What stereo(s) do you listen to? What do you want?

[A Y]

Originally Posted by tlmusic

Why do so many audiophiles and respected sound engineers insist upon recording sounds above 20khz?

I think they're speculating, and they have no choice in the market as it's very hard to get something that doesn't record at a high-res rate anyway.

There have been lots of theories put forward, but no good experiment has been done to prove the efficacy of 20+ kHz recording. There have been lots of theories disproved, like we need to hear 20+ kHz signals.

One of the leading explanations (in need of someone to do a good experiment for it) is that the filters used for higher sampling rates can be made shallower, and therefore are less intrusive on the audible part. In other words, it's not that we can hear sounds above 20 kHz, but what we do above 20 kHz has consequences on what we can hear below 20 kHz.

How the filters do this has its own subset of theories. One is the very popular pre-echo explanation. Another is that the sharpened impulse response of a hi-res system gives you better imaging. Another is that the top critical band of the ear, which is non-linear, can interact with a brickwall filter's very narrow transition band so you can hear the effects of ripple caused by the brickwall filter. A higher sampling rate can relax the brickwall filter so this interaction doesn't happen.

Two interesting side notes on this: digital limiters and compressors actually benefit greatly from higher sampling rates. They are non-linear processes that produce harmonics above our hearing range, but can alias lower sampling rates like 44.1 kHz. Oversampling these processes actually makes for a nicer sound because you don't get the very unnatural aliasing distortion when the harmonics wrap around to lower frequencies.

Tom Stockham, one of the pioneers of digital recording in the 70s, designed the Soundstream system, used in so many early Telarc CD and LP releases, used a 50 kHz sampling rate because, many believe, of the filter slope issue above. However, he never published anything explaining why, but did have conversations with people about it. Stockham was an engineer's engineer, and probably had really good reasons with good experimental data to back up his decisions. It's too bad he died before anyone could ask him about it.

--Andre

 

[Artisan Fan]

"Although Mark Levinson products were primarily targeting the stereo or home theater market, nowadays Mark Levinson branded products can also be found in cars. These are developed and produced by Harman Automotive, the car audio department of Harman International, and while typically not sharing any components with Mark Levinson home products, are designed in collaboration with Mark Levinson sound engineers." (emphasis mine)

Andre,

I know the Lexus - Mark Levinson team. Their trainers are in the same suburb of Atlanta I live in and I know them. In fact, they have used some of the audiophile recordings I gave them for training sessions - several ML Lexus systems do 24/96 and can play our DVD-Audio discs. The audiophile label I work for on the weekends is a pioneer in 24/96 recording so they naturally wanted some good source material to show off the ML system's hirez capability.

Here are the important facts:

1. The Levinson systems are in fact designed by the exact same team that makes the high end home products for Mark Levinson. Even more unusual is that ML designs the speakers which is not an area their home products are in. Harman owns Levinson as well as the respected Revel which made the driver designs much easier. The ML systems take into account the noise level and acoustics of each particular Lexus they are designed for.

2. The circuit designs including DACs and power supplies and amplification are consistent with ML home designs with some modification for the automobile environment and the special power handling needs in a car.

3. The speaker drivers are designed by Levinson specifically for Lexus and are tested and manufactured by Harman. ML does not make drivers so like a lot of high end speaker makers do, they consult with various driver manufacturers.

4. The Mark Levinson systems have been among the most positively reviewed car audio systems in high end publications with notable praise from Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. ML and Lexus essentially started the high end audio in the car trend. Everyone else followed but ML is still considered the best.

5. Madrigal, Levinson and Revel are all Harman companies that collaborate extensively so they share resources, however according to John Klintz, all circuits were designed by Levinson. This squarely contradicts your claim that that a "third party" built the ML system. Madrigal was a HT offshoot of Levinson historically as well in case you did not know.

6. Mark Levinson being "overrated" is strictly a personal opinion of yours. I am an Audio Research man myself but I will note that ML is considered one of the founders of modern high end audio and has consistently been rated among the best makers of preamps, digital playback, and amplification in high end audio.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by tlmusic

Are you sure?

Why do so many audiophiles and respected sound engineers insist upon recording sounds above 20khz?

Great question tl. Hifi News has a researcher who suggested that tones higher than 20khz create changes in harmonics to those frequencies in the audible range. I will see if I can find the AES papers that have studied this.

