Golden ears vs super scopes

[Iving]

ACCIDENT VICTIMS find learning to hear properly after their ear shape has been changed by surgery as difficult as learning a second language.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/shape-of-ears-affects-power-of-hearing-1175189.html

 

QUOTE

The brain uses the result to localise sounds, by performing a complex analysis of relative volumes and the balance of various frequencies. And usually, we only have to get used to one set of ears. Perhaps one shouldn't be so dismissive of the devoted Star Trek fans who wear pointed ears in devotion to their Vulcan hero, Mr Spock ...

 

"Whether or not Vulcans hear things differently (or better) than we do is hard to know," said Fred Wightman and Doris Kistler of the University of Wisconsin, in a commentary on the Dutch work. "One wonders how well Leonard Nimoy [who played Mr Spock in Star Trek] can localise sounds when he is using Spock's ears rather than his own."

 

No doubt it will be the first question on the agenda when Nimoy next appears at a Star Trek convention. He might, of course, choose to cup a hand to his ear and reply: "Pardon?"

ENDQUOTE

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

36 minutes ago, Iving said:

ACCIDENT VICTIMS find learning to hear properly after their ear shape has been changed by surgery as difficult as learning a second language.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/shape-of-ears-affects-power-of-hearing-1175189.html

 

QUOTE

The brain uses the result to localise sounds, by performing a complex analysis of relative volumes and the balance of various frequencies. And usually, we only have to get used to one set of ears. Perhaps one shouldn't be so dismissive of the devoted Star Trek fans who wear pointed ears in devotion to their Vulcan hero, Mr Spock ...

"Whether or not Vulcans hear things differently (or better) than we do is hard to know," said Fred Wightman and Doris Kistler of the University of Wisconsin, in a commentary on the Dutch work. "One wonders how well Leonard Nimoy [who played Mr Spock in Star Trek] can localise sounds when he is using Spock's ears rather than his own."

No doubt it will be the first question on the agenda when Nimoy next appears at a Star Trek convention. He might, of course, choose to cup a hand to his ear and reply: "Pardon?"

ENDQUOTE

Hi Iving

 

Head Related transfer Function is important for sound spatial localisation as sound waves mold around the individual's head, nose, pinnae (ears).

Changing the shape of the ears does impair this process but the brain does adapt to interpret the altered ear shape and localize sound normally. Another member here gave some references IIRC. I have had burns patients whose ears were seriously altered (basically gone) who were able to adapt.

 

Edit:People talk about inter-aural differences of sound reaching both ears. From a neural processing POV it is also interesting (for some),

 

 the brain uses a combination of frequency, loudness and timing cues to interpret sound localisation and/or to isolate one sound from another.

 

The tonotopic representation or map for frequency related perception extends from the inner ear (basilar membrane)  to the cortex and is better defined in the primary auditory cortex than the secondary auditory cortical areas. The most medial portion of the auditory cortex contains the representation of the basal end of the basilar membrane of the inner ear (by the oval window), whereas the apical end of the basilar membrane of the inner ear is represented in the lateral portion of the auditory cortex. The response of neurons in the primary auditory cortex to specific sound wave frequencies is narrow and binaural (responsive to both ears) forming so called "critical bands" or more precisely bandwidths.

 

In each hemisphere, and at right angles to the frequency axis (from low to high), exists alternate stripes or bands (not to be confused with bandwidths) of neurons that respond to both ears differently. So, in this striped arrangement of binaural properties the neurons in one stripe are excited by both ears (called EE cells), while the neurons in the next stripe are excited by one ear and inhibited by the other ear (EI cells). The EE and EI stripes alternate.

 

The auditory system can extract the sound of a desired sound source out of interfering noise aka The Cocktail party Effect. This relates to selective attention possibly partially subserved by this binaural frequency striping of excitation and inhibition at a cortical level and dovetails into ASA (auditory scene analysis). Sound from interfering directions is attenuated, claimed up to 15dB, compared to the sound from the desired direction. Other helpful cues to ASA/Cocktail party effect probably relate to sound localisation mechanisms in the form of amplitude and timing.

