On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 12:53:22PM +0000, James Stone wrote: > I read something in tape-op about some "golden eared" guy who detected > something wrong with a neve desk IIRC and when they analysed it, it > turned out there was some problem with the freq response above 60K or > some other equally unbelievable figure. From what I read they are > supposed to have a really transparent sound (whatever that means). Whatever that means, indeed. A classic way for analog circuits to fail is to have some oscillation above the audio range - up to several MHz is possible - and that can affect the sound in very sublte ways, and depending on the signal itself. More often than not such things depend on how the circuit is connected, on wiring capacitances, power supply impedances, etc. Problems like this can be very different on production hardware and laboratory prototypes, and are not always revealed by traditional measurement methods. It wouldn't be the first time for such a defect to remain unnoticed for years. Until someone hits exactly the type of audio signal that gets affected in a percetible way, and has the ears to detect it. But still these are defects, nothing magical about them. Also in the era when manufacturers such as Neve made their name, there were *lots* of badly designed filter circuits in use. So if Neve or one of the others made something that was 'just OK', it would get noticed and create a myth, even if objectively it was just a good quality circuit without problems. > I doubt something similar could be done with digital as the placebo > effect is completely lost! Placebo effects and nonsense exist in the digital world as well, and are even harder to debunk. Ciao, -- FA O tu, che porte, correndo si ? E guerra e morte ! _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
