The ten biggest lies in audio

[Cliff Schecht]

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf

I agree with some of what this guy says but I think he is off on some other poitns. I made a big posting about this on another forum that I'm just going to quote (minus some editing for language ). Thoughts?

1. The cable debate really depends on the application. For most stereo applications, he's right that lamp wire will sound just as good as any high end cable for making short runs to a speaker. If you're making longer runs across a room or something though, the parasitics will start to rear their ugly head. And I'm not just talking about the signal losing some of the high end, there are also phasing issues that people don't really know or understand. Phase distortion can be considered any unwanted delay added to the signal path. This causes problems more with surround sound systems where the impact of the sound gets lost when the mid and treble frequencies don't hit your ear at the same time. Any hifi receiver worth its salt has some sort of compensation for delays though which really makes this a non-issue most of the time. For guitar cables, anything over about 20 feet without some buffering is going to cause a loss in high end. Even my homemade guitar cables (Canarie silver stranded cable with Switchcraft jacks) start to sound like crap if I run them too long.

2. This is where I really disagree with the author. There are specific reasons why tube amplifiers reign supreme in the world of audio. Transistor amplifiers aren't by any means bad, but there are specific reasons why tube amplifiers sound the way they do. It has to do more with how the active devices amplify and distort than how the distortion figures look. Tube amplifiers in both a single ended and push-pull configuration do such a nice job of making audio sound awesome because of the type of distortion that they incur and how it occurs. With a tube, the most dominant harmonics from distortion are even-order harmonics which sound very pleasing to the ear. Because these harmonics occur at octave intervals, they can add to the music without "cluttering up" the sound. Also, tubes have a very graceful way of going in and out of distortion and add a very pleasing compression effect when pushed near their limits. Transistors OTOH are terrible when it comes to going in and out of distortion. They have very stiff limits that a good designer knows to stay away from because once you pass a certain threshold, the signal is literally chopped off at the top and bottom. Anytime this happens, you get a lot of odd-order harmonics (with NO even-order harmonics) which occur at not-so-musical intervals. This will make the music sound, well, bad. Those not-so-harmonic intervals don't play nicely with all of the other harmonics and make everything sound cluttered and brittle. Transistor amplifiers can sound fantastic if you stay within the limits of the devices however. This depends more on the sound you are looking for than anything else.

3. He's right, nothing wrong with digital when done right.

4. No comment.

5. Negative feedback rocks. All of the guys that say negative feedback takes away from the sound are talking out of their [anuses]. If they knew what the fudge they were talking about they would realize that EVERY stage in their precious hifi amplifiers use negative feedback in some shape or form. With transistors, a resistance in the emitter of the transistor steals current away from the amplifier and is a basic form of negative feedback. Does this sound bad or take away from the sound? No, as a matter of fact it's what makes every non-linear amplifier element in an amplifier system into a somewhat linear element. That's what feedback does, it linearizes everything by decreasing the overall gain and increasing the bandwidth of the system. Overall negative feedback will reduce distortion as well although other problems can occur from phase distortion and reduced gain that some people may not like. Some people swear by NFB amplifiers, others don't like any overall NFB. This is really a matter of taste as everybody perceives music differently and what sounds great to some may sound like crap to others.

6. Burn-in's are a holdover from the tube days. Tube amplifiers will open up over time as the tubes and other older technology components used back in the day age and change their characteristics. Anything with modern transistors doesn't need a burn in though, all you'll be doing is reducing the service life of the device.

7. A connection from point a to b isn't any stronger with two wires, considering the first wire can handle the amount of power being pushed.

8. Any modern device worth a damn has adequate input filtering. If it doesn't then you're being too cheap.

9. Duh.

10. I don't see his point here. People with "Golden Ears" are typically people who have dedicated a lot of time to finding the subtle differences between different devices. I guarantee every golden ear that you meet has some song X that they listen to on system Y as a reference to compare everything else to. This is something that differs from person to person and is a matter of personal taste more than anything. Some people spend their entire lifetime listening to the nuances between different sets of headphones whereas other people are happy with their iPod headphones. If somebody wants to spend thousands of dollars on hifi equipment and they say they can hear the difference then who cares, let them be. I'm pretty picky myself and do hear the subtleties that he seems to deny exist. I'm sure many of you guys are the same way..

