"Don Pearce" wrote in message
news:49fd60fc.788132578@localhost
On Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:00:04 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

In article , Dave
Plowman (News) scribeth thus
In article ,
John Phillips
wrote:
The only time I listened to a (4 W) SET amplifier it
was driving a pair of 'speakers which had a
sensitivity of just 84 dB SPL at 1 m for 1 W. To my
ears the system was distorting badly and, as it
happened, I was able to verify that it was indeed
clipping (albeit soft clipping).

But the owner would have none of this and described
the sound as highly lifelike. I backed off, of
course. Although the system sounded bad to me, if the
owner was enjoying it then who was I to say what he
should or should not enjoy.

I had a great uncle who liked to collect really old phonographs and movie
projectors. He restored a number of them to operational condition and loved
to demonstrate them. Of course the old phonographs sounded bad, wax
cylinders and all that. The movie projectors did not produce really good
images with new film or old. Nevertheless they gave us both considerable joy
for being what they were. Of course neither of us were so delusional that we
thought that they performed better than their modern equivalents.


It seems to me that human sensitivity to distortion
can be very variable. I seem to be somewhat sensitive.
Others are clearly not.

Perception can be highly focused. Musicians tend to listen to music and
audiophiles tend to listen to sound.

I think that sensitivity can be developed by training
but I have come
to the conclusion that I would never take any such
training. It could only lead to less satisfaction
with audio kit and never more.

It depends on your role in the larger scheme of things. If one engages in
audio production then its best to be a little dissatisfied with the product
no matter what. The satisfaction comes from how people respond to what you
make, not what you think of what you make.

We actually have a very easy way of checking for
*gross* distortion - the time pips on R4. Assuming you
know what clean sine wave sounds like, that is. Try
playing those back from vinyl...


What do they sound like on low bitrate DAB 'tho;?...

You can't hear them at all on DAB, unless you are
prepared to hang around for a minute or two.

Doing a little thought experiment - sine waves generally do well, even when
coded at low bitrates. Simple signal, and all that. And that is why it is
not very informative to evaluate perceptual coders with traditional audio
technical tests.