On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:54:04 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

snip

That wasnt my question. My question asked why Keith couldnt accept the
'cold harsh sound' of SS amps was due to a LACK of audible distortion.

I said nothing about wether valve amps distort.

You have raised a very good point there.

We know that valve amps distort. We know that we can produce ss amps
with almost unmeasurable (never mind inaudible) distortion.

We also know that our hearing is non-linear in all sorts of ways. We know
that the ear/brain combination does some *very* strange things under
certain conditions. Our hearing has even been found to introduce its own
THD which can be at least partially measured using a microphone in the
middle ear.

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound? That a perfect "wire with
gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply because it
does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing associates with
"real" sound?

Following on from this hypothesis, I can see what the "valvies" mean by
the descriptions that they give (including the argued word "better"). I
can also see why some of them take a dislike to "ss" sound. Is the real
problem that in order to produce realistic-sounding results we *need* some
sort of distortion to fool our hearing into accepting the sound as real?

Has anyone started out with a really good, ultra-low distortion ss amp and
added harmonic distortion to it until a listener believes the sound to be
real? I doubt if this could be done with test tones as our ears are not
designed to handle them in real life.

IMHO it still really needs some method of double-blind testing live music
against amplified music to test this properly. Testing amp against amp is
doomed to misinterpretation because it takes no account of the *way* that
we hear amplified sound.

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info
Web: http://projectedsound.tk

mick wrote:

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound? That a perfect "wire with
gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply because it
does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing associates with
"real" sound?

Interesting point but I think perhaps a non-starter.

If listening to a live performance, for the sake of argument, from a
point source instrument, our 'inherent distortion' is the only thing
impacting on the signal.

If we now make a recording of the signal, again, for the sake of
argument, with a perfect microphone, and played it back from a single
speaker in place of the musician, with a perfect speaker, we should
expect the speaker to produce the same waveform as the musical instrument.

if the same waveform is produced, the ear will apply the same distortion
as before, and the perceived sound should be the same.

If we can agree on the above, this suggests that in order to hear
something that is true to the original sound, we need to have distortion
free reproduction.

IOW, the ear introduces the same distortion all the time, so introducing
more distortion wont help.

"mick" wrote


You have raised a very good point there.

We know that valve amps distort. We know that we can produce ss amps
with almost unmeasurable (never mind inaudible) distortion.

We also know that our hearing is non-linear in all sorts of ways. We know
that the ear/brain combination does some *very* strange things under
certain conditions. Our hearing has even been found to introduce its own
THD which can be at least partially measured using a microphone in the
middle ear.

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound? That a perfect "wire with
gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply because it
does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing associates with
"real" sound?


Hmm, interesting. (Very.)


Following on from this hypothesis, I can see what the "valvies" mean by
the descriptions that they give (including the argued word "better"). I
can also see why some of them take a dislike to "ss" sound. Is the real
problem that in order to produce realistic-sounding results we *need* some
sort of distortion to fool our hearing into accepting the sound as real?


If it helps, as a valvie, I would like to state that when we are not put on
the defensive by 'sandampers' (who, for some strange reason, feel so bloody
*threatened*...??) it is not so much a case of actually disliking ss
amplification, but more a case of simply liking valves better.

That is to say, I (for one) can be listening to an ss amp quite happily
until the music is swapped to valves (damn near any valves - see below) when
at once the music becomes more 'easy' more 'dynamic and alive' and more
pleasant to listen to. Valve sound is also less fatiguing (actually not
fatiguing at all) compared with ss. Trust me there is no 'trade off' in
terms of definition, resolution etc. - quite the reverse, in fact. Some say
ss amps are 'grainy' and 'mushy' by comparison. I make no such claims
myself - I would only say I find them planar and harsh (brittle?) by
comparison.

Earlier this evening I was swapping between two quite different valve
amp/speaker setups, one playing 256K MP3s from a computer hard disk and one
playing the CD of the same album. The object was to check that the MP3s
sounded as good as the CD, which I thought they did. I called Swim in for a
quick comparison and she picked setup A first time and setup B second time
without knowing what kit was being used in either case. Told me what I
wanted to know.

Now, slap a slice of vinyl down and suddenly it ain't quite so clear cut!!
;-)

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:28:53 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

"mick" wrote

You have raised a very good point there.

We know that valve amps distort. We know that we can produce ss amps
with almost unmeasurable (never mind inaudible) distortion.

We also know that our hearing is non-linear in all sorts of ways. We know
that the ear/brain combination does some *very* strange things under
certain conditions. Our hearing has even been found to introduce its own
THD which can be at least partially measured using a microphone in the
middle ear.