 

The secondary auditory cortex and its brainstem connections (the dorsal and ventral nuclei of the medulla to the inferior colliculus of the midbrain) is important for sound localization. Sound localization occurs via a medial system arising from the medial superior olivary complex and responds to slight differences in the timing of sound arrival at each ear. The lateral system, arising from the lateral superior olivary complex responds to slight differences in sound amplitude arriving at each ear.

 

 

[Iving]

36 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Hi Iving

 

Head Related transfer Function is important for sound spatial localisation as sound waves mold around the individual's head, nose, pinnae (ears).

Changing the shape of the ears does impair this process but the brain does adapt to interpret the altered ear shape and localize sound normally. Another member here gave some references IIRC. I have had burns patients whose ears were seriously altered (basically gone) who were able to adapt.

 

Edit:People talk about inter-aural differences of sound reaching both ears. From a neural processing POV it is also interesting (for some),

 

 the brain uses a combination of frequency, loudness and timing cues to interpret sound localisation and/or to isolate one sound from another.

 

The tonotopic representation or map for frequency related perception extends from the inner ear (basilar membrane)  to the cortex and is better defined in the primary auditory cortex than the secondary auditory cortical areas. The most medial portion of the auditory cortex contains the representation of the basal end of the basilar membrane of the inner ear (by the oval window), whereas the apical end of the basilar membrane of the inner ear is represented in the lateral portion of the auditory cortex. The response of neurons in the primary auditory cortex to specific sound wave frequencies is narrow and binaural (responsive to both ears) forming so called "critical bands" or more precisely bandwidths.

 

In each hemisphere, and at right angles to the frequency axis (from low to high), exists alternate stripes or bands (not to be confused with bandwidths) of neurons that respond to both ears differently. So, in this striped arrangement of binaural properties the neurons in one stripe are excited by both ears (called EE cells), while the neurons in the next stripe are excited by one ear and inhibited by the other ear (EI cells). The EE and EI stripes alternate.

 

The auditory system can extract the sound of a desired sound source out of interfering noise aka The Cocktail party Effect. This relates to selective attention possibly partially subserved by this binaural frequency striping of excitation and inhibition at a cortical level and dovetails into ASA (auditory scene analysis). Sound from interfering directions is attenuated, claimed up to 15dB, compared to the sound from the desired direction. Other helpful cues to ASA/Cocktail party effect probably relate to sound localisation mechanisms in the form of amplitude and timing.

 

The secondary auditory cortex and its brainstem connections (the dorsal and ventral nuclei of the medulla to the inferior colliculus of the midbrain) is important for sound localization. Sound localization occurs via a medial system arising from the medial superior olivary complex and responds to slight differences in the timing of sound arrival at each ear. The lateral system, arising from the lateral superior olivary complex responds to slight differences in sound amplitude arriving at each ear.

 

 

 

OK great stuff!

 

My emphasis would be on the "second language" aspect. We can barely imagine - literally  - the plasticity of the brain in this respect. Not to mention conditioning-history individual differences and their emotional repercussions. There is a great deal to contemplate here! Anyway, the notion that bench instruments account for everything is preposterous. And there may be something in the "golden-ears" idea. That doesn't mean that audiophiles don't ever kid themselves (cf. "cognitive dissonance"), nor that some peddlers aren't inclined to profiteer. But come on - let's be open-minded to the big picture - and keep all things in their due perspective!

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

25 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

OK great stuff!

 

My emphasis would be on the "second language" aspect. We can barely imagine - literally  - the plasticity of the brain in this respect. Not to mention conditioning-history individual differences and their emotional repercussions. There is a great deal to contemplate here! Anyway, the notion that bench instruments account for everything is preposterous. And there may be something in the "golden-ears" idea. That doesn't mean that audiophiles don't ever kid themselves (cf. "cognitive dissonance"), nor that some peddlers aren't inclined to profiteer. But come on - let's be open-minded to the big picture - and keep all things in their due perspective!

