I’m very much pro wider frequency response, as wide as possible. However, using juts a trim “wider frequency response” different people mean different thing perhaps…

I have written at this site quite a few articles stating the foolishness and luck of usefulness of many super tweeters, and particularly in that way how they used by fools. However, the term: “wider frequency response” has nothing to do with tweeters. In fact the super tweeters themselves are not as bad as the use of the wrong tweeters in a wrong way….

Well, way I would advocate the “wider frequency response” or something that I usually call the “full range”? Because the “full range” sets the reference to the sonic events. The extremes lowest and highest frequencies create the environmental “space” where the musical even unfold. Not to mention that the LF have a lot of modulate contribution to the auditable spectra.

How all of this relates to the fact that some people do not hear to low or to high. It is completely irrelevant.  When I am talking about the full range capable playback or equipment I am talking about aptitude and about what the playback or equipment dose while it handles the full range. I mean the potential and the functional capacity to operate in those extreme conditions of the full range while holding it’s sonic integrity and doing other things properly.

It has nothing to do with sound that we hear in listening rooms, well as least in that way how you portray it. The fact that you, I or somebody else hears no more then 12, 15 or 20 kilocycles is completely irrelevant. The only why we mistakably think about the HF amount of dB at specific frequencies is because we have a linear mathematics and machinery that calibrate for us HF. In fact those linear measurement concepts are completely not applicable at HF. there are many reasons why: starting form HF amplitude and phase resolution and ending with 8th order low-path filter that our ears have build-in at 15khz (or something like this). Yes, we do not “register” the 15Khz from the generator but we easily recognize tweeters distortion at 40khz, or PP amps phase anomalies at 25khz, or close loops HF alterations. The most important is that we very easy and with very high resolution hear those 15khz or 20khz or 25khz at certain amount of dB below the mathematical lineal zero.

For instance in my listening room I have 0dB at 10Khz. However, at 20Khz if I have minus 9 3/4 db then it sounds fine to me but the minus 9 2/4 I recognize is too bright. Furthermore, I clearly hear that a transformer with upper limit of 88Khz is less HF transparent then a transformer with 125Khz upper limit. So, it is not juts the linear numbers but rather the “linearity in decaying parabola” plus … many other things that playback dose… while it handles those numbers.

Generally, I’m very much form “full range” but of course the real full range of the reproduced realty (or the wider frequency response) is not juts adding those crappy tweeters to a playback systems…

Rgs,
Romy the caT

OK, you would seem to be saying in a more technical presentation basically what I thought (in very, very simplistic terms) the explanation would be.  So to get this straight in my head;

For instance if we seek to record a single note of a plucked guitar string say ‘A’ above  ‘middle C’.  This has a fundamental (don’t know if that’s the right term) frequency of 440Hz and will have harmonics at every octave ………27.5, 55, 110, 220, 440, 880, 1760, 3520….. 9 octaves below takes to just under 1Hz and 6 octaves above to 26kHz.  At the same time the guitar itself will resonate and reproduce both this fundamental and ‘overtones’ also at 440x2, x4, x6……and at intervals below.  It is this non-fundamental element and their relative ‘strengths’ in the overall sound, that provide the timbre and pitch signatures that identify the individual elements of the note.  No two guitars would have the same signature, therefore sound different, as would ‘A’ played on different instruments, thus the ability to hear different parts of an orchestra, even when playing the same note.  If we throw Chords into the mix, we end up with the above but add frequency ratios (and their interactions) into the mix; Major chords with a ratio of 4:5:6, Minors 10:12:15 and Diminished with 160:192:231.

OK so I accept the need to be able to go both above and below 20 to 20kHz to ensure these vital elements are present, to give better representation of the truth, but does this mean that my treble intolerance to most modern hi-fi equipment is indicative that I don’t like the truth as presented or is the sonic signature portrayed inaccurate and this is the reason for my discomfort.  If the latter then I just need to get better equipment, if the former........

PW