Playground for practical listening exercises

We use the Tune Method to evaluate performance

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Tendaberry
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Tendaberry »

Another fan of B1 here: The beat at the beginning is more rhythmic, John's voice fascinates me more and when the drums come in, it has more "swing".
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by V.A.MKD »

ThomasOK wrote: 2022-06-08 17:35 Seems to me it is time for a little more play in the playground. Try these out for size, two tracks same change:

A1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1b33kr1w6rd0 ... M.mov?dl=0
A2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jec6d9qvvw0ee ... M.mov?dl=0

B1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n88711gb92bsa ... M.mov?dl=0
B2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8gcfkxw76a7g ... M.mov?dl=0

A couple notes. Track A is a little noisy, I suppose it's time for a record cleaning. Also on A2 Lily decided to help things out by scraping around on her mat a bit. But I think you can still hear through that. The volume level on both tracks could be a bit higher too but I feel it is high enough to hear what is going on.
Enjoy!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Charlie1 »

'A' seemed more joyful and spirited to me, but I'm having to use my work monitor at the moment which is never great.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by tpetsch »

Wow, if anything "A" sounds more "Open" for lack of a better term, but if you told me these were two different clips of the same thing taken back to back -with no changes made- I'd believe you.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by ThomasOK »

Hello everyone. I have to apologize for taking so long to let you know what was going on with the clips I posted last Wednesday. I was trying to figure out how to post what was going (which will make sense when you read it below) on last Thursday when everything started to go crazy here. My health is fine to head off any concerns. The same can't be said for my system. Shortly after I arrived home last Thursday when I was out in the yard with Lily I looked up at the sun coming out of the clouds to see sparks and smoke coming from the big electrical transformer in the yard of the house behind mine, along with hearing a loud buzz sound! I walked to the house and saw that the meters were blank and my neighbor who had just walked outside confirmed that he had no power. I informed him why. Immediately I unplugged the main stereo and the TV/audio system in the second bedroom/office. DTE (apparently short for Detroit Terminator Electric) said power should be restored around 12:30AM. I managed to cook quite a nice dinner on my gas stove under a couple battery LED lights. I was getting ready to go to bed at 10:30 when lots of buzzing, beeping and flashing clocks made me aware the power was back on. Being conscientious about such things I waited about fifteen minutes (mostly going around and resetting clocks - amazing how many things have them these days) to make sure the electricity was solid and not intermittent. Then I plugged in the AV/audio system, which was closer, and made sure I had video and sound through the Apple TV (which also showed the cable modem, router, switches, etc. were working). I then plugged in the main system to see no lights on one TM, a dim light on the other and smell burning electronics!!! I immediately unplugged the system and the A/V system as well.

The net result is two dead Sagatun Monos and a dead Tundra Mono. Very luckily the SINGularities, Radikal and Källa were spared. I also verified over the weekend that the other TM is OK. Apparently DTE didn't have everything fully sorted out when the power came on. My best guess is that the damage is due to the main system running at 230 Volts, which means it has two 115 Volts phases driving the normally hot and neutral wires. Something must have been wrong there that only affected that system - nothing that was plugged into 115 Volts failed (Netgear switches, Ubiquiti HD, Quad speakers, Giella Pi, etc.). I spent Friday and Saturday (in between working and Saturday was a bit busy) in conversation with Fredrik letting him know of the damage and trying to figure out what was actually damaged. My belief is that the Sagatuns took the hit as they are plugged into the power strip closest to the wall. Then the one that fried sent DC into the TM which killed the output devices. It is the one concern with Quads and Tundras. DC into a Quad original ESL is a problem as it is transformer coupled. When the DC hits the transformer that essentially presents a dead short to the Tundra. Dead short to Tundra means blown output device(s). In this case I have confirmed it is both output devices and the power supplies are fine. On the Sagatuns one has a very charred capacitor on the main board. Additional testing will be needed to determined if other components were damaged so that board may have to be shipped back to Sweden, but the power supplies test OK. The other SM has one blown power supply that will need a replacement. I will be able to do that and also the TM if the blown output devices are the only problem as I suspect. Isn't that a whole barrel of fun?