Yeh as I said recently, I think people choose the paradigm that seems to make the most sense to them/us, where they feel most comfortable, perhaps where there is less cognitive dissonance

[Iving]

20 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Yeh as I said recently, I think people choose the paradigm that seems to make the most sense to them/us, where they feel most comfortable, perhaps where there is less cognitive dissonance

 

Well  - I was meaning to concede/recognise that audiophiles may "hear" their expenditure (or even, dare I say, parade pioneering "discoveries" on social media!) Not that I have first hand experience of either myself! More seriously, what about cost- (and ego-) neutral tweaks such as moving a shunt to a different mains outlet. I hear SQ margins with that sort of thing easily.

 

I have a couple of great cartoons like that. 🙂 I'll share by PM if I remember later (when I'm at my PC).

[CG]

14 hours ago, Archimago said:

As for whether instruments capture "everything". I believe the answer is clearly a yes. There are anomalies that  measurement devices can easily pick up which ears will miss... So long as there is an ideal which the output of a device can be compared to, instruments can make that determination way better than ears. "High end" companies and pure subjectivists will not want to concede this of course; it will take away much of the mystique that these companies and writers need.

 

Well, there you have it, folks.  It's all about a belief system and dogma.  Can't much have reasonable discussions over that.

 

I guess we already know all there is to know, and it's just a matter of spreading the word.

 

Well, I'm not buying it.  

 

But, that's just my own dogma, I guess.  It has nothing to do with "pure subjectivism" or throwing money around.  My understanding is constantly evolving, and I hope it continues to.  This is not the right place, at least for me.

 

So, farewell to all.  Good listening.  I mean that.

[Iving]

7 minutes ago, CG said:

 

Well, there you have it, folks.  It's all about a belief system and dogma.  Can't much have reasonable discussions over that.

 

I guess we already know all there is to know, and it's just a matter of spreading the word.

 

Well, I'm not buying it.  

 

But, that's just my own dogma, I guess.  It has nothing to do with "pure subjectivism" or throwing money around.  My understanding is constantly evolving, and I hope it continues to.  This is not the right place, at least for me.

 

So, farewell to all.  Good listening.  I mean that.

 

Possibility of change from participation within - if there's space for conversation - which there wasn't - but is now 😉 x

[4est]

11 minutes ago, CG said:

 

Well, there you have it, folks.  It's all about a belief system and dogma.  Can't much have reasonable discussions over that.

 

I guess we already know all there is to know, and it's just a matter of spreading the word.

 

Well, I'm not buying it.  

 

But, that's just my own dogma, I guess.  It has nothing to do with "pure subjectivism" or throwing money around.  My understanding is constantly evolving, and I hope it continues to.  This is not the right place, at least for me.

 

So, farewell to all.  Good listening.  I mean that.

Sad to see you go, but please bear in mind that Archimago should back up his claim too. That is what this Ob-fi is for!

[alfe]

1 hour ago, 4est said:

 Archimago should back up his claim too. That is what this Ob-fi is for!

 

 

AES standard in 1991

CD audio 1980 red book first edition.

Document of 22 years ago:

 

am.pdf

 

Still Archimago have to back up his claim.

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

@The Computer Audiophile talking of measurements, is it just me or does the post count get stuck from time to time?

It isn’t always displayed in real time. 

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, CG said:

 

Well, there you have it, folks.  It's all about a belief system and dogma.  Can't much have reasonable discussions over that.

 

I guess we already know all there is to know, and it's just a matter of spreading the word.

Yes it is about belief systems and dogma. We know that. Consider that the title of this thread was selected in order to foster debate between two different POV.

 

Consider this thought experiment:

 

Imagine a measurement system which could capture the state of the gas in a defined volume. Of course the measurement system would interact with the atoms just as a microphone might affect the sound of a performance. 
 

Would such a state description over time define the sound which a human placed within the volume hears? (assume the state is the state of the gas/air, not the human itself)

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, CG said:

17 hours ago, Archimago said:

As for whether instruments capture "everything". I believe the answer is clearly a yes. There are anomalies that  measurement devices can easily pick up which ears will miss... So long as there is an ideal which the output of a device can be compared to, instruments can make that determination way better than ears. "High end" companies and pure subjectivists will not want to concede this of course; it will take away much of the mystique that these companies and writers need.

