WEBVTT - Audiophiles and the Perfect Sound 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.079 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.480 And how the tech are you? You know? Recently I 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.560 did an episode on the rise and fall of san Sui, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.880 a Japanese company best known for its audio receivers and amplifiers, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.839 though it did make other things, and San sue had 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.760 its heyday in the late sixties and into the seventies 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.600 and became a sought after brand associated with hi fi 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.960 or high fidelity. So today I thought we should talk 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.200 a little bit more about hi fi and the tech 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.560 that feeds into an obsession. So first, what is that obsession? Well, 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:56.120 generally speaking, audio files seek out a listening experience that 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.040 gets them as close to the originally produced sound as possible. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.240 So in an ideal world, it would sound as you 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.880 listen to playback, it would sound as though you were 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.440 in the recording studio as a producer was putting together 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.840 a master tape you know, of a recording of a session, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.920 or alternatively, that you were actually in the studio when 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.120 say a band was laying down the recording tracks, because 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.840 you know even the act of producing can emphasize some 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.679 stuff all de emphasizing other stuff. So you could make 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.839 a good argument that even the master recording could muck 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.160 things up all down the rest of the line. But 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.960 the idea is, how do you create a system. What 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.360 components do you need and in what combination and um 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.400 and at what quality in order to get the ideal 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:53.080 listening experience. And you want to be able to accurately 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.440 reproduce the full range of sound frequencies and harmonics that 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.680 were present in the original sound, and preferably you want 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.160 to be able to also boost that to higher levels 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.760 of volume without losing any of the precision. Right, So 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.440 the idea being that the louder you turn the system, 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.760 you don't lose it, Like things don't distort as you 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.440 turn up the volume, until you get to a point 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.240 where you know you don't want to go any higher 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.120 because you're gonna end up in a twisted sister music 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.760 video if you do so. This is tricky, not the 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.080 part about avoiding being in a twisted twisted sister music video. 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.880 I've successfully done that all my life. But no, creating 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:35.679 a system like this is tricky because there are a 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.519 lot of different components to a sound system, and one 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:44.639 bad component can mess up pretty much everything else. It's 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.080 not always true that the more expensive something is the 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.680 better it is, though that frequently can seem to be 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:58.360 the case in the stereo like the high fidelity stereo world. Uh. However, 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.200 it is fairly safe to bet that the cheapest stuff 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.200 on the market is not going to be the best. 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.160 You can be pretty sure that the cheapest stuff is 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.920 not going to be great. You cannot be sure that 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.560 the most expensive stuff is going to be the best 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.800 of the best. Now, when you boil down a sound system, 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.560 which I should add you should never do because most 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.760 of the time they are not waterproof, what you have 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.440 is a signal chain. So on one end, you've got 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.440 a component designed to playback some form of media or, 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.359 in the case of a radio, to pick up a 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:36.800 transmission of a broadcasted media, and the playback is in 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.440 the form of an electrical signal. And ultimately that electrical 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.160 signal has to make its way to some form of speakers, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.840 whether they are like a standalone speaker system or headphones 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.080 or something along those lines. Now, the whole chain from 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.680 that component to the speakers, every part of that chain 0:03:55.760 --> 0:04:00.240 is important, and just like physical chains, your experience tipically 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.480 is only as good as whatever the weakest link in 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.920 that chain is able to manage. Like, if there's one 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.480 component in that in that chain that is not up 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.080 to snuff, then it doesn't matter how good this everything 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.160 is on either side of it, you're not going to 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.480 get better on the other end than what's going through 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:24.039 that weak link. So this is an idea that an 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.240 entire industry is built upon. So let's consider some of 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.640 these components. And we'll start with the speakers, because that's 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.000 the part that plays the sounds that we hear. I 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:36.960 could have started from the other end, but I figured 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.760 let's go to the output. So a speaker, when you 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.000 really get down to it, consists of a diaphragm, at 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.720 least one diaphragm that vibrates according to magnetic signals, and 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.400 those magnetic signals correspond with that electrical signal that represents 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:57.800 an encoded recorded sound. So the electrical signal powers and 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.719 electro magnet which interacts with a permanent magnet in the speaker. 