What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?

[STC]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Sorry, I have travelled a very different path from nearly everyone . AJ would despair about the current speakers, they're from a Sharp midfi boombox - but so far they've delivered. The drivers can take lots of power, vastly better than those on the Philips - they won't have any trouble deafening me, or giving a mic a hard time. The cabinets are too flimsy, so I will have to stiffen the panels at some stage.

 

Not mysterious, but directed from a fortuitous experience 30 years ago - that said, in big, bold letters, that what a lot of people agonise over is not that important, really - I merely follow what my ears tell me, and experiment with what makes sense, and, what costs little money!

 

 

Why is is that we have so much in common and yet very different in our approach. I too use Sharp Midfi speakers as the rear Ambio. 

[fas42]

15 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

However, this has zero to do with thread topic. The suggestion of starting own "Frank the Conjurer's rig" thread has been made...a wise one. Do it.

 

There, done ...

 

[unbalanced output]

On 2017-6-8 at 2:05 AM, 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.

 

That's in line with what I tried to propose before - how to understand the human perception of the sound waves. However, the OP did not properly bound what is the definition of "measurable" - whether can be measured and correlated in theory, or rather can be measured with commonly available equipment. Therefore there is no right answer to the question. 

[STC]

Illusion can be measured or at least there exist measurements to create the illusion. Is there any illusion that science can't explain. In fact, we knew the existence of illusion because science discovered it. 

[STC]

It is a good thing you raised about auditory illusion. Some of the examples here. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn13355-music-special-five-great-auditory-illusions/amp/

[Ralph Glasgal]

8 hours ago, semente said:

 

I can't help but smile at this...

 

Music is about sound not space, and yet for many audiophiles and audio critics space seems to be THE most important aspect of reproducing music.

I find this very, very strange.

If space is not important in human experience and music listening, why not just listen to everything with just one speaker and have the flatter frequency response that you get this way as a side benefit?  Technically, music soundfields have frequency, level, and 3D spatial attributes in equal measure.  Composers, conductors, and recording engineers cope with this acoustical triad all the time.  Good reproduction or live listening gains nothing from being spatially flat and loses a lot.  Anechoic listening is really painful. 

[Jud]

3 hours ago, STC said:

Illusion can be measured or at least there exist measurements to create the illusion. Is there any illusion that science can't explain. In fact, we knew the existence of illusion because science discovered it. 

 

Yes, I pointed to an example where the perceptual result of the aural illusion was not predictable.

 

Though science has explored illusions, it didn’t discover their existence.  Painters played with 3-D perspective on a flat surface before its rules were well established and what could be called scientific exploration of it began.

 

[unbalanced output]

Jud, the cause of illusions can be measured or prescribed (time delays, sound reflections and spatial sources). The last bit in the chain (the listener) can be judged by correlations - that's basically how sound effects were developed: closing someone inside a room and experimenting with sound sources. 

[mmerrill99]

5 hours ago, STC said:

In fact, we knew the existence of illusion because science discovered it.

Incorrect, most, if not all illusions were know about because of perceptual anomalies, not because of science.

Science uses illusions to study the inner workings of perception - they were not discovered by science

[francisleung]

11 hours ago, semente said:

 

Francis, to be honest I am struggling to understand whether you mean instrument dispersion or playback dispersion.

Hi Semente,

I mean audio system dispersion, principally the front end (DAC/turntable plus peripherals) and speakers.

To me dispersion of the sound from instruments is intrinsic, and the phenomena I described are more or less the same if I sit two, three or four metres away directly facing them in a live performance.

[francisleung]

11 hours ago, STC said:

 

Between House of the rising sun and Jazz at pawnshop the 3D effect is much superior in the former. With jazz, I do hear the sound as you describe but there is not much depth even with the ambiance speakers turned on to the max and without it rather plain, the applause is stuck to the planes of speakers. Even Patricia Barber's Black Magic Woman is more realistic where the applause is closer and around the listener. 

 

And the the drum is not too rear to the wall as you described. Is your rear wall untreated?

Hi STC,

The wall behind the speakers is untreated. The recording apparently used multiple microphones and mixing afterwards. When the drum is on solo, the tom and snare come to the front, in centre, almost to the plane of the speakers because they being louder. 

Do others hear the same coming forward of the tom and snare? If they also discern such image movement, this is the very thing I doubt whether it can be measured (relevant to the topic of the thread). The measurement only shows increase in amplitude I guess but then in other cases, increase in amplitude does not necessarily entail a moving forward of the image. 

[fas42]

8 hours ago, STC said:

It is a good thing you raised about auditory illusion. Some of the examples here. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn13355-music-special-five-great-auditory-illusions/amp/

 

High quality sound causes various illusions. The obvious one for me is that the left and right speakers become totally impossible to locate, irrespective of any attempts to 'force' one's hearing to discern them. And true mono source played over stereo speakers "tracks" one's position when you move sideways - it's always "in front of you".

[STC]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Yes, I pointed to an example where the perceptual result of the aural illusion was not predictable.

 

Though science has explored illusions, it didn’t discover their existence.  Painters played with 3-D perspective on a flat surface before its rules were well established and what could be called scientific exploration of it began.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

Incorrect, most, if not all illusions were know about because of perceptual anomalies, not because of science.

Science uses illusions to study the inner workings of perception - they were not discovered by science

 

ok. Maybe painters or astronomers discovered them. Maybe, some painters are scientists and some have scientific mind. A gardener could be doing something scientifically correct without he even knowing. That doesn't mean the gardener discovered it ( edit: actually we do credit the first person who discovered them). The science existed before being discovered. Maybe, painters discovered optical illusion and scientists discovered auditory illusions which is the subject matter here. 

