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<!-- #thumb --> <p>GIVING TOO MUCH (or too little) CREDIT FOR FREQUENCY RESPONSE DIFFERENCES</p>
<p>We’ve covered in*<b><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-too/11453/" target="_blank">FREQ YOU TOO! Pt 1</a>,</b>*the fact that FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) in theory as well as in practice can be expressed as a pulse or time v. frequency; that the “accuracy” of and deviation from the input signal can be quantified with FFT. That is not the end of the story, We do not “hear” measurements because the gamut of sonic characteristics cannot yet be measured by any single objective measure. Rather, we have an alternative:</p>
<p>Sound contains various characteristics for which we have created a vocabulary. We needed to communicate to each other and to designers these audible characteristics – and we do – clumsily at best. From the observations of listeners designers learn something. They don’t always pay attention to criticism, but it’s good enough that sometimes they will. The evidence of their listening to us are the frequent upgrades they install in their products – as well as their desire to sell more products.</p>
<p>For example, one major characteristic that should be attributed to the way analog sounds is the inherent, permanent, unavoidable and measurable crosstalk in cartridges (electronics too for that matter) that is not shared by an optimized digital system. *The same applies to analog tape. Tape too, has inherent crosstalk, the master tape has less of it than the LP. For all intents and purposes, theoretically as well as practically, digital can eliminate audible crosstalk.</p>
<p>Crosstalk (or the lack of it) can easily be heard and described by vocabulary; the audibility of it can be verbalized. The lack of it manifests itself as dryness-graininess (the opposite of liquidity) and in “shoutiness” (for a lack of better description), digital’s miscounting voltage errors, over or undershooting the actual gradients/steps in the waveform we might hear as “unnatural” volume changes. Lastly, digital exhibits a slight drying up of ambient information. There are probably more artifacts we hear.</p>
<p>Analog’s counterpart of digital’s shoutiness is dynamic distortion, clipping and such which can “shred” the sound, or is heard as compression, a softening lack of dynamics. Tube’s gentle clipping distortion is one reason why some prefer valve sound.</p>
<p>Experiments along these lines will likely PROVE that adding crosstalk into a digital stereo stream will smoothen and “warm up” the sound; limit high frequency aberrations and harshness – some say digital pushes these forward, analog tends to pull them back; expand the reverb field and the sound-scape, liquefy the dryness out of raw PCM, and mimic a dramatically more “analog-like” presentation which is arguably indistinguishable from the analog experience itself.</p>
<p>This conclusion however should be reserved to each experiment until there’s a general consensus about it’s validity. *And within the context that real speakers in real rooms provide natural crossfeed of their own. You do hear information with your left ear from the right speaker and*<i>vica-versa.</i></p>
<p>The theory presented here would counter the assumption that the analog experience is a more truthful and a more desirable one. That happens to be*<i>a priori</i>*the wrong assumption aimed to prove the validity of the wrongheaded destination. It is looking back, rather than forward to where this train is heading.</p>
<p>The analog experience is mimicked (or duplicated) by adding crossfeed with parametric EQ into a digital signal in real time, DSP in other words, either with an electronic crossfeed device or with software that provides crossfeed to various degrees and phase angles – simulating home reverb/reflection byproducts. We can make dry analog recordings sound even more “liquid,” more analog-like, just by adding crossfeed. Admittedly these effects are easier to qualify with state of the art headphones than with speakers.</p>
<p>However, using earbuds and headphones have their own problems relating to frequency response you need to be aware of as described here:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance">http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-26-at-5.17.39-PM.png"><img alt="Screen Shot 2013 09 26 at 5.17.39 PM Freq you too part 3" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-26-at-5.17.39-PM.png" width="516" height="437" title="Freq you too part 3" /></a></p>
<p>Photo: Tyll Hertsens of INNER EAR</p>
<p>For obvious reasons setting up speakers or an entire audio system optimized for both analog and digital will be trying to say the least, insofar as a less-than-credible scientific experiment may easily be deconstructed in favor of whatever technology one’s trying to sell.</p>
<p>A system optimized for analog is likely to be deficient for digital.</p>
<p>However, with earphones this test can be easily implemented right at your desk. Using DSP one can easily correct for FR – timing errors.</p>
<p>Its up to you to see…hear…for yourself, and to try the experiment.</p>
<p>As for your input about this matter after you’ve tried it?</p>
<p>Make no mistake, we are all ears and remember: you’ve seen this “theory” here first.</p>
<center><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email.gif" alt="email Freq you too part 3" title="Freq you too part 3" /></a>*<a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow">Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers</a></center><br /><!-- // MAILCHIMP SUBSCRIBE CODE --><center><a href="http://eepurl.com/eSzBY">Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here </a></center>
