What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?

[Jud]

Very surprised no one has pointed out the very simple example of aural illusions.  There are such illusions, many well known, just like optical ones.  So while the actual sonic properties can be measured, the repeatable perceptions that do not correspond with those measurements cannot be, except by reports of listeners.

 

Now this may not be what you are actually looking for, though I think it corresponds with what you asked.

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, Jud said:

Very surprised no one has pointed out the very simple example of aural illusions.  There are such illusions, many well known, just like optical ones.  So while the actual sonic properties can be measured, the repeatable perceptions that do not correspond with those measurements cannot be, except by reports of listeners.

 

Now this may not be what you are actually looking for, though I think it corresponds with what you asked.

 

By the way: Just as there are optical illusions where the perceived result cannot be predicted (the drawing of the box where you can "flip" your perception of which side is closest  to you is one example), there are also aural illusions whose perceived results cannot be reliably predicted.  So this is not like imaging, where predictable effects can be produced by the correct inputs.

[Jud]

OK, yet another perspective.   This is sort of the inverse to what you have asked, but may actually get closer to the spirit of your question than my previous response, which was closer to the "letter."

 

Think of visual "captchas," where there is a visual pattern humans can recognize, but not machines.  The sonic equivalent is a song that  is in a different key, the rhythm is altered, some of the notes are changed (e.g., a jazz interpretation), or a song recorded for 33 1/3 played back at 45 (or one played back with a variable speed "wow" effect).  Humans can recognize it as the same song, but machines/measurements very possibly will not.

 

This is similarity rather than difference, but it is uncontroversial that humans can perceive it and it cannot be measured.

 

[Jud]

5 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

i.e.,

 

 

Where is Bill Watterson now that we need him?

[Jud]

4 hours ago, audiventory said:

 

Any really audible difference is measurable, because modern measurement tools are more sensitive than ears.

To measurement the difference need take proper tool.

 

Depending on what Bill means by the question, this is trivially true.  Just as we can't see stars and galaxies that can be detected with a telescope and CCD, or objects as small as can be detected with a microscope, so it is trivially true we can't hear acoustic waves the most sensitive microphones can detect, or that show up on a scope barely above the thermal noise of the most sensitive detection equipment.

 

So if we truly are talking about electro-acoustic phenomena only, we can all go on to the next thread.

 

As has been pointed out wrt imaging, even there we have reliable measurements of what produces the phenomenon, as we do of what produces the stereo effect of an instrument or singer in a location that doesn't really exist between two separate speakers.

 

That's why I've gone to examples where humans reliably perceive things machines can't.  This occurs *only* in the perceptual realm, i.e., our heads.  If we want to exclude this - if it's not the sort of thing Bill was looking for - then, as noted before, I think we're done here.

[Jud]

OK, here's another: "Hearing into the noise."  As @Miska has referred to in the context of training sonar operators, and as those of us who tuned in distant AM radio stations as kids that we listened to through all sorts of static and interference can attest, people are able to recognize "signal" - speech, music, the sound of a parent's, child's, or friend's voice in the midst of a group - even when some or all of that signal is below the level of other sounds in the environment.  If you looked at a scope capture of what came through your radio from one of those old so-staticky-it-was-just-barely-audible AM stations, the signal part might well not be apparent amidst the noise.

 

All the examples I've mentioned have something in common: pattern recognition/matching.  At the present moment, humans have greater capability than instruments or computers for at least some types of pattern matching.

[Jud]

15 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Well, I'm still lost as to what you and Jud are implying, possibly regarding spatial rendition, or who this "we" is  (btw, I'm going to presume Scott is referring to stereophonic soundfields)

 

Have a look for example here, particularly at the figures: http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=208

 

Human perception of the sound in the Cambiata Illusion is partly dependent on "nature" (nearly all right-handers perceive the higher tones in the right ear and the lower tones in the left; many lefthanders perceive the opposite), and partly on "nurture" (some left-handers in our righty-dominated culture perceive the tones as right-handers do).

