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Re: Complex music v. ? on ? and ?

Well, without claiming to know for sure, I suspect that the same bent, curved transfer function that makes those rich lower order, mostly even harmonics with a touch of third in SETs, also makes a lot of IMD that may be the big factor with complex music. This thought is nothing new, but sometimes needs to be repeated. When music is very simple, the bent transfer function makes harmonics that are mostly consonant with the music, especially if they are in the lower orders, as we all know. Harmonics of one overtone might then intermodulate with others, but that just makes more harmonics that are still mostly consonant. When you add more instruments, you add more spectral components (frequencies) to the mix, and these are not necessarily harmonically attuned to one another. Now further add in noise-like signals like percussion, and you've got a lot going on. In live music situations, your ear and brain can sort out all these signals because the signals are merely adding to each other, not multiplying against each other, which is what modulation is. So in an amp, or speakers, or whatever, these things intermodulate just as the word exactly describes, to create new frequencies that fill in the quiet spots in the spectrum with non-consonant garbage. Your ear has to struggle harder against the unnatural layer of junk to sort out what’s going on in more complex passages. I’m not saying this describes everything that is going on in a SET, but I believe this plays a big role. I would think that a giant SET such as that 833 Wavac beast would have a “blown-up” transfer function. Music would ride up and down a smaller section of a bigger curve. When a smaller section of a smooth curve is viewed up close it looks straighter, ie: more linear. It might even sound less like what we’re used to hearing with SETs because the distortion, both harmonic and IMD will be less for the same volume level. But that effect should be good thing.

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