One reason that engineers are convinced of the higher sampling rate value is that 24/96 recordings consistently improve both instrument tonality and soundstage. If you ever get to Atlanta I can demonstrate this in my listening room since I have several Chesky recordings done both ways where the mastering and recording chain was exactly the same except for the resolution.

This is actually a wonderful example of where practical applied recording technique has outpaced the science. Recording engineers are aware of the sonic value of 24/96 PCM but the science behind the changing harmonics is still a bit of an emerging area of study.

I've posted Bob Stuart (Meridian Audio) coding paper which suggests some reasons why higher sampling is needed. Here is the link:

http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF

This white paper details the limitations of 16/44.1 sampling which is one of my points here.

 

[tlmusic]

Artisan Fan and Andre Yew,

Thank you for the information regarding the justification for recording and playback of sounds beyond 20khz, the commonly defined limit of human hearing.

I always intuitively thought there was was some interaction between the super high frequencies and the ones in the average range of human hearing. The information you have posted is enlightening.

It is very interesting to hear about these theories coming from different viewpoints.

Back to the original topic, I want a stereo that makes sounds beyond 20khz

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by tlmusic

Artisan Fan and Andre Yew,

Thank you for the information regarding the justification for recording and playback of sounds beyond 20khz, the commonly defined limit of human hearing.

I always intuitively thought there was was some interaction between the super high frequencies and the ones in the average range of human hearing. The information you have posted is enlightening.

It is very interesting to hear about these theories coming from different viewpoints.

Back to the original topic, I want a stereo that makes sounds beyond 20khz

Get a pair of the Townshend Super Tweeters.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

I know the Lexus - Mark Levinson team. Their trainers are in the same suburb of Atlanta I live in and I know them.

So you know the people that train a regional sales team. Impressive.

1. The Levinson systems are in fact designed by the exact same team that makes the high end home products for Mark Levinson.

You are niggling over trivialities. There has not been a separate ML design team for years, as HSG (Harman Specialty Group, which are mostly Lexicon people) have been trying to clean up ML after Madrigal died. These same people did the audio designs for BMW and M-B as well. Like Revel or any other Harman brand, they share platforms and manufacturing facilities with the rest of the Harman group, and I give you the possibility that they may have spec'ed separate drivers or did a custom design for the Lexus. But they did that for BMW as well.

4. The Mark Levinson systems have been among the most positively reviewed car audio systems in high end publications with notable praise from Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. ML and Lexus essentially started the high end audio in the car trend. Everyone else followed but ML is still considered the best.
...
6. Mark Levinson being "overrated" is strictly a personal opinion of yours. I am an Audio Research man myself but I will note that ML is considered one of the founders of modern high end audio and has consistently been rated among the best makers of preamps, digital playback, and amplification in high end audio.

Me: "ML is overrated!"
You: "Look at all these really high ratings ML has gotten."

To be overrated, you need to get effusive reviews in the first place, so I'm not sure what your point is beyond demonstrating once again your insecurity about anyone saying anything bad about something you like.

Overrated doesn't mean it sounds bad. And I never said ML sounded bad. Just like LP having lots of distortion and noise doesn't mean it can't be a pleasurable listening experience.

--Andre

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by tlmusic

I always intuitively thought there was was some interaction between the super high frequencies and the ones in the average range of human hearing. The information you have posted is enlightening.

There are many ways this can happen. Biologically, unless you get air to go non-linear (at which point you will be deaf), there are very few (maybe 1?) ways for suprasonic signals to affect lower frequencies.

Electronically, there are plenty, and all are due to bad design. For example, a design trend in vogue in high-end audio is using stupid-fast opamps without proper power supply design. Power supply design gets more difficult the faster you try to run the amp, and the amp also runs out of gain near the top of its bandwidth. As a result, you often find amps running relatively more non-linear at the top of their open-loop bandwidth. If you then introduce very high amplitude suprasonic signals like RF or SACD's DSD noise which very fast amps will react to, the amp can go non-linear and modulate inaudible frequencies into the audible range. Or it could do worse things. Like blowing up.

For the first CES that SACD was demonstrated publicly, the Sony demo team went through a few amps before finding one that SACD wouldn't blow up. They ended up using Pass monoblocks, whose simple design and solid engineering are very robust and forgiving. One of the amps they couldn't use? Let's just say their initials contained the letters M and L.

