Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[sandyk]

59 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

They mechanically move (consist of two parts sliding in/out each other). I must have a couple of them somewhere, but I actually don't use RCA any more.

 

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/rca-connectors/4848884/

[Hugo9000]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

You can always hear the material, George. OK, not "you" as such maybe, but it is easily possible. Btw, I think the given example was (pressed) sheet metal and that is the worst.

 

No matter how hard a cover is screwed on, you can still hear the cover (acoustic resonance). You are into cars, right ? well, use that rubber(ish) stuff that seals all kinds of boxes etc. inside the motor compartment (can be bought on a roll so now you perhaps know what I mean). Put that under the cover (where it touches the cabinet) and listen again ...

 

Proper damping of e.g. a D/A converter is an almost impossible job. The best results I had with the DAC floating on water. Yes you read right. And don't do this at home.

I stopped using this because the result depended on the water level; you may be able to imagine that the stack of water under the DAC is important for its own resonance towards the "floor", but merely how the floor - under influence of music - hammers on to the DAC. Now, the water level always changes because it vaporizes. So each 4 days or so I had to add water and I always knew because it was audible that the water level dropped too much.

So for 6 months or so I had been watering my DAC. Who says I'm crazy ?

 

  

 

  That's awesome that you documented it with photos!  What are you doing now instead to get that liquid clarity of sound?   

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

They mechanically move (consist of two parts sliding in/out each other). I must have a couple of them somewhere, but I actually don't use RCA any more.

 

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/rca-connectors/4848884/

 

Exactly. Those.

And I can tell you all, they are a great relief when used, because you suddenly can make connections without a blast of loud hum, btw no preamp or other analogue attenuation means assumed.

(never tried that with BNC anyway so actually no clue at this moment how they are arranged re this matter)

[Teresa]

10 hours ago, tmtomh said:

...And of course the big ones - speaker placement, speaker stands, and room treatments - usually can get you much closer to that immersive ideal than spending $$$ on new digital source components. 

 

Thanks Tmtomh, your entire post was great as have been most in this thread. I just quoted part of it as I wanted to emphasize that in my experience speaker placement is the most important area in achieving a large phantom center channel with a well defined soundstage and thus making the speakers sonically disappear.

 

Also George Graves points have been excellent, as well as the original poster Blackmorec.

 

I differ from Frank as I not only want instruments and voices to sound like the real thing, I also want to be aurally transported to the performance space. I find many audiophile and naturally made recordings to do that for me, recordings made in places like concert halls, jazz clubs, auditoriums, churches and other real performance spaces.

 

Also I don't believe a highly compressed recording with no dynamic range and the volume level pushed so high as to enter digital overload distortion with constant clipping can ever be made to sound good. By the same token extremely close miked recordings will never have correct timbre as microphones have raising high frequencies since they are designed to be place a reasonable distance from the musicians for flat response. Flat response is needed for accurate timbre. Thus, distant mic'ing combined with no EQ or any other studio tricks sound the most like real music to me. I firmly believe in garbage in garbage out. There is such a thing as great recordings and poor recordings IMHO.

[semente]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

You can always hear the material, George. OK, not "you" as such maybe, but it is easily possible. Btw, I think the given example was (pressed) sheet metal and that is the worst.

 

No matter how hard a cover is screwed on, you can still hear the cover (acoustic resonance). You are into cars, right ? well, use that rubber(ish) stuff that seals all kinds of boxes etc. inside the motor compartment (can be bought on a roll so now you perhaps know what I mean). Put that under the cover (where it touches the cabinet) and listen again ...

 

Proper damping of e.g. a D/A converter is an almost impossible job. The best results I had with the DAC floating on water. Yes you read right. And don't do this at home.

I stopped using this because the result depended on the water level; you may be able to imagine that the stack of water under the DAC is important for its own resonance towards the "floor", but merely how the floor - under influence of music - hammers on to the DAC. Now, the water level always changes because it vaporizes. So each 4 days or so I had to add water and I always knew because it was audible that the water level dropped too much.

So for 6 months or so I had been watering my DAC. Who says I'm crazy ?

 

  

 

 

Why didn't you use something more viscous like oil? Or honey? ?

 

I know someone who had his record player on a shelf hanged from the ceiling with cottong strings and a keel submerged in a pool of thick oil. Can't find a photo right now...

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, Hugo9000 said:

  That's awesome that you documented it with photos!  What are you doing now instead to get that liquid clarity of sound?   

 

Haha.

