DIYHiFi.org

OK, a chance for me to make one crucial point.

Actually I don't believe that much can be explained by the content of harmonic distortion. Many of those distortion content theories come from the time when people were not able to actually measure it, so it was a nice excuse. I do am aware of that many shiny careers have been made on this, and a lot of money has been earned this way, but no, I just don't see any firm relation.

If some equipment sounds good and has high harmonic distortion, it is not because of it, but in spite of it. And the cause is somewhere else.

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And, regarding the graphs I posted... I looked at my archive again, and I will have to apologize and correct myself. All I can say in my defense is that I measured all this more than half year ago, and apparently memory fades...

So, two graphs that show performance with 0.5V RMS input are not showing performance at -20dB and -40dB attenuation, but with -20dB and -40dB output, and reference level (0 dB) here was 2V RMS. So, attenuation is, respectively, -8dB and -28dB.

[It will be welcome if Pedro and others can correct this in the post above.]
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All in all - the solution with the lowest distortion has to be the preferred solution if everything else is done right, which is why I'll try out the series resistor + LDR shunt, although it goes against the listening tests of most of the folks posting at diyaudio. There is a thread on Greg Ball's SKA forum that analyses the series resistor + LDR shunt if you are looking for more info on this config, and the theory on that thread is that its the resistance material that gives it the magic and why the series LDR + shunt LDR sounds so good. I'll try a good quality resistor instead of the series LDR as I don't need a huge attenuation range, and get the benefits of lower total distortion added.

I came back about hour ago. Got to finish some stuff now and to sleep fast, so shortly...

Fascinating. They started at about 8:40, and with about 30 minutes pause, they played until midnight, so almost three hours net. They "didn't come to Belgrade to fool (us)". Was it the best concert I've seen? Not sure, but one of the best, no doubt. And the man is 75.

Glad you enjoyed it . Starting at 8:40 is unusual for Lenny, he's usually 8:00 sharp.

I saw him last year on his first tour of the world & I would rate that concert better than this summers concert - it was more joyful, maybe less practised & a bit more energy - I imagine the guy (& the band ) are pretty exhausted doing 3 hour concerts probably 3-4 times a week. For a 75 year old he's sprightly enough!

It was actually supposed to start at 8:30, so delay was really small... And I admittedly didn't check it exactly, and maybe it was less than 10 minutes.

[To avoid further off topic here, the follow-up is in the Musique area.]

Hello
I just read your article and it is quite informative about "LDR as a volume control". But is this approach something that you would use in your system for volume? I'm trying to understand why this solution gets rave reviews - is it audio voodoo at play or is there some real science behind why this solution apparently works well?

Thanks........

[edited by carlosfm as moderator to remove link]

why is there a link to Geomatics in that previous post?

Michael, Andrew is right and I have removed the link from your post.
It is not necessary, not audio related, looks like spam...
Back on topic.

I wouldn’t use t in my system. Based on subjective experience, this technology is promising, but at technical level it is still not mature. It is not only about that not accepting an attenuator that distorts this high, but more important, it is about performance that varies over the attenuation range. Besides, it needs adjustment so it clumsy for what it does.

Still, it is not "voodoo" just because there is no scientific explanation.

The rest is about human nature, audiophiles, DIY-ers and "DIY"-ers, and the key word is "new".