Measurements and Our ears

[wgscott]

On 4/20/2017 at 9:42 AM, Jud said:

 

If so, then why, in reverberant rooms, do people evaluating speakers almost uniformly perceive a slightly falling frequency response as flat?

 

Because reverberant rooms reverberate.

 

(Whaddi miss?)

[wgscott]

On 4/20/2017 at 9:44 AM, Jud said:

 

For UV light, sure.  But let's beware of extending this principle too far (think of optical or auditory illusions - we plainly see or hear what isn't there).

 

The audio analogues to those kinds of optical illusions are easily replicated, provided you have expensive-enough cables.

[wgscott]

On 4/20/2017 at 10:43 AM, Jud said:

Our ear-brain systems are funny old things - frequency response affects perception of distance, reverberation affects perception of frequency response....

 

Old affects perception of frequency (and what is funny).

[wgscott]

On 4/20/2017 at 1:27 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I totally understand filling in what isn't there, but it's impossible to fill in what one has never heard. 

 

I know what you are saying, but if this was strictly true, language and grammar would deteriorate every generation.  It was the observation that this doesn't happen that motivated Chomsky to figure out what is innate.

[semente]

1 hour ago, Daudio said:

Hearing Differently

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

A new book just appeared on the scene today:  Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently by Beau Lotto

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deviate-Science-Differently-Beau-Lotto/dp/0316300195

 

The reviews highlight the same Perception-is-not-Reality dichotomy, that was just discussed here, and is a major theme of the book.  I do not want to rekindle talk on that subject, since I don't think it is important to understanding audiophile hearing, but since this just popped up, some might like to read further into it.

I very much liked the review by Jonathan Rée, as among other things, it warned me that I would have a problem with some of the authors ‘neuroscience philosophy’, but none-the-less probably get something out of his layman’s discussion of his experimental results.

 

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/22/deviate-the-science-of-seeing-differently-by-beau-lotto-review

 

"I also went back to a book about perception that enjoyed a huge vogue in the 1970s. Eye and Brain by the late Richard Gregory comprises a full-colour collection of optical illusions together with a commentary on the physics and neurology of vision, providing a triumphant demonstration that, as Gregory put it, seeing an object “involves many sources of information beyond those meeting the eye”.” - Jonathan Rée, The Guardian, 22 April 2017

 

FYI, I read that book, back then, so not big news to me now. Well worth your time if you are interested in such things.

 

another review snippet:

 

“You might also want to ask why a 21st-century book about perception is printed in black and white and shades of grey without a dash of colour”

 

(remind you of anything close at hand ?)

 

 

 

What does he say about seeing the reproduction of an object?

Because audio is the recording and consequently the reproduction of a musical event (unless we are talking about music produced in the mixing console)...

 

R

 

 

[Ralf11]

reverberation amplitude and the delay time both affect how it is heard - can be an echo, a sense of spaciousness or nada depending

 

I posted a cite for the Handbook of Acoustics in another thread a week or so ago; they cite the journal articles for these results

 

re the gregory book - who is he and what are his conclusions based on?

 

Here is a tip (and I will toss it out for free so no one has to enroll as a graduate student):

 

The first section of a scientific article to read is the Methods section.  If the methodology is inadequate to address the goal of the study then there is no reason to waste time reading the rest of the article.

[Daudio]

1 hour ago, semente said:

What does he say about seeing the reproduction of an object?

R,

Don't know, haven't read the book (it was just released today), and I don't even know what you are asking, or why... 

 

 

27 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

re the gregory book - who is he and what are his conclusions based on?

 

Read it and find out for yourself. Don't expect me do do your work for you. And, I expect it could do you a lot of good, considering some of the... odd... things I have seen you say around here.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

Because reverberant rooms reverberate.

 

(Whaddi miss?)

 

Can't find a hole in your logic.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

I know what you are saying, but if this was strictly true, language and grammar would deteriorate every generation.  It was the observation that this doesn't happen that motivated Chomsky to figure out what is innate.

 

It's a little bit like biological evolution.  There are some things that are conserved (some types of grammar rules, for example), some that change rapidly (like terms related to science and tech), and the great bulk of things that change at a "background rate."  And it occurs in populations rather than individuals (no individual suddenly started speaking French rather than Frankish or Latin, just as no particular animal was born a Homo sapiens to parents of an ancestral species).

[mmerrill99]

4 hours ago, semente said:

 

 

What does he say about seeing the reproduction of an object?