 

This is, as I said, the brain forming a perception of sound at variance with the actual notes.  A measuring instrument will not measure what we hear in this instance.

[Jud]

9 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Ok, thanks gotcha. Yes, that's why I asked Scott specifically about what was being measured, the soundfield or the person.

In your example, indeed it is the person who would be measured for such phenomena.

So it is actually unrelated to the electro-acoustic equipment generated soundfield, which is unchanged, but different peoples perception of it is changing.

 

Yep, precisely.  As noted, there's no electro-acoustic phenomenon I can think of that we don't have better detectors for than human senses.

 

What causes this illusion is the brain matching/recognizing a pattern at variance with the sounds.  This pattern matching/recognition ability is also at work when "hearing into the noise."

[Jud]

Just now, wgscott said:

OK.  It took us awhile to get here,

 

When someone claims that we cannot measure everything in audio, what they really mean is we cannot predict human psychological dispositions from physical measurements, not that we cannot measure the entire output of a DAC or a speaker or whatever piece of expensive audio equipment is under discussion.

 

So if you have a USB doohicky where you cannot measure its improvement on a system, this is because the improvement resides entirely within the minds of the listeners?

 

Sure, could be.  Or could be that we haven't done the measurements/tests that would show it so far.  I think we should buy a hundred ISO Regens for listening tests, using fMRIs of the subjects to avoid the Iowa Gambling Task problem:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_gambling_task

 

Quote

Concurrent measurement of galvanic skin response shows that healthy participants show a "stress" reaction to hovering over the bad decks after only 10 trials, long before conscious sensation that the decks are bad.

 

In fact we should buy two hundred so we can set up one ISO Regen per channel (mono music) and allow simultaneous comparison to avoid echoic memory issues.

 

What say we all?

[Jud]

Just now, AJ Soundfield said:

Hah, I've long advocated for fMRI tests of audiophiles, when acoustic soundfields refuse to reveal anything 

But then it begs the question as to why there was so much backlash against measurements of the device???

 

Aside from personalities, I would say the overarching issue is something @The Computer Audiophile, I and others mentioned during the course of the thread: Many folks are here to have a pleasant chat about their listening impressions.  Others are really interested in getting to the bottom of this stuff.  I'm happy with both, but some folks like one and much dislike the other.

 

Just now, AJ Soundfield said:

Btw, thanks for that Diana Deutch link. Of course, the defacto standard for the JASA is controlled/blind listening tests, even for the tones illusion thing cited.

Do you know of any commercial music that demonstrates this type of illusion, is is it really a remote outlier? 

 

That illusion is a remote outlier. 

 

For me, the greater interest is in other issues the existence of illusions raises, such as what sonic characteristics provide each of us the greatest illusion of "reality."  An example I've used is Vandersteen speakers.  They have as a stated design goal "time and phase correct"[ness].  To achieve this, the crossovers they use cause a "hump" in the speakers' overall frequency response curves.  So which gives a listener the greatest illusion of reality - the imaging/"soundstage" qualities of the time and phase aspects of the design, or a flatter frequency response curve?  And does this vary per listener, as the results of the Cambiata Illusion do?  How does it vary - by genetics/birth, environment throughout life, the audio systems one's owned and listened to over the years, all of these?

[Jud]

3 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Gosh, you caught me.  Seriously, loved the movie.  Love Werner Herzog, the director.  Always mesmerized by actor Klaus Kinski. 

 

"Ich will ein Opferhaus!"

 

And having 3000 Native South Americans haul a steamboat over a big old hill in the middle of a forest with ropes is kinda a fun thing to decide to re-create in reality, ain't it?

 

 The Native Americans were apparently none too pleased with Herzog by the end of things, and Kinski was pretty pissed himself.  Herzog famously kept him from walking off the film by pulling a pistol.  A while later, I read a film magazine interview in which Kinski, asked about his experience with Herzog on the film, hollered at the interviewer "This much idiot no one has ever been in the world!"