[duckpow]

About digital vs. analog.

For HiFi digital is much cleaner and less distorted. You can measure that.
But what the author have forgotten to take into account is human fysiology!

The LP AND the tube distorts the audio signal in such a way, that we hear it as a clearer much better sound.
It's the same with tape recordings: when overdriven lightly, the tape compresses the signal in a similar way to the human ear.

[compuwade]

OK, I am in no way an expert on audio. I know what sounds good to me, and I can follow directions. Therefore I am able to build audio electronics. But I would have to agree with most of what's been said in the article. I do not own a tube amp, but I've play a bunch of them in the quest for a "better" sound. My conclusion is that tubes do not sound any better than a nice well made SS amp. However, with that said, tube amps seem to require much less wattage to get to that sweet spot than a SS amp does. And I'm not talking about break up either. I'm talking mostly about the loudness and clarity of the amps. This may be the whole reason that everyone covets a tube amp. I don't know. But to me the price isn't worth the difference in sound.
As far as cables, just look at the differences in prices with HDMI cables. My 1st HDMI cable was $100.00 for 6ft! OMG, thats crazy. I returned it after I found a $20 cable at Fry's that didn't have any effect on my picture quality. The same goes with any audio cable that I've ever purchased. To me the expensive cables are worth the money for live performaces and comercial use, because they take a beating and last a long time. But the sound quality is the same IMO and I would never waste my money on monster cable for 20ft speaker runs.

LP's vs CD's however, there is a difference in old recordings on LP's and old recordings on CD's. I find my LP's to be more pleasing to listen to than the same recordings on CD or mp3. They seem warmer than the digital versions. But the convienence of the digital recordings outweighs the LP's so much that I never pull my LP's out anymore.

Digital Vs. Analog, well there is a place for both in this world, and one does sound better than the other depending on the application. And in some cases you can't have one without the other. So you really can't argue the difference.

i don't really have opinion on the other points because they don't apply to me that much.  

[brett]

Hi

I find my LP's to be more pleasing to listen to than the same recordings on CD or mp3. They seem warmer than the digital versions.

For me, the MUCH greater dynamic range of digital andf CDs/MP3s is enough justification* for their use over vinyl.
cheers

*There are many other justifications, too.  Back when, it was SO annoying to get home from the record shop and put the new LP on and find it was a bad pressing (maybe 30% were dirty pressings, probably more more from small labels).  Of course, many masters were full of tape hiss, etc, so you simply couldn't get a good copy of some records.  On dry days, even the perfect vinyl record would snap and pop with static discharge between the "needle" and plastic.  Because of all the noise, every recording for vinyl was compressed to blazes to avoid the music disappearing under the noise.  Then there were the hazards during use.  Exposure to cigarette smoke left characteristic "sticky tar" smudges in the sound.  Fingerprints gave a particularly annoying "two crackles per minute" sound.  Warped records sometimes sounded like the music was played thru a Leslie speaker (which was cool for stuff like Dark Side of the Moon).  As for dropping them or spilling beer or cigarette ash on them, .....I think you get the picture.

[George Giblet]

I agree and disagree an various point in both the article and yours.

1.  In general cables the cable issue is BS but the length issue is real and some of the wacky (w*nker) cables can help here.
     For speaker the cable inductance and resistance is the focus, for signal cables it's the capacitance.

2.  Vacuum tubes tend to overload in a more musical manner than transistors.  If the transistor amp is fast enough
     or doesn't overload in the first place then it is usually better.  Transistor amps are technically better as far as distortion goes.