Because audio is the recording and consequently the reproduction of a musical event (unless we are talking about music produced in the mixing console)...

 

R

 

 

If you watch his TED talk you will realise that what he is saying is that perception is context dependent i.e what surrounds the object of perception (his focus is vision).

 

 

The main thrust of his message is that perception is an internal creation & has nothing to do with reality - it is the making of useful information from the data of the electrical signals coming from our senses. It doesn't matter whether these signals are the result of 'actual' or 'reproduced' - they are judged in the same way - "do they make sense?"

[Ralf11]

3 hours ago, Daudio said:

R,

Don't know, haven't read the book (it was just released today), and I don't even know what you are asking, or why... 

 

 

 

Read it and find out for yourself. Don't expect me do do your work for you. And, I expect it could do you a lot of good, considering some of the... odd... things I have seen you say around here.

 

I only read things that are worthwhile.  What you feel is odd, is most likely due to your lack of understanding of reality.

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

It's a little bit like biological evolution.  There are some things that are conserved (some types of grammar rules, for example), some that change rapidly (like terms related to science and tech), and the great bulk of things that change at a "background rate."  And it occurs in populations rather than individuals (no individual suddenly started speaking French rather than Frankish or Latin, just as no particular animal was born a Homo sapiens to parents of an ancestral species).

 

I don't know that Chomsky's deep structure ideas apply to thing like word choice.  I also wonder who contributed more to understanding laguage:  Noam Chomsky, or Nim Chimpsky

[Daudio]

54 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I only read things that are worthwhile.  What you feel is odd, is most likely due to your lack of understanding of reality.

 

Oh, the delicious irony 

 

You are now IGNORED, for low-info, arrogant, thread diarrhea.

[Ralf11]

 

[mmerrill99]

Have never seen any pearls from you, just the irritation of a grain of sand!

[lucretius]

On 2017-04-20 at 11:23 AM, wgscott said:

Let's say your eyes detect blue light with 40% efficiency and yellow light with 90% efficiency (I'm making up these numbers, so don't take the details seriously). A good camera should enable you to produce a neutral representation of an outdoor scene.  But if your eyes see yellow light much better than blue light, the photo shouldn't "look" neutral to you, unless your brain is actually doing some sort of internal compensation or correction. 

 

Wait a minute.  If the photo is a good represention of reality and the photo doesn't "look" neutral to you, then reality will not "look" neutral either. Similarly, shouldn't the goal of music playback be to represent what the sound would be like live or without the playback equipment?

[wgscott]

3 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Wait a minute.  If the photo is a good represention of reality and the photo doesn't "look" neutral to you, then reality will not "look" neutral either. Similarly, shouldn't the goal of music playback be to represent what the sound would be like live or without the playback equipment?

 

That was exactly the point I was making.  

[Albrecht]

4 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Wait a minute.  If the photo is a good represention of reality and the photo doesn't "look" neutral to you, then reality will not "look" neutral either. Similarly, shouldn't the goal of music playback be to represent what the sound would be like live or without the playback equipment?

Rarely.....

For some people sure... But for many, many, many, artists, the goal of the recording should be what is best for the song. There are so many "artists" who have ZERO interest in making a record that sounds like what they sound like live, and it is impossible anyway. It could be something as simple as the artist/producer feeling like a violin part is really needed on the song, yet there is no one in the band who can play the violin. Or hauling around a 450lb Hammond organ. Or breaking glass in the hallway.....

As a songwriter and coproducer, I was only ever interested in making a recording that would make the song the best that it could be as written. Playing the song live, was an entirely different goal.

[lucretius]

16 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

Rarely.....

For some people sure... But for many, many, many, artists, the goal of the recording should be what is best for the song. There are so many "artists" who have ZERO interest in making a record that sounds like what they sound like live, and it is impossible anyway. It could be something as simple as the artist/producer feeling like a violin part is really needed on the song, yet there is no one in the band who can play the violin. Or hauling around a 450lb Hammond organ. Or breaking glass in the hallway.....

As a songwriter and coproducer, I was only ever interested in making a recording that would make the song the best that it could be as written. Playing the song live, was an entirely different goal.

 

I don't think this changes the argument but rather just makes it more complex. For example, shouldn't a violin (as in your example) sound exactly like a violin, regardless of how the "violin" sound was actually created?

[Jud]

4 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

Rarely.....

