Low Volume Fidelity VS Power Ratings

[Pogre]

I said it might be the problem with speakers. Maybe not. All agreed that speakers are more important, right? So...

All of my speakers are from the SVS Ultra line. They're awesome speakers and sound fantastic. Very articulate, transparent and good for hearing tiny differences and subtleties in music.

Oh, and I played drums for 10 years. My dad was in a band. I used to hang out at his practices every Thursday night because practice was at our house. I know what to listen for and have the speakers to do it.

 

[lovinthehd]

Seriously, you could be more polite tbh.

It's a joke son, one Hetfield himself started....

 

[Andrein]

View attachment 21476

All of my speakers are from the SVS Ultra line. They're awesome speakers and sound fantastic. Very articulate, transparent and good for hearing tiny differences and subtleties in music.

Oh, and I played drums for 10 years. My dad was in a band. I used to hang out at his practices every Thursday night because practice was at our house. I know what to listen for and have the speakers to do it.

In this case it is a matter of personal preference and what eachone focuses on during listening to music. And definition of sq is different for everyone.

 

[KEW]

I did a search and did not find any thread that would answer my question.
Every time i ask a retailer about low volume fidelity they are always trying to sell me more power, separates, or stereo amps. I have a Marantz sr6011 that has decent power but i am looking for fidelity.

I dont have a big room so i dont need too much power but what i think will provide the fidelity is the absence of distortion. Please correct me if I'm wrong. What i have seen in amps is that you can get decent power output at both 4 and 8 ohms but the distortion varies from brand to brand.

So far what i have seen is that Macintosh has same power at both 4 and 8 ohms and real low distortion throughout the entire frequency band. What other brand at a lower price point can offer similar performance in reference to distortion through the operating range?

I don't know it still to be true, but in the past, the SR60XX and SR70XX series shared the same amp section as revealed by Bench testing (they only claimed less power from the 60XX series to try to help people feel like they were getting more for the extra money, but it was features that made the difference, not watts)
Here is the distortion chart for the SR7011:

The ATI Monoprice Monolith:

$9500 Krell amp:

Low to mid level Denon ($600 MSRP):

Interesting that the $9500 Krell and the $600 Denon are the only two that never get below 0.005% distortion!

Admittedly, these charts are probably at a specific frequency, but I'd still expect a pretty high correlation between single frequency distortion performance (which I guess is what this is) and full range distortion performance!

Edit!
Source is Sound & Vision bench tests

Edit #2:
To be clear, I don't mean to imply that this is your guide to better sound quality as all charts show low levels of distortion that would not be detected, and for the low listening levels under consideration, any of these have adequate power. My point is that replacing the SR6011 is unlikely to be a wise investment as it is a fine unit and will do a great job unless he is challenging the power limits.

 

[Pogre]

I don't know it still to be true, but in the past, the SR60XX and SR70XX series shared teh same amp section as revealed by Bench testing (they only claimed less power from teh 60XX series to try to help people feel like they were getting more for the extra money, but it was features that made teh difference, not watts)
Here is the distortion chart for the SR7011:

The ATI Monoprice Monolith:

$9500 Krell amp:

Low to mid level Denon ($600 MSRP):

Interesting that the $9500 Krell and the $600 Denon are the only two that never get below 0.005% distortion!

Admittedly, these charts are probably at a specific frequency, but I'd still expect a pretty high correlation between single frequency distortion performance (which I guess is what this is) and full rage distortion performance!

Kurt, at what level does distortion even become audible? .05, .5 or 1?

 

[lovinthehd]

AH article on the subject of THD http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/audibility-of-distortion-at-bass/total-harmonic-distortion-thd

I'd worry more about the speakers than the amp.

 

[Pogre]

AH article on the subject of THD http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/audibility-of-distortion-at-bass/total-harmonic-distortion-thd

I'd worry more about the speakers than the amp.

Agreed. As Kurt pointed out, some speakers sound fantastic at volume, but not so hot at lower volumes. I've heard speakers that do that.

OP you might not need to go up a tier in speakers. Maybe find something in a more reasonable price range with more sensitivity. If you can, get out and listen to some speakers and don't be afraid to go outside the B&W family. There are lots of great speaker manufacturers out there.

 

[KEW]

Kurt, at what level does distortion even become audible? .05, .5 or 1?

It seems like I remember reading that 1% was where lack of detection was, but hopefully someone else will answer. Of course any mainstream amp can do that.
Speakers, on the other hand, have a much harder time accomplishing low distortion levels.

