Please explain PRaT.

[Colinjg]

There are numerous words we all, and the HiFi  media, use to describe sound and the differences we all hear.  It is not easy to describe sounds and some terms work better than others.

However PRat is one I've always struggled with, particularly the word timing which is used in isolation a lot. ( It has great timing!!  It times like a ......) For example.

I would imagine PACE is dictated by the speed of my turntable motor and my CD player disc speed. Although I do understand that some speakers can sound slow at low frequencies.

  RHYTHM.  Well I know what the word means.  

TIMING.  I'm sure it doesn't mean that on some systems, for example, the drummer is suddenly out of time with the rest of the band.

Can anyone explain why this is good terminology?  Or is it marketing Bollox?

 

[CnoEvil]

Try this: https://www.tnt-audio.com/edcorner/prat_e.html

 

[Bit Perfect]

All good amps have PRat, Naim to me have latched onto it as their advertising "speak" as a PR method.

 

[Rockchild]

It’s definitely a Naim thing. a load of old tosh. Pace must be because there CDP’s spun faster.

 

[uzzy]

The problem of reviewing and putting into words the emotion you feel when you listen to loudspeakers.  So they come up with terms that the whole world then debates .. the only review that matters is your own when you sit and listen and decide for yourself.   

The thing about determining hifi equipment is really simple and I love the quote from Oz Clark when asked "how do you tell if it is a good wine or a bad wine" .. his response (equally applicable to hifi) was - "if you like it, it's good and if you don't it's bad" 

At the end of the day you need to trust your ears - after all they will be living with what you decide to buy  

 

[MartinC]

Pace, rhythm and timing are all down to the musicians that were recorded rather than anything a modern hifi can do well or badly as far as I'm concerned. 

I tend to assume when people talk about such things what they mean is how engaging the sound is to listen to. As in a system they say has good PRaT is one they enjoy listening to in terms of musical entertainment.

Just possibly good timing could relate to good transient response but I don't think this is what people mean.

 

[kernow]

It's bollocks 

thanks for reading

 

[emcc_3e]

Try this: https://www.tnt-audio.com/edcorner/prat_e.html

This was a really good way of describing this concept, thanks for sharing.

 

[Gray]

It's bollocks 

thanks for reading

No, thank you 

 

[Von Krolock]

It's bollocks 

thanks for reading

'Getting up & dancing' just like sheffield heroes the 'uman leeg.. thankfully it ferkin isn't.

 

[Gray]

Pace, rhythm and timing are all down to the musicians that were recorded rather than anything a modern hifi can do well or badly as far as I'm concerned. 

I tend to assume when people talk about such things what they mean is how engaging the sound is to listen to. As in a system they say has good PRaT is one they enjoy listening to in terms of musical entertainment.

Just possibly good timing could relate to good transient response but I don't think this is what people mean.

That's certainly what makes music engaging for me, it's what brings the necessary excitement.

 

[plasticpenguin]

It’s definitely a Naim thing. a load of old tosh. Pace must be because there CDP’s spun faster.

If your feet constantly tap when the music is playing, that is my definition of PRaT. It also indicates my socks need changing. Stilton, anyone? 

 

[dave]

Engineering perspective. I first consciously encountered this when comparing 2 cassette decks with a musician friend, one sounded slow. But they were running at the same speed. It is not really a quality I treasured so not some thing I had pursued. At the end of the 90's I had read lots of mags and even designed an amp, which got reviewed in HIfi choice so had encountered PRAT.

The K50 acquitted itself well in two presentations to the panel, with extremely consistent scoring between listeners, and between sessions.
"Very clear, informative, detailed and dramatic" wrote one panellist of the percussion piece, and of the Friend
and Fellow track he described this amp as "possibly the clearest amp yet", though he felt the vocals "could be
warmer and friendlier", a judgement that presupposes the track has this quality to start with, which is
arguable. Another described the Beethoven piano sound as "comfortable and mellow, with good scale and weight,
but lacking a little air", and most of the other comments were in the same ballpark. The average test panel
score was a good indication that this was one amplifier that emerged from the test smelling of roses.

The hands-on listening painted a picture of an amplifier that was naturally distanced, with a smooth, unprocessed
quality, though dynamics were not particularly, and there was comparatively little adrenaline in the music. The
tonal balance is notably warm, but the overall prognosis has to be favourable, in part because it is so lacking
in the usual transistory cues that the test systems built around it tended to sound very
believable.

On one hand slightly stung by these comments, and on the other amused that it had been said that an amplifier's sound tend to reflect the personality of the designer, I was wondering what was going on.

I had hooked up in the office an amp and speakers I designed very early, the amp was crap but direct coupled. it was playing when I walked in to the room one day and I could hear that it was kicking, kind of bounding along, where as the K50 playing the same music in the front room was just taking it easy.

Many years later I have even made some valve circuits the have this propulsive quality. It is to do with phase integrity in the lower registers, a slight shift low down shifts the signal in this peculiarly human / music perception way. It is not the kind of thing that "pops out" from measurements.

And for Keith's benefit, it was a real struggle, measurements v sound. It wasn't disastrous, i think just below 0.1% THD, but that was in a sweet spot,  less distortion the worse it sounded, and significantly more distortion sounded worse in a difference way...

 

[manicatel]

I always assumed it was something along the lines of 

not getting too hung up on trying to give the very deepest bass, but focusing on the upper bass region, the leading edge of the notes, the initial punch of the bass drum.......the ability for the amp to recover from giving this & being ready to give it again a fraction of a second later. Hence the big toroidal transformers in their power supplies. 

Im not techy so if on an engineering basis I’m way off, I’ll hold my hand up. I just seem to remember reading this somewhere in the dim & distant past.

 

[bigrod]

All the things mentioned are fair comments....the original music ..musicianship / recording venue  are so important..but on playback especially vinyl ..my late uncle once explained it like this... Pace Rhythm and timing is affected by where there is the greatest change/loss  of energy....in the cartridge.. ..mechanical energy is "transduced"  to electrical energy EMF  and then at the speakers....electrical energy EMF is transduced to mechanical energy..to create sound .at these 2 points energy is lost mainly in the form of heat..everything in between is travelling at the speed of light so has little effect on PRT...therefore you need a cartridge /stylus that matches the response of the speaker drivers to retain the original PRT of the performance.......but it is impossible to re-create the live performance exactly ...due to the loss of energy....makes sense in a way..

Kindest regards Julian 

 

[insider9]

Timing for me is rhythmic coherence. What gives musicality and what's very important to me. Like with pitch everyone is more sensitive to it. Some of us will hear few ms differences in timing as much as some will hear few pts in pitch.

I don't think it is marketing bollocks at all. There are brands that engage more and others that put me to sleep. It often may be to lack of Pace not necessarily Timing.

 

[bigrod]

It is certainly a matter of nuture..us older enthusiasts who first heard music on systems in the 60s "hear" differently to new enthusiasts because we have a much bigger frame of reference...my late uncle taught me how to "listen" to music not the equipment...

Can you separate individual musicians/singers but still retain the coherence of the music..

Can you position individuals within a performance..are they all playing with the same timing.and pitch...that's why we have conductors and leaders of orchestras..  and why they practice intensively for each performance..

I love all forms of music but not all of it engages me the same...and that's due to the nurture I received at a young age..

Kindest regards Julian 

 

[Tune]

 

[bigrod]

2 minutes ago, Tune said:

See that a lot at weddings  .called dad dancing..

Kindest regards Julian