3.  There are many problems with digital which have been vetted out over the years, for example word size issues with digital
     mixing desks, quantization artifacts, overload issues, sharp anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters.  These days most
     designers know about these issues.  Unfortunately nay-sayers like to hold onto the old baggage.

4.  Listening tests are a good measure of  many sound issues.  Unfortunately they aren't carried out in a scientifically correct manner
    making the results blurred - often to the advantage of the snake oil sellers.

5.  Basically depends on the specifics of the design and has common elements with 1.

6.  Burn in for detecting early failures is good, solid state systems can benefit from some burn in - this is a product quality issue.
     As far as burning in for performance like a car engine then most of it is crap, except for speakers - where you can clearly
     measure a change in the speaker characteristic.

7.  There are cases where bi-wiring can help.  The main one is when the speaker cables are long.  Speaker crossovers cause
     the speaker impedance to fluctuate, the speaker impedance forms a divider with the speaker cable and the signal at
     the speaker can have a non-flat response.  This happens with any cable for a short cable the effect is small for a long
     cable it can become audible.  With biwiring these fluctuations are reduced.    A second possibility, which I haven't
     investigated by measurement, is the under high driver conditions the woofer impedance can become non-linear,
     because of the  divider effect the drive voltage at the speaker can contain non-linear products.   If you keep the
     cable impedance low then obviously all these effects are diminished.

8.  In general line issues wont affect sound quality but under *some circumstances* noise lines may add artifacts.
     Improving sound with a line filter is generally BS.

9.  Crap

10. Genuine golden ear people who have trained themselves to detect flaws are out there and they do a good job.
      The main problem is the claimed golden eared person who uses his super powers to convince people on non
      existent effects, to sell equipment, or to make them feel more important.

[Electric Warrior]

Hi

I find my LP's to be more pleasing to listen to than the same recordings on CD or mp3. They seem warmer than the digital versions.

For me, the MUCH greater dynamic range of digital andf CDs/MP3s is enough justification* for their use over vinyl.
cheers

too bad that most of today's recordings don't make use of dynamic range at all 

[runmikeyrun]

how true!  Compressed to the 9s, although i admit my band does it too- in the metal world the competition to be the "loudest" band is stiff and ya gotta keep up.

[mac]

my sister's son is a pro dj. he has pro cd players and the same turntables i have, technics sl1200, but mine has decades
sometimes i go with him to discos early in the afternoon to sounds checks. there is a big difference when hearing the same album both in cd and vynil.
same thing when listening with flat pro speakers at home.
imho nothing beats the 1200/shure combo (think ecc83/el84)

except for sound quality cd is mor convenient than vynils. i only wish that some day cd come with better resolution.

mac

[Minion]

I dissagree that modern Digital music has more dynamic range , Modern digital music is extremeny compressed hence it has far less dynamic range .....

[Cliff Schecht]

I dissagree that modern Digital music has more dynamic range , Modern digital music is extremeny compressed hence it has far less dynamic range .....

This depends heavily on the style of music you listen to. I listen to a lot of acoustic music that usually doesn't need an extensive amount of compression. The dynamic range of guitar is fairly limited but at the same time, especially with acoustics, there are a lot of nuances and overtones that can get overemphasized with too much compression.

By definition modern recordings have a larger dynamic range because with modern equipment, the noise floor is damn low and the highest high is well defined (with digital audio you aim to hit close to the clipping limit without actually clipping, this gives you the best SNR).

[Nasse]

Stereo is not so good as it could be, and it is year 2009

;)What would look a topic about ten biggest truths in audio...


There is always money and whats technically reasonable and possible... What is history is history, though they do false it too


I´m only old grey bearded hobbyist in the middle of nowhere, and I am very happy because I know the truth can be discovered anywhere in  on the planet...

[Mark Hammer]

I dissagree that modern Digital music has more dynamic range , Modern digital music is extremeny compressed hence it has far less dynamic range .....

