On the subject of HiFi

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IslandPink
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#16 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by IslandPink »

I'm trying in my head to put together something about transparency, distortion and tonal colour, but I'm finding it hard to start this, I want to try writing something that isn't open to lots of misinterpretation. I need to avoid some words that are used in HiFi in very different ways by different people.
In the meantime, what Shane wrote ( above ) is excellent and very close to my own aims with the system. I just don't quite agree with the last two sentences.
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#17 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by Cressy Snr »

Greg wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:08 am
So that was RD’s DIY. All kit is somebodies DIY.
I was simply making the distinction between the commercial operator (professional) and the person who doesn’t make hi-fi for money (amateur.) So in this context, my valve amp circuit is 100% amateur and the solid state circuit is 99% professional.
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#18 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by IslandPink »

I think I'll define some things first.
I tend to think about music in a similar way to photographs and photography. I think there are lots of parallels.
If I talk about 'detail' I mean fine detail like in a photograph. So that's high-frequency stuff or the effect that good HF has on sounds lower down the frequency scale. Texture on cymbals, clear perception of small percussion like triangles, bells and wood blocks. Also crisp edges on guitar notes, where appropriate. Some people, particularly some reviewers in magazines, talk about detail in the midrange, detail in vocals. I have concluded that they are talking about tonal colour or timbre.
I value colour in music a lot. Tonal colour in music, to me is like colour in a photograph. If I'm taking colour, I want there to be plenty of colour in the photograph, but also subtlety in all the colours (aka bit-depth) . However, unlike in colour photos these days, where you can just dial-up the colour saturation if you want to, I'm not aware of there being any way to do this in a HiFi system. Ps. colour would be called 'timbre' by musicians.
Please note, when I talk about tonal colour it is nothing to do with 'colouration' . Colouration from shortcomings in a HiFi is like a colour cast on a photo, or eg. toning like sepia. That usually reduces the overal colour range and subtlety, in both photography and music.
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#19 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by shane »

The problem here is that because we all experience things differently and a truly accurate and definitive vocabulary doesn’t exist, none of us really knows what the rest of us are talking about.
The world looks so different after learning science. For example, trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in their flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the Sun which was bound in to convert air into tree.
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#20 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by IslandPink »

Well that's what I'm trying to do here, at least make it clear what I mean. I'm sure there is at least some commonality in what we hear and how we describe it.
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#21 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by vinylnvalves »

Mark I understand what you are describing, it’s easier to quantify on simple music, but becomes less tangible for more complex musical pieces. It’s for the later my goal is to achieve that multilayered texture, which I find elusive to replicate.
Maybe we could quantify it with the pieces of music, which we use as test tracks. I don’t mean the music like John Martyn’s Solid Air - which sounds good on all systems generally. Then when we play them we can relate to others observations.
For example - Mountains Nantucket sleighride is very underwhelming on my system and uninteresting , it seems to sound better on the radio for some strange reason, either for vinyl or cd.
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#22 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by IslandPink »

I'll just put this down first Steve, I've been working on it with Wordpad, & need to get on, I'll read your comments soon ..

I should tie up the loose end on 'transparency' since that was what led to this discussion. I may not be adding much to what people have already posted.
'Transparency' is a bit hard to define accurately, but I know what it sounds like to me and how to get it. It was the thing that struck me when I first listened to SE valve amps for the first time, I seemed to be getting more, and I liked it. I didn't realise for a while that I was also losing bass fidelity, so really I was only hearing the transparency in the mids and treble.
I believe that transparency is the sum total of lower harmonic distortion, lower phase errors, lower intermod distortion, and lower noise floor. In my experience it is always linked to improved tonal colour. It almost always comes together with better perceived 'realism' of the sounds , I'm thinking particuarly of vocals and instruments here. This is something which does not need concentration or repeated AB comparison to evaluate - it comes as an emotional gut reaction.
So, I do think that striving to get the most out of the recording is a valid pursuit. I accept that i can't define exactly what's on the recording, or how close to it I've got , but I believe I can surmise that I'm getting closer to it from the factors just mentioned. When i do, my whole collection sounds better.
Detail is a tricky one. Usually you get more detail along with more transparency ; however you can be fooled by odd-order harmonic distortions which increase detail. The test is how the vocals are sounding. Vocals, especially female vocals, go off quickly if there is odd-harmonic. Obviously if you have better test kit than I have ( eg. a spectrum analyser ) then there's a lot less guesswork involved.
I don't agree with people when they suggest ( maybe jokingly, Steve...) that tone is just the sound of distortion generated by valves. The transparency is still there and if anything is better when you go to the bigger transmitter valves with lower disortion. When you make a solid-state amp properly low in distortion, especially the higher-order types, then the tone comes through ( thinking of Nick's monoblocks in particular here ).

Now regarding transparency and the ability to distinguish small component changes - 25 years ago, i got rid of my (small) vinyl collection because I couldn't tell the difference between LPs and CDs of the same albums. Now I realise that my TT wasn't good enough, and my amp was not transparent enough. Now that difference is obvious, although it won't always be the vinyl that's better.

