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RE: Distortion and Audibility...replay.

Look at the first figure in the section titled "Amplifier Models". It's clear that the 'reference voltage' is the point where the SS amplifier is in hard limiting.

All he's saying is that it's easier to hear the onset of clipping with an amplifier that limits abruptly, especially if it uses feedback. And the last two tend to go together as the feedback corrects for the amplifier errors as long as it can. Not exactly news, hard limiting generates strong high-order harmonics and feedback can extend the effective duration of limiting transients.

This is all head-banger stuff, I don't run my amplifiers anywhere near clipping and believe that if you plan to do so then you need to use a limiter in your system a la McIntosh and I think NAD.

Another thing to bear in mind is that clipping usually occurs at very high SPL's if your system is at all properly implemented and you ears will be badly distorting by that point. It is still more easily heard than lower order distortions but listening to the same distorted signal at a comfortable level probably exaggerates it's audibility because you are working in a more linear region of your hearing.

Hard clipping is bad, it's hard on your tweeters and your ears because it's "unnatural". In other words, not what your ears normally hear. I'm planning to build some small (~5W) amplifiers and I intend to use a limiter in them. Even though the peak power I listen to rarely exceeds a watt, it will allow me turn stuff up if the recording has a wide dynamic range with only the risk of a little benign peak compression.

I'm far more interested in the distortions that occur at moderate levels as that's where I listen, and where not all amplifiers sound the same despite the intimation of the author.

Rick

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