This depends heavily on the style of music you listen to. I listen to a lot of acoustic music that usually doesn't need an extensive amount of compression. The dynamic range of guitar is fairly limited but at the same time, especially with acoustics, there are a lot of nuances and overtones that can get overemphasized with too much compression.

By definition modern recordings have a larger dynamic range because with modern equipment, the noise floor is damn low and the highest high is well defined (with digital audio you aim to hit close to the clipping limit without actually clipping, this gives you the best SNR).

Some 30 years ago or so, Julian Hirsch ran an opinion piece in Stereo Review regarding the zeal for increasing dynamic range.  Hirsch pointed out that, for most people, the overwhelming brunt of their listening would occur against a backdrop of some 50db or more of background ambient noise, be it traffic sounds from outside, the furnace or air conditioner, the sound of the kids outside in the yard, or people doing the dishes in the other room.  From that point until the threshold of pain was approximately 60db.  So, Hirsch wondered aloud, just exactly how useful was a 90db dynamic range if the softest parts were inaudible against the backdrop, and the loudest parts would encourage us to turn the music down.  While he had no quarrel with the desire to not have any objectionable noise floor from the music medium itself, or not introduce any untoward clipping, the notion that the drive towards steadily increasing dynamic range was useful just puzzled him.  I guess it's a bit like the way I feel about subwoofers in cars; if the person inside the car cannot physically hear the long wavelengths of deep bass why have the speakers?

[jessej]

Dynamic range is about 3db on modern records.

First everything is compressed on each track, then the mix goes trough a limiter on the master fader.
That is if your source isn't already compressed , like a guitar or some sample CD you are using for drums.

Then it is time for mastering when yet one more compressor and a limiter is added.

Then the TV/Radio station pushes it out trough their multiband limiters and compressor.

Then your own modern TV/Radio adds a bit of EQ on some WOW surround effect to it.

However if you prefer 70's stuff on vinyl on your own sound system you will have a bit more dynamic range.


But yes CD as a technology is nice, however vinyl has a better resolution.

But perhaps you need to hear all this form a professional mastering engineer?

Here's John Dent on the topic:
http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/video-archive/lectures/john_dent__extreme_makeover

[jessej]

if the person inside the car cannot physically hear the long wavelengths of deep bass why have the speakers?

Because the driver is a douchebag? 

[MoltenVoltage]

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf

I agree with some of what this guy says but I think he is off on some other poitns. I made a big posting about this on another forum that I'm just going to quote (minus some editing for language ). Thoughts?

1. The cable debate really depends on the application. For most stereo applications, he's right that lamp wire will sound just as good as any high end cable for making short runs to a speaker. If you're making longer runs across a room or something though, the parasitics will start to rear their ugly head. And I'm not just talking about the signal losing some of the high end, there are also phasing issues that people don't really know or understand. Phase distortion can be considered any unwanted delay added to the signal path. This causes problems more with surround sound systems where the impact of the sound gets lost when the mid and treble frequencies don't hit your ear at the same time. Any hifi receiver worth its salt has some sort of compensation for delays though which really makes this a non-issue most of the time. For guitar cables, anything over about 20 feet without some buffering is going to cause a loss in high end. Even my homemade guitar cables (Canarie silver stranded cable with Switchcraft jacks) start to sound like crap if I run them too long.

2. This is where I really disagree with the author. There are specific reasons why tube amplifiers reign supreme in the world of audio. Transistor amplifiers aren't by any means bad, but there are specific reasons why tube amplifiers sound the way they do. It has to do more with how the active devices amplify and distort than how the distortion figures look. Tube amplifiers in both a single ended and push-pull configuration do such a nice job of making audio sound awesome because of the type of distortion that they incur and how it occurs. With a tube, the most dominant harmonics from distortion are even-order harmonics which sound very pleasing to the ear. Because these harmonics occur at octave intervals, they can add to the music without "cluttering up" the sound. Also, tubes have a very graceful way of going in and out of distortion and add a very pleasing compression effect when pushed near their limits. Transistors OTOH are terrible when it comes to going in and out of distortion. They have very stiff limits that a good designer knows to stay away from because once you pass a certain threshold, the signal is literally chopped off at the top and bottom. Anytime this happens, you get a lot of odd-order harmonics (with NO even-order harmonics) which occur at not-so-musical intervals. This will make the music sound, well, bad. Those not-so-harmonic intervals don't play nicely with all of the other harmonics and make everything sound cluttered and brittle. Transistor amplifiers can sound fantastic if you stay within the limits of the devices however. This depends more on the sound you are looking for than anything else.