I would also add some background that ( no surprise to many of you ) that a lot of my collection is on pre-1985 vinyl. I find a much better hit rate of transparency or 'realism' on the older recordings - however I'll admit that this is really only ref. the mids and treble.
Last edited by IslandPink on Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#23 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by IslandPink »

vinylnvalves wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:08 pm Mark I understand what you are describing, it’s easier to quantify on simple music, but becomes less tangible for more complex musical pieces. It’s for the later my goal is to achieve that multilayered texture, which I find elusive to replicate.
I think that with complex music, timing is very important, and that relates a lot to minimal phase shifts below 200Hz. I've read that the ear has different abilities in different bands - above 200 to 300Hz , it's best at distinguishing fine differences in harmonic distortion, but below, it' better at distinguishing phase.
So I have found that multi-way systems are hard to get cohesive, in some music I can hear that the Purifi that covers about 40Hz to 2kHz is better than my main system which has a crossover ( although 1st-order ) around 180Hz.
However also i can say that for orchestral reproduction, i have found a system with strong tonal colour in the mids will provided soundstage separation merely by distinguishing different tones in the orchestra.
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#24 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by vinylnvalves »

I agree with your observations on phase shift. When I say use the supravox 15” driver and run it without crossovers, allegedly covering upto 3khz, beaming like hell obviously, the music is most cohesive, which tells me it’s all phase is critical. This is why my current quest is to get a driver to cover 300hz to 8khz, so the crossovers are outside of the critical listening range. If as you say we need to cover lower down to 100hz, my understanding of how the room and the Schroeder frequency affect the content is out of date. Unfortunately without the bottom end grunt and the top end sparkle - the single driver in the critical listening band isn’t painting a good enough aural picture.
Your observations about SE amps, and how they influence things I will need to think about a lot more. I don’t think the phase shift of SE amps is that different to other amps - but as amps isn’t my thing I will defer to the more learned. I do have a quote in my head from John Wood, about active systems driving drivers from different amps, where he stated that it’s bad from the amps perspective, as they need to be loaded across the full frequency range to function properly.
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#25 Re: On the subject of HiFi

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shane wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:55 pm The problem here is that because we all experience things differently and a truly accurate and definitive vocabulary doesn’t exist, none of us really knows what the rest of us are talking about.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that Mark doesn't have the same hobby as me. I'm also feeling that he doesn't get as much enjoyment from listening to music as I do....

that being said is it not a broad church and isn't it great that we can all have different views and different approaches to how we discuss audio related stuff. As I've said many times in the past I listen to the music(I think I feel it) and I'm not so interested in the equipment, but please don't let the forum be about the technical minutae and exclude my approach.
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#26 Re: On the subject of HiFi

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but please don't let the forum be about the technical minutae and exclude my approach.
In however many years this place has been running nothing has been excluded. But if you want to talk about a topic, then you will need to talk about a topic (any topic).
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#27 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by Nick »

When I say use the supravox 15” driver and run it without crossovers, allegedly covering upto 3khz, beaming like hell obviously, the music is most cohesive, which tells me it’s all phase is critical.
Not saying you are wrong, but there may be something missing from the above that lets me understand why the first part of the statement "When I ... is most cohesive" leads to the conclusion "phase is critical".

Are you saying that there is always phase issues when using a crossover or more than one driver?
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#28 Re: On the subject of HiFi

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vinylnvalves wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 8:07 am I do have a quote in my head from John Wood, about active systems driving drivers from different amps, where he stated that it’s bad from the amps perspective, as they need to be loaded across the full frequency range to function properly.
Thats something I have thought about, and can see where he's coming from in saying that, but how relevant it is when playing most music I would guess is debatable.


To me there's retaining the orginal signal through the source and amplification and the ability to accurately convert that signal to some thing we can hear.


I think the descriptions used by many and by the industry in general use, tend to gloss over that, but no ones going to change that so we're stuck with what we have
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#29 Re: On the subject of HiFi

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I do have a quote in my head from John Wood, about active systems driving drivers from different amps, where he stated that it’s bad from the amps perspective, as they need to be loaded across the full frequency range to function properly.
Not sure I follow that, in a active system with the amp and speaker directly connected will mean the amp is loaded from 0 to light. the fact that it is only receiving signal from (say) 100Hz to 5kHz makes no difference at all to it.
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#30 Re: On the subject of HiFi

Post by Ant »

Trying to define the sound i want is like plaiting fog. I find it very hard to describe it.

What i want is to be able to differentiate whatever little bit bends my ear right then and there. To be able to 'lock on' to the bass guitar, the ride cymbal, the triangle in the back of the mix, the wooden block being hit, ect ect ect, and to be able to do it instantly as soon as it catches my ear and follow it until something else does, and not have parts mask other parts.

I want each part to be defined and easy to define, to start and stop and not bleed into each other, i find that the easier it is for me to do this the easier i find it to listen to. I dont like to strain to pick out the finer little things

I listen in a wierd manner

So i suppose if i really try to define what i want i want a technical drawing rather than a monet.

There nice thing about the system i have is that once i got my grubby mitts on the f5, it started to fall into place. I didnt know what i wanted, didnt know why i was frustrated with it before that point, and it has fallen into place since that point with the f5 at the centre.

The big fanes do what i want, perhaps that is because they dont have a phase shift as there is no crossover? Dunno much about crossovers to be honest, it all goes over my head.
The f5 and b1 to me are what i was missing.

The turntable and arm took me a long long time to get right, to get that start and stop precision and separation that i wanted.
When simon took the tt he reckoned it was quite clinical, and he was right, i think that is what i was subconsciously shooting for.

When mark talks about tonal colour and texture, i think i know what he means, because i think all that nuance that makes up his colour and texture comes out when the start and end of parts is clearly defined, and one thing doesnt bleed into the next. When you can easily focus on a voice or the decay of a cymbal or snare hit, or whatever, all those little parts of the performance that can be easily masked by other bigger parts become part of the picture instead of the missing pieces.

Does that make sense?
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