So I've been down to headphones on that system for the last few days, which did allow me to reconfirm that I prefer the Grado SR125e to the new SR125x. Fortunately I know the distributor and he should have something else laying around I can use, probably a Boazu, until I get this sorted.

So now back to the clips. This is one of those times where I don't feel the clips did the system or the original recordings justice. They seem to have lost too much going through Dropbox. I can hear some of what people hear on the clips I posted, especially on the Beatles track (which IS remastered in both cases being from the Giles Martin 50th anniversary stereo remaster, which I actually like). These clips are of torques that I have been playing with on the Karousel bottom cap and are the best two I've found - my previous reference 2.4Nm +2 and 7.0Nm. On my iPhone with AirPods the 2nd clips show a definite improvement in tunefulness and expressiveness over the 1st clips. I notice on the Dropbox clips John’s voice sounds out of tune at times in both clips. Listening to the Dropbox clips I can see what people are talking about and do find the two close with different strengths but I still prefer the 2nd clips. But then I know what I am listening to, what I hear on the phone and what I heard in the room. Actually my findings are very close to what Pedro found but he is obviously in the minority.

Obviously I could just be wrong. However, I do hear a performance improvement, and more importantly I feel more emotionally connected t the music, on the second of each clip when I listen on the phone. I don’t hear it to anywhere near the same degree, if at all, with the Dropbox clips listened to off the forum. And I do hear John’s voice going off key on some of the louder/higher parts on both the Dropbox/forum clips and not at all on my iPhone.

I played those same clips off my iPhone for a customer Saturday through a powered B&O speaker (not the best device but it was handy) using AirPlay. His comments were: 1) Despite the speaker we were using and the fact that we were streaming he could hear how good my system sounds and preferred it to most music he has heard streamed in the store. 2) He found that the clips were pretty close to each other and felt it would likely be hard to tell them apart if Dropbox caused any degradation. 3) After having me go back and forth a few times on both clips with both long and short comparisons, and not knowing which was which, he preferred what were on the forum the second clips on both. 4) He said that while both were quite good the 7.0 torqued versions sounded more real and John’s voice sounded less flat so he will be bringing his LP12 in soon for the new torque.

In addition I did the new torque, and nothing else, for a regular customer recently. I asked him if he wanted to hear before and after and he said no need as he trusts me to get it right. I still played before and after as I try and do it every time, often using a different record, to make sure I really like it. This time I used the same Holly Cole track that was A on the forum clips. He was sitting about ten feet away to the far left side and when I payed the track after making the change to 7.0 he said “That is certainly better.”. The next day he texted me that the new torque was really sounding good back in his system. Coincidentally, both of these customers have original Linn Isobariks speakers driven by Lejonklou phono stages, preamps and power amps (active in one case) and both have LP12 with Raidkal, Keel and Ekos SE/1 with Kandid on one and Adikt on the other.

So there you have it. Problematic clips and busticated equipment. What an end to the week!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by tokenbrit »

Holy crap on a cracker: that devastation was tough to read - I would likely pass out from the shock (no pun intended) but glad it's isolated to the 2 SMs & 1 TM, as if that's much consolation. Good job you know the distributor...

Interesting read about the Dropbox inconsistencies - I was wondering why others were preferring B1, in particular, when I felt sure that A2 & B2 were better. Hopefully you can get back to enjoying the 7Nm torque setting through your full system soon enough.
Last edited by tokenbrit on 2022-06-15 13:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Pedro »

Hello Tom,

since your "historic" Quad ESLs do not seem to have suffered any damage, you are still lucky. You can replace everything else without any problems, even if the shock is initially very great. I hope that an insurance company will cover the overvoltage damage.

I will try the 7.0 Nm value for the bottom cap of the Karousel as soon as I have the right torque wrench for this high range.

When comparing the clips, I first download all the clips to my Samsung tablet (it has better music playback than my notebook) and then play them with the VLC player.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Charlie1 »

What a pain but as tokenbrit says, the only comfort is that you're ideally placed to get it sorted.

