@audioman58 - So, you’re just specing things out in theory. That’s cool. I understand now.
I’m a purist. I don’t want distortion. I’ve spend X amount of dollars on a front end with almost nil measurable distortion. Moreover, I grapple with the "distortion" inherent in tube amps, and whether I want that, even knowing that SS amp manufacturers don’t ever talk about the high order harmonics intrinsic in their gear. Of course, any recording ever committed to magnetic tape has loads of 3rd order harmonics, not failing to mention the distortions inherent in microphones.
Anyway, some of that is a different story. However, did you know that blind tests in humans have deduced that even the introduction of 19% distortion below 500Hz is inaudible? This also plays into the masking effect that all speakers have. So, we’re talking about bass in the DI and whether 2%-3% distortion in the low end is going to have a great effect, as opposed to these cats who use NASA grade dampening material.
What’s more, there are some theories that state that most speaker manufacturers have it all wrong, in that they are using too much dampening, when fundamentally music relies - nay, NEEDS - vibration to happen, and that dampening has become just audiophile speak that says something has to perform X way to react Y way. In other words, you don’t throw out dampening, but you also consider what is a proper amount of vibration and whether that adds to the sound or not.
I posted yesterday about speaker manufacturers goosing the bass, and this much is a fact. Therefore, I ask if a $50k speaker, or even a $200 Bose system, knowingly skews the original audio signal by 4db in the bass, yet with only 1% distortion, and this other speaker has more of a natural bass response with 3% distortion (that you cannot hear anyway), which is the lesser of the two evils?
