All,
This is ony of my more controlversial posts and it won't be much useful to most of you, when looking at the title and main subject that is.
Also, in advance I must say that my current setup is the one with the floating NOS1 and all around it for consistent setup (isolated USB etc. as worked out in this topic :
USB to PC chassis ground ? (noise) - The biggest change ever ! which includes Windows 7, at least at this time (I never tried Windows 8 in this setup, but I will).
Small description about those woofers :
In my case open baffle (Orelino speaker) and tuned to being capable of 18Hz without audible distortion (coming down to less than 3% THD for all harmonics) and with the foremost main characteristic of the woofers free moving in air (so no pressure cabinet holding back from one (back) side).
Without really being able to detect the better or the worse from SQ and XXHighEnd settings (or the OS which is in order) I learnt how the woofers can feel while having a good perception of the (bass) SQ merits after listening longer to a setting. Today (with now some 5 months of experience) I think I can turn this around, and feeling of the woofers *will* tell me about the quality of sound.
I'll add that adding or removing (quite theoretical) noise in unmeasurable amounts (but say we don't know where to measure it) let make behave the woofers all over different. What "noise" means in this realm can be seen in the topic I linked to above - and you'll understand that this is beyond noise as such, because we only apply means to influence it without exactly be able to see how that is. Still, I now think I can, just by feeling woofers.
Please remember the "undistorted" representation up to mentioned 18Hz, and that it is not to be expected that anyone can do the same as I can (but Bert can). Meaning : any common (very) good speaker will be able to go down to say 27Hz but that 27Hz will exhibit something like 10% distortion which is way too much. Also, any subwoofer (no matter how low it can go) will easily show 30% THD;
When these amounts of THD exhibit, the below just can not apply (read : you will not be able to feel the differences I describe below).
Controverse : I'll debunk damping of a speaker driver from the eletronic side of matters. Even the physical side of things (the driver itself) can be debunked.
How ? By to a large degree showing you that whatever was measured it is related to the quality of the signal which in itself is related to noise (or jitter if you like).
All is about how the driver diaphragm will excurt *and* detract in best fashion. So this is related to the physical properties of the suspension of the driver, but aso how negative feedback may detract when needed (go back to mid position as fast as possible or better : when the signal tells so).
Here is my description of all what can be felt with the very same speaker, amps and DAC.
It needs music like from Hatfield's End, and while knowing everybody can accept this is real nice music, take
Unveiling Revealing The Myth for it. Can be the first track. This goes beyond 25Hz but most plays just around the limit of audibility (which I assume to be 24Hz). Keep in mind, 24Hz is only not audible when it is under the 3% THD limit, or otherwise you'll perceive 48Hz of it (2nd harmonic assumed to become profound before a third).
1. Woofer excurts without noticeable difference to outside and inside. The one frequency playing is easily felt.
Notice : Outside is to the back. This could even be logic when you are in front of the speaker (in = towards you) but since I always feel at the back side (front side is hard to reach for me) I'll have to describe outside as "to the back" (or otherwise I'll mix up things).
2. Woofer excurts but has an after-vibe. Blo-bloo-bloob.
This never feels wrong because it feels "soft" and you feel development of the sound. But you can't be sure because it also feels like "less controlled".
3. Woofer zooms and hardly excurts.
Here the low frequency sound is still audible as such, but the zooming reveals that more frequencies play and they are all mixed.
4 Woofer excurts to the back in clearly uncontrolled fahsion.
Relative to the other descriptions this makes you think it will break. Excursion is way too much and it seems negative only (to the back).
5. Woofer excurts without noticeable difference to outside and inside. The one frequency playing is firmly felt.
The difference with #1 is that here your fingers won't be able to follow the retraction (they detach).
Of course I must be on topic for the board I'm posting in, and #5 was only disovered two days ago by some sort of coincidence. Wanted to let work something on W7 and tried to change the Processor Core Appointed Scheme; Always played with 1-2 so far and now engaged 3-5.
After I did this I just put up the next album and again my jaw was laying on the floor within 3 seconds. My expression :
Is this this other album or what's happening
NOW ?
From somewhere in the room someone told me it had to be the album; the difference was too crazy to dedicate it to some other setting (I was told).
But it wasn't.
Now, all is relative to all my other shoutings lately, so someone who is reading this out of that context will just read a fat bold "NOW". But those who followed all should interpret it as another giant leapm in the mean time honestly thinking that I have become part of the group who
thinks that music reproduction improves 10 fold each week.
But it really does ...
This time it is not about albums al play once in a while and don't recognize them with a new setting because it's "ambient" and it might unveil some fairly new main melodies in the lower frequencies and such. No, this time it is about tracks in my demo Gallery I may play each week for trialling and that for 3 years in a row. And THESE I don't recognize anymore. This is not virtually speaking ... I am just the most serious. It is up to me asking "and, did you ever hear this track before ?" -> No.
