Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...


In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP

Interesting comment. In my experience the difference between CD and LP is
obvious even on the most lowly of kit.


My suspicion is that many/most people who don't 'get it' with vinyl is
because they've never heard it on anything like a halfway decent setup....

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...


In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP

Interesting comment. In my experience the difference between CD and LP is
obvious even on the most lowly of kit.


My suspicion is that many/most people who don't 'get it' with vinyl is
because they've never heard it on anything like a halfway decent setup....

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)

It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Keith G wrote:

In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between
CD and LP but he prefers *playing* the LPs and is a collector of various
types of vinyl specialities (picture discs, promos &c.)...

What is there to enjoy about *playing* LPs ? It's an utter chore.


So's peeling vegetables - stupid really, when you could just open a
can....

What a daft comment. Do you prefer *peeling* potatoes to opening a can?

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Keith G wrote:

In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between
CD and LP but he prefers *playing* the LPs and is a collector of
various
types of vinyl specialities (picture discs, promos &c.)...

What is there to enjoy about *playing* LPs ? It's an utter chore.


So's peeling vegetables - stupid really, when you could just open a
can....

What a daft comment. Do you prefer *peeling* potatoes to opening a can?


Yes, of course - but you obviously don't.....

TV dinners and a CD playing? (Sounds like heaven on earth!)

Enjoy...

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...


In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP

Interesting comment. In my experience the difference between CD and LP
is obvious even on the most lowly of kit.


My suspicion is that many/most people who don't 'get it' with vinyl is
because they've never heard it on anything like a halfway decent
setup....

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)


What comment is that?



It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....



David, all that mastertape horse**** was dealt and dispensed with in here
years ago - here's a hint: If you don't *know*, don't guess....

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

"Arny Krueger" wrote
"Eeyore" wrote
Arny Krueger wrote:

There is no chance that there is anything wrong with the
sound of the CD format since it is sonically transparent.

No help to those who actively seek colouration though.
Same as valve amps. The two ( liking valves and LPs)
seem to go hand-in-hand which strongly suggests to me
that those people like a strongly coloured sound.

I think that sentimentality, a desire to be different for the sake of
being different, and gettting attention is behind most of the adamant LP
preference we see expressed around here.

Hey, I like vintage technology too! I've got a collection of valve TV sets,
old telephones, a telephone repeater panel dating from 1924 and all sorts of
other items ("junk" as my wife calls it :-( )

And you must admit that there is something about steam railway locos that
modern electric ones just don't have. Why shouldn't the vinyl and valve-amp
brigade have their fun?

Yes but have you seen some of the diesels the railways nuts have now ? There are
several Deltics that have been restored and are still in operation and even some
Class 44s , 45s and 46s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_55
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_44
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_46

The Class 45s used to work the local line. I well recall one of those hauling a
train from St Pancras to St Albans (32 km exactly) in 16 minutes. An AVERAGE
speed of 120 km/h or 75 mph.

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

"Keith G" wrote
"David Looser" wrote
"Keith G" wrote

In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP

Interesting comment. In my experience the difference between CD and LP is
obvious even on the most lowly of kit.


My suspicion is that many/most people who don't 'get it' with vinyl is
because they've never heard it on anything like a halfway decent setup....

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)

It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....

Modern recordings don't even have master tapes of course.

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

"Keith G" wrote
"Eeyore" wrote
Keith G wrote:

In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between
CD and LP but he prefers *playing* the LPs and is a collector of various
types of vinyl specialities (picture discs, promos &c.)...

What is there to enjoy about *playing* LPs ? It's an utter chore.


So's peeling vegetables - stupid really, when you could just open a
can....

What a daft comment. Do you prefer *peeling* potatoes to opening a can?

I prefer eating them with their skins on. Supposed to be more nutritious too.

Graahm

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

Keith G wrote:

"David Looser" wrote

It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....

David, all that mastertape horse**** was dealt and dispensed with in here
years ago - here's a hint: If you don't *know*, don't guess....

What 'master tape' horse**** is this ?

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

Keith G wrote:

"David Looser" wrote in message

What a daft comment. Do you prefer *peeling* potatoes to opening a can?

Yes, of course - but you obviously don't.....

TV dinners and a CD playing? (Sounds like heaven on earth!)

Since when did an unpeeled tatty have any relationship to a 'TV dinner' ?

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


David Looser wrote:

"Keith G" wrote
"David Looser" wrote
"Keith G" wrote

In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP

Interesting comment. In my experience the difference between CD and LP
is
obvious even on the most lowly of kit.