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.760 This creates the attractive and repulsive forces that caused the 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:11.280 diaphragm inside the speaker to vibrate, the vibrating diaphragm begins 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.960 to move air at specific frequencies and amplitudes, and this 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.600 generates the sounds we hear when those air fluctuations here 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.839 hit our ear drums. So human hearing spans a pretty 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.400 wide range of sound frequencies. At the low end is 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.400 twenty hurts. That's twenty full vibrations per second. So imagine 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.120 a very long string and you pluck the string and 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.560 you're able to slow down time and count how many 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.720 times it does a full vibration that is, from the 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.800 starting point all the way to the other side and 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.800 back to the starting point again twenty times a second. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.280 That's the lowest end of pitches that humans typically can hear. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.440 We have to use words like typical because not everyone 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.400 can hear sounds that low, and some may be able 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.520 to sense them a little bit lower. We can actually 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.400 sense lower vibration, but typically we are not hearing them. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:08.360 We feel them, because again we're talking about fluctuations vibrations, uh, 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.159 and you can feel vibrations, particularly if they're at pretty 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.000 high amplitudes. So then on the opposite side of the range, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.080 we have the highest pitches within human hearing typical human hearing, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.760 and we usually say that this tops out around twenty 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.480 thousand hurts, also known as twenty killer hurts, so that 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:31.159 would be twenty thousand full vibrations per second. As we 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.840 get older, our ability to perceive the highest pitches diminishes 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.039 mine certainly has. I think I mentioned this in the 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.440 San Sui episode. But this means that if you want 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.760 to keep those punk kids away from your convenience store, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.880 you can play a piercing high pitch sound over the 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.960 store's speakers and only the kids will be able to 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.600 hear it. All the adults will have lost that ability. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:59.240 Fun with physics and ages, um, I guess anyway, twenty 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.200 hurts to twenty thousand hurts, that's a pretty big range 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:08.920 of frequencies, and that doesn't factor in harmonics. Harmonic is 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.920 a sound wave that has an integer multiple of a 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.080 fundamental tone. And you might think, what are you talking about? 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.520 All right, So this is easier if we talk about 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.600 musical notes. Let's say we've got a musical instrument like 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.400 a guitar, and let's say we pluck a string, and 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:30.120 the lowest frequency sound produced by that string vibrating is 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.560 what we call the fundamental tone frequency, and if we 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.160 were to multiply that frequency by two, we would get 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.000 what we call the second harmonic. If we multiplied it 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.880 by three, we get the third harmonic, and so on 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.080 and so forth, the fourth harmonic, the fifth harmonic, each 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:52.960 time multiplying by the next highest integer. So if you 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.360 pluck a guitar tuned to middle C the second harmonic, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.720 you would multiply the frequency of middle C by two, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.440 and you would end up with C again, but one 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.680 octave up or C ish, because it ends up being 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.080 a little more wibbly wobbly than that. But you're essentially 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.320 playing another C note, but it's an octave higher. The 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.320 third harmonic would be a G, the fourth harmonic would 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.960 be another even higher C. The fifth harmonic will be E, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.160 and so on and so forth. Now, a musical instrument's 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:30.360 tone or tambre is largely shaped by the relative strength 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.400 of each harmonic to the fundamental frequency. This is why 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.760 we've got lots of different musical instruments that can produce 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.320 a C note, but they don't all sound exactly the same. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.199 They're playing the same note, but they don't sound the same. 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.959 If you played the same note on a clarinet as 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.200 you did on a piano. Well, you would still be 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.400 able to tell which was which, right, you'd say, oh, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.480 they're playing the same note. But this is a clarinet 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.319 and that's a piano, and that's largely due to harmonics. 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.760 Now there's other stuff too that plays into tamber, but 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:01.320 to it into all that would get us off track. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.400 Plus I've done an episode about it. So we perceive 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:10.400 these harmonics as collectively being a single sensation. So when 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.439 you hit a C on a piano, what we're essentially 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.480 hearing is that fundamental frequency of C. And rather than 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.679 perceiving all the harmonics distinctly, like saying, oh, I also 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.520 hear a higher C and a G and an E, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.000 rather than saying that these harmonics combine into what we 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.720 think of as the timbre of a piano, we perceive 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.560 it as a single experience. And if you were to 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:38.800 play that same C on a clarinet or on a 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.080 guitar or on a xylophone, we'd be able to tell 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.359 the same note. But difference in which harmonics are emphasized 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.880 that would determine the timbre of each instrument. We'd be 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.640 able to tell them apart, all right, Now, the reason 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.840 all that is important is that really good speakers will 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.520 be able to play back a wide range of frequencies 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.360 with incredible accuracy. And it's important to represent not just 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.520 the individual notes, but those harmonics Otherwise, like your piano 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.079 wouldn't sound like a piano right if it couldn't represent 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.040 all the harmonics that the piano was creating when it 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.480 was being played, then it wouldn't sound right. So this 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.679 range can stretch well beyond human hearing, because the idea 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.040 is that harmonics that can even go above where the 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.800 typical human can hear can still shape the notes we 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.760 do here, and it's hard for for speakers to be 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.480 able to represent the full range, even really good speakers. 