 

This thread could be about what's all between our ears. OK, possibly it is about Frank's only, but I wouldn't be so sure about it;

 

This gag with the water has not been repeated by anyone, no matter how often I advised to try it. Of course it is super dangerous as well and it actually requires something like olive oil or another some oil which is not conductive. Point is, that fluid always has different properties from water (usually with higher density (more thick)) and then it does not work anymore. Mind you, the damping is required from two directions : through air on to the DAC (musical pressure waves, mainly the micro stuff hence higher frequencies) and via the floor and now the lower frequencies.

Side note : at that time I was playing with a real time FFT analysis always on. So when the music played I could watch the FFT and this is exactly how this "idea" emerged. And mind you, no matter how softly I tried to walk the floor, you'd see that as 20Hz and beyond (lower) on the FFT. People just have no clue how impactive the room is for capturing the musical pressure waves which are fed back to the DAC. In that DAC we try to maintain sub-femto seconds clock systems.

With the water damping system, I could not see me walking the floor any more.

 

Back to the between the ears thing : exactly. It sounded like liquid. Of course I am quite positive that it sounds like liquid because I knew it was floating on liquid, but still ..

These days it goes way beyond that ...

 

So we now make cables. Mind you, digital cables, like for USB. I can hear exactly what material is used in there.

For a digital cable ? C'mon Peter !

So that.

And yes, I obviously know what material is used in there. But the sound just receives the properties of that. At least between my ears ...

 

The nasty thing now is, that once you have the idea it works that way, you start making the cable from the other end. You take a material, be sure it is lushy, name the cable like that, even give it the color, and out it goes.

Works for everybody.

The mere sad thing is that when this same cable is made flexible to the sense of how the (new) materials are used in there - them being shields only - not only I myself can hear the difference between how the materials are configured, but everybody can. Like I provide software (playback) settings which are interpreted the same by everyone, now the configuration of a cable is received the same by everyone (but one so far, but alas). So this is not between our ears, it seems.

 

Someone said that these days we "tweak" by means of buying new DACs etc. Well, I think it is hardly about that. It is far more about how to make things consistently working with each other. About all the groundloops and noise we (most of us) can not see but can find by empirically trying / finding out. And indeed it is about the knowledge and reference that "things can be done". Without that you'll try nothing, have your sound as it is and possibly your name is George (no offense intended, but it is typical stereotype thinking of many of us in here). You're in the state of "can't be better", "doesn't need to be better" and "don't BS me with snake oils".

Now try sugar cubes (if someone knows what I am talking about).

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, semente said:

I know someone who had his record player on a shelf hanged from the ceiling with cottong strings

 

Believe it or not, but when the house was built I'm living in right now, I designed holes in the ceiling for cords to be attached to the ceiling of the floor above (as in 2nd floor) so my speakers could hang on those cords, disconnected from the floor (and ceiling) of the listening room.

In the end I found it too much hassle and it wasn't make for real.

 

If I'm thinking of it now, each of the both bathrooms above those corners of the listening room, would have had a steel cable or something vertically going through them. Not sure what to do with that. Play harp while taking a shower ?

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, Teresa said:

By the same token extremely close miked recordings will never have correct timbre

 

My father, playing the main (solo) viola in the orchestra (also owning a sound studio back at the time) some times had to play with a microphone on his viola. He hated that. It was impossible to get any realistic viola sound from that.

 

Although all differently positioned, all are wrong of course because the sound of the instrument only expresses at somewhat further distance :

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be similar to you listening to a speaker 50 cm from the floor at 30cm distance with your nose in the woofer, hoping that you'd be able to hear the tweeter which is at 1m50, too.

 

 

[semente]

14 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Now try sugar cubes

 

I have never tried sugar cubes (I prefer Bjork solo ? ) but I did use some ugly-green dry floral foam when I was still living with my parents...

[semente]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

My father, playing the main (solo) viola in the orchestra (also owning a sound studio back at the time) some times had to play with a microphone on his viola. He hated that. It was impossible to get any realistic viola sound from that.

 

Although all differently positioned, all are wrong of course because the sound of the instrument only expresses at somewhat further distance :

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be similar to you listening to a speaker 50 cm from the floor at 30cm distance with your nose in the woofer, hoping that you'd be able to hear the tweeter which is at 1m50, too.

 

 

 

Yes, close mic'ing is a terrible invention, at least for those who like the sound of acoustic instruments and vocals played in naturally resonant spaces.

[fas42]

38 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

I differ from Frank as I not only want instruments and voices to sound like the real thing, I also want to be aurally transported to the performance space. I find many audiophile and naturally made recordings to do that for me, recordings made in places like concert halls, jazz clubs, auditoriums, churches and other real performance spaces.

