Tigerjones
Bagpuss
Welcome back to another day of discussing PRaT without, cleverly, ever discussing what it actually is.
I'd certainly agree with this. What I have more of a problem with, is people scoring points rather than simply seeking the clarification they need.The irony, ofc, is that Martin Colloms' original article was an attempt (failed) to bring some precision to how people described their subjective impressions. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to explain what they mean by a term when there is ambiguity, or when it has a precise technical meaning but seems to be being used in a different way.
The irony, ofc, is that Martin Colloms' original article was an attempt (failed) to bring some precision to how people described their subjective impressions. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to explain what they mean by a term when there is ambiguity, or when it has a precise technical meaning but seems to be being used in a different way.
Surely it only applies to low frequencies? How could something be considered to have good prat if the bass is bloated?
Or to put it another way, could anyone suggest a speaker with tight bass that has bad prat?
I know this comes a bit later than the heyday of PRaT as a marketing term, but in reading multiple Stereophile reviews of Naim CD players I was struck by how often and consistently Atkinson measured the clocks as being ever so slightly fast. It would be difficult to establish for sure whether it's enough to be perceptible but if it were, that nearly subconscious speed-up might be enough to feel that the Naim player has better pace or timing than a competing player.
I guess there is a possibility that if the resonance of a non-ideal speaker was to align (by chance) with the beat of the music, it could appear to be more impressive.
Maybe my old KEF Coda II fits this?
It's a closed box design with -3dB @ 65Hz, so probably had tight-ish bass. However it definitely had a problem with blurring some sounds together.
https://us.kef.com/pub/media/pdf/Coda_II.pdf
How fast compared to the correct rate are we talking about here? A fast or slow clock in a CD player will cause a slight pitch shift of whatever is being played. A 1% change is audible if you're looking for it. 0.5% is difficult to discern even with fast switching, but it can be done, at least by some people. For reference, a semitone is about 6%. Digital playback devices (CD players and DACs) typically have much better accuracy. The worst I've seen is the AQ Dragonfly (all models) which is about 0.04% fast for some sample rates. Now even if the pitch is off, the relative timing of notes will remain correct, so I doubt this is the explanation for anything.I know this comes a bit later than the heyday of PRaT as a marketing term, but in reading multiple Stereophile reviews of Naim CD players I was struck by how often and consistently Atkinson measured the clocks as being ever so slightly fast. It would be difficult to establish for sure whether it's enough to be perceptible but if it were, that nearly subconscious speed-up might be enough to feel that the Naim player has better pace or timing than a competing player.
Presumably the track plays slightly faster, too? So, a 5 minute (300 second) track would finish in 4’57” if it were 1% fast. It might not be immediately apparent, but could account for a small preference for the ‘pacier’ or ‘livelier’ presentation in an A/B dem, say.How fast compared to the correct rate are we talking about here? A fast or slow clock in a CD player will cause a slight pitch shift of whatever is being played. A 1% change is audible if you're looking for it. 0.5% is difficult to discern even with fast switching, but it can be done, at least by some people. For reference, a semitone is about 6%. Digital playback devices (CD players and DACs) typically have much better accuracy. The worst I've seen is the AQ Dragonfly (all models) which is about 0.04% fast for some sample rates. Now even if the pitch is off, the relative timing of notes will remain correct, so I doubt this is the explanation for anything.
How fast compared to the correct rate are we talking about here? A fast or slow clock in a CD player will cause a slight pitch shift of whatever is being played. A 1% change is audible if you're looking for it. 0.5% is difficult to discern even with fast switching, but it can be done, at least by some people. For reference, a semitone is about 6%. Digital playback devices (CD players and DACs) typically have much better accuracy. The worst I've seen is the AQ Dragonfly (all models) which is about 0.04% fast for some sample rates. Now even if the pitch is off, the relative timing of notes will remain correct, so I doubt this is the explanation for anything.
If you want better bass timing improve the top end.
It seems to me we have a choice here. Is PR&T measurable? Can the individual elements be identified on a graph? If so, let's see the measurements. Even if we as individuals find that the PR&T sound is not to our taste, we'll at least know that it's 'a thing'.
If, on the other hand, PR&T is not measurable, then we're down to whatever anybody thinks the term means; 'good sound' in a vague way maybe.
Parts per million is correct, and 600 ppm is rather poor. Even cheap crystal oscillators typically achieve better than 100 ppm accuracy. Still, it is well below what would be audible.He measured it in "ppm", the meaning of which I cannot discern from context (to my mind it means "parts per million" but I don't think that makes sense here). The CD 3.5 has a clock error of +629ppm. Given his example error on 20kHz, that puts it at only 0.063%. So by your reckoning, imperceptible, I guess. He estimates it as such too.
The CD5 and CDX are still fast but not that much (0.0003% by Atkinson's reckoning).