The Plot Thickens

I found I could eliminate all the rattles in one speaker playing Grouse by lowering the level to -14dB (0dB is approximately amplifier rated output and speaker maximum undistorted level).

Grouse We want to be loved is a veritable audio torture test, as it turns out, with extremely high peak levels, probably loaded with inter-sample-overs too (where the output level goes above 0dB between samples after oversampling...I've noted other post-2000 albums that do that a lot...this can add up to 4dB to the actual output level, I've seen so far) too.  Even though it doesn't sound like the bass or anything is hitting the stops, on this album, it actually is.

I thought of it as an amazing, and pretty good recorded album.  But I tried listening to it at the level of -14dB where it seems no speaker anomalies occur.

At this lower level, the album goes from interesting to uniquely magical.  The transparency of some recorded bits is mind blowing.  There's a bit (perhaps overplayed) that sounds like an old tube amplifier going into high frequency oscillation.  This has an almost impossible you are there quality, but only played at -14dB.  I get the sense, momentarily, that I'l at John Iverson's house listening to his Corona plasma speaker, except that he'd be playing 20dB louder.

One also hears quite a bit of clever panning and other fakery.  It's great fun, even more fun than at -6dB where I had been naively listening the first time.  That seemed like about all I could stand, the album seems far louder than the playback level, even for an experimental rock-or-whatever album.

But thinking about the improvement in sound information at lower levels...surely that's not my perception at work.  Normally we hear more and more at higher levels.  Listening to the album at -14dB (which was very late at night, perhaps 2am, and very quiet) for the first few minutes, I was nearly kicking myself to kick it up a bit.  I argued with myself that I was goind to do this for an entire song (and then, the entire album) as an experiment, which I didn't want to shortchange myself over.

What must be going on is that the speakers themselves lose it more and more at higher levels.  Especially with torture albums which are slapping them around to the maximum extent.  There may be some kind of internal vibration, which gets more and more intense.  Finally, because of some crack or whatever in the internal supports on one speaker, causing a distinctly audible buzz.

But even before that buzzing occurs, there is already sufficient internal vibration to obscure information, leading to greatest effective transparency in the speaker-ear system at some lower potential level.

I had thought that something like this was going on before, but never had such a clear indication.  The Acoustats are like 2 speakers, one with Quad ESL like transparency at Quad ESL like levels.  And then also a head banging speaker which will play much louder, but loses that magical transparency at higher levels.

And it's why some people have gone to extreme measures with floor and ceiling braces to try to fix the Acoustat internal vibration issues.

(There is also an effect in human perception, where we lose information at higher levels.  But that would only be at way higher levels than I was getting to at -6dB.)

In some sense, the audible buzz is a warning indicator.  Turn the level down for better sound.  But I do intend to fix it anyway.