 

The question here is can this be explained and repeated?  Is there any illusion that cannot be recreated? Can you repeat something without understanding how it work?

[STC]

2 hours ago, francisleung said:

14 hours ago, STC said:

And the the drum is not too rear to the wall as you described. Is your rear wall untreated?

Hi STC,

The wall behind the speakers is untreated. The recording apparently used multiple microphones and mixing afterwards. When the drum is on solo, the tom and snare come to the front, in centre, almost to the plane of the speakers because they being louder. 

 

Thanks for confirming that the rear wall is untreated. I will listen again and let you know, I was only listening for things you described in the earlier post. But now, can you for certain confirm whether the drums sound coming closer to the wall was from the recording or due to sound bouncing of the rear wall?

 

Anyway, I think such placements can be measured. Have you heard of Stereometer?  There are similar things out there that you can place the instruments where you want. 

[AJ Soundfield]

Contrary to audiophile belief/folklore, the illusions of stereo, which is what this thread and almost every other audio topic here is about, were invented by science, specifically, EE scientist Alan Blumlein.

Notice, illusion, not delusion. That came afterwards.

 

So the answer to Wgscotts question is still a no, nothing to see here, move along folks.

[STC]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

High quality sound causes various illusions. The obvious one for me is that the left and right speakers become totally impossible to locate, irrespective of any attempts to 'force' one's hearing to discern them. And true mono source played over stereo speakers "tracks" one's position when you move sideways - it's always "in front of you".

 

 

Let's say your speakers separation is 60 degrees and you sit 10 feet away from either speaker. So the speakers are 10 feet apart. 

 

Let's say, you now have a recording where the female and male were singing 10 feet apart. 

 

Gow low should this sound come out from your speakers? If your magical box is capable of reproducing the sound exactly as you claimed than the female and male sound sound come exactly from the speakers. In this case can't you locate the speakers?

 

Speakers are just another sound making instruments like any other musical instruments it makes noise and although it can disappear but it can also be located depends on the recordings. 

[Jud]

38 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

the illusions of stereo, which is what this thread and almost every other audio topic here is about, were invented by science,

 

Well, I might consider the “illusion” to have been invented by evolution.

 

That an electrical engineer is responsible for taking this aspect of perception and creating technology that can conveniently take advantage of it isn’t at all surprising.

[fas42]

40 minutes ago, STC said:

 

 

Let's say your speakers separation is 60 degrees and you sit 10 feet away from either speaker. So the speakers are 10 feet apart. 

 

Let's say, you now have a recording where the female and male were singing 10 feet apart. 

 

Gow low should this sound come out from your speakers? If your magical box is capable of reproducing the sound exactly as you claimed than the female and male sound sound come exactly from the speakers. In this case can't you locate the speakers?

 

Speakers are just another sound making instruments like any other musical instruments it makes noise and although it can disappear but it can also be located depends on the recordings. 

 

If a sound element happens to exactly concide with the location of the speaker, laterally, then it nominally will correspond with the speaker. But the reality of using microphones is that the source is usually somewhere back from the speaker, and that's what it sounds like - may be only some inches, but subjectively it is completely disconnected from the speaker; even if "right on top of the speaker" you just see the sound element and the space it occupies - and there just happens to be this boxy thing which visually "is in the way".

 

The Phantom of the Opera recording is a prime example of this: tremendous show off album, but in the sections where there is a big orchestral backing to the vocalist, you can "see" that the musicians occupy a huge space, stretching way back - but, say, Crawford is in a tiny acoustic booth, like a phone box stuck in the middle between the speakers, on the big stage.

 

The "miracle" is that if the quality of playback is sufficiently high then the speakers disappear, for each and every recording - you progress in the optimising by reducing the number of recordings where this doesn't happen, to zero.

[esldude]

It would be very useful if more audiophiles read, carefully considered, and understood the patents from Blumlein in regards to how stereo really is expected to work, and does work. 

[AJ Soundfield]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

 invented by evolution.

Another science myth debunked by superior observer "empirical evidence"

[AJ Soundfield]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

It would be very useful if more audiophiles read, carefully considered, and understood the patents from Blumlein in regards to how stereo really is expected to work, and does work. 

And visit recording studios that constructed the source of their delu...excuse me, "illusions" 

[Jud]

1 hour ago, STC said:

Can you repeat something without understanding how it work?

 

Of course, even possibly in a reliable fashion.  But these sorts of conceptual discussions are quite far from what’s relevant to modern audio for the most part.  The sorts of things that are most often cited as mysterious, having to do with imaging and soundstage, are very well understood, controllable, and reproducible.

 

The primary things about perception relevant to audio that are not yet completely known and understood are what aspects of sound reproduction are most important in giving us an illusion of reality (whether that “reality” is an actual event or something constructed in a studio), and how this varies among people.

[Jud]

4 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Another science myth debunked by superior observer "empirical evidence"

 

Sorry, didn’t understand what you were saying here.

[STC]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

46 minutes ago, STC said:

 

 

Let's say your speakers separation is 

 

If a sound element happens to exactly concide with the location of the speaker, laterally, then it nominally will correspond with the speaker. But the reality of using microphones is that the source is usually somewhere back from the speaker

 

 

Some of the samples in your YouTube were close miked. Vocals are usually closed miked. So the notion that in a good setup the speakers disappear is subject to many variable. There is a so called audiophile reference ( or favorite track) where the recording was made with two monos. So expect the sound to come from the speakers itself and the soundstage (width) is depended on how far you spread the speakers. 

[AJ Soundfield]

5 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Sorry, didn’t understand what you were saying here.

You said Evolution.