 

Teresa, I also want that. The performance space can be real, or highly "manufactured"; the latter still 'work' because one's hearing sorts out the intent of the recording mastering, and you are transported to another place. Some pop productions are absolute masterpieces at taking you on a wondrous acoustic journey - think, Disneyland rides. Yes, fantasies, but glorious ones ...

 

38 minutes ago, Teresa said:

Also I don't believe a highly compressed recording with no dynamic range and the volume level pushed so high as to enter digital overload distortion with constant clipping can ever be made to sound good. By the same token extremely close miked recordings will never have correct timbre as microphones have raising high frequencies since they are designed to be place a reasonable distance from the musicians for flat response. Flat response is needed for accurate timbre. Thus, distant mic'ing combined with no EQ or any other studio tricks sound the most like real music to me. I firmly believe in garbage in garbage out. There is such a thing as great recordings and poor recordings IMHO.

 

Modern, highly compressed are the hardest to render decently. I do cheat , because I have little interest in most of the recent music making - but have been able to tame those which are interesting, musically. One  of my pursuits has been to reverse deliberate over compression, and the signs are that enough can be done to make the listening highly acceptable.

[PeterSt]

14 minutes ago, semente said:

I have never tried sugar cubes (I prefer Bjork solo ? ) but I did use some ugly-green dry floral foam when I was still living with my parents...

 

Hmm ... that would indeed have properties I like (feel the stuff and you can hear the sound). But, it will age and could be too dry / too hard. FWIW, his is what I consider the best means of footer for what one can buy :

 

 

If you look close at the bottom block, you say layers. It is about that. Plus of course the material itself, which is anti static foam. This too ages somewhat (may get pressed-in after a while and depending on how the device's footer presses into it, hence the supporting surface).

 

There has been one individual somewhere who created the exact right "kristalline" footers. They were quite expensive, but I didn't care about that. What I did care about is that the guy vanished before I could order with him.

I think I spent a year throughput in finding the best material for footers and make something myself. Now the fun where all comes together (for my silly own stories) : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2838.msg30071#msg30071

That is in a thread which is all about the floating DAC experience and if you scroll back many pages, you'll see that this was put up as a riddle for people and how the first one who could tell what I was up to, could win a prize.

That prize was : my own creation of the best footer material, which was sugar of a certain size, that compressed to a certain density, vacuumized in plastic of a certain height and size, and next it was shipped to the winner. He, named Coen, never had been made aware of what it was and probably will have thought it was drugs (3 bags of it).

I never dared to ship this with the NOS1 (which is what these footers were for) because I was sure that at some stage it would turn bad on customs somewhere.

I still use these and it does not age or compress or anything.

 

Btw, this is not related at all to the sugar cubes I mentioned. That is something entirely different which alters the sound like crazy, but mainly makes it inaccurate (for NOS1 owners).

 

 

 

 

 

[fas42]

42 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Side note : at that time I was playing with a real time FFT analysis always on. So when the music played I could watch the FFT and this is exactly how this "idea" emerged. And mind you, no matter how softly I tried to walk the floor, you'd see that as 20Hz and beyond (lower) on the FFT. People just have no clue how impactive the room is for capturing the musical pressure waves which are fed back to the DAC. In that DAC we try to maintain sub-femto seconds clock systems.

With the water damping system, I could not see me walking the floor any more.

 

Peter, this is new to me, and highly useful. It's clear evidence that vibration does impact the supposedly isolated electrical devices, and it's remarkable that others have not seen or investigated these sort of behaviours.

 

42 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Back to the between the ears thing : exactly. It sounded like liquid. Of course I am quite positive that it sounds like liquid because I knew it was floating on liquid, but still ..

These days it goes way beyond that ...

 

So we now make cables. Mind you, digital cables, like for USB. I can hear exactly what material is used in there.

For a digital cable ? C'mon Peter !

So that.

And yes, I obviously know what material is used in there. But the sound just receives the properties of that. At least between my ears ...

 

 

In all of my tweaking exercises I never gone anywhere near to trying all the things that are possible - what I've heard has always been compromised by not sorting "the rest of the stuff" ... which means, that I never heard any recording yet at its best ... the possibilities are still wide open ... .

[fas42]

Footer or support material? I play with various viscoelastic items, memory foams of different densities, etc - you can buy this stuff cheap as muck these days, being used in different household goods - try any and every combination; see what it does for you.

