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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Perception of bass?
Post Subject: To look in other direction.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 2/10/2020
Rowuk, first of all, I very much recommend you do not undertake the Paul’s advice and do not go for any implementation of bass with bigger drivers or more driver of different topology of bass section like OB and so on. For sure better bass would make some improvement in your playback but the whole idea of mine regarding “sensible audio” is the improvement should address only understood listenable objectives. I very much feel, that we need to understand our very specific listening objective, formulate what is right with sound and what is wrong, to conceptualize what the solution should do and then go for targeted change in playback to aim your very much formulated sonic objectives.
You just made a very good post with a lot of information for discussion exposed. I agree that calling it bass was wrong as I do not think that your problem with bass. However, my recommendation how to explore bass was very correct and if bass is something that you want to explore then it is the only direction to go. I do inset that without understanding how reverberation time impact the perceived recorded music it is impossible to formulate you ourselves what is proper audio bass. It has nothing to do with creating pressure and if you did not experiment with delay channels you would hardly understand what I am talking when I imply that proper bass should be impersonating prolonging delay. This is very different way to look into the bass and it is very different and quite complicated subject.
I think when you are taking about “textured sensation” is not bass but rather what I call “remote transient” characteristics. The “remote transient” is not the same as transient as it deals how the transient are delegated to listening position. I understand why you have a feeling that it has to do with bass, because it is very noticeable during transients presented over bass passages, when bass notes act like a pedal point, “softening the air” and the transients direct scratch the soil. I need to say that transients is not right phrase but we have no better. I have the word in Russian language but it has no translation in English. The best I would translate it is English would be “instantaneous rise of subtilization among rarefaction”. I do not know a good English word that would express all of it. However, I can give you a tool to experiment with it yourself and to figure out if it is what you are looking for.
I do not know what speaker and amplifier you have. Let pretend that it is a speaker that does not use multi-amping and SET amplifier. You can do the same with any other topology but it is very easy with SET and mult-tap output transformer. Let pretend that you have 4, 8 and 16 Ohm output taps at your output transformer and you currently connected at 8R. Listen carefully and pay attention to speed of transients, dynamic contrast and speed of decays. Now connect you speaker to 16R tap. You will detect that transients become faster, dynamic contrast more aggressive and the decays will be much sooner. Let forget the explanation that harmonic distortions envelope was changed and what role the second harmonics play in it. We do not care about technical explanation now but purely focused on our listening perception. You will lose the volume of you sound twice but you should be able to compensate it with you preamp, hopefully it works the same with different gain levels, not all of them do. Now is the time to switch to 4R tap. You will have more volume and much more lethargic sound with very round transients. Do make a mental notes that the decays become very long and very “syrupy” and you most likely not going to like it BUT if you will be able to have the decays like 4R tap but the transients like 16R tap then you might feel that you into something. Now, pretend you have 32 Ohm output tap. Connect you speaker and you will have spectacular transients, almost like with live sound but you will also acknowledge that the sound with decal like this does not exes in nature as it will be literally fractured by fundamentals.
So, now you know that that you would like to have a speaker that would produce the transients like 64 Ohm output tap but the decay like 2 Ohm output tap, good luck with your search. BTW, experimenting with all of it in my past I made up the idea of multi-channel system with individual channel is driven by DSET specifically optimized to hack the transients/decay conflict. I do not offer you as solution but rather I offer you that experiment as an exploration tool if you get closer to where you would like to be in term of hear sound. To do the experiment requires a lot of extrapolation and interpretive targeting listening. Getting more ““instantaneous rise of subtilization among rarefaction” does not mean to get better sound overall but if you properly do your targeting listening then it will give you a sense if you are moving to a right direction in your assessment.
Another very important factor to consider. Different speakers have different capacity to handle that loading abuse. Some of them you change lodging twice and they completely collapse. Some of then you can load then 4-8 times more and less and they still hold sound integrity. Generally the softer suspension on speakers the best they care the loading abuse, with leather suspension probably the best. I have seen some absolutely unique speakers that can throw stunning transients with spectacular long decays. I have seen once in my life a little speaker driven with SET (both of them very expensive and I have my reasons do not reveal the name) when I was staying in front of the speaker with my eyes closed I was not able to say if it was life or recorded sound. I was not able to say it what I was listening it from another room, it was the only time in my life. So, the solutions are out there, we just need to look in proposer direction.
Rowuk, good with your operation. Hang around here, there is a lot of beauty in this world yet to consume….Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site