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Pace, rhythm and timing. What do these terms mean to you with respect to hifi?

S-Man said:
The DMS measurements do contain clues that indicate why it has decent time domain performance at LF:
http://www.mickandviv.com/pfm/DMSHiFiforPleasureReview.pdf

... the slope of the LF rolloff is approx 12dB/oct i.e. 2nd order
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Yes, clues. But that doesn't simply mean the frequency response plotted. Note the comments about choice of amp, etc. And the impedance curve.

The Naim amps had IIRC an output impedance which included an unbypassed series resistor (0.22 Ohms?) Combine that with the impedance plot with the big LF peak and dip to low impedance and consider what that does to the phase-frequency behaviour. Then note that at LF a given phase means a bigger time dispersion than it would at higher frequency.

The FR plots also can't tell you the phase-time unless you know the system is 'minimal'. Which the bariks won't be - e.g note the tweeter placement and use.

So, not so simple as it may seem... :)
 
Take two speakers with similar drive units and the same cabinet: an LS35/A and a Linn Kan. One is an exemplar of PRaT, and is a legend in those circles, but not noted for neutrality, the other is a broadcast industry standard, also a legend, but in different circles, and not noted for PRaT. What is it the the KAN does or doesn’t do that the LS35/A doesn’t or does do?
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Yes, clues. But that doesn't simply mean the frequency response plotted. Note the comments about choice of amp, etc. And the impedance curve.

The Naim amps had IIRC an output impedance which included an unbypassed series resistor (0.22 Ohms?) Combine that with the impedance plot with the big LF peak and dip to low impedance and consider what that does to the phase-frequency behaviour. Then note that at LF a given phase means a bigger time dispersion than it would at higher frequency.

The FR plots also can't tell you the phase-time unless you know the system is 'minimal'. Which the bariks won't be - e.g note the tweeter placement and use.

So, not so simple as it may seem... :)
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I agree.
Maybe my view is too simplistic, but I have observed that the "bigger time dispersion" at LF is auduble and important. The DMS is probably stilll pretty decent in this respect even when driven by an amp with modest o/p impedance.
 
tuga said:
Try this:

Pace, Rhythm, & Dynamics
Martin Colloms | Nov 24, 1992
https://www.stereophile.com/reference/23/index.html
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Just read this. I was prepared to bale out early because I used to get a bit sick of reading old MC referring to how he had assessed some bit of kit according to his 'usual listening score' or whatever.. he called it.. and quietly screaming.. well tell us WTF your 'usual listening wotsit' is then!!!. I never did find out..

However.. I did find this interesting..and I think I understood most of it. One one level though.. just like all such discussions, his comparisons of analogue v digital, and even various DAC systems, boils down to a description of the inescapability of the maxim 'all engineering is compromise'.

I was particularly interested in the way he juxtaposed reference to Joni M, with discussion of rhythm.

About the time MC wrote this piece, I switched from a Rega Planar 2, to an LP12/Cirkus/Valhalla with an Akito Mk1 and K18. Even that modest version of the LP12 brought an immediate revelation of the subtleties in rhythm on the opening track of 'Blue', which entirely eluded me on decades of playing the disc on a Lenco B55 and for a year or so..the Planar 2. IIRC, I had been impressed by the clarity of the Rega..and its revelation to me of a hitherto unheard slight echo on 'All I Want'.

The conclusion for me was not that the LP12 'had PRaT', or more PRaT than the Rega... which also had 'PRaT like' qualities. No.. It was simply the case that the Linn strangled the music somewhat less than the Rega, which in turn was way better than the B55. Of course my Orbe betters them all.. on many fronts.
I was for a while in intermittent contact with the chap (Name escapes me) who designed the Alphason Sonata etc.. He told me that he had measured the Linn and found that it had a slight 'reverb'. That in turn relates to other comments in this thread such as 'Added amounts of short term resonance' (F1Eng post 384 et.al.)
 
Joe P said:
Cheers, Dimitry.

My hypothyroidism is well controlled now. The hardest part was coming to terms with my Dudeness being of endocrine origin.