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound? That a perfect "wire with
gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply because it
does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing associates with
"real" sound?


Hmm, interesting. (Very.)

No, it's not interesting at all. It's a very old and *very* misguided
argument. Certainly, our ears distort - but they distort in exactly
the same way when listening to the live performance as to a
reproduction at the same SPL.

Following on from this hypothesis, I can see what the "valvies" mean by
the descriptions that they give (including the argued word "better"). I
can also see why some of them take a dislike to "ss" sound. Is the real
problem that in order to produce realistic-sounding results we *need* some
sort of distortion to fool our hearing into accepting the sound as real?

No, it's simply that bad valve amps have well-known *euphonic*
artifacts. Easy listening, but never accurate.

If it helps, as a valvie, I would like to state that when we are not put on
the defensive by 'sandampers' (who, for some strange reason, feel so bloody
*threatened*...??) it is not so much a case of actually disliking ss
amplification, but more a case of simply liking valves better.

Just another sign of the ignorance of valvies, that they use a stupid
attempted pejorative term like 'sandamp' without understanding that
there's *much* more melted sand in their glowing bottles. Basically,
as dogs and their owners tend to look alike, so the heads of valvies
and their amps tend to similarity - both hollow-state......... :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article , Stewart
Pinkerton
wrote:


Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound?

Quite possible in some cases, I'd say. But hard to be sure.

That a perfect "wire with gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for
our ears simply because it does *not* introduce the distortion that
our hearing associates with "real" sound?

The difficulty here is that with live acoustic music we won't have such an
external nonlinear process interposed between the instruments and our
hearing physiology when listening to the music 'live'. However this depends
upon your definition of "wrong".

speculation mode = "on"
For example, it may be that some forms of 'distortion' alter the perception
by manipulating our physiology in a (not understood) manner. Thus altering
or 'enhancing' some aspects of listening to music. However for the reason
outlined above, is that live music with voices or acoustic instruments
won't be doing this, so we would not be getting this 'enhancement' with
such live music. Something like a valve amp for a guitar might do it, but
then if that is already being included at the recording stage, should more
of something similar be added later in the chain?...
/speculation mode



Hmm, interesting. (Very.)

No, it's not interesting at all. It's a very old and *very* misguided
argument. Certainly, our ears distort - but they distort in exactly the
same way when listening to the live performance as to a reproduction at
the same SPL.

I am wary here of the use of the term 'distort' as it implies using the
same word (and hence may imply to some people an equivalence in the
processes) for the nonlinear processes of human hearing physiology and the
nonlinearities of something like a valve amp. Hence this may be another
example of people risking getting into discussions based upon ambiguities
of language without noticing this is occuring. Using the same word may be
entirely understandable as a practice, but might be misleading.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"Keith G" wrote in message

"mick" wrote


You have raised a very good point there.

We know that valve amps distort. We know that we can produce ss amps
with almost unmeasurable (never mind inaudible) distortion.

We also know that our hearing is non-linear in all sorts of ways. We
know that the ear/brain combination does some *very* strange things
under certain conditions. Our hearing has even been found to
introduce its own THD which can be at least partially measured using
a microphone in the middle ear.

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound? That a perfect "wire
with gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply
because it does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing
associates with "real" sound?


Hmm, interesting. (Very.)

Only to ******s like you, Keith.

"mick" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:54:04 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

snip

That wasnt my question. My question asked why Keith couldnt accept
the 'cold harsh sound' of SS amps was due to a LACK of audible
distortion.

I said nothing about wether valve amps distort.

You have raised a very good point there.

We know that valve amps distort. We know that we can produce ss amps
with almost unmeasurable (never mind inaudible) distortion.

We also know that our hearing is non-linear in all sorts of ways. We
know that the ear/brain combination does some *very* strange things
under certain conditions. Our hearing has even been found to
introduce its own THD which can be at least partially measured using
a microphone in the middle ear.

Note, this distortion overlays everything that we hear. It is part of the
natural hearing experience.

Could it be possible that non-linearity and the built-in distortion
factor is what causes the difference in sound?

It's impossible because this distortion is part of unamplified,
non-reproduced sound.

That a perfect "wire
with gain" amplification is actually *wrong* for our ears simply
because it does *not* introduce the distortion that our hearing
associates with "real" sound?

Our ears introduce this distortion whether the sound is pre-distorted by a
tube amplifier or not.

This logic is so bad that it does not deserve further discussion.