What does 'Fast mean?

"BTW, "pratt" (lovely stuff from Linn's marketing) can be achieved in systems by slightly emphasising the lower mid-range/upper bass"

Gregm:
I own Linn gear, though I have never heard the term "PRAT" from the mouth of any of the three Linn dealers I have worked with in the past two years. But I am too young in the hobby to know the marketing history behind these terms. I actually assumed the term was Naim's coinage.

I don't understand the distinction you are drawing between the terms "PRAT" and "fast." At least I have been using them interchangeably, perhaps in ignorance. Could you explain what you mean? Certainly increasing midbass doesn't lead to the phenomenon Seantaylor is describing above.

In my experience, such as it is, the excitement, immediacy and rhythmic coherence of music clearly varies from system to system (most dramatically between some tube gear and good solid state). I am sure midbass can give you the “thump - thump” of a dance club, but I doubt that is what you mean. It is certainly not what I mean when I use the term “PRAT.”

Newmanoc: Would you please enlighten us with a definition of each of the following terms in the context of the audiophile community:

Pace -
Rhythm -
Timing -

Thank you for your time.

John

John (jafox):
Of course they all mean the same thing. I have never met anyone who has been able to describe any meaningful differences between the constituents of this acronym, nor do I expect to. I use it simply because it is recognizable and seems to have found its way into the audio argot, not because I defend its origins, semantics or anything else. Perhaps I should just use "fast" or "well paced" in the future, because that is all I mean.

Chris

Newmanoc: actually I think you're right in that "pratt" probably originated with Naim when the two Cos were working closely together. THEN the Linn marketing/sales people did quite a lot of use of that with their dealers. It;s gone out of fashion now I suppose...

Loosely defined, the erstwhile "pratt" meant a "crispy" sound in the all important 100-10kHz region with close focus on 300-~6kHz: the point was to get FR and phase as good as possible in that range (think of the old LP12).

Much of the music listened to & used for auditioning at the time was rythmic (4/4, 8/4 etc) with vocals. Sooo, if you focused on the main part of the frequency spectrum rather than the extensions -- i.e. your 300Hz blended in well with the 5kHz say -- you had this lively, pleasant sound. I.e. "foot-tapping" sound as the good Mr Tiefenbrun used to say.
Focus on the range & its slight prominence also meant that with speakers reasonably (but not painstakingly) set up, the "springy" effect was still there.
Voila in reductionist and simplified form. Linn & Naim can offer a much more precise & sophisticated explanation, of course. Cheers

I think the point here is harmonic reproduction - not the speed of light or the switching speed of devices.

Reproducing harmonics means reproducing music. The question is whether the harmonics we hear are from the media or the electronics. The electronics can add harmonics (distortion) or remove them (low bandwidth and/or stability).

Problem is that there is no reference point - hence all the debates found in audio forums, including this one.

Arthur