My suspicion is that many/most people who don't 'get it' with vinyl is
because they've never heard it on anything like a halfway decent
setup....

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)

It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....

Modern recordings don't even have master tapes of course.


OK, master computer file then, it makes no difference to my point.

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"David Looser" wrote in message
...

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)


What comment is that?

quote
In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP
unquote


It is certainly the case that the difference between a cheap and an
expensive record player is far more significant than that between a cheap
and an expensive CD player. But even the very best record player cannot
sound better than the master tape, and since a competently mastered CD
sounds essentially identical to the master tape.....


David, all that mastertape horse**** was dealt and dispensed with in here
years ago - here's a hint:

What "horse****" is that?

If you don't *know*, don't guess....

So enlighten me.

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:


Why would DVD A or Sony's super effort (can't remember) even exist if
CDs were transparent?

Because the patents Philips and Sony had on the Audio CD format had run
out. They could still get money for controlling the 'trademarks' "Audio CD"
and the logo they'd been using. But they'd lost the patent IPR income from
having to be paid for *every* CD and CD player that was made. People can
now make and sell audio CDs and players with no need to pay them a penny.
This was a large income stream, and they wanted a replacement.

DVD Audio had similar 'advantages' for the large companies who shared the
relevant patent pool.

In addition, both SACD and DVD A have 'new' forms of systems that attempt
to block copying in the digital domain, whereas the Red Book Audio CD does
not.

Despite the effort Philips, etc, put into pushing SACD and DVD A, both
systems have been flops.

I have an pre-amplifier at home which can take analogue signals and pass
them via the volume control and out, or, convert the signal to digital
16bit 44.1KHz and back to analogue again. The digital path is most
definitely not transparent.

I keep forgetting the word that means "confusing the container for the
contained". Shame it it seems to crop up so often - as above. :-)

Assuming you are corrent in your assertion, it still tells you zero about
the inherent capability of the Audio CD format. And for all we know, your
assertion may be based on something that has zero to do with CD per se.

Slainte,

Jim

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

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...

Why would DVD A or Sony's super effort (can't remember)

Super Audio CD (SACD), though I think it's a Philips thing, not Sony's.

even exist if CDs
were transparent?

They hardly do, both seem candidates for the "greatest home-entertainment
flops of our time" award, along with Sony's Elcaset, Philips' Digital
Compact-Cassette, RCA's Selectavision and the entire raft of "Quadraphonic"
systems of the 1970s.

Actually DVD-A offers 5.1 surround sound using uncompressed audio, unlike
the 5.1 on DVD-V which uses Dolby AC3 compression. Whilst audio CD (and
SACD) is strictly two-channel stereo.

I have an pre-amplifier at home which can take analogue signals and pass
them via the volume control and out, or, convert the signal to digital
16bit 44.1KHz and back to analogue again. The digital path is most
definitely not transparent.

Your digital path includes an ADC, a DAC as well as a hunk of other
circuitry and I have no idea what sort of quality all this is. If the
through gain varies from unity by even as little as 1dB or the frequency
response varies even slightly from perfection you are likely to notice a
difference in an A/B test. Of course if you had a disc-cutter, pressing
plant and disc playback loop in your pre-amp you would notice a very large
difference in an A/B test!

Many years ago my job included building hard-disk based audio
recording/playback systems for an automated subjective listening test
facility. The system was based on 16 bit converters, originally multibit
hybrid modules (not monolithic), later replaced by 1-bit converters. These
could operate at 16, 32 or 48 kHz sampling rate (the lower rates saved on
disk space, important with the small HDs of the early 1990s). I spent many
hours tweaking these converters using both test equipment (Audio-Precision
system 1) and my ears. I can honestly say that at 48kHz it was extremely
hard to tell on an A/B test whether one was listening to the A-D-A path, or
an A-A bypass. Even at 16kHz it wasn't easy when using speech as the test
signal.

IMO 16-bit/44.1kHz is more than good enough for domestic audio playback
systems. Any audible deficiencies are due to limitations of the hardware.


David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Looser wrote:

Of course if you had a disc-cutter, pressing plant and disc playback
loop in your pre-amp you would notice a very large difference in an A/B
test!

Why? I would expect *all* of the differences to be in the adc/dac
processes and non what so ever in the media writing and reading unless
there was a fault in the media.

Sorry, I didn't make my meaning clear. I was talking about an *analogue*
disc system. (Mind you phase jitter caused by the mechanical parts of a poor
quality or faulty CD system *can* stress the error-correction to the point
where the playback quality is compromised).

