What exactly is PRaT???

I was a Linn/Naim devotee in the early 80's when my interest in home audio started. My dealer espoused the Linn/Naim credo: Source-first hierarchy, Garbage in/garbage out, single speaker listening rooms, "testing" components by toe tapping and humming the melody, etc. Of course, as my music interests changed, it was hard to hum and toe tap to Schoenberg, but I sort of got what they were saying. 

I just started drum lessons again after taking 50 years off. When I was 13, it was a rock and roll backbeat that I was interested in. Now I want to swing my ride cymbals with dotted 8th's and feel the looser syncopated pulse. My drum teacher believes in the metronome, and also in ditching the metronome so you can feel the rhythm with your body. 

I think that my Linn dealer used PRaT in that way: You'll know it when you feel it, and you'll feel it with us, and not with the other guys. 

I was an art teacher most of my life, and we are always using metaphors and simile to describe the ineffable. I personally think that trying to describe the rhythmic qualities of electronic gear is like that. It points to something that may be important, but it remains out of reach. 

I've always interpreted it as speed and clarity. The attack and decay of notes are distinct and on time. Some speakers excel at this. I'm less clear about what it means for electronics but I assume the electronics play a role in creating that. 

I had a pair of speaker cables that seemed to slow the attack and it felt like notes were actually late in timing and decayed too soon. As soon as I changed cables, that disappeared. 

I’ve got 53 years in the hobby since I bought a pair of Advents and I still don’t understand the term. I don’t think it’s very useful.

While, in general, I don’t like McGowen’s PRaTel, he certainly acknowledges its existence in the video. So, I agree with him. What he doesn’t talk about is how to sense it. I think it is about the hardest of the attributes to sense (although once you finally get it, it is easy). He alludes to the symptoms of good PRaT, but not what it sounds like.

It is not like detail. In detail, to sense it you collapse your focus of attention to individual sounds with in the sound field… like the tick of a drumstick or a bowed violin and listen intensely. If you are concentrating on bass, you tend to open up your focus of attention because bass is less directional. PRaT is more a function of a very large part of the sound field. To sense it close your eyes and sense the draw or connection to the rhythm. For me, it all came to me at once when I was listening to a system with great PRaT and memories of auditions of several past systems that had emotionally tugged at me (syrupy tube systems) but were unappealing for other shortcomings. That is when it came together. It is like a gestalt attribute produced across the sound field and the symptoms of it are the foot tap and desire to move (if only in your head).

It can take a long time so sense it. Highly contrasting systems can really help. Audition a solid state Luxman / Magico system then a Conrad Johnson or VAC / Sonus Faber system. The former is virtually devoid of PRaT the latter very rich with it. A Pass / DynAudio system is likely to be in the middle.

Hopefully this is helpful.

I have always fancied, however erroneously, that PRAT was often due to very slightly erratic timing which is why tube amps sometimes can be masters of PRAT perhaps because something in some tubes is faintly "off" timing wise. This in turn might create a sense of naturalness or "live" performance even if the tunes have been very precisely guided in the studio.

Sometimes PRAT can be that ineffable thing called "swing."  SRV nearly always had it in his playing.

The Stones often made Pratty records perhaps because of their catch-as-catch-can recording practices.

The Stones Recording At Muscle Shoals Part1

The Stones Recording At Muscle Shoal Part2