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.480 Often high end speakers will have specific voice coils dedicated 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.120 to replicating a certain subset of frequencies in order to 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.120 cover the full spectrum. And this is where we can 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.440 get into sub whoffers, whoffers and tweeters. Subwhiffers have the 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:54.320 largest diaphragms and replicate the lowest frequency sounds, so they 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.560 need those big diaphragms in order to move enough air 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.240 at low frequencies and large enough and plitudes so that 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.880 we can actually experience them, hear them, or feel them. 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.160 They also tend to require their own power source in 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.800 order to make this happen. Like they can't just draw 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.360 power through speaker wires the way some other speakers do. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.040 You typically have to plug these into a wall socket 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.320 on their own. Whoofers tend to cover most of the 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.320 frequencies we experience when we're listening to music from the 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.680 low tones. They're not the lowest to replicating most of 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.080 the tones we hear from musical instruments. Human voices also 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.280 fall into this frequency range covered by whoofers, so these 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.400 are really important for the vast majority of the sounds 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.880 we can distinctly hear. And the tweeters those are speakers 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.319 that are designed to replicate sounds above the threshold of whoofers. 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.040 They can also replicate sounds that go beyond human hearing. Again, 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.559 you might need to have those in order to represent 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.800 those harmonics I was talking about. Now. A combination of 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.920 these speakers is usually necessary to create a true high 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.480 fidelity experience, and UH where you put the speakers ends 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.839 up mattering to both because of stuff like stereo or 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.880 quadrophonic sound or surround sound. UH in that you're sending 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.080 specific channels of sound to specific directions, So you want 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.960 to have your speaker set up to two replicate that, right, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.560 It wouldn't make sense to have your left and right 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.680 speakers all just directly in front of you. You wouldn't 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.760 really benefit from the stereo sound that way. Uh. And 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.720 also some speakers, like the tweeters in particular, can be 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.200 very highly directional, so you need to have them positioned 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.800 just right. So for true audio files, where you put 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.119 speakers ends up being a very big part of the equation. 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.880 And suffice it to say, cheap speakers typically can't do 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.800 all of this. Many of the cheaper speakers are kind 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.800 of marketed as full range speakers, meaning they're meant to 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.520 replicate sounds throughout the range of human hearing. But these 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.640 speakers are limited by their size. If the diaphragm and 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.440 the speakers is like of a medium size, well the 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.280 speakers should be able to cover most, but not all, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.240 of the frequent these we can experience. If it's a 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.679 larger diaphragm, well then you might lose some of the 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.040 higher pitches. You might not be able to replicate those 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.079 as well. If it's a smaller speaker, then you might 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.720 end up losing some of the base tones. Materials, wiring, 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.960 and engineering all matter when it comes to speaker quality. However, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.520 you can reach a point of diminishing returns, and in fact, 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:23.959 that is going to be true for pretty much every 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.679 component we're going to be talking about today. And by 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.920 that I mean you might listen to a dinky, cheap 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.160 speaker and then listen to the same music on a 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.600 moderately priced speaker, and you could hear a huge difference 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.120 in quality. You could say, all right, this, this more 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.319 expensive speaker is clearly leagues better than the cheap one. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.440 But then you might go from the moderate speaker to 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.800 an expensive speaker and you say, yeah, I can tell 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.720 there's a difference, but it's not nearly as dramatic a 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.920 jump as the first one. Then you might go to 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.080 like a luxury speaker, some ludicrously expensive speakers, and they 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.000 are some really expensive ones, and you might not be 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.160 able to tell the difference between the you know, expensive 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.080 speaker and the ludicrously expensive speaker. Uh. There are a 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:11.760 lot of people who suggest that if you were to 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.559 do a double blind study where neither the person administering 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.880 the test nor the person experiencing it knows which system 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.920 is being played. You probably wouldn't be able to pick 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.680 out too many differences between some of these, you know, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.400 high end and ultra high end speaker systems. Now, it 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:29.840 might mean that if you were to take some very 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.200 sensitive electronic equipment to measure stuff like signal loss or 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.800 the purity of tones being omitted, that maybe on those 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:39.920 instruments you might be able to see a difference, like 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.120 these very highly tuned instruments might indicate that, But that 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.800 doesn't mean your ears and brain would pick up on that. 