IMO 16-bit/44.1kHz is more than good enough for domestic audio playback
systems. Any audible deficiencies are due to limitations of the hardware.

That *may* be true but is it possible to make this hardware devoid of
deficiencies?


Well no, perfection is for the gods. But what is the alternative?, the
vastly inferior analogue disc and tape systems? Or should we spend a lot of
money eliminating impairments that are not audible in normal domestic use?,
the buying public seem to be quite happy with their mp3s and DAB radio. You
might be interested to know BTW that the recent specification for Digital
Cinema includes 16 channels of uncompressed 48kHz/24-bit audio. Mind you the
dynamic range of film soundtracks is far larger than that of almost all
music recordings.

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

Bob Latham wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Bob Latham wrote:

Certainly from 1982 to 1987 my wife could only spend a few minutes
listening to CD before leaving the room, she thought CD was so awful
until we got the Meridian 207/8.

Why are you judging CDs by 25 year old technology.

Would you play an LP with a steel needle ?

Because Arny says CD was fine back then and my wife was just pandering to
my feelings.

Arny's dismissal of the very obvious failings of EARLY digial audio do him no
favours at all. Much of it was JUNK.

However, if those first steps had not been made we wouldn't have the truly
excellent medium we have now. It just irks me that the CD standard wasn't say
48kHz, 18 bit.

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

Mind you phase jitter caused by the mechanical parts of a poor
quality or faulty CD system *can* stress the error-correction to the point
where the playback quality is compromised)

NO. Pure horse manure. The digital signal is buffered to buggery. A bit of
jitter won't bother it. This is an example of analogue-style thinking being
inappropriately attached to digital signal paths.

If this was even remotely true you'd expect to see regular errors reading a
CD-ROM so you wouldn't be able to rely on them for archival. These have even
LESS redundancy.

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

Mind you the dynamic range of film soundtracks is far larger than that of
almost all
music recordings.

Really ?

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


David Looser wrote:

Mind you the dynamic range of film soundtracks is far larger than that of
almost all
music recordings.

Really ?

Yes really.

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


David Looser wrote:

Mind you phase jitter caused by the mechanical parts of a poor
quality or faulty CD system *can* stress the error-correction to the
point
where the playback quality is compromised)

NO. Pure horse manure. The digital signal is buffered to buggery. A bit of
jitter won't bother it. This is an example of analogue-style thinking
being
inappropriately attached to digital signal paths.

It's not "horse manure". No amount of buffering will cure the problem of
recovering data from a badly jittered data-stream. It's the clock recovery
that is affected. I can tell that you've never had to design clock-recovery
circuits.

If this was even remotely true you'd expect to see regular errors reading
a
CD-ROM so you wouldn't be able to rely on them for archival. These have
even
LESS redundancy.

When reading a CDROM the computer can (and often does) read the same bit of
data several times until it gets an error-free version.

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

David Looser wrote:

"Eeyore" wrote
David Looser wrote:

Mind you phase jitter caused by the mechanical parts of a poor
quality or faulty CD system *can* stress the error-correction to the
point where the playback quality is compromised)

NO. Pure horse manure. The digital signal is buffered to buggery. A bit of
jitter won't bother it. This is an example of analogue-style thinking
being inappropriately attached to digital signal paths.

It's not "horse manure". No amount of buffering will cure the problem of
recovering data from a badly jittered data-stream. It's the clock recovery
that is affected. I can tell that you've never had to design clock-recovery
circuits.

Actually .... I have been involved in a project to determine weaknesses of early
examples of precisely this kind of circuit. There certainly were problems in the
early days.

If it's *badly* jittered you have a point but I've not seen jitter greater than
a couple of ns on digital audio data streams.

Graham

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"David Looser" wrote in message
...

Another interesting comment, as it appears to directly contradict your
earlier one :-)


What comment is that?

quote
In the case of my son, his kit (Technics/B&W) masks any differences
between CD and LP
unquote


OK, but I would suggest that if you are going to reference previous comments
you should include them in your post; I for one will not trawl backwards and
forwards trying to work out what you are referring to....


David, all that mastertape horse**** was dealt and dispensed with in here
years ago - here's a hint:

What "horse****" is that?

If you don't *know*, don't guess....

So enlighten me.