 

Loved the film.

 

OK everyone, back to your regularly scheduled argument.

 

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, mansr said:

Was that originally spoken in German? It feels like it should have been.

 

I have a feeling it was not, though the pistol story and that quote are about as much as I remember decades later.

[Jud]

31 minutes ago, mansr said:

Well, being German, maybe he expressed himself like that while speaking English.

 

I'm thinking that's more likely than such a literal, awkward translation.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

 

There are many people with broader and deeper technical audio knowledge here than me and I wasn't afraid to admit it more than one time on some occasions. Part of the problem with some (in fact most) objectivists here is that they never say: 'I can't hear the difference' or 'I've never heard such a difference'. What they say instead is eg:

Meaning in fact: 'you hear things that are not there - you are delusional!'

The first gear that comes to my mind as far as fantastic source/DAC soundstaging/imaging is concerned is DCS.

 

Some excerpts from yet another delusionist's (his name is Michael Fremer) DCS Vivaldi review:

 

'The MSB combo had produced the best digital sound I'd heard. It was clearly a leap forward from the dCS Scarlattis' playback of CD and hi-rez PCM recordings, particularly in terms of overall openness and three-dimensional, widescreen sound'

'The Vivaldis' overall sound was as nondigital, transparent, and—especially—as three-dimensional and spacious as I've experienced with digital.'

'With those instruments and voices, the effect produces a startling jump-from-the-speaker immediacy and in-the-room three-dimensionality.'

'The dCS Vivaldi components produced a texturally supple, delicate, musically involving sound filled with color and life. Their soundstaging and imaging capabilities surpass what I thought was possible from digital.'

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/dcs-vivaldi-digital-playback-system

 

Have you ever had a chance to compare a good high end DAC like DCS with a relatively cheap one in a quality system with good soundstaging.? If not - wouldn't you be tempted to? Most dealers will willingly  organise a listening session like that. Do it. Maybe you'll join the delusionists club  Maybe not...

 

I agree. But 'often' is the key word in this sentence. It's just one of the speakers designers tricks.

If you want real bass speed while maintaining (relatively, of course) flat low frequencies response you need a bass driver with good impulse charecteristics and an amp with high damping factor. It's all about the driver's control - making it ready to 'go' and 'stop' as quickly and dynamically as possible and impulse characteristic and dumping factor play the key role here. FR modifications in this case are just aimed at tricking our ears.

 

 

sphinx, don't fall prey to the thing about "If you had a chance to listen to a really good system...," which is kinda just the flip side of "You're deluding yourself."  esldude has had equipment through his system, and equipment he currently owns, that would be the envy of many (most?) here.

 

I'm just wondering if there are any of us who can grant that today is not the day we finally convince the "other side," and open ourselves to the possibility we all have much we can learn and enjoy from each other.  

 

I happily admit all the frailties and caveats associated with my personal evaluations, and the degree to which my decisions involve trusting others to be pointed in a general direction that seems promising or plausible.  I also welcome all opportunities to learn that may help me make good or even better decisions in the future.

 

And while I do that, esldude happily admits for his part that he doesn't ask dealers to blind test equipment before purchase.

 

We're all in this audiophile "boat" together, let's see if we can concentrate on enjoying the trip and what everyone else here has to offer.

[Jud]

12 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

I thought we were all bozos on a bus.

 

All hail Marx and Lennon!

[Jud]

Long, long ago, Bell Labs/Western Electric came to the conclusion a perfect loudspeaker would be a sphere of energy.  (Something like the Hill Plasmatronics, but full range and, oh yes, not poisoning people who breathed near them.)  You'd just need 8 of these, one in each of the corners of the room, radiation patterns adjusted continuously for room acoustics and instrument radiation patterns....

[Jud]

1 hour ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I'm guessing no one here has heard of Dr Griesinger and LARES

 

More LARES

 

Lexicon then went on to do great things with Oppo. 

[Jud]

17 hours ago, esldude said:

So returning to the original question, we still have nothing. Right?

