Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

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RE: How to read a THD chart ?

Posted by AJinFLA on June 25, 2008 at 09:52:33

In Reply to: How to read a THD chart ? posted by Lambda on June 24, 2008 at 15:27:02:

I was looking at some of the measurements provided by Soundstage! and wondering what to make of the THD charts. The one for the PMC GB1 seems awful (which is kind of surprising from PMC), but I'm not sure what is audible or not. Can someone post an interpretation of those measurements and their impact on the sound ? Thanks.

If you have designed loudspeakers, have performed lots of measurements and love the sound of reproduced music as well as live, then you would be absolutely mortified by what you are seeing there. That is a disgrace for a $200 pair of loudspeakers, much less a $2000 one. The woofer (if you can call it that) is in severe breakup in the upper passband and the filter design is not (or cannot) account for it. The huge amplitude and distortion peak at 1k (!) would be clearly audible, even if it is primarily 2nd order (worse if higher odd) - if you know what to listen for.
Now if one is say an audiophile dentist, chemist, pharmacist or worse, architect, unable to measure anything (due to mental incapacity or otherwise) then one wouldn't be able to correlate such measured data to sound. One would just be able to read about how things are supposed to sound in audiophile magazines or ancient articles. Then such a speaker might sound "exciting" and "musical", not "lifeless" and "sterile".

cheers,

AJ


Funny thing, in Audiophile circles if you can hear things others cannot, you are revered, in society, you are sent for treatment.

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