NL1 vs N2
Posted: 27 Sep 2013, 00:25
A while ago I had an NL1 home for servicing, and I took the opportunity to compare it with my NL2, since I've heard several reports that the NL1 sounds 'better', 'more powerful', 'more ballsy' etc.
I A-B's the factory programs, which essentially are the same, except that in a couple of cases they've used the extra parameters or parameter values (such as filter tracking) differently, causing the resulting sound to be different of course. Other than that, I thought they sounded identical between the machines, with one exception. The bass sounds were different, the NL1 had a more powerful bass I thought. So I decided to have a look at it in an audio editor, and recorded a couple of tones from the NL1 and then the NL2. However, when listening to the recording, suddenly the machines seemed juxtaposed: the 'powerful bass' that previously had come from the NL1 was now coming from the NL2 and vice versa.
Looking at the waveforms, it was apparent what was going on. The outputs on the NL1 are inverted (i.e. 180° out of phase) compared to the NL2. When I played back the recording on my PC, somewhere along the way there probably is a phase inversion, which explains why the machines had 'changed place' in the recording.
The effect is very pronounced in earphones, but probably less so in speakers, depending on where you are located relative them.
While the spectrum is identical, the phase relationships between the harmonics is different when inverting the phase of a sawtooth (as was the case here). Another way of looking at it is that when the speaker cone is pushing air towards you, it's not identical to it trying to pull air away when it moves in the other direction.
Here's what the sounds look like in Audacity: I can't remember which is which; at least the vertical line in the middle of the waveform display marks where I changed machines from one to the other.
Here's a link to a recording I made alternating between the NL1 and NL2, same patch all along, first in a mid range, then in the bass range, and also together with a drum machine and string pad to demonstrate what it sounds like in context too.
http://butoba.net/audio/nl2vsnl1bass.wav
Going back to the potential differences between the NL1 and NL2, I noticed that there are a couple of trimpots around the output D/A stage in the NL1. These provide adjustments for various parameters in the D/A converter. I could imagine that setting these wrong would cause distortion in the output, which might be taken for a 'better' sound, although I never tried adjusting them, not wanting to upset anything. The NL2 doesn't have those adjustments (or at least not as many, I can't remember right now), probably because it uses better quality D/A chips which don't need setting up.
Regarding the output phase difference, I went so far as to make myself a simple inverter to get the 'NL1 sound' from my NL2. A good mixer or DAW could probably do this for you too at the flick of a switch or button.
I A-B's the factory programs, which essentially are the same, except that in a couple of cases they've used the extra parameters or parameter values (such as filter tracking) differently, causing the resulting sound to be different of course. Other than that, I thought they sounded identical between the machines, with one exception. The bass sounds were different, the NL1 had a more powerful bass I thought. So I decided to have a look at it in an audio editor, and recorded a couple of tones from the NL1 and then the NL2. However, when listening to the recording, suddenly the machines seemed juxtaposed: the 'powerful bass' that previously had come from the NL1 was now coming from the NL2 and vice versa.
Looking at the waveforms, it was apparent what was going on. The outputs on the NL1 are inverted (i.e. 180° out of phase) compared to the NL2. When I played back the recording on my PC, somewhere along the way there probably is a phase inversion, which explains why the machines had 'changed place' in the recording.
The effect is very pronounced in earphones, but probably less so in speakers, depending on where you are located relative them.
While the spectrum is identical, the phase relationships between the harmonics is different when inverting the phase of a sawtooth (as was the case here). Another way of looking at it is that when the speaker cone is pushing air towards you, it's not identical to it trying to pull air away when it moves in the other direction.
Here's what the sounds look like in Audacity: I can't remember which is which; at least the vertical line in the middle of the waveform display marks where I changed machines from one to the other.
Here's a link to a recording I made alternating between the NL1 and NL2, same patch all along, first in a mid range, then in the bass range, and also together with a drum machine and string pad to demonstrate what it sounds like in context too.
http://butoba.net/audio/nl2vsnl1bass.wav
Going back to the potential differences between the NL1 and NL2, I noticed that there are a couple of trimpots around the output D/A stage in the NL1. These provide adjustments for various parameters in the D/A converter. I could imagine that setting these wrong would cause distortion in the output, which might be taken for a 'better' sound, although I never tried adjusting them, not wanting to upset anything. The NL2 doesn't have those adjustments (or at least not as many, I can't remember right now), probably because it uses better quality D/A chips which don't need setting up.
Regarding the output phase difference, I went so far as to make myself a simple inverter to get the 'NL1 sound' from my NL2. A good mixer or DAW could probably do this for you too at the flick of a switch or button.