Joe
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Hypothyroidism is last yeah dahling, one had hyperparathyroidism. Actually it was a few years ago so no illness bragging for me, bugger.
 
narabdela said:
I've always considered pianos to be musical.
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Depends who's playing.
I know a chap with a degree in music from Cambridge University no less, I've heard him 'playing the piano' it just sounds like a cacophony of jumbled notes, any melody banished, :confused:
 
AndyU said:
Take two speakers with similar drive units and the same cabinet: an LS35/A and a Linn Kan. One is an exemplar of PRaT, and is a legend in those circles, but not noted for neutrality, the other is a broadcast industry standard, also a legend, but in different circles, and not noted for PRaT. What is it the the KAN does or doesn’t do that the LS35/A doesn’t or does do?
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Probably nothing. In this case 'prat' is only for the gullible, an excuse for bad sounding speakers.
 
I think you need to put the term into its historical context. Contemporary higher end amps and speakers were somewhat old school, the likes of QUAD, Leak, Spendor and the other BBC clone makers. They majored on accurate tonality and timbre rather than rhythm and dynamics. The measurements were about even frequency response and such like. The term was, AIUI, coined to make the point that there was another way of looking at things, and it wasn’t a given that strengths in the one way would map across into strengths in the other.
 
Mullardman said:
Just read this. I was prepared to bale out early because I used to get a bit sick of reading old MC referring to how he had assessed some bit of kit according to his 'usual listening score' or whatever.. he called it.. and quietly screaming.. well tell us WTF your 'usual listening wotsit' is then!!!. I never did find out..

However.. I did find this interesting..and I think I understood most of it. One one level though.. just like all such discussions, his comparisons of analogue v digital, and even various DAC systems, boils down to a description of the inescapability of the maxim 'all engineering is compromise'.
Click to expand...
Colloms's little essay is almost entirely about his subjective impressions and preferences. Yet he presents his subjective ramblings as if they were objective, independently existing qualities of the systems.
 
PRaT is a marketing gimmick and I treat this and other attempts the same as wine tasting e.g cigar box, velvety, black current, bitter almonds etc. Ugh! If a wine really tasted like a cigar box I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Marketing again.

I have and have tasted some superb wines, beers, Cognacs, coffees, teas etc and have a really good HiFi system. However I would never use any of these marketing gimmicks to describe these.

Have fun.

DV
 
It's a lot of silly nonsense. It would imply that people never tapped their feet or 'got' rhythm until the Flat Earth lot arrived in the '70s. But actually:

 
Of course it’s nonsense. You should have seen my granny tap her foot in front of her old valve radiogram!
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I think you need to put the term into its historical context. Contemporary higher end amps and speakers were somewhat old school, the likes of QUAD, Leak, Spendor and the other BBC clone makers. They majored on accurate tonality and timbre rather than rhythm and dynamics. The measurements were about even frequency response and such like. The term was, AIUI, coined to make the point that there was another way of looking at things, and it wasn’t a given that strengths in the one way would map across into strengths in the other.
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My take on the historic context, and I was there, is that the likes of Spendor, Quad and Rogers made speakers that offered a step change improvement in neutrality and lack of coloration compared to their predecessors. Other manufacturers couldn’t compete and made speakers that were possibly engagingly idiosyncratic on music that was normally played through PA systems, but appallingly bad for music for which there was a reference like classical and acoustic unamplified music. You went to the dem, said how dreadfully coloured the speakers were, and some foot tapping hustler told you that they had PRaT. He took care not to tap his foot too enthusiastically because the turntable he was using was terribly microphonic and the stylus would jump out of the groove unless you tiptoed over the floor. The hobby is high fidelity. Fidelity = faithfulness. Tonally and dynamically. I still can’t understand why you think a Spendor BC1 or Quad ESL did anything detrimental to rhythm. Pretty sure a Quad ESL “timed” a harpsichord orders of magnitude better than a KAN. I owned both.
 
Guys, we get it, You don’t get it!

It’s ok that you don’t get it.

please stop trying to justify it, or come up with some cock and bull theory to explain our commitment to the idea that equipment can affect the quality of musical reproduction.

It’s ok, really.
 
david ellwood said:
Guys, we get it, You don’t get it!

It’s ok that you don’t get it.

please stop trying to justify it, or come up with some cock and bull theory to explain our commitment to the idea that equipment can affect the quality of musical reproduction.

It’s ok, really.
Click to expand...
Err.. nobody here thinks or has argued that equipment can’t affect the quality of music reproduction. It’s just that some of us think that speakers famed for PRaT, like KANS say, detrimentally affect the quality of musical reproduction.
 
This thread is great!

I always thought Linn Kans were ahead of their time. They were designed years before we'd ever heard of Guantanamo bay.
 
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