The AVP (D+M anyway..) that has the lowest THD+N measured so far seems to be a Denon AVR!!

[DJ7675]

SOTA is a nice goal but becomes somewhat impractical just to chase small improvements....

I agree with you in many ways.2 Channel DACs for example keep improving above -120db. AVR/Processors aren't at that level IMHO where improvements aren't welcomed. Lots of room to improve on many of the brands / models measured so far on the AVR/Processor side of things.

 

[Swerd]

SOTA=State of the Art. -90dB is not State of the Art.-120 would be State of the Art. Audibility is an entirely different topic. Science seems to indicate -115dB guarantees transparency. At some point below that noise and distortion could be audible.

Pursuing SOTA in electronic audio gear or in electronic bench test measurements while ignoring audibility is a major problem. No one can talk about SOTA until enough properly controlled listening tests are done to correlate what noise and distortion levels, -90, -95, -100 dB or higher, actually matter. Toole & Olive have shown how to perform those tests. It's only a matter of someone being curious enough and motivated enough to do the work.

All I see on ASR is a lot of people in love with electronic measurement technology, whether or not it produces meaningful results. Why speculate about what could be audible when it can be measured as well?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

SOTA=State of the Art. -90dB is not State of the Art.-120 would be State of the Art. Audibility is an entirely different topic. Science seems to indicate -115dB guarantees transparency. At some point below that noise and distortion could be audible. My thinking is that is going to depend on a persons listening environment, how loud they listen, what they listen to, and their ability to detect distortion etc. -90dB certainly could be inaudible to many but I don’t think you can say it is inaudible in all circumstances with all people all the time. My over simplistic threshold is -96dB. The electronics are available to practically eliminate the possibility of noise/distortion caused by electronics... so why not at least shoot for something close to a SINAD of 100. I have had both pieces the best measuring and the worst measuring AV product on Amirs SINAD chart... I sent in both the X8500 and the NAD T758 V3. While the audio memory isn’t really very reliable... I can tell you that as I turned up the NAD in my home theater to around -10 or louder it sounded harsh and could not play at that level. I don’t have that issue with the Denon. Just my 2 cents and experience FWIW. YMMV

Science?

Yeah, just like some people say they can hear the night-and-day difference between every amp and some people cannot here the difference between every amp. It goes round and round.

A bunch of hearsay and opinions without any actual proofs. So much for "SCIENCE". Really just some guy picking a random number. Oh, yeah, 96 is good. Oh, no, 100 is good.

But that's okay. This is just a hobby, not like doing research for a COVID19 vaccine or anything.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Pursuing SOTA in electronic audio gear or in electronic bench test measurements while ignoring audibility is a major problem. No one can talk about SOTA until enough properly controlled listening tests are done to correlate what noise and distortion levels, -90, -95, -100 dB or higher, actually matter. Toole & Olive have shown how to perform those tests. It's only a matter of someone being curious enough and motivated enough to do the work.

All I see on ASR is a lot of people in love with electronic measurement technology, whether or not it produces meaningful results. Why speculate about what could be audible when it can be measured as well?

Exactly. In Engineering and Medical field, the NUMBERS need to match the END RESULTS - saving lives, curing diseases, saving money, better living, etc.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

SOTA is a nice goal but becomes somewhat impractical just to chase small improvements....

What IMPROVEMENTS, though?

That's what some of us are saying. Are these numbers improving Sound Quality? Reliability? Compatibility? What are they improving?

 

[slipperybidness]

What IMPROVEMENTS, though?

That's what some of us are saying. Are these numbers improving Sound Quality? Reliability? Compatibility? What are they improving?

They are improving my warm and fuzzies!

I won't let my warm and fuzzies be ignored by the likes of you!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

They are improving my warm and fuzzies!

I won't let my warm and fuzzies be ignored by the likes of you!

I stand corrected!

Warm and fuzzies are as important as anything else in life. I will now be quiet on this topic.

