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From: cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (jeff t. segawa)
Newsgroups: rec.audio,sci.physics,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Mercury Filled Speaker Wire
Message-ID: <899@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 23:17:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: uhccux.899
Posted: Sat Oct  3 23:17:07 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Oct-87 05:31:46 EDT
References: <3816@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <578@uthub.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (jeff t. segawa)
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Bill Blue; I couldn't agree more with this business about tecnical specifications and subjective sound quality. I bought my first stereo based on those
distortion specs. Figured that if I had an amp that only produced .008%
harmonic distortion, it must be great at sound reproduction. Boy, was I ever
wrong. It sounded shrill and irritating--not at all like live music I have
heard. I also have a couple of CD players which have fantastic specs:
almost no noise, fantastic dynamic range, etc, but I still find them
(they're a couple of Magnavox players) somehow lacking when I compare them
to a 'tweaked' player by PS Audio, though the specs aren't much different,
Neither player, in my opinion, does as good a job at sound reproduction
as a really good cassette deck running first generation master tapes,
or my SOTA Sapphire turntable. Maybe the source of a lot of these
"looks good on paper, sounds awful" sort of problems have a lot to
do with the WAY these measurements are taken. For example, as I recall,
turntable speed accuracy measurements are done by playing 1Khz test  
tones. Servo motor powered turntables cope with this type of material
well, since tye stylus drag, and hence, the load imposed on the 
turntable's motor, is constant. Now get this same turntable, and try
playing a real record, with it's varying degrees of modulation, on it.
Hit a loud passage, and the stylus drag builds up. Platter slows down,
servo tries (too late) to compensate. I had a turntable like this.
With most types of top 40 music, it sounded OK. Couldn't figure out
why piano music always sounded somehow off key. Naturally, the spec
sheet told me that the turntable had nearly perfect speed accuracy,
and it did, so long as I played 1Khz test tones. If nothing else,
this incident taught me the value of trusting one's own ears.
As a result, I'm not too proud to admit that my system is made up,
among other things, of a Dyna PAS-3x (tube) preamp and Randall 
Research interconnects. Why? Simply because, tube noise and all,
the system does a better job at reproducing music that most   
other systems I have listened to.