Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Re: Incorrect

Gentlemen: You're forgetting some very important points.

1. Comparisons are odius, to borrow the phrase. The human ear cannot begin to compare a 20Hz tone with a 20KHz. Even the best master pipe organ tuner will not try to set directly (match outputs) pipes more than 4 octave apart--it can be done indirectly and with great accuracy, but it takes years and years of ear training.

2. Neuroacoustics is a witchy thicket. About the only thing that can be said with some certainty: Your hearing is as idiosyncratic as your fingerprints. No two of us hears appears hear the same complex tone the same way. There is hard evidence (numbers) to support this.

3. Specifications, after as cetain point, are mostly meaningless.
Note that two different $20K monster monoblocks can sound very differently and yet have identical specs.

4. The Fletcher-Munson curves are now known to be pure ca-ca below 50Hz, and they're not all that accurate above that. Note that for a 16Hz tone (bass CCCC) to sound (be perceived) as loud as a 32Hz tone (bass CCC) it will have to be at least 25-40 dB absolute (sic!). The more complex the waveform, the more power needed. Nothing's easy about real bass. It now even appears that infrabass is processed differently and in a different area of the brain than normal hearing, the primary reason bass on even the best electrostatic earphones is never very compelling--think of is your brain not receiving corroborating input from your ribs, neck vertabrae, and skull, so it tends to discount/ingore most of what your ears are telling it.

The point of all this is don't fall into the numbers trap. About the only thing I agree with the hard-line audiophiles (though I do use high-end equipment--Maggies, Krell, etc.--I'd never consider muself an audiophile) about it is their dictum: Trust only your ears! The numbers game is ruled ruled by a bitch goddess--and don't ever forget it.

I'm not trying to be disdainful or condescending here. I spent many years and many thousand of dollars chasing ephemera. And like a good sinner reformed, I have much compassion for the fallen. It's hard to kick the numbers habit--should there be an Audiophile Anonymous?

Remember, hardware is only as good as its ability to serve the music. Nothing else really matters. There is an old saw in science that the closer the numbers model the process, the less like they are to be mathematically valid. Go with your ears.

I realize the above only relates to this discussion "as through a glass darkly"; but everyonce in a while I feel the need to rear up on my hind paws, climb on the soap box, and ventilate. Take it in the spirit intended.

Thx,

dlg

nota bene: I do think specs are very important in selecting a proper amp for speakers with complex/reactive or quasi-resistive loads, but those speakers tend to be well into the high end. Exception: Even entry-level, full-range Maggies will send many amps home to mama,


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  • Re: Incorrect - David Gallman 04/2/0513:15:03 04/2/05 (0)


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