On a slightly related note, whenever I go abroad on holiday, any clips I have uploaded always sound worse to me. Doesn't matter if I'm on 4g or wi-fi. Noticed that a few times. Sometimes the drop down is quite significant. Hopefully its unrelated to Brexit :)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Pedro »

About Tendaberry's clips:

I prefer version A.
The singer's voice is a bit more soothing and balanced. In version B, it sounds a bit tighter. The high-frequency range is emphasised more in B. This makes the music a bit more artificial, less natural.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Spannko »

I’m glad you managed to discover why your clips sounded so out of tune Thomas. For me, it obscured anything you were trying to demonstrate, so trying to discover why DropBox sometimes affects the tune would be really useful.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by Tendaberry »

I feel with you Thomas! I would have been totally devastated, if something like that had happened to me. A good thing, that you know the kind distributor ;-)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by V.A.MKD »

Here I prefer A.
Easier to follow the tune ...
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by V.A.MKD »

@ThomasOK
OMG ... situations like this are very very ...
Dropbox ... Good to discover differences in the chain ... But, going back to history on forum, "Dropbox" give some interesting and quite realistic picture of quality of the System / Sound (in room and in our "Ears"), so maybe it's only "temporary" issue or if I may suggest something in phone / upload set-up ... Just as option for this issue.
I know you will fix it :-)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by ThomasOK »

I'm preferring A. Although I do find them pretty close B has a bit sharper sound that gives the impression of more detail but I find it less musical and enjoyable than A where the vocal has more depth and nuance and the music is more tuneful overall.

It was a little distracting to see what looked like my reflection in the TV while I was listening. I happen to be wearing a teal polo shirt and blue jeans today. ;-)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by ThomasOK »

Thanks for all the commiseration. I don't get easily devastated by losing material goods - people and animals, yes, but devices are repairable or replaceable so I try to just roll with it. However, it is never fun losing such wonderful equipment to accident, even if it is just temporary, but it will be up and running again hopefully before too long. If some ideas I floated past Fredrik work I could have the blown TM and one SM up and running in a week. The other SM will take longer.

For those interested in the torque I put a post on Inside section about what lead to me trying such high torques and the tool I found that works well.
Last edited by ThomasOK on 2022-06-15 18:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

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ThomasOK wrote: 2022-06-15 16:33
I'm preferring A. Although I do find them pretty close B has a bit sharper sound that gives the impression of more detail but I find it less musical and enjoyable than A where the vocal has more depth and nuance and the music is more tuneful overall.

It was a little distracting to see what looked like my reflection in the TV while I was listening. I happen to be wearing a teal polo shirt and blue jeans today. ;-)
It's real close in the room as well, but I feel both clips lose a lot in Dropbox (as mentioned by Thomas earlier). Actually in the room, B sounds a bit tighter, I will try a bit more.
The tweak is grounding the Router by way of a modified USB-cable going from the router to the same power strip as the router is connected to. A is without extra grounding and B is with.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by tpetsch »

A) Didn't we all understand that uploads to any site for the purposes for A/B reviewing here are compromised to say the least, and it's assumed that the listener just naturally takes this all into account, for fun, not even mentioning how all the vastly different devises people listen on can effect that playback? ...I proved this months ago when I posted two clips of the same video on Google vs. Dropbox with Dropbox being somewhat superior but still sounds nothing like being being in the actual room, but, again, I thought we all obviously knew this..

B) 7.0 N.m also translates to 62 In-lbs -Inch Pounds- in case anyone has an Inch pound only marked torque wrench.

C) Something like this may have saved more of the pieces that got damaged during that electrical event, although one may feel/think that devises such as these may effect "The Tune":

This protects the "Whole Panel". ""By installing a Siemens Circuit Breaker and Surge Protection Device in the load center of the residence, surge protection is provided for all branch circuits.""
https://new.siemens.com/us/en/products/ ... akers.html

Available at Home Depot:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Siemens-15- ... /206632211
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by lejonklou »

Tendaberry wrote: 2022-06-15 17:52
It's real close in the room as well, but I feel both clips lose a lot in Dropbox (as mentioned by Thomas earlier). Actually in the room, B sounds a bit tighter, I will try a bit more.
The tweak is grounding the Router by way of a modified USB-cable going from the router to the same power strip as the router is connected to. A is without extra grounding and B is with.
What I hear in B is that the low bass is a bit out of control. In A I don't hear that.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by ThomasOK »

tpetsch, thanks for the torque conversion. The driver I linked to is only marked in Nm, unlike the Sturtevant Richmont CAL 36-4 we use for most other things, so I didn't think about listing the Imperial torque. Also thanks for the information on the Seimens surge protection breakers. I would be very interested to know if anybody here has tried these and if they are musically viable.