 

[3db]

He was right though as I did refer to THD+N, not SINAD. That's why he found it confusing. Thread title edited.

Dam..Im scared. I knew exactly what you meant!!!

 

[3db]

It is no longer the AVR-X3600H, it just got demoted to No.2/3, along with the Emotiva RMC-1.

Denon AVR-X8500H AVR Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon AVR-X8500H Flagship 13.2 Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It is kindly loaned to me by a member and costs US $3999. The 8500H is a beast: it is both deep and heavy. Thankfully the transformer is centrally located so as manageable as 51...

www.audiosciencereview.com

0.0007%, or -103 dB

The amp section did not measure too well though, about the same as the likes of the Outlaw M2200, not as good as the its littlest brother X3600H, amazingly.

Are you bringing back that measurement back to Amir and his merry band of AVR ridiculing zealots?

I'm happy with -85db because its still inaudible even in an anoechic conditions. To me, once you get past the point of inaudibility, it doesn't matter anymore.

 

[DJ7675]

Audibility is a great topic and definitely worth discussing. A couple of links I found very interesting to me:

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Referenced in that article is an interesting article Amir wrote for widescreen review:

Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet?

Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet? By Amir Majidimehr [Note: This article was originally published in the Widescreen Review Magazine] Most people think of dynamic range as how loud something is. Mathematically though, dynamic range is a ratio. It is the loudest signal divided by “root mean...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Verdinut]

I am okay with 60 dB at 20,000 Hz, or even 25 dB but that's because my hearing is not the best. I was just responding to a question. So yes, if ASR skip that measurement altogether I may even be okay with that, but then why not, I suppose it only takes a minute to do it.

Anyways, who among us can hear 20 KHz? It's like calculation of THD at 20 KHz which is not necessary except possibly for people with golden ears. For all practical purposes, I would be happy with THD test results for frequencies up to 12 KHz with the second harmonic at 24 KHz which is beyond what is audible by humans. I agree with you on this.

 

[slipperybidness]

Anyways, who among us can hear 20 KHz? It's like calculation of THD at 20 KHz which is not necessary except possibly for people with golden ears. For all practical purposes, I would be happy with THD test results for frequencies up to 12 KHz with the first harmonic at 24 KHz which is beyond what is audible by humans.

For amps with negative feedback (i.e. most modern SS amps), problems beyond 20kHz can come back on the negative feedback and cause stability problems.

But....for pretty much any modern, decently designed amp, I would expect this to be academic (i.e. not likely to have this problem in a competent modern amp).

 

[M Code]

Measured electical specifications are important...
However...
I still rely on what pappy said...
"If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad..."

Just my $0.02...

 

[Swerd]

Audibility is a great topic and definitely worth discussing. A couple of links I found very interesting to me:

Those links are examples of what I mentioned earlier that suffer from blindness to the audibility question. They paid lip service to the question, but they didn't discuss results from listening tests because no listening tests were performed. All their additional data was gathered by more lab bench type methods, not listening tests.

Why speculate about what noise levels may or may not be audible when it is possible to perform listening tests and measure it directly? Those results will not be as detailed or nifty looking as all those busy looking graphs, but it is the ONLY TYPE OF TEST DATA that can answer the question of what noise levels in electronic audio playback equipment are audible.

 

[lovinthehd]

What IMPROVEMENTS, though?

That's what some of us are saying. Are these numbers improving Sound Quality? Reliability? Compatibility? What are they improving?

The specs naturally. SQ could come with that, might not. Reliability and compatibility....maybe not so much as they do want to sell you another one sooner than later?

 

[lovinthehd]

I am okay with 60 dB at 20,000 Hz, or even 25 dB but that's because my hearing is not the best. I was just responding to a question. So yes, if ASR skip that measurement altogether I may even be okay with that, but then why not, I suppose it only takes a minute to do it.