[PeterSt]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

and it's remarkable that others have not seen or investigated these sort of behaviours.

 

Nah. Maybe it is remarkable that someone is as stupid as me doing such a thing. Btw, only few audio manufacturers would have the analyzer for this to begin with. And let's be honest, I too only did this in 2014 while I had the gear for 3 years by then. But why did I actually start with that ? ...

 

I was tuning the low frequency of the back then new Orelo MKII speaker. This was close miking (sorry) to the woofers while I in parallel wanted to know how low music normally goes, in-room. It is there where I learned (empirically) how most of the CD's are high passed for LP and that, for example, the MFSL recordings usually do not do that. So for fun : often the master is nothing better or different, but still this high-pass is omitted. Compare the two versions regarding this of The Wall and the very first track. Now you know ...

But of course first have a speaker which can render this "ambient" because it is all about that. A kick drum doesn't do 20Hz. But it's ambient roll (especially in the larger space) does.

A kettle drum is quite OK for most systems. Unless it is used in a church. Now you suddenly miss out.

 

One learns this by observing the FFT in real time for a couple of months. Only idiots do this.

But, and this is again a bit you, Frank, now I know this I have it in mind and it has become my reference. If something goes odd, I can hear where to be while what's there to hear for real (directly) probably isn't even audible. But mind you, 20 Hz may not be audible, but it may influence the remainder (up to ~200Hz in my case) severely. Too much LF (because of something being wrong) and all else goes wrong.

Or don't buy these speakers. Haha.

 

Edit : I meant these for comparison :

 

[Allan F]

On 10/12/2018 at 3:24 AM, Blackmorec said:

So, can one of Frank’s fettled systems really make bad recordings sound good? In a word no. BUT, BUT...an unfettled system can sure as hell make reasonable recordings sound bad and that’s Frank’s point.

 

An interesting post but, if you have read his posts, Frank has repeatedly insisted that he can make bad recordings sound good. While your above comments about systems may be valid, they are your "point" and not his.

[gmgraves]

17 hours ago, fas42 said:

Sounds good! Some years ago I heard a Krell KAV-300i, and it didn't especially tick any boxes ...

It's a very good amplifier, but It has problems (to me) such as no rotary volume control - only up and down push buttons, and It only did class-A for 2 Watts, and like most Krell stuff, it sounds a little detached and cool, you know, clinical. One gets used to that and it's not a flaw, it's just like one person like lime jello and somebody else likes cherry. One's not better than the other, just a different flavor. 

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

With regard to RCA, if one is "condemned" to use them, I would use the silver paste treatment on them. This needs to be done extremely carefully, the absolute minimum of goo to do the job - and once the two sides are mated, don't touch it!! If unplugging is necessary, then assume you have dirty connectors; clean thoroughly and redo the treatment, etc.

Maybe, I've never tried it, but I do know that Stabilant 22A is a "wonder drug" It really works at reducing contact resistance. It works so well, that it is used by NATO and has a NATO stock number, has a US Mil-Spec number, has a NASA procurement code number and a SAE  Stock number (Society of Automotive Engineers) and a DOT Certification. The NATO brief States "...when applied to electromechanical contacts, Stabilant 22 provides the connection reliability of a soldered joint without bonding the contacting surfaces together." (emphasis mine)

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

My father, playing the main (solo) viola in the orchestra (also owning a sound studio back at the time) some times had to play with a microphone on his viola. He hated that. It was impossible to get any realistic viola sound from that.

 

Although all differently positioned, all are wrong of course because the sound of the instrument only expresses at somewhat further distance :

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be similar to you listening to a speaker 50 cm from the floor at 30cm distance with your nose in the woofer, hoping that you'd be able to hear the tweeter which is at 1m50, too.

 

 

Contact mikes sound terrible. I hate them and can tell one in a recording instantly! Kenny G's sax, for instance. Compare it to a track from Stan Getz or Coleman Hawkins and I think that you too will understand (if you don't already)

[gmgraves]

18 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Funny, I read exactly the same in @sandyk's post. still he is not talking about that at all, when reading back on it. 

George, did you know that such RCA plugs exist ? They mechanically move (consist of two parts sliding in/out each other). I must have a couple of them somewhere, but I actually don't use RCA any more. Only BNC.