For some people sure... But for many, many, many, artists, the goal of the recording should be what is best for the song. There are so many "artists" who have ZERO interest in making a record that sounds like what they sound like live, and it is impossible anyway. It could be something as simple as the artist/producer feeling like a violin part is really needed on the song, yet there is no one in the band who can play the violin. Or hauling around a 450lb Hammond organ. Or breaking glass in the hallway.....

As a songwriter and coproducer, I was only ever interested in making a recording that would make the song the best that it could be as written. Playing the song live, was an entirely different goal.

 

George Martin was of generally the same mind: the recording is art (or music, if you don't want to claim artistic merit) in itself.  I would suppose the split between whatever-makes-the-recording-sound-best and a documentary approach would be different among producers of classical music, but would still exist.

 

Actually you can hear these different approaches from the same producer: there is Johnny Cash Rick Rubin and Red Hot Chili Peppers Rick Rubin.

[Jud]

Just now, lucretius said:

 

I don't think this changes the argument but rather just makes it more complex. For example, shouldn't a violin (as in your example) sound exactly like a violin, regardless of how the "violin" sound was actually created?

 

As soon as the electric guitar was invented that argument pretty well went out the window.

[lucretius]

7 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

As soon as the electric guitar was invented that argument pretty well went out the window.

 

LOL!  Then, shouldn't the goal of consumer playback equipment be to ensure that whatever is produced in the studio sounds the same at home as it did in the studio?

[Albrecht]

Just now, lucretius said:

 

I don't think this changes the argument but rather just makes it more complex. For example, shouldn't a violin (as in your example) sound exactly like a violin, regardless of how the "violin" sound was actually created?

Perhaps... but perhaps not... Maybe it's there to "creatively" sound like a violin, or it could be an electric violin. Jean Luc Ponty had a certain violin sound that he/his producer wanted to impart, that was certainly different live, and on other recordings...

Jonsy from Sigur Ros makes many different sounds with his guitar played with a violin bow that can only be roughly approximated live. As Jud mentioned above, - I was actually going to mention Sgt Pepper's.

 

I agree and understand that it is different with classical music.

 

Our drummer used to have this amazing 1954 Ludwig Piccolo snare. He cracked that thing so hard, I had to wear earplugs, it sounded so amazing. Yet, - on a couple of our songs, - to better suit the song and what the other instruments were doing, we put a couple of small rubber drain stoppers on it, - it changed the whole character of the drum, but it sounded really cool, yet much different.

There are so many amazing things that are so creative, and really make the song... The story of Tony Visconti's flange/gate with the amp in the other room from the two mic's that David Bowie sang through on Heroes. What an amazing idea, what an amazing sound, and it really made the vocal, chorus, much more powerful, unique, and creative.....

[Albrecht]

12 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

LOL!  Then, shouldn't the goal of consumer playback equipment be to ensure that whatever is produced in the studio sounds the same at home as it did in the studio?

Hi,

Which generation? There's what it sounds like in the room, standing in front of the amp. Then there's what it sounds like on the board for the rough mixes. Then, it gets EQ'd before it gets "mixed-in" with the other other instruments: then it gets EQ'd again during mix-down to two channel. Then it gets EQ'd a 4th time at the mastering studio. Then the final CD or digital file generated sounds different yet again.

I can safely say that I've never heard any of my guitars sound the same on my home stereo as it does when I stand in front of my amp....   

Frank Zappa pretty much wrote a book about that..... One of my favorite quotes of his was something like...."I characterize my entire music career with the world failure: failure to get down on the final recording what was in my head."

But I do hear your point. I think that that is why (In my opinion) the Dead Can Dance SACDs were so good, as the original producers/Brendan/Brendan's brother were in the Mastering Studio, making sure that the re-masters sounded close to the final mixes of the recordings from the 80s.

[lucretius]

7 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

Hi,

Which generation? There's what it sounds like in the room, standing in front of the amp. Then there's what it sounds like on the board for the rough mixes. Then, it gets EQ'd before it gets "mixed-in" with the other other instruments: then it gets EQ'd again during mix-down to two channel. Then it gets EQ'd a 4th time at the mastering studio. Then the final CD or digital file generated sounds different yet again.

I can safely say that I've never heard any of my guitars sound the same on my home stereo as it does when I stand in front of my amp....   

Frank Zappa pretty much wrote a book about that..... One of my favorite quotes of his was something like...."I characterize my entire music career with the world failure: failure to get down on the final recording what was in my head."

 

Which generation? I'm talking about the master recording they signed off on. (I know, there may be an issue of who exactly is signing off.)