Sometimes if a piece of data has been pointed out as missing it may be added to the initial review, but seems sometimes just added to the subsequent thread.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Anyway.....I'm very glad the Denon X8500 has THD of 0.0007%. It will sound just as great as another AVR with a THD of 0.007% or 0.00007%.

 

[PENG]

Anyway.....I'm very glad the Denon X8500 has THD of 0.0007%. It will sound just as great as another AVR with a THD of 0.007% or 0.00007%.

I bet your Lexus can do 0-100 km/h in less than 7 seconds and top speed of well over 220 km/h but I also bet you wouldn't know the difference the way you drive that same car even if that same car had a version that was limited to 0-100 km/h in 8 seconds and top speed capped at 180 km/h for $1,000 less as environmental incentive. But given the choice, for $1,000 you may just be willing to pay $1,000 more.

 

[DJ7675]

I mean who's going to hear THD of less than 0.1%, but he talks like THD of 0.01% or higher is a concern?
vl

I am saying no way in hell anybody is going to hear the difference between THD of 0.09% vs 0.0007%(-103dB), much less 0.003% (-90dB) vs 0.0007%. So yes, THD of 0.003% is SOTA. Unless God said -90dB is not SOTA.

It is interesting that you and Amir's views are more similiar than you might think. Taken from here:

SINAD Measurements

BIO: Millennia Media Wow!

www.audiosciencereview.com

" I can guarantee transparency for all people, in all systems and all content if SINAD distortion products are at or below 116 dB (I sometimes round this up to 120).

Anything below becomes shades of gray. I am sure that vast majority of audiophiles would be stomped at distortion products below -60 dB. So there is a vast gray area between 60 and 116 dB. We can say gear with SINAD of 70 dB is "likely inaudible" to majority of people. But I don't know how to guarantee that."

How I am reading that he is just saying that it is humanly impossible to hear issues of 116db under any circumstance according to the research. He is also saying that below 60 is clearly audible and 70 is likely inauduble to the majority. The higher the number the more certain you can be that noise/distortion isn't an issue.
My view is simply find products that meet my needs in regards to features etc, and if I have 2 products-one with a SINAD of 70 and the other 100, I would choose the 100 to be more cerain noise or distortion wouldn't be a concern. Without bench testing like Amir does as well as Gene here, we wouldn't have any idea on how these products measure.
It can get silly of course when people are comparing 90 vs 92 in SINAD as I would also assume there is no way you could tell them apart. But there is still a lot of value to these bench tests in seeing how they measure.

 

[PENG]

It is interesting that you and Amir's views are more similiar than you might think. Taken from here:

SINAD Measurements

BIO: Millennia Media Wow!

www.audiosciencereview.com

" I can guarantee transparency for all people, in all systems and all content if SINAD distortion products are at or below 116 dB (I sometimes round this up to 120).

Anything below becomes shades of gray. I am sure that vast majority of audiophiles would be stomped at distortion products below -60 dB. So there is a vast gray area between 60 and 116 dB. We can say gear with SINAD of 70 dB is "likely inaudible" to majority of people. But I don't know how to guarantee that."

How I am reading that he is just saying that it is humanly impossible to hear issues of 116db under any circumstance according to the research. He is also saying that below 60 is clearly audible and 70 is likely inauduble to the majority. The higher the number the more certain you can be that noise/distortion isn't an issue.
My view is simply find products that meet my needs in regards to features etc, and if I have 2 products-one with a SINAD of 70 and the other 100, I would choose the 100 to be more cerain noise or distortion wouldn't be a concern. Without bench testing like Amir does as well as Gene here, we wouldn't have any idea on how these products measure.
It can get silly of course when people are comparing 90 vs 92 in SINAD as I would also assume there is no way you could tell them apart. But there is still a lot of value to these bench tests in seeing how they measure.

I lost count how many times Amir used the term xyz...not audible...., but it never did sink in with a few ASR members..