Read more  

 

Well, there you have it, folks.  It's all about a belief system and dogma.  Can't much have reasonable discussions over that.

 

I guess we already know all there is to know, and it's just a matter of spreading the word.

 

Well, I'm not buying it.  

 

But, that's just my own dogma, I guess.  It has nothing to do with "pure subjectivism" or throwing money around.  My understanding is constantly evolving, and I hope it continues to.  This is not the right place, at least for me.

 

So, farewell to all.  Good listening.  I mean that.

 

Hi CG

 

Yes, I agree with you that much of the subjectivist vs objectivist debate comes down to a clash of belief systems. The nice thing about AS is that you have all views represented. As you say, you don't have to buy into the overly doctrinaire factions.

[jabbr]

On 3/2/2020 at 7:54 AM, alfe said:

 

 

AES standard in 1991

CD audio 1980 red book first edition.

Document of 22 years ago:

 

am.pdf 107.4 kB · 15 downloads

 

Still Archimago have to back up his claim.

It’s great to back up a claim with a published reference also, and here in the web, a link to a paper published on the web is perfect. 
 

We have more fun debating the corner cases because the easy stuff is, well, easy 😀

[jabbr]

On 3/1/2020 at 10:35 AM, CG said:

I agree!  (Bet that completes your day! 😉)

Ha! I’m willing to investigate any possibility that has a nonzero chance of being reasonable 😝

[beerandmusic]

I don't know anything about recording, so excuse me if i use incorrect terms, but...

 

Assuming reproduction perfection, If you have a "well done" recording that had say 20 microphones at different heights and depths and i suppose you would need 20 different channels of information for each of the microphones, how would that be composited into stereo and how would one measure for reproduction accuracy? 

 

I read that the human ears  exhibit a remarkable ability to separate sounds produced by multiple sources that overlap in frequency and in time, but would there be "ready" measurements available to verify accuracy of reproduction from a-d and then back to d-a in such a scenario? 

 

For this particular question lets just assume that noise is limited such that it is not a factor and we just want to ensure that the dac is capable of accurate reproduction. Is there any engineering or design that limits actual reproduction of what human ears have regarding "this unique capability to separate sounds produced by multiple sources that overlap in frequency and in time".

 

At any ONE time (no matter how small of a time slice), there is more than a "composite" where multiple sounds occur at one time. The ear has the ability to separate those 2 sounds, and i think this may be where difference of sq is realized is the ability to somehow separate multiple sounds "better", which i am not sure is measurable, or at least not what is typically measured?

[gmgraves]

On 2/29/2020 at 7:02 PM, jabbr said:

There are two different approaches to obtain obtain objective information:

 

a) Double blinded tests of two components using so-called "golden eared" individuals.

b) Equipment based measurements, high resolution scopes which can measure picovolts and femtoseconds.

 

Do we believe that everything audible is measurable? Do we know the audibility limits? Which data sways subjectivists (if any)? Which data sways objectivists?

Conventional wisdom tells us that everything audible is measurable. However, in the 1970’s audio engineers were absolutely convinced of this, and tended to ignore  audiophiles’ complaints that transistor amps sounded awful. Then Danish engineer Matti Otola discovered Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TIM) and another audio engineer discovered Slew Induced Distortion (SID). Neither of these were known at the time. But they both changed the way solid-state amps were designed. Designers reduced (and sometimes completely eliminated the overall negative feedback that was the bread and butter of vacuum tube amplifier design since time immemorial. This reduced or eliminated TIM, and the introduction of faster acting transistors and operational amplifiers took care of SID. Today, both of these characteristics are well understood and are the cornerstones of high-end solid state design. 
So, it’s safe to say that it is probably a big mistake to assume, in this day and time, that, everything we hear we can measure. That philosophy has been found wanting before, and likely will again... 

