off was not sufficient to hear the slightest sound degradation...
In any case, jitter is only a problem for those who believe in it, as demonstrated by Archimago and some of the authors he cites or who participate in the discussions after his article...

 

[solderdude]

I would argue that (pre-) amplifiers with a stereo potentiometer as level control often provide significant channel level differences (which change with the position of the potentiometer). These can lead to a worse perception of the soundstage, due to significant channel mismatches!?

This can lead to a shift in the center image but why would it affect soundstage ?
It would be no different than having a volume control with a poor L-R tracking. It would then be volume dependent which is even worse.

 

[Haskil]

Beyond good engineering measures, there will always be a question of personal taste.

Bass enthusiasts will perceive tilted bass equipment as superior.
Detail enthusiasts (whoever they may be) will perceive “resolution” equipment as superior.
Singing enthusiasts will perceive precise midrange reproduction equipment as superior.
Etc.

Engineering measures are excellent and necessary to overcome a barrier; beyond that, it's all a question of individual preferences, which can neither be contested nor denied.
l

Of course.

But that's not my point. What I'm saying is that misattribution of the reason for a preference for sighted people leads to costly and unnecessary design choices, and remarkable product claims.

It's a thousand times that.

One of the major characteristics of more or less small audiophile brands is to invent problems that do not actually arise, in order to be able to solve them.

Such a large number of people follow them in these delusions propagated by the magazine press first since the 1970s, then by hi-fi forums, blogs, YouTube influencers, in a declining market, which we are unfortunately seeing! large companies forced to adopt this ideology to continue to sell and thus validate it against their will.

It's fascinating to note how bullshit can spread like wildfire throughout the international audiophile community when its refutation causes the bigots to howl and essential truths fail to take hold...

Just as it is fascinating to note that the products of major historic brands are automatically denigrated, worse are not even considered by the community of audiophiles who think they are informed, when the products of brands that have the audiophile ticket are systematically shrouded in a halo of “musicality”…

In the meantime, it's fun, but we see more and more guys registering on ASR to come and carry the sword... ASR, whose audience continues to grow, is so annoying that sometimes we wonder if it's not Don't panic a little among the fierce subjectivists refusing any intrusion of science into the qualitative assessment of sound reproduction devices...

 

[test1223]

This can lead to a shift in the center image but why would it affect soundstage ?

Yes a shift is happening and it can "damage" more than the center image, since all stereo mixing effects are supposed to happen with equality loud left and right channels and not all effects work that well if you change the balance to much.

Never the less from my understanding of the terminology of soundstage is that the position of the image is one part of the soundstage. So it is effecting the soundstage in a negative way even if the image only shifts a bit to the side.

The gang error of even very good (and expensive) stereo potentiometer is very significant about 1dB is very likely to happen at least at one position of the potentiometer. Sadly this issue is not addressed that often and many expensive and otherwise good stereo amps have such a potentiometer for level control. Avoid using such a potentiometer and compensate the level error for the now fixed position is a good walk around which increases the performance of your system.

 

[solderdude]

Yes a shift is happening and it can "damage" more than the center image, since all stereo mixing effects are supposed to happen with equality loud left and right channels and not all effects work that well if you change the balance to much.

What is too much ?

What would be 'damaged' other than a complete L-R imbalance ?

Never the less from my understanding of the terminology of soundstage is that the position of the image is one part of the soundstage. So it is effecting the soundstage in a negative way even if the image only shifts a bit to the side.

It just moves it a bit and the soundstage just shifts the same amount.
How much imbalance is detectable and when does it damage the soundstage when panned a little to one side ?
If in a studio a track/channel is panned a bit more to the left or right it just changes position in the mix but does not harm the soundstage, it just moves that track in the soundstage. Why would the soundstage be 'damaged' ? It just would move the total soundstage a bit more to one side.
What would be the mechanism ?

The gang error of even very good (and expensive) stereo potentiometer is very significant about 1dB is very likely to happen at least at one position of the potentiometer. Sadly this issue is not addressed that often and many expensive and otherwise good stereo amps have such a potentiometer for level control. Avoid using such a potentiometer and compensate the level error for the now fixed position is a good walk around which increases the performance of your system.

Amir measures volpot balance. (most of the times)

 

[test1223]

@solderdude
Try it for yourself it is easy an quick to test this. The compensation of potentiometer and loudspeaker (tweeter) level mismatches is worth to fiddle around with. From my experience I would say 0.25dB or slightly less mismatches can be detected in an ABX test. It is hard to say which part causes the detection of these very small differences but I would say that the overall soundstage is a part which slightly changes. If you come to levels of about 1.5dB and more it is definitely the perception of the soundstage which changes, it gradually collapses with more imbalance. There might be some scientific papers which address exactly this question. I don't have any reference for this at the moment. Since the spatial hearing uses many different cues at the same time like level, time difference of arrival and many more it is also very plausible that such an imbalance causes trouble since stereo is only a trick which "cheated" our spatial perception that there is a soundstage.

Amir measures volpot balance. (most of the times)

Which is helpful. You have to be aware that the potentiometer imbalance can be very different if you have a "golden sample" which was send to him by the company and a series production model, since the differences can spread a lot. Personally I avoid using any potentiometer as level control since even the best have higher tolerances.

 

[solderdude]

@solderdude
Try it for yourself it is easy an quick to test this. The compensation of potentiometer and loudspeaker (tweeter) level mismatches is worth to fiddle around with. From my experience I would say 0.25dB or slightly less mismatches can be detected in an ABX test. It is hard to say which part causes the detection of these very small differences but I would say that the overall soundstage is a part which slightly changes. If you come to levels of about 1.5dB and more it is definitely the perception of the soundstage which changes, it gradually collapses with more imbalance. There might be some scientific papers which address exactly this question. I don't have any reference for this at the moment. Since the spatial hearing uses many different cues at the same time like level, time difference of arrival and many more it is also very plausible that such an imbalance causes trouble since stereo is only a trick which "cheated" our spatial perception that there is a soundstage.