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.080 So that's another red flag for audio files. Just because 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.360 something might technically perform quote unquote better doesn't mean you 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.200 to actually perceive any meaningful improvements. So don't just jump 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.520 out there and by the most expensive stuff on the market. 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.600 All right, where we've got a lot more ground to cover. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.840 But before we get into any of that, let's take 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:15.320 a quick break. Okay, we're back now. For speakers to 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.080 be able to play anything at all, you need an amplifier. 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.600 So an amplifier's job is to take a weak incoming 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.760 electrical signal and boost it to a more powerful signal 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.880 that can drive speakers all the while avoiding the introduction 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:35.160 of unwanted changes to the signal. In other words, you 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.880 want to turn up the power without adding in noise 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.680 or distortion. This is easier said than done. Now it 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.720 helps if we think about the nature of the signal 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.040 we need to boost. Uh. And let's take the example 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.040 of a microphone, which is typically, you know, the opposite 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.680 of a speaker. You can think of like a microphone 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.200 and a speaker working on the same principle, just in reverse. 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.360 So with a speaker, we have an electrical signal going 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:08.560 to a device that that electrical signal is essentially encoded 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.320 audio is what it really boils down to, and it 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.160 goes to a voice coil that ends up causing a 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:22.400 diaphragm to vibrate. Those vibrations end up causing air to fluctuate. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.400 Air molecules start to fluctuate, and our ears pick up 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.359 on that and we hear the sound. With a microphone, 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.560 we have a device that has a tiny little diaphragm 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.520 inside it that vibrates when sound hits that diaphragm, and 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.440 the diaphragm's vibrations generate and a very weak electrical signal. 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.000 Uh And and this is all thanks to electromagnetic physics 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.400 that I'm not going to get into here because I've 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.200 covered it to death now. As you might imagine, the 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.720 diaphragm and a microphone is really small and it does vibrate, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.880 but the movements are very small as well. So what 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.760 you're generating is an incredibly weak electric signal with a 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:06.639 microphone that represents those vibrations, and it's too weak to 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.679 do anything really useful with it. Right, you wouldn't have 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.959 enough umph there to drive a speaker. The speaker wouldn't 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.280 have enough electricity to make the magnets move the diaphragm 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:19.399 to a point where you could play an audible sound. 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.439 So typically you would then pass this very weak signal 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.440 to what is called a preamp. That's an amplifier that 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.200 can take a very weak signal and make it less weak, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.359 like to align level feed. This would then move along 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.280 to a power amplifier, which would take this slightly stronger 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.200 signal and then boost it to a point where it 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.119 could drive a speaker system. But if you have a 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:51.080 bad amplifier, one that's prone to introducing noise and distortion, well, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.080 that signal gets corrupted as it continues down. The signal chain, 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.359 and you know, anywhere could be the point where you 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.560 have a problem. If the preamp is bad, then a 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.520 little change in that week's signal will get boosted into 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.920 bigger changes further down the line. Now, numerous companies have 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.840 developed different circuit designs to reduce the possibility of introducing 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:20.239 background noise and distortion into a signal, or you know, 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.040 introducing disharmonics and things of that nature. There are far 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.080 too many different types of circuits and components to really 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.120 go into here. Uh And it does get very technical 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:35.920 about how you align these things in order to accurately 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.959 boost the signal without altering it otherwise. Uh. And amplifiers 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.640 are kind of like speakers. Some are really really good 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.359 at boosting signals that represent certain frequency ranges and not 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:51.080 as great at other frequency ranges. So you occasionally end 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:56.160 up with amplifiers or receivers which very frequently have amplifiers 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.520 built into them, that get a reputation for being really 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.480 good with certain ranges of sound representation, but not so 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:08.680 good at others. Also, amplifiers can introduce harmonic distortion. There's 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.760 usually a measure of an amplifier's total harmonic distortion plus noise, 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.760 so if you ever are looking at hi fi equipment 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.240 and you find that there's a number that represents total 