Difficult to refuse so polite and elegant a request, so here goes:

This is an 'audio' newsgroup primarily concerned with the
production/reproduction of sound for (mostly) pleasure purposes populated by
(a few) people with differing views which I believe can be mostly divided
into two main groups - the 'accurists' (for want of a better word) who
strive for a sound which is 'as close to the original recorded signal as
possible' and the 'realists' (like me) who seek a sound which is 'as close
to the original physical sound as possible' or at least their/my *idea*
thereof ? (It all becomes highly subjective by the time the recorded sound
reaches the listeners ears in his own listening environment when, for
example, no two people would agree on the exact same *volume setting* -
never mind anything else!)

Whatever. One thing the accurists have to fall back on is the 'mastertape'
and the gauged faithfulness to this (fidelity) was frequently thrown into
the arguments as the be-all and end-all of sound reproduction. The reason
for this is that it is fairly easy to *measure* deviation from the original
signal, rules can be made from various measurements and it therefore becomes
a useful weapon. Where it becomes horse**** in my book is when reference is
continually made to mastertapes that no-one has ever heard (or ever will)
and to events that weren't witnessed personally. OK?

All the realists have to counter this with is that a sound which may not
measure too well (and is therefore 'distorted') frequently sounds better
(and more *real*) - PW, the accurist's God, said summat like the objective
of good hifi' is/would be a 'straight wire with gain'; I say fine, but I'll
bend it until it sounds better! Here's an example of how it works which is
less than 24 hours old:

Yesterday, a very nice blokey came here to hear my Dynaco monos (which are
up for sacrifice in the most vicious 'hifi pogrom' yet) and he brought his
Bryston preamp, as I don't now have one. This meant I couldn't do anything
other than start from stone cold, which I did - the 'sound' was horrible
from the off and only started to get better as the Dynies warmed up, but the
guy was very curious about the SET amps I have here as he had never heard
one! So, after a brief stint when I had swapped his Bryston out and
substituted my Denon SS amp (using the pre-outs to drive the Dynacos) which
warmed the sound up straight away (distortion) and which the blokey had
preferred straight away, I put the Bez Chinese 300B SET on (also up for
sacrifice, as it is not of my own making) and instantly the guy sat back and
said 'Ah, that's better!'

The upshot is my Bezzer is now 8 miles from here, while he checks to see how
well it drives his Altec Lansing behemoth speakers (???) - yet another
'realism beats accuracy' triumph, I believe, but I'm not sure about how well
it will work on his kit...??

:-)

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

In article , David Looser
wrote:
"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


NO. Pure horse manure. The digital signal is buffered to buggery. A
bit of jitter won't bother it. This is an example of analogue-style
thinking being inappropriately attached to digital signal paths.

It's not "horse manure". No amount of buffering will cure the problem of
recovering data from a badly jittered data-stream. It's the clock
recovery that is affected. I can tell that you've never had to design
clock-recovery circuits.

Rather depends on your definition of "badly". :-)

If you look at the levels of jitter people argue about in audio mags it is
of the order of 100's ps to a ns. I'd have said is quite small in the
context of SPDIF or EBU, although they are vague about how this is
measured. I'd expect this to be easily reclocked and buffered if the
engineer knows what he is doing. In practice, my experience is that even a
decade old DAC like the Meridian 263 or 563 does this with ease.

So does a fairly cheap RX like the one in the Pioneer recorders I have been
using recently. Sample-by-sample comparisons using a player with a disc
that isn't faulty shown sample-by-sample agreement of recordings. Also
agreeing with recordings made directly to computer using a CDROM drive.

Can you define what you meant by "badly"? I can see that if the jitter is
large enough then you will get problems recovering the actual stream of
values. But I can't say I have encountered this with domestic audio kit
I've used unless the disc or equipment are faulty. No doubt, though,
someone will have made kit bad enough for this to be a problem... :-)

Of course, if the 'jitter' has significant amounts at low phase modulation
frequencies then the loop or buffer will need to alter the local clock and
this will affect the output. I can also see that an RX/DAC that doesn't
reclock but simply uses the implict clock in the data will then translate
that into phase modulation of the output. But this does not mean that the
correct series of values was not RXd. Is this what you were thinking about?
That the loop or buffer will respond to close-in phase noise by adjusting
the conversion clock frequency?

Given values for 'jitter' of the order of 100's of ps I can't immediately
see that this would cause a very significant modulation of the DAC clock
rate if smoothed with a sensible buffer and loop.


Slainte,

Jim

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

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

However, if those first steps had not been made we wouldn't have the
truly excellent medium we have now. It just irks me that the CD standard
wasn't say 48kHz, 18 bit.

