Propeller Head Plaza: Re: More answers by morricab Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

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Posted by morricab (S ) on December 21, 2005 at 06:28:51

In Reply to: Re: More answers posted by andy19191 on December 20, 2005 at 07:16:36:

"Would you not consider fidelity to be a single well defined criteria?"

Sorry, I would just like to comment on this statement. Fidelity to an oscilloscope is not the same as fidelity to a human listener. Types and levels of distortion that look to be of no consequence on a computer screen can have profound effect on the listener. So the question of fidelity is not as easy to assess as you propose.

I hope you will agree that exact reproduction of the source material would be an ideal definition for fidelity; however, the question that arises is this, if a piece of gear measures nearly perfect and yet still doesn't sound right (subjectively speaking) then why is that small residual imperfection playing such an important role in the sound that is reproduced? Why is another piece of gear measureably further from an exact replication of the source material subjectively much closer?

If it is impossible to make a truly distortion free amplifier, then isn't it smarter to put that distortion in the blind spot of human awareness rather than make it really small but sitting right in the open where even very tiny levels are obvious? Kind of how Sony uses noise shaping in SACD, not to eliminate the problems but to push them where they are outside human perception. Amplifier design for the last 4 decades (until recently) was obssessed with pushing it down as low as possible, and they did push it low, but invariably pushing it where it was the most obvious. The result was often poor sound quality. Poorer measuring but better sounding amps tend to have their problems more in the human blind spots.

This brings up a further question: Who are the engineers designing high fidelity gear for, the test bench or human listeners? When designers make a real effort to apply what has been learned to date about psychoacoustics to electronics design then we might begin to see a directed progress in sound quality rather than the hit or miss results we see now. The sound of gear would also likely begin to converge (as it should if fidelity to the recording and to how humans hear is the goal.).

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