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.040 harmonic distortion plus noise, you want that number to be 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.240 as low as it can be. The lower that number, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.359 the better it is. Higher numbers indicate that the amplifier 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:35.399 is more prone to introducing unwanted signal. Meanwhile, there's another 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.040 metric called signal to noise ratio. In that case, you 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.679 want the number to be very big because indicates that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.320 the amplifier is is very effective at boosting signal and 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.680 uh suppressing background noise. Then you have a thing called 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:55.119 cross talk. So with stereo systems, you've got a left 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.560 channel for sound and a right channel for sound. Now, 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.520 ideally you would have perfect isolation for those two channels, 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.200 so that only the stuff that's intended for the left 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.320 side goes to the left and only the stuff intended 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.399 for the right side goes to the right. And you 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.639 could even have it where you've got two instruments that 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.399 are essentially doing like a call and response and have 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.760 them perfectly isolated so that you're hearing like a guitar 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.520 on your right and a violin on your left or something. 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.280 But there's this effect called cross talk, which describes to 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.240 what extent the stuff that was meant for the right 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.240 channel bleed over into the left channel, and vice versa. 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:35.840 So you don't want a lot of cross talk. You 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:37.760 want cross talk to be at a minimum so that 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.720 you have as pure and isolated experience as you can 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.880 for the stuff that was recorded for that purpose. Keep 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.280 in mind, what I'm describing here is completely dependent upon 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.560 the media you're playing. Right, If you're playing back media 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.440 that's say mono, well none of that matters because the 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.960 same signal is going to go to every single speaker. 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.800 That's what mono is. If it stereo, but the mix 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.439 doesn't go to that level of separation, then it doesn't 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.359 matter quite as much there either. But generally speaking, you 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.400 don't want a lot of cross talk, so you want 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.760 that number to be low. Uh and we typically measure 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.119 that in negative deciples, So the lower the number, like 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.520 negative one decibles, is better than negative sixty deciples for 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.360 cross talk. Now, you might also have a separate receiver, 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.960 which is the device that manages all the input connections 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:33.119 to your speakers, which would be the output, or you 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.960 might have a receiver that has its own amplifier, So 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.520 the receiver and amplifier are the same piece of equipment. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.639 That simplifies the signal chain a little bit. But generally speaking, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.360 the stuff I refer to with amplifiers also largely applies 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.720 to receivers. And again the signal chain is very important here. 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:56.439 The simpler it is, to an extent, the better it 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.120 can be. The more stuff you're adding in, the more 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.080 filters and things adding in, uh, the more opportunities you 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:05.800 have for a point of failure. However, you could also 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.719 argue that these are things that could potentially compensate should 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:12.600 there be another issue with the signal chain somewhere else. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.160 And then beyond that you have your actual music sources 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.800 like a turntable or a tape deck or CD player, radio, 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.920 that kind of thing. These also range in quality. There 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.959 are folks who will drop more than ten thousand dollars 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:32.840 on a turntable alone. So does it ten grand turntable 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.199 sound a hundred times better than a hundred dollar turntable. 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.920 That's hard to quantify, especially if you aren't otherwise using 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.119 the exact same system from that point forward. Right, if 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:47.119 you're talking about an all in one turntable that has 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.680 its own little speaker. Obviously that's going to sound different 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:55.359 from a high end turntable that's part of a finely 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.119 tuned audio system. But it does get to this point 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.840 again of diminished returns, of at what point is the 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:10.280 improvement perceptible or not perceptible. Obviously, components can range from 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.840 excellent to terrible. A turntable that isn't weighted properly might 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.840 introduce unwanted motion while playing back albums. You might get 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.800 some wobble in there that can end up coming through 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.200 with the playback and you're not going to get an 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.439 ideal listening experience. Or it could be that the stylists 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:31.159 isn't picking up vibrations as since as sensitive as you 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:33.679 wanted to, so you might be missing some of the 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:37.200 subtle parts of the recording that you would otherwise get 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.840 if you had a better quality cartridge in your in 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:45.280 your turntable. So these are all things that matter, but 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:50.800 again diminishing returns do come into play, and it also 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.440 again depends upon matching the turntable up with the rest 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:57.560 of your components. If everything else isn't tuned properly, then 0:23:57.600 --> 0:23:59.160 you could have the best turn table in the world 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.480 and still not it an ideal experience. At the other 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.199