So in your eyes then 16bit 44.1KHz is not transparent otherwise why
bother.


Cheers,

Bob.

--
Bob Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands

My preference for 48k sampling has nothing to do with audio quality, but to
do with compatibility. CD is 44.1, DVD digital TV and digital radio is 48k
or multiples thereof. Having CD at 44.1 means that for transmission on TV
or digital radio, there has to be an otherwise unnecessary sample rate
conversion between source and destination. I know that SRCs are nowadays
audibly transparent, but nevertheless, in a professional installation, it
adds an unnecesary level of complication.

It has caused the BBC for one, considerable extra complication and expense
when designing their new Broadcasting House infrastructure, as they decided
that network radio would run their studios at 44.1k, whilst News and Current
Affairs would run their studios at 48k so as to be compatible with TV. They
consquently had to provide both 44.1 and 48k routing, and for DAB and DSAT
distribution, they had to SRC the network outputs before transmission.

It would have been so much easier if CD had run at 48k.

S.


--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 18:08:08 -0000, "Serge Auckland"
wrote:

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

However, if those first steps had not been made we wouldn't have the
truly excellent medium we have now. It just irks me that the CD standard
wasn't say 48kHz, 18 bit.

So in your eyes then 16bit 44.1KHz is not transparent otherwise why
bother.


Cheers,

Bob.

--
Bob Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands

My preference for 48k sampling has nothing to do with audio quality, but to
do with compatibility. CD is 44.1, DVD digital TV and digital radio is 48k
or multiples thereof. Having CD at 44.1 means that for transmission on TV
or digital radio, there has to be an otherwise unnecessary sample rate
conversion between source and destination. I know that SRCs are nowadays
audibly transparent, but nevertheless, in a professional installation, it
adds an unnecesary level of complication.

It has caused the BBC for one, considerable extra complication and expense
when designing their new Broadcasting House infrastructure, as they decided
that network radio would run their studios at 44.1k, whilst News and Current
Affairs would run their studios at 48k so as to be compatible with TV. They
consquently had to provide both 44.1 and 48k routing, and for DAB and DSAT
distribution, they had to SRC the network outputs before transmission.

It would have been so much easier if CD had run at 48k.

S.

But their analogue terrestrial service needs NICAM at 32k. Yet another
sample rate conversion.

Conversion is such a trivial matter these days that I would suggest
that it need not be considered in making technical decisions.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

Keith G" wrote in message
...


This is an 'audio' newsgroup primarily concerned with the
production/reproduction of sound for (mostly) pleasure purposes populated
by (a few) people with differing views which I believe can be mostly
divided into two main groups - the 'accurists' (for want of a better word)
who strive for a sound which is 'as close to the original recorded signal
as possible' and the 'realists' (like me) who seek a sound which is 'as
close to the original physical sound as possible' or at least their/my
*idea* thereof ? (It all becomes highly subjective by the time the
recorded sound reaches the listeners ears in his own listening environment
when, for example, no two people would agree on the exact same *volume
setting* - never mind anything else!)

In the world of cinema sound the cinema's playback system is conceptually
divided into two parts at the source selector switch: the A-chain, which is
the soundhead, pre-amps decoders etc, and the B-chain, which is the balance
of the system, volume control, equalisers, power amps, speakers plus, of
course, the acoustic environment. There is a separate A-chain for each type
of source: optical analogue, magnetic analogue, optical digital, hard-drive
etc. whilst the B-chain is the same for them all.

Films are mixed in dubbing theatres which conform to an international
standard for frequency response, reverb time etc. and cinema B-chains are
adjusted to conform as closely as possible to that standard. Meanwhile the
A-chain is adjusted to be as nearly transparent as possible, ideally the
electrical signal leaving the cinema A-chain is exactly the same as the
electrical signal leaving the sound mixer's desk. This ensures that the
sound heard by the cinema patron is as close as possible to that heard in
the dubbing theatre. It also means that, at least as far as film sound
sources are concerned, the volume and frequency response are similar
regardless of the type of soundtrack being played (there is remarkably
little audible difference when switching back and forth between the digital
and analogue soundtracks on modern 35mm film prints)

Transferring this concept to the home Hi-Fi area, the record-player plus
RIAA pre-amp or CD player, tape machine, tuner etc. is clearly the A-chain.
Whilst the volume and tone controls, power amps and speakers (+room of
course) are the B-chain. Now I grant you that there is less standardisation
of music mixing rooms than is the case with film dubbing theatres, and there
is no standardisation of home listening rooms at all, nevertheless it seems
to me that at least for the A-chain the same principle applies, the signal
leaving the RIAA amp or CD player should be as close as possible to that
entering the monitoring chain in the mixing room. If you want to
bugger-about with the sound to make it "better" you can do that with the
B-chain.