 

[KEW]

-55 is indeed quite low.
At that type of volume level, I would generally rather listen to my Desktop PC speakers than the speakers in my living room!
My living room sounds very empty and hollow a that low of a volume, while my Desktop system makes a nice cocoon of sound for me (though I, personally, would still want to turn them up a bit more). Such is the magic of near-field listening!

To be clear, my Desktop speakers cost something like $80 15-20 years ago. It is a Monsoon System. I love it for what I use it for, but it would not sound very good across a large open room!

 

[mtrycrafts]

I meant Pogre's speakers actually. If new amp didnot give him anything this makes me think his speakers are not good enough. Also some people can hear more than others. If you cant hear some frequencies amp wont help you...

Boy, How about that the way that you compare amps is biased and imagin differences? That is a more likely proposition.

 

[KEW]

And definition of sq is different for everyone.

According to Wikipedia, you have three options!

Sound quality is typically an assessment of the accuracy, enjoyability, or intelligibility of audio output from an electronic device.

Actually, for a conversation like this I think we can drop intelligibility and narrow it to accuracy or enjoyability!

 

[mtrycrafts]

... Don't tell me I didn't hear a difference, and big one. These threads always turn into this. Don't tell me what I did or did not hear. ...

Oh, but you seem to tell us what you think you hear? Seems you don't like to be questioned?

You really will not know what you in fact heard until to minimize your biases, subconscious, as previously mentioned with a levels matched DBT. Until then, perception is questionable.

 

[Hetfield]

Oh, but you seem to tell us what you think you hear? Seems you don't like to be questioned?

You really will not know what you in fact heard until to minimize your biases, subconscious, as previously mentioned with a levels matched DBT. Until then, perception is questionable.

Please read your first sentence you wrote and how ridiculous that was.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[Andrein]

Guys is that american thing? I am not son or boy or anything. Compensating defectiveness at the cost of other people.

 

[mtrycrafts]

-55 is indeed quite low.
...!

Imagine at what levels those soft passages would be? Inaudible, LOL. And the lows would be almost inaudible as well.

 

[Verdinut]

IMO, any good quality loudspeaker will sound good at low volumes.

However, at low volumes, our hearing perception is not the same and both the low and the high frequencies are not heard as loud as the mid-range frequencies. The full frequency range becomes imbalanced. The Fletcher-Munson Curve shows exactly what happens to the human hearing for low SPL levels:
http://www.lindos.co.uk/cgi-bin/FlexiData.cgi?SOURCE=Articles&VIEW=full&id=17

IMO, that situation might explain exactly what you are experiencing with listening to music at low volume more than having bad loudspeakers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Guys is that american thing? I am not son or boy or anything. Compensating defectiveness at the cost of other people.

LOL and where are you from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Joke,_Son!

 

[mtrycrafts]

... If your speakers have good fidelity at high volume, but not at low volume, it's not the amp, it's the speakers. ...

The other possibility is that as you turn down the volume you equally decrease the level of softer tones and low frequencies and fidelity will suffer of course; you are missing a good chunk or the music.

 

[KEW]

Guys is that american thing? I am not son or boy or anything. Compensating defectiveness at the cost of other people.

This goes back to a cartoon named Foghorn Leghorn (at least, that is my perspective).

 

[LuisEcho]

I can only repeat what Pogre, lovinthehd, and KEW have already said. If your speakers have good fidelity at high volume, but not at low volume, it's not the amp, it's the speakers. A higher powered amp can create more headroom (lack of clipping) when there are peaks in the music, but it cannot affect the sound quality at low volumes.

@LuisEcho – Please help by better defining what you mean by "low volume fidelity".

• Do you mean frequency range? Is there less sound only at the low or high frequencies?
• Or do you mean something else? Is the overall sound quality different? As KEW described above, "do your speakers sound poor at low (volume) levels and then come into their own once you open them up?" Does music sound as if it's coming only from inside the speaker cabinets at low volume? And at high volume does the music sound as if it's coming from outside the speaker cabinets?

Both of these types of 'low fidelity' are due to the speakers and not the amplifier power.

In my experience, the type of low fidelity I described in my second bullet is due to poor off-axis dispersion of sound by the drivers used in the speakers. Widely dispersed off-axis sound is what helps speakers create a wider image and sound stage. Some speakers do that only at higher volumes, and other speakers can do that at both low and high volumes. No amp that I know of can affect that.

What i mean is a more clear and sharp mostly on the midrange side crisp clean distinction in voices and instruments thats what i mean im sorry im not too savy in describing or knowledgeable in audio systems but all this is helping me learn. Not sure what all this eat the hat and other coments mean but i think its a concensus about the speakers having a bigger impact and that extremely low distortion levels might not even be an audible difference so not worth the money.