On the clips we have indeed had discussions about the losses from moving around digital files as also discussed in sections on streaming and networking. Dropbox has generally been useful in allowing people to hear the differences recorded in these clips with results sometimes even unanimous. However, there have occasionally been cases where they don't seem to represent what is heard in the room, or on the original clips, all that well. This seems to have happened at least once to most of us who have posted a reasonable number of clips. Why this happens is hard to say and the vagaries of digital production give plenty of possibilities for problems. After all anyplace you post videos is going to have large banks of servers with large banks of hard drives and often located in different places around the globe. Maybe some of the files end up going someplace, or being transferred through a number of connections that have more flaws than normal. But at least they do seem to be useful the majority of the time. I still consider the clips to be for more than just fun as I feel many have heard things in various clips that have provided fruitful ideas for optimizing their own systems.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

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ThomasOK wrote: 2022-06-15 23:03 tpetsch, thanks for the torque conversion. The driver I linked to is only marked in Nm, unlike the Sturtevant Richmont CAL 36-4 we use for most other things, so I didn't think about listing the Imperial torque. Also thanks for the information on the Seimens surge protection breakers. I would be very interested to know if anybody here has tried these and if they are musically viable.

On the clips we have indeed had discussions about the losses from moving around digital files as also discussed in sections on streaming and networking. Dropbox has generally been useful in allowing people to hear the differences recorded in these clips with results sometimes even unanimous. However, there have occasionally been cases where they don't seem to represent what is heard in the room, or on the original clips, all that well. This seems to have happened at least once to most of us who have posted a reasonable number of clips. Why this happens is hard to say and the vagaries of digital production give plenty of possibilities for problems. After all anyplace you post videos is going to have large banks of servers with large banks of hard drives and often located in different places around the globe. Maybe some of the files end up going someplace, or being transferred through a number of connections that have more flaws than normal. But at least they do seem to be useful the majority of the time. I still consider the clips to be for more than just fun as I feel many have heard things in various clips that have provided fruitful ideas for optimizing their own systems.
Perhaps I should have mentioned that I have that exact Siemens Circuit Breaker/Surge Protection Device in my panel for the past 2 years, I can't say how well it works as an actual protection devise as we have had no real surge issues since installation but both LED's still glow green, knock wood. I did the install myself, very easy, like a half hour tops taking your time. I run a dedicated circuit to my Hi-Fi that is not run to this "protection Breaker" itself but further down in the panel off another standard Breaker, but like I said the whole panel is protected buy just installing this one devise. We have, like many, sensitive & pricey electronics devises in our home -some of it business relate- and we find the added protection gives us some piece of mind. Also, I'm pretty sensitive to differences when making a change and if the Hi-Fi has lost "The Tune" as a result to some degree, but after the installation I didn't feel as though anything was lost as this was, as you can imagine, a concern of mine. But one day I will revisit and do a proper A/B.. Good Luck..

Oh, yes, and no doubt that valuable information has still been gleaned from the A/B's, for me it's a fun exercise though, helps to keep the senses sharp.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by beck »

Maybe not worth mentioning my search setting up my little system has been in the A2, B2 direction and I do like them better than your A1, B1 clips Thomas.

….. and sorry to hear about your misfortune.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by ThomasOK »

It has been a while since I've put some clips up here but here are a couple that let you hear a change in the system. They also serve to let you hear my system all back together after the repairs and with the optimized power strip I talked about in the thread on Cheap power strips. Have fun!

Clip A
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9cs3e8rg2j2s ... M.mov?dl=0

Clip B
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmc1pqrllcxqa ... M.mov?dl=0
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercises

Post by tokenbrit »

Both enjoyable in different ways: B seems to have a bit more body & control, but there's a brio to A that makes it my choice... Would be (more than ;) happy with B; just that A got my foot tapping that bit more :)
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