Whatever. One thing the accurists have to fall back on is the 'mastertape'
and the gauged faithfulness to this (fidelity) was frequently thrown into
the arguments as the be-all and end-all of sound reproduction. The reason
for this is that it is fairly easy to *measure* deviation from the
original signal, rules can be made from various measurements and it
therefore becomes a useful weapon.

Well no. The reason is that the mastertape represents the sound that the
sound engineer, record producer, artist etc. agreed was what they wanted the
record to sound like.

Where it becomes horse**** in my book is when reference is
continually made to mastertapes that no-one has ever heard (or ever will)

No-one? what about the recording engineer, the producer, the artist etc?

and to events that weren't witnessed personally. OK?

All the realists have to counter this with is that a sound which may not
measure too well (and is therefore 'distorted') frequently sounds better
(and more *real*)

Well yes I understand, That's why 1950s AM radios with single-ended output
pentodes running 10% distortion at 3W sound far more "real" than anything
else! :-)

- PW, the accurist's God, said summat like the objective
of good hifi' is/would be a 'straight wire with gain'; I say fine, but
I'll bend it until it sounds better! Here's an example of how it works
which is less than 24 hours old:

Long rambling story snipped.

The upshot is my Bezzer is now 8 miles from here, while he checks to see
how well it drives his Altec Lansing behemoth speakers (???) - yet another
'realism beats accuracy' triumph, I believe,

How do you work that out?, what did your story have to do with either
accuracy or realism?


David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 18:08:08 -0000, "Serge Auckland"
wrote:

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

However, if those first steps had not been made we wouldn't have the
truly excellent medium we have now. It just irks me that the CD
standard
wasn't say 48kHz, 18 bit.

So in your eyes then 16bit 44.1KHz is not transparent otherwise why
bother.


Cheers,

Bob.

--
Bob Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands

My preference for 48k sampling has nothing to do with audio quality, but
to
do with compatibility. CD is 44.1, DVD digital TV and digital radio is 48k
or multiples thereof. Having CD at 44.1 means that for transmission on TV
or digital radio, there has to be an otherwise unnecessary sample rate
conversion between source and destination. I know that SRCs are nowadays
audibly transparent, but nevertheless, in a professional installation, it
adds an unnecesary level of complication.

It has caused the BBC for one, considerable extra complication and expense
when designing their new Broadcasting House infrastructure, as they
decided
that network radio would run their studios at 44.1k, whilst News and
Current
Affairs would run their studios at 48k so as to be compatible with TV.
They
consquently had to provide both 44.1 and 48k routing, and for DAB and DSAT
distribution, they had to SRC the network outputs before transmission.

It would have been so much easier if CD had run at 48k.

S.

But their analogue terrestrial service needs NICAM at 32k. Yet another
sample rate conversion.

Conversion is such a trivial matter these days that I would suggest
that it need not be considered in making technical decisions.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

That's what I would have thought, especially considering the BBC desks have
SRC at each input, but they, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they
will run studios at the sample rate of their primary input source (CDs in
the case of radio, VTRs in the case of TV) and sample rate convert for each
destination.

S.


--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
Keith G" wrote


Whatever. One thing the accurists have to fall back on is the
'mastertape'
and the gauged faithfulness to this (fidelity) was frequently thrown into
the arguments as the be-all and end-all of sound reproduction. The reason
for this is that it is fairly easy to *measure* deviation from the
original signal, rules can be made from various measurements and it
therefore becomes a useful weapon.

Well no. The reason is that the mastertape represents the sound that the
sound engineer, record producer, artist etc. agreed was what they wanted
the
record to sound like.


Irrelevant - whatever the mastertape is (or isn't) is not the issue; the
'accuracy vs. realism' argument is....



Where it becomes horse**** in my book is when reference is
continually made to mastertapes that no-one has ever heard (or ever will)

No-one? what about the recording engineer, the producer, the artist etc?


More irrelevancy - they weren't present in the arguments in this group,
AFAIA....



Long rambling story snipped.


Nothing like as long as your 'cinema irrelevancies' which I snipped...



