Hey ...
I am happy to announce that I finally achieved what I have have always been looking for : a bass how it is perceived at concerts. Think electric bass to understand what I am talking about. You know, those guys with their own amplification and speaker(s). Always unfair ...
I post this in the Orelino/Orelo board while actually it is a NOS1a tweak. But without the speakers nothing would have worked. Or maybe - I can't tell really.
What I am talking about is hammering of the vibration of the low frequency strings onto your body. Easily up to 150Hz (mind you, the higher the more difficult to even perceive the individual vibrations).
What has happened is that I managed to now have so much power (think current) in the bass that together with the speed of the woofers something comes forward that at least I never experienced : that hammering of the vibrations onto you. And this in undistorted fahsion, unlike at the concert.
Finally !
Of course the sound can't be explained, but I'll try to bring it across the other way around;
Supposed we are able to add bass (level), then with a good speaker this doesn't readily show as colouration but merely as that deep down earth low. Also, when all is quite well for our system, this also does not show standing waves because of too much bass. It will make the sound more dark and brown and a first merit (or not) is that the higher frequencies will be overwhelmed. So it can make a too harsh system sound more friendly.
But Orelino/Orelo MKII owners already know that this does not satisfy in the long term. The sounds are too much of the same and possibly dynamics are sacrificed; we tried it and we all went back (to the straight response curve so to speak).
What I have at hand is totally different;
With the experience of adding bass level, now think that nothing of this kind has happened, but that the individual vibrations of the tone remain as straight and separate but that the amplitudes of those "waves" have risen. This is not the same as the "add bass level" experience, because in that case nothing is done to the separation. This is to be read as : this already wasn't optimal (I know now !) and you won't improve there when making it louder. However, when we are able to turn a more flat wave into a more firm one, then the peaks of it become audibly better. Still hard to explain, but think that originally the peaks are flattened because of too less current and more current brings them up. Or from the "add bass level" perspective : when that is done, the general level will go up, but the peaks will flatten even more because too few current is too few current even more then.
Oh, it is not about current at all - this was just my visualisation of it.
This is just another new dimension (again). So, I take it that really nobody has ever heard this (and I mean world wide) and the least what will come to you is an open drooling mouth of what the heck now happens that this is possible. So the sheer physical thing. But I better say physics thing because once again you can not see how it is possible that this remains without standing waves and the whole room not messing up - or what about not collapsing. And seriously, if you feel the force of this then you start to wonder how the speakers are not falling over because the force they create. Think one (DC) blast forward of the drivers, and they may fall backwards. That sort of thing.
Yes, what a gag. And this time this super bass is not detrimental to highs / dynamics, because it is not a general "low" which is added. Only vibe.
What did I say ? a gag ?
So we thought we could get tired of wrong highs, right ? or too much detail, same thing. Well, try this ...
I already have it under control somewhat but without attention you may need a kidney belt. You know, how motor crossers keep the kidneys in place. Uhm, I think this is just plane dangerous. You can feel this is not for human beings and when subject to it for too long something may fall apart inside of you. I don't know really, but the response you have yourself to this is like being protective to a desease. Nervosa.
Nervosa as a mere medical (Latin) term :
The psychological addiction to a behavior, belief, or habit that effects the body via the nervous system, or the mind.
Maybe by now I am not so much interested in this bass sound but merely in the indeed physics aspects of how it can happen. Or, whether something may be just wrong. So mind you, yesterday was my 7th day of this and at day 4 I was so fed up with it that I wanted to throw it out. But if we think a bit of our long Windows 8 experience and how to get that right ... I even read a few pages of that "My first Windows 8 experience" topic to get ideas for improving. And I think yesterday I managed. Well, in controlling it.
Anyway, if we start with the speaker; If you had asked me what had to happen to let it perform like it now does, I would have said : add 2 times the woofer surface at least and then still I couldn't have guessed.
If you ask me : what about the Blaxius interlink ? then my answer is : I undoubtely feel that this is required. So without what the Blaxius does for the base this wouldn't have gone anywhere (is thus my feeling).
The amps ? I have no clue. How in the world can happen such a thing without not first adding 10 amperes of current. That kinf of thing. But this in itself means that something must have behaved quite inefficient in there. Nothing strange for what we are used to, but think about that flattened wave which is flattened first and always, and which is how more current can improve on that - but what when it is attacked in the base ...
And the base in this case is the NOS1a. Yes, the "a" is crucial here and without that no dice for 100% sure.
Anyway it is here where this better wave is created and it goes in a fahsion I could predict in advance. But to this extent ? no, I could not guess that.
While I know I am leaving you in the dark I can tell you that this is about preciseness. Remember my NOS1 floating on water and why ? well, think in that realm.
But this is how I write posts like this, so later I can read my own thinking and possible rubbish and get ideas from it when in trouble elsewhere. This is exactly how I tamed the thing to a degree which is sort of acceptable. Footers !
To summarize the lot : what has happened is that the NOS1a became 10x or 100x or whatever more accurate than it already was. Think the whole chain now, so amplifiers, speakers and the Blaxius interlink ahead of it; all made for accuracy. But now the base ... the DAC. So I am fairly sure that while the whole chain has been optimized for that accuracy (like "no-reflections" as our latest), that when now the real base is optimized suddenly all the work on the remainder of the chain comes forward.
And so the whole d*mn chain is now so accurate that it requires obfuscation to not let it be robots (yes, about that Windows 8 little subject
).
But it is far from easy;
While yesterday it came to me that I could decrease the accuracy with more soft footers, that readily worked out. But careful, because now I am talking about the highs which are way more accurate just the same, up to sheer nasty. Just all too dynamic. Too interesting and tiring.
And yes, rubber ball footers took that away. Good. Too bad that the bass got totally wild from that. And here too, nothing about too bassy or not accurate or anything that would happen before with the rubber balls; no, that pounding bass got twice as "worse" because of it. Totally nothing wrong and again so much more interesting ... but after an hour you are dead. All shaken up.
Ok, I ended up with some "in the middle" footer material and played with that another two hours, only with open mouth how things now sound. No kidney belt needed much, but, a flavour. Yeah, this is odd, because if suddenly all lower frequencies show this clearly audible vibrating, it is not only a new dimension, but also something which happens in everything. And now it is a flavour. Or at least it will be until I think it is normal.
If this really is right it is the biggest step I ever made. But let's keep in mind - maybe it is not right at all. Or maybe it takes a year to get it right ...
This afternoon I will start decreasing the (DSP) bass level. Say with so much less that my rubber balls can be under the NOS1a and obfuscation is maximised while bass pounding is acceptable. From there I should be able to try all kind of footer combinations to optimize and which is also about the highs. I could even be as mad as getting my aquarium out again ...
Peter