 

[jabbr]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Conventional wisdom tells us that everything audible is measurable. However, in the 1970’s audio engineers were absolutely convinced of this, and tended to ignore  audiophiles’ complaints that transistor amps sounded awful. Then Danish engineer Matti Otola discovered Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TIM) and another audio engineer discovered Slew Induced Distortion (SID). Neither of these were known at the time. But they both changed the way solid-state amps were designed. Designers reduced (and sometimes completely eliminated the overall negative feedback that was the bread and butter of vacuum tube amplifier design since time immemorial. This reduced or eliminated TIM, and the introduction of faster acting transistors and operational amplifiers took care of SID. Today, both of these characteristics are well understood and are the cornerstones of high-end solid state design. 
So, it’s safe to say that it is probably a big mistake to assume, in this day and time, that, everything we hear we can measure. That philosophy has been found wanting before, and likely will again... 

 

 

That's how its supposed to work ... it wasn't that TIM wasn't measurable, it just hadn't been. Careful measurements demonstrated TIM etc.

 

Again just because you didn't happen to measure something doesn't mean that thing couldn't be measured.

 

Indeed from @Allan F favorite subjectivist engineer (  ) https://proaudiodesignforum.com/images/pdf/Leinonen_Otala_Curl_TIM_Measurement.pdf

[SoundAndMotion]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

Again just because you didn't happen to measure something doesn't mean that thing couldn't be measured.

You're playing a semantic game with the meaning of "can". Does it mean "possible" or "able" (now). With your definition, I'd be able to say:

I can speak Russian. I can practice law. I can go to the moon. 

...but I should hasten to add, that I never have, and cannot today. I can if: someone teaches me Russian; I go to law school and pass the bar; NASA is willing to prepare me and give me a ride.

With my definition, I'd have to wait until I've learned what I need to know.

On 3/1/2020 at 3:04 PM, jabbr said:

You are not, by any means, limited to using an AP analyzer alone to measure UpTone’s  equipment.

[snip]

Current popular measurement regimens like phase error plots? 1/f noise? 3D output impedance plots? EMI patterns? 

The question is what "thing" do I want to measure. Without a definition for "thing", I wouldn't know how to use an AP to measure it, and I wouldn't know if the popular measures help me with that. 

I would start with careful listening tests to confirm a predictable, verifiable, repeatable "thing". Then I'd try for an unambiguous, non-controversial name. If current hardware/software is up for it, then a measurement method can be created (possibly). Perhaps new hardware/software would need to be developed. Knowing what and how to measure is not a given, so I'd argue we can't measure everything.

 

On 3/1/2020 at 4:02 AM, jabbr said:

Do we believe that everything audible is measurable? Do we know the audibility limits? Which data sways subjectivists (if any)? Which data sways objectivists?

-With your definition, yes, if a measurement method exists or can be developed. With my definition, no.

-Perceptual limits is my field. Do we know some (specifically defined) audibility limits? Yes. Do we know all that are necessary to understand perception of reproduced music and the ability of current equipment to do "well"? I don't know, but my experience tells me to truly doubt it.

-For the last 2 questions, I'm reminded of a thread (since deleted?) on WBF. Someone asked "what would it take for you to change your mind about XYZ". I forgot what XYZ was... cables, DACs or something... A small number of people (incl. me) wrote specific answers. Most answers were of the form: "I know I'm not wrong, so the question doesn't make sense". For both groups, the answer of the hardcore will be: nothing!

[Allan F]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

 

That's how its supposed to work ... it wasn't that TIM wasn't measurable, it just hadn't been. Careful measurements demonstrated TIM etc.

 

It was not a case of TIM "just hadn't been" measured. It could not possibly have been measured before it was discovered by Danish engineer Matti Otola. Therefore, in any meaningful sense, it was not measurable. To quote the previous poster, "You are playing a semantic game".

[pkane2001]

41 minutes ago, SoundAndMotion said:

You're playing a semantic game with the meaning of "can". Does it mean "possible" or "able" (now). With your definition, I'd be able to say:

I can speak Russian. I can practice law. I can go to the moon. 

...but I should hasten to add, that I never have, and cannot today. I can if: someone teaches me Russian; I go to law school and pass the bar; NASA is willing to prepare me and give me a ride.

With my definition, I'd have to wait until I've learned what I need to know.

