I remember the JBL Century as well. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll… yes, good sound quality… no.
Low Level Listening and Distortion
Would some amps sound better at lower levels due to distortion being produced at a lower sound level than another? In other words, a "clean" sounding amp (think stereotypical class D) sounds better to me at higher volumes while another amp sounds much louder than the class D at higher levels but great at lower levels, which I assume is our ears translating distortion into "louder" in our heads. Is it the job of a preamp to be sure the amp sounds the same at all levels or is this just impossible to make the sound that linear? I have one of the newest GaNFET amps from a well-respected designer/manufacturer playing at the moment and it sounds boring at low levels but good at higher levels. Not surprisingly it also sounds quieter at the same matched volume levels (using white noise) than the tube amps I also have. I hope I explained my question so it can be understood. Thanks.
- ...
- 33 posts total
we all hear differently, sometimes domestic conditions require us to listen at lower volumes some folks listen real loud (usually dealing with some level of hearing loss) - once i had a fellow come over to ’audition’ my spatial m3s at the time, really nice guy, zen healer body worker type, very educated but man, he listened sooooooo loud... i thought my head was going to explode, i literally had to leave the room to me, when i think about low level listening, a lot of it is about the fletcher munson effect and how that is dealt with - to me, good sound has a richness and texture and warmth to it, within which details can be heard, that can be hard to accomplish at low levels there is something about a sweet first watt, but to me it is alot about noise floor, and very low distortion throughout the range, through volume levels, whether the whole chain (and every item in it) can hold it together when spl’s rise - be it in the electrical signal or in the final transducer (cone breakup, crossover resonances, etc etc) yes i agree, very very good systems often play loud effortlessly, without strain, without a sense of the sound being extruded, or shot at you like from a water cannon... as a defining trait
|
@jjss49 Great post! "to me, good sound has a richness and texture and warmth to it, within which details can be heard". That says so much to me. Often times we can find richness, texture and warmth but at the expense of detail, or we find detail at the expense of richness, texture and warmth. Low levels make getting both out of your setup difficult. What makes a system great to me is walking the line between the two at all volumes. I've heard systems that sound much better at low volumes than high and vice versa. I guess that's why I started the thread. One could buy 2 amps and switch them out depending on listening level preferences at the time, or find an amp that can do both...which is not easy to say the least. In my experience this is what better, and most of the time, more expensive, amps get you.
|
- 33 posts total