[time-nuts] from Sputnik to CD

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Mon Oct 8 17:35:15 EDT 2007


From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] from Sputnik to CD
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:02:24 +0000
Message-ID: <39193.1191877344 at critter.freebsd.dk>

> ); SAEximRunCond expanded to false
> Errors-To: time-nuts-bounces+magnus=rubidium.dyndns.org at febo.com RETRY
> 
> In message <001101c809e9$2a8c5910$0800a8c0 at pc52>, "Tom Van Baak" writes:
> 
> >It's also interesting when two list members disagree by so
> >many tens of dB, so I'm hoping David and PHK can settle
> >this for us.
> 
> I doubt it, at the end of the day, much of this discussion will
> boil down to "can you hear distortion or noise that is 80 dB or
> more below signal level ?"
> 
> I'll maintain that one can't, and point to the numerous studies
> showing this to be the case.

Not to argue with anyone, but as a vendor I need to design stuff to fullfill
the requirements of my customers. Some of their requirements may be silly, but
if it is easy to verify by means of measurements, then I'm stuck with the
requirement. If I am good at it, it brings me advantages against my
competiters.

If my customers require sub 100 ps jitter on their AES/EBU connections, then I
need to deliver.

As for speaker cables, for most cases normal 2,5 mm² is more than enought.
Skin-effect on speaker cables is big-time bogus. Arguing about stuff like that
while having ported boxes and passive cross-overs shows that one hasn't
understood basics. The HiFi-world is FULL of stupid things. We didn't do any
of that when I was designing professional PA-riggs. Current-driven speakers is
surely better, but does not solve all the issues about speakers. There is loads
of issues to speaker element adaptation to the air, which is a non-trivial
issue. Ah well...

When it comes to stuff like audio, there is no objective truth. That's probably
the only objective truth you'd ever get. There is however many usefull partial
analyses. The air is inherently non-linear, the ear is inherently non-linear.
The world of audio is inherently limited to approximations and the mind is easy
to suggest things, such as something is better or worse. The 3-dimensional wave
as it spreads over time, reflects and interacts with the surrounding, with the
impulse-response rather than frequency response problems and potentially very
high dynamic makes the field uhm... complex.

The field of time and frequency feels so relaxingly simple in comparision. :)

Cheers,
Magnus



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