Sounds like an invitation to trouble to me. If one is aware that RCAs make and break connections in the wrong order, one must simply make sure the amp is off or the volume is at minimum when attaching and detaching components. Yes, it is wrong, but it's what we have (other than XLRs). The RCA was devised to connect the tuner module in an RCA Victor "630" TV chassis right after the war. That one had a very short tip that did not protrude beyond the skirt. The first one I saw for audio was on the back of a high-end RCA TV in 1949. It would take a crystal cartridge record player or an FM/AM tuner and you invoked it by pulling the on/off - volume knob on the front of the cabinet. If you turned the knob clockwise it would turn on the TV and adjust the volume of the TV. If you pulled it (when it was "off") it would turn-on the audio section of the TV chassis only and patch the RCA plug on the back through. The screen would remain dark. 

[fas42]

11 hours ago, PeterSt said:

But of course first have a speaker which can render this "ambient" because it is all about that. A kick drum doesn't do 20Hz. But it's ambient roll (especially in the larger space) does.

A kettle drum is quite OK for most systems. Unless it is used in a church. Now you suddenly miss out.

 

 

Okay, that makes more sense why people would insist on very low frequency reproduction. That's not something that I tune into, so I don't worry about such areas - meaning, far less expensive to sort!

 

Classic Boney M. tracks have this visceral bass kick throb to them,; when the system gets it right it takes the listening to a much higher level - that's the sort of sound element that's important to get in the zone, for me.

[fas42]

52 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

Maybe, I've never tried it, but I do know that Stabilant 22A is a "wonder drug" It really works at reducing contact resistance. It works so well, that it is used by NATO and has a NATO stock number, has a US Mil-Spec number, has a NASA procurement code number and a SAE  Stock number (Society of Automotive Engineers) and a DOT Certification. The NATO brief States "...when applied to electromechanical contacts, Stabilant 22 provides the connection reliability of a soldered joint without bonding the contacting surfaces together." (emphasis mine)

 

As said before, the contact enhancers failed for me - they may ensure reliability of the contact at the level of integrity needed by NASA, but they introduce a type of contact noise which slowly worsens, IME - confirmed by thorough cleaning, and comparing a fresh connection.

 

I've been happy with the normal silver compounds that are available - they don't deteriorate, as far as I can tell. Personally, I would do trials comparing the two methods; but don't make immediate conclusions - let each settle for some weeks, to take account of possible change with time.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

An interesting post but, if you have read his posts, Frank has repeatedly insisted that he can make bad recordings sound good. While your above comments about systems may be valid, they are your "point" and not his.

 

How it apparently works - and this is something I also find fascinating - is that you are listening to two separate sound events: the actual musical event that was recorded; versus, all the additional crap, coming from every defect and poorly executed manipulation, and shortcoming, in  the recording and playback chains. The aim of the game is to do everything in one's power to reveal every last skerrick of "the actual musical event"; with, absolute minimal additions in the playback side of the equation. The remarkable thing is, I find, that if executed well then the musical event scenario achieves ascendency in one's subjective focus - that's "what you hear" - and all the rubbish that doesn't belong to that event recedes to the background - in fact, it requires quite a degree of deliberate effort to make oneself aware of the technical issues; that stuff "is not important" at that moment of being engaged with the music ... you don't hear it being a "poor recording".

[One and a half]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

How it apparently works - and this is something I also find fascinating - is that you are listening to two separate sound events: the actual musical event that was recorded; versus, all the additional crap, coming from every defect and poorly executed manipulation, and shortcoming, in  the recording and playback chains. The aim of the game is to do everything in one's power to reveal every last skerrick of "the actual musical event"; with, absolute minimal additions in the playback side of the equation. The remarkable thing is, I find, that if executed well then the musical event scenario achieves ascendency in one's subjective focus - that's "what you hear" - and all the rubbish that doesn't belong to that event recedes to the background - in fact, it requires quite a degree of deliberate effort to make oneself aware of the technical issues; that stuff "is not important" at that moment of being engaged with the music ... you don't hear it being a "poor recording".

Like wishful thinking really.

[fas42]

10 minutes ago, One and a half said:

Like wishful thinking really.

 

No. I've had this happen over and over again, over many years, with a huge variety of recordings, with a diverse range of 'issues'.

 

If the rig is not working well enough, then you hear all the problems - the playback sounds terrible, it may be "unlistenable" to. Yet a little bit of, yes, magic occurs when the SQ reaches high enough - one's mind snaps over the previous hurdles, and the playback 'works'. One's intellect knows what it sounded like before, how "poor" it came across in earlier sessions - but that makes no difference to what the presentation is like, subjectively, in this "better window".

[fas42]

This is the type of material I like to get the most out of ...

 

 

I have a Erroll Garner CD with tracks in terrible shape - much worse than that - and it's a challenge to lift them to the point of coming alive ...