How do you develop hifi?

[Covenant]

This is a question that has often puzzled me and is directed at people like Stan who must spend ages listening to minor component changes. What I mean is, if you are listening to your own products all the time it must become difficult to be objective.
Do you simply go out and buy what the opposition offer or read up on technical specs and experiment? How much do you trust other peoples ears?

[hifi_dave]

To develop a Hi-Fi product prperly, you need to get out and about, comparing your product with other companies' offerings and using your gear in systems and rooms other than your own. Though, to do the job properly, you need to have some exposure to live music. IMO

Over the years I have heard quite a few products which have been designed and developed in isolation and they were really rather strange.

There is also a lot of equipment designed using theory, computers and committees. That's a whole different can of worms..:rolleyes:

[anthonyTD]

To develop a Hi-Fi product prperly, you need to get out and about, comparing your product with other companies' offerings and using your gear in systems and rooms other than your own. Though, to do the job properly, you need to have some exposure to live music. IMO

Over the years I have heard quite a few products which have been designed and developed in isolation and they were really rather strange.

There is also a lot of equipment designed using theory, computers and committees. That's a whole different can of worms..:rolleyes:

:)

[Paul Hynes]

I prefer live un-amplified music as a reference. I do not see the point of adding other manufacturers product distortions and sonic signatures to a reference.

[anthonyTD]

I prefer live un-amplified music as a reference. I do not see the point of adding other manufacturers product distortions and sonic signatures to a reference.
Would that be indoors or outdoors ?;)
A...

[StanleyB]

What I mean is, if you are listening to your own products all the time it must become difficult to be objective.
Say what:scratch:? It depends on why you are listening to a product, what you are hoping to hear, and whether you are hearing it.

Do you simply go out and buy what the opposition offer or read up on technical specs and experiment?
I don't really care what the equivalent product from another company sounds like. Just consider for a moment that they got it all wrong in the first place. As is widely accepted in life, if you follow the wrong path not much good might come of it :).

How much do you trust other peoples ears?
I don't trust my own ears. I know for a fact that my hearing differs between my left and right ear, caused by decades of eardrums abuse. So who is to know if other people do not suffer from selective hearing as well? Just about all females I have known were inflicted with this ailment, and there is no reason to assume that it is not a common problem.

[Reid Malenfant]

I don't really care what the equivalent product from another company sounds like. Just consider for a moment that they got it all wrong in the first place. As is widely accepted in life, if you follow the wrong path not much good might come of it :).

I don't trust my own ears.
Ok, while I don't manufacture anything except for personal consumption, though I have made more loudspeakers than I care to remember for others, I'm not going to disagree with Stans first statement. Lets just say that things could have been done better if it was thought about in a good load of cases ;) I know next to nothing about digital design, but I have built a few amplifiers that I designed myself, & will build some more! Six monoblocks coming up before I pop my clogs :D


The second one I'm at a serious loss though :scratch: I do trust my ears, when I listen to something & I get a certain jaw dropping feeling I don't ask questions, I take things as a given.

I don't need to ask anyone elses opinion, though as I have found out it has never been negative.

You just need to decide what it is you want to achieve & then using knowledge that you have gained previously, go about it once you have gone through all scenarios so it can be done for a reasonable price.

IE - think about it in depth before you even start. I spend a heck of a lot of time thinking :D

[Paul Hynes]

Would that be indoors or outdoors ?;)
A...

It doesn’t matter if it is inside or outside, as both environments are normal to us, and we are used to these environments acoustically. The target I set myself is to make my system as transparent as possible to the original performance wherever it happens and however it happens. Granted there are many hurdles along the way, some of which are beyond my control at present, however it will not stop me working towards that goal.

[anthonyTD]

Unfortunately each piece of kit we design/build will always add its own sonic signature as contrary to what some people still think, each design does not just allow the original signal to "flow through" but interoperates the signal its fed and tries its best to replicate it, therefore we all know that as much as we try we cannot as yet design electronic circuitry that is totally devoid of signature. However, it is possible to get very close.
Therefore with that in mind I would add that for me, I try my best to design components that have a "real life performance" or my interpretation of what to me sounds as real to life as I can, not strangled to within an inch of its life just to get better measurements.
One thing that is key to all my designs is wide bandwidth.
Anthony,TD...

[StanleyB]

I do trust my ears, when I listen to something & I get a certain jaw dropping feeling I don't ask questions, I take things as a given.

I don't need to ask anyone elses opinion, though as I have found out it has never been negative.
I can't hear the 19KHz FM pilot tone, but I have met a few people who could. From then on I realized that whilst I might not be able to hear something, it didn't mean that it wasn't there if several others could independently hear it.

[anthonyTD]

I also think there is more going on than what we can physicaly hear,
Anyone who has fitted a pair of super tweeters to their system will understand where i am coming from here.
Anthony,TD...

[anthonyTD]

I can't hear the 19KHz FM pilot tone, but I have met a few people who could. From then on I realized that whilst I might not be able to hear something, it didn't mean that it wasn't there if several others could independently hear it.
When cathode ray tv's were the norm [not that long ago] i remember my father had a TV that i could clearly hear the time base, it was either that or the ht transformer, either way it drove me nuts when it was on as every time the picture brightness changed the frequency and intensity would alter.
No one else noticed it but to me it was very obvious.
A...

