The issue with negative feedback is tied to the maligning of the micro aspects (in time and level) of transient leading edges.
Since our hearing is based upon this area of a signal, this means that, to overstate it a hair..that..100% of our hearing is in the 1-0.5% (and less) of the signal that negative feedback makes a total mess out of.
Linear measurement wise, this small error is meaningless, as mathematical ratios may go, in mathematical weighting and evaluation.
Which has pretty well SQUAT to do with how humans hear. (the given unweighted and disconnected mathematics)
Negative feedback is, generally, a solution to a problem that humans don’t really understand. at least in the idea of book learned electrical and electronic engineers of audio gear. We have to connect the problem and the solution together and that requires an intimate understanding of the problem. the problem, or question, is the REAL specifics the REAL internal meat and neural and cranial aspects of how humans hear, in the minute and total sum details.
Until then, these methods of making audio, like class D or negative feedback will continue to be the ill ought out abominations that they are. Like idiots on gobos and crutches, trying to run a world class 100 meter dash. Bad attempt, bad understanding, wrongheaded result of dubious value.. looks good on paper, though. works like a bear dancing.
bears don’t dance, they hit the sweet spot in our minds that sees the motions as being akin to dancing so we mentally place a dancing mental envelope of interpretation over the lurching about.
With bad audio we are dealing with the aural equivalent of Pareidolia getting in the way, where we create the shape of the signal in our minds, when it’s actual clarity is not truly there in the most perfect shape it could be. We are wired to fill in, via precognition of all our history in aural ingestion and interpretation.
THAT..is /class D and high negative feedback, in a nutshell.
Some of us can hear past it and recognize these inbuilt filters and correct for them. we can see waldo, aurally.
Some cannot or they feel they see waldo well enough that he’s actually there.
good audio reproduction allows a person to put the mental aural mind scrunching and efforts away, and just listen in a totally relaxed manner to the beauty of it all.
THIS is what Ralph is talking about when he talks about what the atmosphere amps are better at (and others are also better at)
Its the difference between an aware and thinking audiophile getting off on music. Or,on the other side, the linear mind side...getting off and solving a ’puzzle’ of signal recognition and interpretation, which is work. fun for some, but it’s work, hard work. hard, edgy screechy work, work upon a signal that is purposely damaged to make some aspects more aurally obvious, or separated from the whole.. And i hate that sound, like all sane thinking people should. It is horrible and anti-music.
Since we are all individuals with different learning curves, different libraries of internal data, and individual different & differentiated meat packages we are wrapped in...this is not a place where we can lay down a black and white law that covers all potentials.
Generally...the less a person understands all of this, the more the monkey inside senses danger (unknowns!), and henceforth desires a perfect black and white answer to these complexities. So, to self protect, it sits, claws out, in fighting positon..and lays a yes/no black/white beating down on the complexities it does not cognate or understand ...and lays down beatings on audio and music fans, fans that that tell them they’ve got it completely backward.
so, to overstate it slightly to edge enhance the visual on this so the general shape of it can be seen more clearly:
This is what partially encompasses my dislike, my honest and well thought out dislike of the premise and actions of the overall shaped thing called ASR. It’s deep premise is as dumb as a bag of hammers, it is missing the real argument and question, entirely. It is insistent on hanging witches, witches of it’s own creation, witches that don’t exist. It fails to understand the entirety of it’s own core question and answer set.
It also explains the haters and the detractors here on this forum.
No written word set is perfect nor entirely accurate, so don’t take it personally or seek to chase down some minor error in form or whatnot, in with I write here. That would only amply show everyone who is reading and can grok it all...one’s lack of understanding of the issue or the nature of functional discourse.