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[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/]
<p>We’ve covered in*<b><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-too/11453/" target="_blank">FREQ YOU TOO! Pt 1</a>,</b>*the fact that FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) in theory as well as in practice can be expressed as a pulse or time v. frequency; that the “accuracy” of and deviation from the input signal can be quantified with FFT. That is not the end of the story, We do not “hear” measurements because the gamut of sonic characteristics cannot yet be measured by any single objective measure. Rather, we have an alternative:</p>
<p>Sound contains various characteristics for which we have created a vocabulary. We needed to communicate to each other and to designers these audible characteristics – and we do – clumsily at best. From the observations of listeners designers learn something. They don’t always pay attention to criticism, but it’s good enough that sometimes they will. The evidence of their listening to us are the frequent upgrades they install in their products – as well as their desire to sell more products.</p>
<p>For example, one major characteristic that should be attributed to the way analog sounds is the inherent, permanent, unavoidable and measurable crosstalk in cartridges (electronics too for that matter) that is not shared by an optimized digital system. *The same applies to analog tape. Tape too, has inherent crosstalk, the master tape has less of it than the LP. For all intents and purposes, theoretically as well as practically, digital can eliminate audible crosstalk.</p>
<p>Crosstalk (or the lack of it) can easily be heard and described by vocabulary; the audibility of it can be verbalized. The lack of it manifests itself as dryness-graininess (the opposite of liquidity) and in “shoutiness” (for a lack of better description), digital’s miscounting voltage errors, over or undershooting the actual gradients/steps in the waveform we might hear as “unnatural” volume changes. Lastly, digital exhibits a slight drying up of ambient information. There are probably more artifacts we hear.</p>
<p>Analog’s counterpart of digital’s shoutiness is dynamic distortion, clipping and such which can “shred” the sound, or is heard as compression, a softening lack of dynamics. Tube’s gentle clipping distortion is one reason why some prefer valve sound.</p>
<p>Experiments along these lines will likely PROVE that adding crosstalk into a digital stereo stream will smoothen and “warm up” the sound; limit high frequency aberrations and harshness – some say digital pushes these forward, analog tends to pull them back; expand the reverb field and the sound-scape, liquefy the dryness out of raw PCM, and mimic a dramatically more “analog-like” presentation which is arguably indistinguishable from the analog experience itself.</p>
<p>This conclusion however should be reserved to each experiment until there’s a general consensus about it’s validity. *And within the context that real speakers in real rooms provide natural crossfeed of their own. You do hear information with your left ear from the right speaker and*<i>vica-versa.</i></p>
<p>The theory presented here would counter the assumption that the analog experience is a more truthful and a more desirable one. That happens to be*<i>a priori</i>*the wrong assumption aimed to prove the validity of the wrongheaded destination. It is looking back, rather than forward to where this train is heading.</p>
<p>The analog experience is mimicked (or duplicated) by adding crossfeed with parametric EQ into a digital signal in real time, DSP in other words, either with an electronic crossfeed device or with software that provides crossfeed to various degrees and phase angles – simulating home reverb/reflection byproducts. We can make dry analog recordings sound even more “liquid,” more analog-like, just by adding crossfeed. Admittedly these effects are easier to qualify with state of the art headphones than with speakers.</p>
<p>However, using earbuds and headphones have their own problems relating to frequency response you need to be aware of as described here:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance">http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-26-at-5.17.39-PM.png"><img alt="Screen Shot 2013 09 26 at 5.17.39 PM Freq you too part 3" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-26-at-5.17.39-PM.png" width="516" height="437" title="Freq you too part 3" /></a></p>
<p>Photo: Tyll Hertsens of INNER EAR</p>
<p>For obvious reasons setting up speakers or an entire audio system optimized for both analog and digital will be trying to say the least, insofar as a less-than-credible scientific experiment may easily be deconstructed in favor of whatever technology one’s trying to sell.</p>
<p>A system optimized for analog is likely to be deficient for digital.</p>
<p>However, with earphones this test can be easily implemented right at your desk. Using DSP one can easily correct for FR – timing errors.</p>
<p>Its up to you to see…hear…for yourself, and to try the experiment.</p>
<p>As for your input about this matter after you’ve tried it?</p>
<p>Make no mistake, we are all ears and remember: you’ve seen this “theory” here first.</p>
<center><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email.gif" alt="email Freq you too part 3" title="Freq you too part 3" /></a>*<a href="http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow">Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers</a></center><br /><!-- // MAILCHIMP SUBSCRIBE CODE --><center><a href="http://eepurl.com/eSzBY">Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here </a></center>
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[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/opinions/freq-part-3/11808/]