 

So long as the question says "unmeasurable," nope, other than the aural illusions/pattern matching I mentioned awhile back.  And I'm not sure how relevant those, even the ability to "hear into the noise," would ever be for audio.

[Jud]

Something I don't know that we've talked about much is the analogy between circuit components and system components.  There are two potentially fruitful lines of inquiry here that I can think of:

 

- Can you (has anyone) simulated system components using something like SPICE, to try to get a better handle on the complex interactions in a system with multiple components and interconnections?

 

- Certainly the electrical behavior of individual circuit components is quite well understood.  Are there reliable, completely descriptive measurements that tell us why some of these components are sought after as being considered to sound better than others, even where the "usual specs" are identical?

[Jud]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

Are those perceptions real or imagined?

 

Always a pertinent question.  Many folks who aren't ready to grant such differences in other areas of controversy are definitive about them in certain components.  I was thinking specifically about Nelson Pass, who I believe is a skeptic when it comes to cable differences, but is very devoted to certain old stock transistors over and above new ones of identical spec.  Whether there's some very prosaic reason for this (e.g., noise?), I don't know.

[Jud]

12 minutes ago, mansr said:

Are those perceptions real or imagined?

 

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Always a pertinent question.  Many folks who aren't ready to grant such differences in other areas of controversy are definitive about them in certain components.  I was thinking specifically about Nelson Pass, who I believe is a skeptic when it comes to cable differences, but is very devoted to certain old stock transistors over and above new ones of identical spec.  Whether there's some very prosaic reason for this (e.g., noise?), I don't know.

 

See also (though not a blind test) this, which is very (tiresomely?) familiar to many of you by now: https://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/entry/342-semi-customized-dac-part-v-rollin-rollin-rollin/

[Jud]

1 minute ago, Albrecht said:

As a matter of both respect & knowledge, it's best to assume that any perception is 100% real: unless of course you attended the event and have sat right next to the person making the claim.

 

I think we can grant that some of us credit the sensory perceptions of ourselves and others 100%, others not at all, others somewhere in between, and we can, as a matter of respect, discuss all of these things congenially.

[Jud]

Kids, kids....

 

Looks like folks just wanna argue, and I'm not gonna stop it.  I'm dead sure that this the 10,000th time is the magic one, when your reasoning will convince everyone else.

 

Now, for anyone still bothering to look for a congenial discussion, in response to mmerrill99's pertinent question: Of course you *don't* "prove" something "to all objectivists," any more than objectivists will manage to "prove" to you in the context of a social forum that what they are saying is correct.  What you do is accept that inevitability and if you wish have a nice chat with your friendly neighborhood objectivist (or, for objectivists, your friendly local subjectivist) to see whether there is anything you can learn.  I've learned lots, but it is quite possible you all know much more than I do and can't learn anything new.  Since I enjoy learning so much, to me this would be sad.

[Jud]

By the way, meanwhile, in the rush to argue it seems no one had time to answer my question, and I would be interested to learn if anyone knows something about this: Have there been efforts to do computer simulations of the interactions between pieces of equipment in an audio system along similar lines to SPICE simulations for components in an electrical circuit?

[Jud]

Just now, wgscott said:

 

Now you know how I feel.

 

But, then, we are only one page 12.

 

I *think* I've already answered it a few times, at least as it was asked.  If you mean the (to me) more interesting questions of whether we always know what to measure, or whether we always measure in the right experimental conditions, or whether we yet know precisely how measurements relate to our subjective sense of whether we're hearing something close to the recorded event, I don't think we're there yet.

 

Is there any piece of audio equipment for which we've not only taken measurements, but shown under laboratory conditions in double blind tests of sufficient power that these measurements account for all variability in the test results (while making sure to account also for any false negatives as a result of the transience of echoic memory, and the difference between fMRIs or other objective measurements and conscious verbal responses - what I've called the "Iowa gambling test" problem)?  I'm thinking perhaps not.