The upshot is my Bezzer is now 8 miles from here, while he checks to see
how well it drives his Altec Lansing behemoth speakers (???) - yet
another
'realism beats accuracy' triumph, I believe,

How do you work that out?, what did your story have to do with either
accuracy or realism?


Because the guy leapt at a 300B SET (over his own SS pre and PP valve monos)
which, as I'm sure you are aware, are slated endlessly in this group for
'distortion' ('broken' even...) but which I maintain provide a more
*realistic* sound - kinda proves my point, doesn't it? Asitappens, he's been
on the phone since to say (verbatim) 'I'm not getting the same, sweet sound
as you get on your Lowthers!' - I'm not surprised, I didn't think he would
but I was willing to let him try!

While I'm on: I have started a ferocious campaign to reduce clutter and am
punting no end of stuff out on eBay - I have 5 auctions on now, including a
set of both Morgan Jones 'Valve Amp' books which may be of interest to
someone he

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MESE:IT&ih=017


Condition *as new*....

(Sorry to say! :-)

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote


Correction:


Because the guy leapt at a 300B SET (over his own SS pre and PP valve
monos)

The (Bryston) SS pre was his; the valve monos are mine...

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

Can you define what you meant by "badly"? I can see that if the jitter is
large enough then you will get problems recovering the actual stream of
values. But I can't say I have encountered this with domestic audio kit
I've used unless the disc or equipment are faulty. No doubt, though,
someone will have made kit bad enough for this to be a problem... :-)


I've no experience in this respect with domestic kit, or with CD as source,
so I will accept the consensus here that with CD this isn't a problem. My
experience is with rotating-head tape transports and with long (many km)
transmission lines running at bit rates of several hundred Mb/sec. (Yes
transmission lines can cause jitter, as well as often having a very poor
eye.)

David.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"Eeyore" wrote
in message
Keith G wrote:

but let's not forget the far superior 'information
carrying' capacity of CDs - the average LP lasts
approximately 7 minutes per side;

Uh ? More like 20 mins IIRC.

Agreed. Except that LPs are generally so bad that it is
questionable whether you can call the corrupted mess
that can be recovered from them *music*.

Catch a grip, Arny....

Pseudo-Dr., cure yourself first!

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Keith G" wrote in message

"Eiron" wrote in message
...
Eeyore wrote:

I HAVE heard bad CD players such as the original Sony
CDP-101. It souded 'harsh'
to me (one can speculate over what casued that) and I
was convinced that reverberation was being truncated
(although that could have been the result of
flawed mastering).

Me too. I never discovered whether it was my neighbour's
CDP-101, the 'Realistic'
amp and speakers or the 1980's music but something gave
me a headache.


Hmm, spoilt for choice there...


Perhaps he's still got it in the junk box; it would be
interesting to find out how bad it was.


Then you could stick pins in your eyes to round the
evening off....

Or, listen to LPs through a SET amplifier and a metal-coned full-range
speaker driver.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in
message

There is little doubt that some first generation CD
players were pretty crap, due to a combination of poor
monolithic 16-bit DACs (poor linearity due to the
difficulty of ensuring that the weight of each bit was
*exactly* half that of the one before over the full
range),

Generally not a source of audible difficulties.

ime errors due to using one DAC time-shared
between the two channels (which created problems if the
outputs were combined for mono reproduction)

As if the world listened to audio that way. As a rule, everybody who was
interested in digital also had two speakers.

Furthermore, if you did sum the channels together, the high frequency loss
was minimal - audible in a DBT with selected program material, but generally
not noticable.

And
all-analogue "brick-wall" reconstruction filters with
poor phase response.

Mildly distorted phase response above a few KHz has no audible consequences.

These problems were significantly reduced in
second-generation players with over-sampling,

Not all second-gen players had oversampling.

and pretty much eliminated in modern players with "1-bit"
converters.

Actually, there are still modern players with all of the problems you
mentioned above - shared converters, poor phase response at high
frequencies, and less-than-16 bit levels of linearity.


The distortions created by modern DACs are
similar in nature to those created by analogue systems
such as amplifiers, and very significantly lower than
those created by analogue disc or tape.

A very good modern ADC/DAC combination has less distortion and noise than
almost all SS power amps sold today. You can build a very nice power amp
test set with them.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in
message

Arny's dismissal of the very obvious failings of EARLY
digial audio do him no favours at all.

Analysis based on objective evidence and carefully-run listening tests is
hardly the same thing as dismissal.

Here's a reference: "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?" , Stereo Review,
pp.50-57 (January 1986). It includes careful tests of the first CD player on
the market - the CDP-101.

