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Author Topic: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?  (Read 106053 times)

Geri O'Neil

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #140 on: January 06, 2013, 07:56:58 PM »

Geri O
(I am in no way casting disparagement or endorsement of anyone's opinion expressed in this discussion. I'm a "live and let live" kinda guy. But with 2 grandkids running around playing iPads and haven g fun, this came to me in my mind and I had to chuckle. And wanted to share.)
« Last Edit: January 06, 2013, 08:12:11 PM by Geri O'Neil »
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #141 on: January 06, 2013, 08:02:36 PM »

A classic Geri O moment.

Housekeeping!!!!!!  Cleanup in aisle 5.
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Spenser Hamilton

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #142 on: January 06, 2013, 08:46:39 PM »

Geri O
(I am in no way casting disparagement or endorsement of anyone's opinion expressed in this discussion. I'm a "live and let live" kinda guy. But with 2 grandkids running around playing iPads and haven g fun, this came to me in my mind and I had to chuckle. And wanted to share.)

I liked this over on Soundforums, wish I could like it here too!
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Peter Morris

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #143 on: January 07, 2013, 04:26:46 AM »

Here you go … the Midas XL3 Pre amp design … not hard to find !
http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/STARINMANUALS/Bosch%20-%20Midas/Manual/XL3%20-%20Long.pdf

and for JR … one of my favourites, designed by a friend of mine some time ago ... and still good.
http://www.leonaudio.com.au/double.balanced.mic.amp.notes.pdf  PS note the slide rule  ;)
 
« Last Edit: January 07, 2013, 04:29:38 AM by Peter Morris »
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Ivan Feder

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #144 on: January 07, 2013, 05:44:31 AM »

Geri O
(I am in no way casting disparagement or endorsement of anyone's opinion expressed in this discussion. I'm a "live and let live" kinda guy. But with 2 grandkids running around playing iPads and haven g fun, this came to me in my mind and I had to chuckle. And wanted to share.)

Dos Equis, what else!  8)
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Airton Pereira

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #145 on: January 07, 2013, 06:49:42 AM »

I noticed a great improvment when I switched a old Behringer analog mixer to a new LS9-32. Love it. Anyway, although I think LS9 and M7 sound as great as any console at these price points, my guess is the new consoles are 4-5 years newer and benefit from the new technologies. I'm sure the new CL series sound good as any other board.
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David Sturzenbecher

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #146 on: January 07, 2013, 09:44:54 AM »

Would there be benefit to posting transfer functions of some consoles for investigation?   If you can hear it, it should be in the bode plots, TF/Phase. Since we would only ever use a console as a whole unit, it only makes sense to look at each desk as a whole.
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Scott Helmke

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #147 on: January 07, 2013, 10:19:16 AM »

Would there be benefit to posting transfer functions of some consoles for investigation?   If you can hear it, it should be in the bode plots, TF/Phase. Since we would only ever use a console as a whole unit, it only makes sense to look at each desk as a whole.

I did a few tests like that a couple years ago, basically got curious to see if there was a difference.  For the most part the magnitude was ruler flat (with whatever little blip above 20kHz where the filtering kicked in).  Phase would have been ruler flat, except that I could never really get the timing to line up exactly between the DUT and SMAART.

One exception I can remember is a Soundcraft Si3, which had a little bit of boost in the upper mids / treble.  Nothing more than a dB, but measurable.

Would be interesting to measure distortion, though.  You can do that with SMAART, but I just didn't think of trying it.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #148 on: January 07, 2013, 11:16:20 AM »

Digital is not perfect but it's damn good by classic audio metrics. Frequency response is quite good, while a good analog console will be flat too. Phase shift gets a little funny to measure because of latency. Digital paths have small fixed delays involved with conversions and some processes.

One analog measure that still matters is analog noise floor since that will always be above the strictly digital quantization floor (this is a good thing since a quantization noise floor is not very benign sounding.) Distortion has long been a kitchen sink type measurement (THD+N) where everything that isn't pure test signal is distortion. Digital paths do very well in this regard (as long as we ignore short fixed delays, and we do).

Digital offers up enough new metrics to keep the slick merchandisers busy inventing arguments for why their digital platform is different and better than the next one, but these are generally minute phenomenon down in the noise floor.

This is another case where the sundry digital platforms are more alike than different, while this has been mentioned before the console (any console) is the "straight wire with gain" part of any audio chain, especially compared to transducers and human hearing.

There will always be subtle differences between audio paths, but more significant differences between control interfaces. Console ergonomics is a high art that even I barely understand, and I have been studying this for decades. A short list includes obvious things like control laws and EQ voicing, but there are more subtle factors that affect the subjective experience.

And one very important last one, the badge or brand on the unit. Many a sound person has improved their subjective experience by covering up the Peavey badge. Uli is doing yoemans work to polish his brand image, as if reborn anew and the past never happened. Yamaha has long existed in the paradoxical no-mans land of servicing both the professional high end and value (low) ends of the market (pursuing all the money). Few mange to be successful in just one or the other so their success in both is notable.

This is an interesting question, but I suggest we need to inspect each poster's former experiences with Yamaha gear. The lasting subjective impressions may depend on which end of yamaha's product offering they were most exposed to.

JR
 
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Frank Koenig

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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
« Reply #149 on: January 07, 2013, 01:28:08 PM »

Here you go … the Midas XL3 Pre amp design … not hard to find !
http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/STARINMANUALS/Bosch%20-%20Midas/Manual/XL3%20-%20Long.pdf

Thanks for these. Always interesting to look a the various ways to skin a cat. (The Midas mic pre is on or around page 65 of the manual.)

I'll stick my neck out and say that to the extent that there are any audible differences between MODERN, decent mic pres (other than noise floor) it is due to differences in the network that goes between the mic and the first gain stage. This network needs to do several things that lead to some design tradeoffs. In no particular order:

*Preserve common mode rejection.
*Supply phantom power, when needed.
*Provide electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection.
*Provide radio frequency rejection.
*Preserve noise performance.
*Determine the electrical load on the mic.

I probably missed some. JR?

Generally, providing better protection against the insults of high voltage and RF forces you to take a screwing in noise, and maybe high frequency response, if you get extreme. Also, depending on the design, more expensive components, such as better matched resistors and larger coupling caps could make a small difference in noise performance. And some mics might be affected by the load on them.

But after that it's all just gain, so as long as you don't overdrive it I doubt anyone can hear the difference between any reasonable audio op amps.

Now ADCs, and perhaps their drive circuits and anti-aliasing filters, might still get better. After all, no ADC has low enough noise to use all 24 bits and maybe, MAYBE there are some other artifacts of the conversion process that could be audible in some circumstances.

I while back I was playing with a signal generator and a cheap ADC running at 48 kHz and found that if I blasted enough 25 kHz into it I could indeed hear a 1 kHz tone (the expected aliasng product). Would this ever make a difference on speech or music coming out of a mic -- I doubt it. (Maybe if you jangle your keys really hard in front of an Earthworks.)

--Frank
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Re: Why no love for the 'sound' of Yamaha digital consoles?
ยซ Reply #149 on: January 07, 2013, 01:28:08 PM ยป


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