No ? I've played it a 100 times and last time was three days ago. -> What ??!
So like that.
I can't describe how this happens (unrecognizable) with tracks with a most clear melody, while this melody is still there in itself (and not emphasized or brough to the back - so just the same). It is about the representation and how all is again everywhere but with the explicit emphasis on where things happen. Example :
The first track I put on yesterday - eager to detect whether I'd still perceive the idiocy from the day before (when I engaded the 3-5 for the first time) was a track that starts with a kick drum. So, a common kickdrumk plays at just above 32Hz (up to 40Hz) and there's not more high frequency in them than when the hammer hits the skin. The remainder is really that low frequency only. Again this was a track I have played a 100 times, last time "three days ago". So what happened yesterday ?
The kickdrum has its kick in the left and an echo in the right, the echo bing exactly at the beat. Thus, instead of me always thinking it was "boom-boom-boom-boom" now it was "boom-oom-boom-ooom" the boom in the clear left and the oom as echo in the clear right.
How did THAT happen ?
But can you imagine now ? suppose this kickdrum was a melody, instead of being a normal beat it now diverts into something super spatious, one thing from the one speaker the other thing from the other, while at first it thus all came from the middle and I even never detected that any second beat was an echo of the first.
And these things are in ALL now.
Let's also try to envision that there is no single reason why such a thing would happen in woofers only, right ? So, it will also happen in the mid and in the tweeter. It's only that L/R differentiation with real low frequencies is way more hard to "do". So elsewhere I already described this (I think Anthony will know) but now there's some super boost added for this which makes it happen where it didn't happen before.
Not to forget, this adds to my already raving about similar happening I could squeeze out with Windows 8 and an isolated Silverstone card at one end, which was before isolating it at the other end and let my NOS1 float on water. All implied new raving but this does it all.
I already told about not knowing where to go; well, now I don't know anymore where I am. That crazy.
The 3-5 setting tells me from another angle that it can do something special, but this is (software) technical and I actually could not understand; this is about the situation that the whole OS can go wild with the 1-2 setting (without reason and just an 8 core i7) which appeared to be solved with the 3-5 setting (the user himself found out). Why ? I don't see it but clearly it does something in the OS.
So I guess with me too, but now SQ related.
Now, since I also should be on topic to the title of this post, this all exhibits as the totally new for me super fast retraction. *This* I never experienced before and it is really a strange feeling. As if the woofers are different ones.
If we work this out more technically, a faster retraction can only lead to a more clear frequency. I mean, when the retraction goes more slow, this can only be because the frequenciy playing isn't followed and before zero is reached the *same* frequency playing excurts again but less than the level implies. So what you actually feel in the #1 situation (which I thought was the best) is a slower frequency than the real one playing, plus it is merged with harmonics. In the end it is the story about standing waves again and how a not clear frequency (while it actually is) is more wobbling, the tops and dips of it implying a lower frequency than reality (it's actually resonance in the electrical (or even digital) domain).
What comes from this, the track with the kick drum in mind, is the again more clear lowe frequency (32-40Hz in this case) which is now able to not divert in the room (less reflections of the wave as a whole) and it has bcome more directional again.
To keep in mind : most people won't believe this can happen for the lower frequencies anyway, but they just can and I suppose you will believe me per my descriptions like above.
Funnlily anough the Hatfield's End album I referred to is one which pressurizes the room because of it's sub low frequencies, which always felt audible. And you know what ? it doesn't anymore. Excursion is now better than ever before, it really shows the one frequency only (by feeling), but somehow the air (in the music) coming from it has disappeared. I'll go as fas as that air being distortion after all (think sizzle like) as if in the electrical domain this isn't filtered (in my case this is DSP thus digital domain) while the woofer can't take it much and thus sees itself confronted with higher frequencies than it can take. Something like that. And mind you, since this is software impeded (the 3-5 setting) this seems logical. Not quite sure how though, and I guess this needs some firm additional reasoning.
But before something else comes up with it : When a woofer is playing in good fashion in the inaudible range (like 20Hz for sure) it exhibits clearly audible "air" moving. It just *is* moving air you know. That too sizzles and at this moment I am not sure whether that kind of noise can be eliminated by a better signal (I'd say not but alas).
All right. Still there ?
While I can just easily proove (changed) things by feeling and you probably won't, I see no reason why this "effect" (yes, all comes across as added effect) won't be happening in your mids and tweeters. So try it !
It needs a 6 core or more processor. Not sure whether there's a difference with my 12 core while you may have 8 (but I feell it sure can make a difference) and also not sure to what extend this is related to the Silverstone (but it is more than a feeling that this will do the job to a large extend) ... and to what extend the other "tweaks" make a difference.
But just try it and let us know the results.
Peter