[nat8808]

I prefer live un-amplified music as a reference. I do not see the point of adding other manufacturers product distortions and sonic signatures to a reference.

Why limit yourself to music I say? Just spend more time actually listening to the whole world! (this isn't aimed at you Paul).

There was a helicopter nearby the other day (such is London life...) as I walked down the street and direct line of sight and hearing of the helicopter came and went. The difference between the sound reflected off the houses and the immediacy and crispness of the direct sound struck me in a "that's what is missing from my hifi" kind of way.

You can immediately tell when something sounds real but it's all too easy to get used to less than that and listening to other hifi products won't necessarily reveal what you're missing..

[Paul Hynes]

Unfortunately each piece of kit we design/build will always add its own sonic signature as contrary to what some people still think, each design does not just allow the original signal to "flow through" but interoperates the signal its fed and tries its best to replicate it, therefore we all know that as much as we try we cannot as yet design electronic circuitry that is totally devoid of signature. However, it is possible to get very close.
Therefore with that in mind I would add that for me, I try my best to design components that have a "real life performance" or my interpretation of what to me sounds as real to life as I can, not strangled to within an inch of its life just to get better measurements.
One thing that is key to all my designs is wide bandwidth.
Anthony,TD...

Very true Anthony.

Anything you add in, or in parallel with, the signal path, will impose a signature on the resulting musical performance. Some of these signatures are benign and some plainly annoying. The best method of dealing with these signatures is open to interpretation by designers, hence the large number of solutions we see in the market place.

Our brains are very complex and the way we perceive things can vary from one person to the next. Some aberrations in the musical performance can be accepted whilst others cannot. Because of this we might appreciate one designer’s solution but not the next designer’s solution.

One thing I find difficult to accept is a timing anomaly with the musical performance that is frequency dependant and varies through the audio bandwidth. Alas, not all program sources pay attention to this area.

[Marco]

Unfortunately each piece of kit we design/build will always add its own sonic signature as contrary to what some people still think, each design does not just allow the original signal to "flow through" but interoperates the signal its fed and tries its best to replicate it, therefore we all know that as much as we try we cannot as yet design electronic circuitry that is totally devoid of signature.

And yet some would have you believe that any 'competently designed' equipment these days is transparent! :rolleyes: :mental:

Well, you heard a nice 'transparent' system at Scalford, didn't you? Or that's one way of describing it, anyway! ;)

Its owner ensured that it all 'measured perfectly', with all the nasty distortion removed, and then, lying prostrate before his oscilloscope, paid homage to the God of science, so that must mean it woz 'transparent', innit??

Marco.

[Paul Hynes]

Why limit yourself to music I say? Just spend more time actually listening to the whole world! (this isn't aimed at you Paul).

There was a helicopter nearby the other day (such is London life...) as I walked down the street and direct line of sight and hearing of the helicopter came and went. The difference between the sound reflected off the houses and the immediacy and crispness of the direct sound struck me in a "that's what is missing from my hifi" kind of way.

You can immediately tell when something sounds real but it's all too easy to get used to less than that and listening to other hifi products won't necessarily reveal what you're missing..

Hello Nat,

A very good point indeed. Most of us are too busy nowadays to stop and listen to the world around us. There are all sorts of clues available to us about how we perceive sound. We have two ears for a good reason. Small time differences in the path length between a sound source and each ear give us the information to assess which direction the sound is coming from. That coupled with experience of intensity levels of sounds could mean the difference between life and death at the hands (claws) of a predator in the distant past. In those times our hearing would be very acute. Less danger in most peoples lives nowadays has dulled the senses somewhat.

Incidentally, your reference to your helicopter experience reminds me of a demonstration record we used in my HiFi shop in the 1980’s. Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There is helicopter recorded on the album. On many systems the helicopter just moves across the soundstage relatively two dimensionally, but on a system with good 3D resolving capability, and the ability to move a lot of air at low frequencies, it starts in the distance off centre to the right and gradually flies towards you across the centre to off left. Floyd were good at incorporating effects like this in their music, and I do remember the look of astonishment on peoples faces when they listened to this track on a high power system with good 3D resolution.

[Patrick Dixon]

When cathode ray tv's were the norm [not that long ago] i remember my father had a TV that i could clearly hear the time base, it was either that or the ht transformer, either way it drove me nuts when it was on as every time the picture brightness changed the frequency and intensity would alter.
No one else noticed it but to me it was very obvious.
A...

You heard the line frequency which is 15.625KHz.

[Patrick Dixon]

I prefer live un-amplified music as a reference. I do not see the point of adding other manufacturers product distortions and sonic signatures to a reference.

That's right. If your hi-fi sounds like a real live drum kit, you know it's good!

[wee tee cee]

Must admit I enjoyed listening to the helicopter on another brick in the wall pt1 on the cans.....I look forward to giving it a listen on my system tomorrow...
cheers for that paul.

[anthonyTD]

You heard the line frequency which is 15.625KHz.
Thanks for the confirmation Patrick,:)
Anthony,TD...

[Welder]

http://www.mediafire.com/conv/502ec68901512f22b5f5934a9cfb9e0bffeb6a0b5c7bdc41de 0a956ab76e91526g.jpg

Got plenty of naughty parents here telling us chidren that fairies exist. ;)