Distortions that the human ear likes. Are there any ?

Based on what I've read, and experienced, including writing from Pass, and listening to Pass gear and my own experiences, here goes:

The perception and appreciation of distortion and other non-linear sound reproduction is a learned, not innate, capability or feature of the ear / brain mechanism.


Being learned, it varies from individual to individual. Unless we do a survey that is credibly representative of "most audiophiles" this question has no answer which can be backed up by more than individual accounts.


So, the good news is that variety of product selection is most likely to have a product at a price point most audiophiles can be satisfied with. The bad news is I am not going to agree with a LOT of audiophiles as to what sounds good, but then, I don't really care if I do.


Your own wallet and your own ears and your own heart must ultimately be used to determine the value, desirability and sacrifice you will make for a particular bit of kit. It isn't wrong to like something that sounds like your '78 Oldsmobile. Just don't try to force me to believe it is neutral or state of the art.

Best,

E

To confuse the waters even further, there's also changes in our hearing with age and trauma.


There are speakers which are arguably far from neutral, which may correct for these losses, and make your ears feel young again.


Is this "pleasurable distortion?"  Is the loudness curve, whether in an amp, or in the speaker design not distortion?


So yes, we can like things far from neutral at times.

I wish they still made Olds. My dad had a ’58 Olds station wagon and it was like a living room on wheels. Can’t remember what it sounded like but I do remember all of us getting out and pushing it to a gas station.

It was like pushing a living room on wheels. 😄

All the best,
Nonoise

Listen, " as far as I am concerned ", there are three distortions I am easily aware of, and I do not like any of them in a system. One, is obviously amplifier clipping, which is very unpleasant, and one that I personally, in my own system, I never experience. The second, is when a speaker breaks up ( compression ), because it cannot handle the signal being applied to it, or, when an amplifier is simply played too loudly, beyond the limits of the speaker. Third, hum or hiss. I do believe, there are distortions that are enjoyed by some listeners, as I think Nonoise and Eric hit on. I know quite a number of musicians, some of which are audiophiles, and some are not. Many of them, when they play, have gear that creates distorted sounds, so this may be another situation that the engineer was speaking about. Anyway, I will give this post a week or so, and see where it goes. I am a big boy, so if anyone cares to " attack " me, it is ok. But, I posted this as a learning opportunity. Enjoy ! MrD.

Thanks for the mention, MrD. I agree with the mastering engineer, at least as a general rule of thumb. And especially if we define "distortion" as "deviation from accuracy," rather than more narrowly as harmonic distortion. Here are reasons that occur to me off the top of my head; I’m sure there are other reasons as well:

1) As alluded to earlier, it is widely recognized that certain even order harmonic distortion components, especially the second harmonic, tend to be subjectively perceived as contributing to richness and warmth.

2) As Ralph (Atmasphere) has pointed out in a number of past threads, if the distortion characteristics of an amplifier are such that harmonic distortion becomes vanishingly small at low power levels while increasing significantly at high power levels (as is the case with SET and some other amplifiers having single-ended output stages), since our hearing mechanisms use certain odd order distortion components as loudness cues the subjective result will often be a perceived increase in dynamics.

3) My understanding is that very small amounts of high frequency noise or hiss can be subjectively perceived as added "air" and ambience. That would seem to be a reason, btw, that some audiophiles report finding that shielded cables tend to produce a more closed in sound than unshielded cables. Shielding can potentially reduce high frequency noise in at least three ways: (a) As a result of increased capacitance; (b) by reducing RFI pickup; (c) by reducing ground loop-related noise, as a result of lowering the impedance between the circuit grounds and/or chassis of the connected components.

4) Here is an interesting quote from the manual for the DEQX HDP-5 I have in my system:

Room measurements typically exhibit a downward “tilt” from low bass to high treble of 6 up to 15 dB. This is caused by a number of factors including reduced dispersion and greater absorption in the room at high frequencies. Do not attempt to EQ your room measurement completely flat – that will most likely sound overly bright.

That rings true to me. And it indicates that optimizing in-room frequency response is a delicate balancing act, with the result unlikely to be anything that can be considered to be precisely accurate in an objective sense.

5) It was established in the late 1970s, as I recall, that the commonly used technique of reducing total harmonic distortion (THD) by application of feedback can often result in significant amounts of transient intermodulation distortion (TIM), which can be much more objectionable than THD. So in addition to adding richness, warmth, and in some cases enhancing dynamics, highish levels of THD may be appealing in some cases due to an associated minimization of TIM.


Regards,

-- Al