Much of it was JUNK.

Given that the benchmark formats of the day were the LP and 7.5 ips
quarter-track tape, our tolerance for even worse junk must have been pretty
high.

However, if those first steps had not been made we
wouldn't have the truly excellent medium we have now. It
just irks me that the CD standard wasn't say 48kHz, 18
bit.

All it takes for sonic transparency is about 36 KHz and 14 bits, or less.
Even 44/16 is pretty deep into overkill.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Serge Auckland" wrote in
message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"Eeyore" wrote
in message
Arny Krueger wrote:

There is no chance that there is anything wrong with
the sound of the CD format since it is sonically
transparent.

No help to those who actively seek colouration though.
Same as valve amps. The two ( liking valves and LPs)
seem to go hand-in-hand which strongly suggests to me
that those people like a strongly coloured sound.

I think that sentimentality, a desire to be different
for the sake of being different, and gettting attention
is behind most of the adamant LP preference we see
expressed around here.

Add to that a liking for horn loudspeakers, and we have
the triumvirate - vinyl-valves-horns. Coloration rules OK?

Agreed. It's the "Look at me, I'm weird" effect. These days, we might call
it the "Britney Spears Effect".

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in
message
Arny Krueger wrote:

"Eeyore" wrote
Arny Krueger wrote:

There is no chance that there is anything wrong with
the sound of the CD format since it is sonically
transparent.

No help to those who actively seek colouration though.
Same as valve amps. The two ( liking valves and LPs)
seem to go hand-in-hand which strongly suggests to me
that those people like a strongly coloured sound.

I think that sentimentality, a desire to be different
for the sake of being different, and gettting attention
is behind most of the adamant LP preference we see
expressed around here.

One thing for sure ... I used to do a lot of headphone
listening. Still do in fact.

Other than doing live sound, I primarily listen through headphones.

Headphones reveal the failings of LPs very cruelly.
Listening on speakers seems to be less unkind to them.

That's because most rooms pretty well conceal tons of distortion and noise.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"Eeyore" wrote
in message
Arny Krueger wrote:

There is no chance that there is anything wrong with
the sound of the CD format since it is sonically
transparent.

No help to those who actively seek colouration though.
Same as valve amps. The two ( liking valves and LPs)
seem to go hand-in-hand which strongly suggests to me
that those people like a strongly coloured sound.

I think that sentimentality, a desire to be different
for the sake of being different, and gettting attention
is behind most of the adamant LP preference we see
expressed around here.

Hey, I like vintage technology too! I've got a collection
of valve TV sets, old telephones, a telephone repeater
panel dating from 1924 and all sorts of other items
("junk" as my wife calls it :-( )

I have no problems with archiving legacy technology. It's the weirdness of
claiming sonic superiority for it that seems harder to explain.

And you must admit that there is something about steam
railway locos that modern electric ones just don't have.

Agreed. I was driving next to a steam-powered train on a recent trip to
Duluth, Mn. The local museum runs it through town on Saturdays and I
happened to driving on a road that paralleled the track.

Why shouldn't the vinyl and valve-amp brigade have their
fun?

As long as the fun doesn't involve suspending disbelief for the purpose of
attracting attention...

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message


Why would DVD A or Sony's super effort (can't remember)
even exist if CDs were transparent?

It's hardly the first time someone tried to make money by making nonsensical
technical claims. It looks like Sony and Philips lost millions, so they got
their just desserts.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"Eeyore" wrote in
message
David Looser wrote:

Mind you phase jitter caused by the mechanical parts of
a poor
quality or faulty CD system *can* stress the
error-correction to the point where the playback quality
is compromised)

NO. Pure horse manure. The digital signal is buffered to
buggery. A bit of jitter won't bother it. This is an
example of analogue-style thinking being inappropriately
attached to digital signal paths.

Agreed.

Furthermore, all of the analog formats suffer from far greater amounts of
uncorrectable jitter.

If this was even remotely true you'd expect to see
regular errors reading a CD-ROM so you wouldn't be able
to rely on them for archival. These have even LESS
redundancy.

CDROMs have far more redundancy than audio CDs. A whole 'nuther layer,
pretty much.

Improving loudspeaker crossovers (SBL's)
 

"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Eeyore" wrote
in message ...


David Looser wrote:

Mind you the dynamic range of film soundtracks is far
larger than that of almost all
music recordings.

Really ?

Yes really.

David.

Depends on what your reference is for "music recordings". ;-)

If you strandard is modern pop, then maybe.