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<p>Dave Paananen, who directs our engineering, and I were in Music Room One auditioning a couple of changes to circuitry recently.</p>
<p>We were trying to figure out which, of several types of op amps, were more musically correct. *Of course we do this by simply gain matching and then listening to the same track of music and comparing the two for best presentation. *Sometimes it’s difficult because you’ll hear one aspect that is better in one amp while another aspect is better in the other. *Which is right?</p>
<p>We were listening to Harry Belafonte’s live performance at Carnegie Hall when Dave asked me to play the audience clapping again. *”Not the music?” *I asked.</p>
<p>“No, the clapping. *Let’s hear that on both units.” *While I was focusing on Belafonte’s voice and the small orchestra playing, Dave had been questioning the audience response. *As we went back and forth I was astounded by the results. *This was not something small. *Indeed, the difference between the two areas of the recording were huge. *In one example the clapping of the audience was sharp, bright, confused and almost irritating. *Playing the exact same part at exactly the same level on example B sounded entirely correct.</p>
<p>What’s interesting and new to me about this test is two fold: the magnitude of difference and how the aggregated clapping seemed to so disturb the amplifier’s performance.</p>
<p>With respect to magnitude we are not talking about shades of gray here, we’re talking night and day. *And that’s really interesting to me. *It was far easier to discern which amplifier was right using the clapping than it was music, which tends to be a bit more subjective.</p>
<p>But what really gets me is how one amplification device could get so “upset” when the activity level on the recording got so complex. *I want to say intermodulation distortion but we’ve measured both of these amplifiers and they are nearly identical in this respect (as well as others we can measure).</p>
<p>My conclusion is that we’ve found yet another benchmark for audio amplification devices to pass before they can go out the door. *It’s just strange that it should be such a surprise after all these many years of doing this.</p>
<p>Thankfully there’s always something new to learn. *I’ll give a round of applause to Dave for this discovery.</p>
<br /><span class="c4"><img src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-spamfree/img/wpsf-img.php" width="0" height="0" alt="" class="c3" /></span>
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/round-of-applause/12873/]
<p>We were trying to figure out which, of several types of op amps, were more musically correct. *Of course we do this by simply gain matching and then listening to the same track of music and comparing the two for best presentation. *Sometimes it’s difficult because you’ll hear one aspect that is better in one amp while another aspect is better in the other. *Which is right?</p>
<p>We were listening to Harry Belafonte’s live performance at Carnegie Hall when Dave asked me to play the audience clapping again. *”Not the music?” *I asked.</p>
<p>“No, the clapping. *Let’s hear that on both units.” *While I was focusing on Belafonte’s voice and the small orchestra playing, Dave had been questioning the audience response. *As we went back and forth I was astounded by the results. *This was not something small. *Indeed, the difference between the two areas of the recording were huge. *In one example the clapping of the audience was sharp, bright, confused and almost irritating. *Playing the exact same part at exactly the same level on example B sounded entirely correct.</p>
<p>What’s interesting and new to me about this test is two fold: the magnitude of difference and how the aggregated clapping seemed to so disturb the amplifier’s performance.</p>
<p>With respect to magnitude we are not talking about shades of gray here, we’re talking night and day. *And that’s really interesting to me. *It was far easier to discern which amplifier was right using the clapping than it was music, which tends to be a bit more subjective.</p>
<p>But what really gets me is how one amplification device could get so “upset” when the activity level on the recording got so complex. *I want to say intermodulation distortion but we’ve measured both of these amplifiers and they are nearly identical in this respect (as well as others we can measure).</p>
<p>My conclusion is that we’ve found yet another benchmark for audio amplification devices to pass before they can go out the door. *It’s just strange that it should be such a surprise after all these many years of doing this.</p>
<p>Thankfully there’s always something new to learn. *I’ll give a round of applause to Dave for this discovery.</p>
<br /><span class="c4"><img src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-spamfree/img/wpsf-img.php" width="0" height="0" alt="" class="c3" /></span>
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/round-of-applause/12873/]