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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: Perhaps A Different Idea On DBT's? posted by thetubeguy1954 on June 5, 2006 at 10:34:54:
Small differences in level do not sound like differences in level, they sound like differences in "air" or "fullness" or "soundstage" or any number of other kinds of perceptual description.Small differences in frequency response also do not necessarily sound like small differences in frequency response, rather they sound more like small differences in timbre, openness, soundstage, etc...
My point is not that there are no audible differences in things, there certainly are quite substantial differences between at least some kinds of equipment, but rather that things that are detectable in a DBT are also (and usually easily) detected as "being measurably different".
Relating the measurements to the perception is NOT a finished art, in fact for small differences it's barely a "started" art.
There are some differences that can be argued as "way too small". This, however, does not manage to discount quite a bit of the measured differences actually observed in equipment.
If you have an SNR of something like 110dB in an average system, then there will be no audible distortions from that. If it's flat to .1dB, you're likely to hear no audible differences from THAT. The combination of the two would suffice to say "differences are extremely unlikely to be audible".
Very few things give that kind of performance, though.
Consider. If I take narrowband noise (inside of one critical bandwidth) and add another (independent) narrowband noise to it, the lower power(probe) noise is inaudible when it's about 6dB below the louder noise.
If, however, I put in a high-energy sine wave at 19kHz, and a 1kHz sine wave 90dB down from that, you'll hear the 1kHz sine wave plain as day in any quiet listening room with good equipment.
So, SNR (that includes THD as a subset of SNR) is "not very useful". I liken it to the "mostly harmless" description of the Earth in HHGTTG.
Knowing the SNR does not tell you much until you know both the spectrum (short-term) of the signal *and* of the noise. And you can not reasonably reduce this to anything like "1 number".
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Follow Ups
- Well, actually .... - real_jj 06/5/0611:50:37 06/5/06 (1)
- Re: Well, actually .... - kerr 04:23:09 06/6/06 (0)
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