3. He's right, nothing wrong with digital when done right.


8. Any modern device worth a damn has adequate input filtering. If it doesn't then you're being too cheap.

1. Are you claiming certain types of cable induce phase distortions?  Electrical signals travel at the speed of light, so even if the cables are vastly different lengths (assuming they can handle the current) there will be no noticeable phase difference because there will be no noticeable delay.  There are not any "phasing issues that people don't really know or understand".  What "people" are you referring to anyway?

2. I agree that tubes are unmatched for guitar amps.  As you say, its precisely because of the unique way they color the sound.

3. Analog tape is far superior to digital for recording drums and other things with fast transients, again, because of the completely different way in which it distorts when over-driven and because you can record a much hotter signal.  If you want very clean sounding drums then this doesn't apply, but if you want rock and roll John Bonham sounds, you need to let that snare saturate the tape.  I've heard some digital simulations but none of they have yet captured the nuance - no more than any of the digital amp cabinet simulators have.

...

8. Where I live we have horribly inconsistent power and power conditioners are essential for audio gear.  Brown outs and line noise are prevalent and extra line conditioning, especially when my gear soaks up most available current on my circuit is key.  Maybe the rest of you can run a power drill on the same circuit as your amp and not hear it come through the speakers, but I can unless I use extra power conditioners.

[Cliff Schecht]

The whole phase distortion thing was probably just too much thought combined with too much alcohol . I actually think that surround sound receivers have the built in delaying functions to make up for speaker placement, not wire length. I guess my original thoughts were that if there was enough delay introduced by the cabling then you would start getting a weaker sound from all of the sound sources not hitting at the same time. This is really more of a problem with bass vs. treble though where if the treble hits your ears before the bass then you'll start getting weaker sound. It would take some impressively long cable runs to get yourself into trouble with excessive delays our of your power amplifier.

[ParlorCitySound]

8. I'm am by no means an expert, but I can generally without a doubt notice a very clear difference when using "clean power" strips; however, it's simply a reduction in noise. My AC30 plugged into my house has a certain amount of noise. Plugged into a monster power conditioner it has a significant less noise. I've seen the "noise sniffer" plugged into a wall with and without "clean power" conditioners; maybe BS, but a world of difference. I'm not sure where hes going with just the line cord (not a conditioner), or with circuity involved (conditioner)? Either way, I will continue to use my monster power conditioner because it does make a difference

[CynicalMan]

8. I'm am by no means an expert, but I can generally without a doubt notice a very clear difference when using "clean power" strips; however, it's simply a reduction in noise. My AC30 plugged into my house has a certain amount of noise. Plugged into a monster power conditioner it has a significant less noise. I've seen the "noise sniffer" plugged into a wall with and without "clean power" conditioners; maybe BS, but a world of difference. I'm not sure where hes going with just the line cord (not a conditioner), or with circuity involved (conditioner)? Either way, I will continue to use my monster power conditioner because it does make a difference

Still, IMHO some people take power conditioning too far.

[Ibanezfoo]

Monster cable   

[brett]

Hi
I agree with Mark and others about dynamic range being potentially 90dB with a CD and good stereo, but most pop/rock CDs only using 20 or 30 dB.  However, if you play vinyl you *will* end up binning some because the loudest thing on the record is a scratch, and many records will only have a few dB between the signal and the loudest noises (ie they will be quite audible in a typical home situation).
cheers