This is why lots of good audio gear purposely have low-pass filters built into their inputs.

--Andre

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

It's just a label applied to a third party system for the Lexus.

This is what you said earlier Andre. As we have proved the system was designed by a Mark Levinson team and was not designed by a third party.

 

[RJman]

This is the thread that keeps on giving.

 

[voxsartoria]

Is it a threadjack if one responds to the first post?

The bulk of my recordings are original pressing LPs, including about 200 mint-ish original issue Blue Notes, Impulse, Columbia etc. from the 50s and 60s. The listening room is small, and so is the system.

Turntable: Merrill Heirloom. George Merrill used to hot rod ARs, and this was the product of all his thinking on the matter. It's like a Linn on steroids, and was the first turntable, to my knowledge, that used a periphery clamp.

Arm: Stax UA-9CF. A finicky unipivot...not the type of arm conventionally owned by English-speakers.

Cartridge: Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood. I need the output, as you will see below.

CD: Rega Planet 2000. Mostly unused.

Preamp: Audible Illusions Modulus 3A. I've owned AIs nearly from their start.

Amp: Audio Research VS55.

Speakers: Wilson Sophia. Mates great with the VS55.

It's not an ultimate resolution system, but I am very content with it.

- B

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

Is it a threadjack if one responds to the first post?

The bulk of my recordings are original pressing LPs, including about 200 mint-ish original issue Blue Notes, Impulse, Columbia etc. from the 50s and 60s. The listening room is small, and so is the system.

Turntable: Merrill Heirloom. George Merrill used to hot rod ARs, and this was the product of all his thinking on the matter. It's like a Linn on steroids, and was the first turntable, to my knowledge, that used a periphery clamp.

Arm: Stax UA-9CF. A finicky unipivot...not the type of arm conventionally owned by English-speakers.

Cartridge: Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood. I need the output, as you will see below.

CD: Rega Planet 2000. Mostly unused.

Preamp: Audible Illusions Modulus 3A. I've owned AIs nearly from their start.

Amp: Audio Research VS55.

Speakers: Wilson Sophia. Mates great with the VS55.

It's not an ultimate resolution system, but I am very content with it.

- B

Nice system. The new Sophia 2s mate very well with ARC as well. Audio Research and Wilson co-exhibited at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October. That was a fun show.

I'm a huge fan of the Sophias. They are one of the better Wilson speakers in my opinion. Dave Wilson is a bit of a living legend in my view.

I've been considering a Clearaudio Maestro for my Scoutmaster turntable.

 

[RJman]

I want to know what stereo setup Andre Yew has...

 

[Serg]

My next buy is probably http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/rr2150.html

Probably the best stereo amp out there for the money (my current one is the NAD BC3200ee). The reason? Built is crossover / sub woofer output for bass management right at the amp. In addition it has its own usb DAC to get direct sound output from a pc.

 

[tlmusic]

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

Is it a threadjack if one responds to the first post? The bulk of my recordings are original pressing LPs, including about 200 mint-ish original issue Blue Notes, Impulse, Columbia etc. from the 50s and 60s. The listening room is small, and so is the system. Turntable: Merrill Heirloom. George Merrill used to hot rod ARs, and this was the product of all his thinking on the matter. It's like a Linn on steroids, and was the first turntable, to my knowledge, that used a periphery clamp. Arm: Stax UA-9CF. A finicky unipivot...not the type of arm conventionally owned by English-speakers. Cartridge: Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood. I need the output, as you will see below. CD: Rega Planet 2000. Mostly unused. Preamp: Audible Illusions Modulus 3A. I've owned AIs nearly from their start. Amp: Audio Research VS55. Speakers: Wilson Sophia. Mates great with the VS55. It's not an ultimate resolution system, but I am very content with it. - B
This is a system I can relate to. Also, the record collection sounds fabulous! All record pressings are not created equal. In fact, this has not been brought up much in this thread. My experience: Bad or worn-out LP pressings--CD sounds much better. Awesome mastering, good clean LP pressing--makes you never, ever want to listen to a CD. Your collection of 50's - 60's jazz records

is rightfully listed as the first major component of the system.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by RJman

I want to know what stereo setup Andre Yew has...

Didn't I already list this somewhere else?

http://www.styleforum.net/showpost.p...4&postcount=85

AF, fine --- it's a Harman design by Harman engineers labeled as ML.

--Andre