When you alter the frequency response of one of the transducers sure... you will change more than the balance.
Just like toeing in one speaker more than another or not having them setup symmetrically in a room with a-symmetric reflection will give substantial differences in HF response and by extension stereo imaging.
Like wise with headphones (that often have more than 0.5dB imbalance if only caused by asymmetric placement.

That is something entirely different then just having an L-R imbalance as the frequency response nor delay nor comb-filtering effects change due to that. Just the overall panning shifts.

Which is helpful. You have to be aware that the potentiometer imbalance can be very different if you have a "golden sample" which was send to him by the company and a series production model, since the differences can spread a lot. Personally I avoid using any potentiometer as level control since even the best have higher tolerances.

Yep, such measurements only show that there is high chance of one's copy to have some channel imbalance too. Could be worse, better or just different.
It is cause by using smaller sized volume controls in general.

Here too... channel imbalance is very measurable (much better than hearing ever could) and not a mystery.
Add to that the variability of hearing and circumstances in the home will have infinitely more effect on 'soundstage' than some channel imbalance (level difference).
Because of the variables involved with a perceived 'soundstage' the 'soundstage' itself is not possible to measure/gauge unless done in controlled situations in situ while channel imbalance can even be measured/shown using a simple multimeter.

 

[test1223]

When you alter the frequency response of one of the transducers sure... you will change more than the balance.
Just like toeing in one speaker more than another or not having them setup symmetrically in a room with a-symmetric reflection will give substantial differences in HF response and by extension stereo imaging.
Like wise with headphones (that often have more than 0.5dB imbalance if only caused by asymmetric placement.

That is something entirely different then just having an L-R imbalance as the frequency response nor delay nor comb-filtering effects change due to that. Just the overall panning shifts.

It was only a remark to also have a look at that. You somehow have to match your output of the speakers and then you often notice the imperfection of the loudspeaker /most of the time tweeter match.

The experience I shared was without changing the frequency response of the loudspeakers, since it isn't wise to test two or more things at the same time to get some insides.

 

[solderdude]

The compensation of potentiometer and loudspeaker (tweeter) level mismatches is worth to fiddle around with.

This would be changing the frequency response of the speaker and is what the first part of my reply was about.
That does not happen in an amp (channel imbalance only).

 

[test1223]

This would be changing the frequency response of the speaker and is what the first part of my reply was about.
That does not happen in an amp (channel imbalance only).

I am well aware of this And my last response should make it very clear that I tested level balance differences on its own. As a further remark I did this with speakers which didn't have any frequency imbalance (below 0.1dB). So with not so good speakers you might get other results.

Like wise with headphones (that often have more than 0.5dB imbalance if only caused by asymmetric placement.

Headphones level imbalances should cause a different change in soundstage, since the spatial mechanisms are triggered differently compared with loudspeakers and headphones without proper processing don't provide a good soundstage to begin with.

 

[solderdude]

I did this with speakers which didn't have any imbalance (below 0.1dB)

That's some nifty speakers... Have never come across those.
How did you measure confirm this number ?

 

[test1223]

That's some nifty speakers... Have never come across those.
How did you measure confirm this number ?

I build and measure them by myself. The chassie match was perfect without any selection by myself, so I haven't much trouble to build the loudspeakers which essentially measure the same with using a digital crossover.

 

[solderdude]

I build and measure them by myself. The chassie match was perfect without any selection by myself, so I haven't much trouble to build the loudspeakers which essentially measure the same with using a digital crossover.

pics and plots or it didn't happen

 

[Haskil]

That requires infinite bandwidth (the start of the rising input signal).
Something real world amps do not have so all amps will do this in some severity.
In an FFT (and FR) you will thus see the higher harmonics slope downwards and square-waves being rounded off.

And again.... this thread is about things that cannot be measured. Your example is not something that cannot be measured and a mystery.

And the imbalance of the volume potentiometer can be measured precisely.
But, but, but the imbalance caused by the asymmetry of the listening room, by its furniture which is just as much, will in any case have much more importance on hearing than an imbalance of 0.1 dB and a fortiori by 1dB of the volume potentiometer... ... in the days when there was a balance adjustment on integrated amplifiers and monophonic tracks to adjust the balance from the listening point, it was rare for this adjustment to be at 12 o'clock. . even if we did this empirically with our ears, but on a neutral, inexpressive signal, it worked very well...

In short, all these things are measurable...

 

[krabapple]

I'd generally say that when people talk about the liveliness of a system they're talking about the high frequency response. You get more zing off your cymbals and more shine off your guitar strings when you have a more tipped up system in the top end. It is not nonsense... it's a matter of trying to describe the effect of the sounds you're hearing. If someone says a system sounds lively, and you roll off the top at 15khz and beyond, they'll probably tell you it sounds less lively. It is the perception of the sound, which is hardly nonsense, just describing the perception in how you actually understand the sound you are hearing. And yes there is some imprecision in that sometimes people mean slightly different things by the terms they use, but perception is inherently subjective so it's bound to happen.

Please try to be a bit less dismissive and rabid.

So, you've got measurements that show your system emphasizes high frequencies? If so and if it's your amp or DAC, I'd get them repaired. Or get speakers more suited to your amp and listening habits

Your claims elsewhere about MQA are presumptuous, unless you can be sure you're comparing masterings whose only difference is MQA. Thats Audio Science 101.