The question is what "thing" do I want to measure. Without a definition for "thing", I wouldn't know how to use an AP to measure it, and I wouldn't know if the popular measures help me with that. 

I would start with careful listening tests to confirm a predictable, verifiable, repeatable "thing". Then I'd try for an unambiguous, non-controversial name. If current hardware/software is up for it, then a measurement method can be created (possibly). Perhaps new hardware/software would need to be developed. Knowing what and how to measure is not a given, so I'd argue we can't measure everything.

 

-With your definition, yes, if a measurement method exists or can be developed. With my definition, no.

-Perceptual limits is my field. Do we know some (specifically defined) audibility limits? Yes. Do we know all that are necessary to understand perception of reproduced music and the ability of current equipment to do "well"? I don't know, but my experience tells me to truly doubt it.

-For the last 2 questions, I'm reminded of a thread (since deleted?) on WBF. Someone asked "what would it take for you to change your mind about XYZ". I forgot what XYZ was... cables, DACs or something... A small number of people (incl. me) wrote specific answers. Most answers were of the form: "I know I'm not wrong, so the question doesn't make sense". For both groups, the answer of the hardcore will be: nothing!

 

While we may not know every individual component of the distortion and how to measure it, we know quite well how to measure a waveform. Mathematically, we can compute just how close this waveform matches the original one. Empirically, we can subtract the two waveforms and listen to the differences. I don't need to know what TIM or jitter or THD or IMD is to be able to tell if two waveforms measure different, by how much, and whether this difference is audible.

 

One doesn't need to know how to measure individual electrons and forces acting on them to be able to measure current. Just like one doesn't need to know all the forces exerted by individual molecules of gas to determine pressure. In both cases, we know very well how to measure the aggregate behavior of all the underlying elements, even if we don't know what those elements are.

 

The flaw in these "we don't know how to measure something" discussions is that these are against some unknown measure that we have not discovered, say jitter, TIM, THD, IMD, ringing, phase, etc. What is missing is the understanding that we don't need to explain the individual distortions or to have specific tools to separate them from others to measure their effect: we can measure them all at once, in aggregate. Such tools are available today and can be used to measure minute differences. Even if we later discover another distortion source and find a new way to measure it, this will not change the aggregate measurements. It will just explain one more element that goes into the aggregate.

 

[jabbr]

30 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

It was not a case of TIM "just hadn't been" measured. It could not possibly have been measured before it was discovered by Danish engineer Matti Otola. Therefore, in any meaningful sense, it was not measurable. To quote the previous poster, "You are playing a semantic game".

 

It is common that anomalies are measured before they are explained. TIM is a nonlinearity and so measurement techniques intended to look at nonlinearities are more apt to detect. 

 

The classic example of this would be the observed orbit of the planet Mercury. It didn't quite follow Newtonian Mechanics. It wasn't until Einstein GTOR that the anomaly was explained, nonetheless it had been measured.

 

If you don't look, you won't find.

[jabbr]

47 minutes ago, SoundAndMotion said:

Most answers were of the form: "I know I'm not wrong, so the question doesn't make sense". For both groups, the answer of the hardcore will be: nothing!

 

That is called religion.

 

47 minutes ago, SoundAndMotion said:

You're playing a semantic game with the meaning of "can". Does it mean "possible" or "able" (now). With your definition, I'd be able to say:

I can speak Russian. I can practice law. I can go to the moon. 

 

No semantic games. Just because you personally can't measure something doesn't mean that it is unmeasurable (by someone else) ... ditto, so Russian is speakable, Law is practicable and travelling to the moon is possible, just like measuring things  

 

48 minutes ago, SoundAndMotion said:

-Perceptual limits is my field. Do we know some (specifically defined) audibility limits? Yes. Do we know all that are necessary to understand perception of reproduced music and the ability of current equipment to do "well"? I don't know, but my experience tells me to truly doubt it.

 

Then I trust you understand that a microscope and telescope extend the perceptual limits of the eye, and do amplifiers extend the sensory limits of the ear. An oscilloscope extends the frequency response of the ear upward and similarly the amplitude sensitivity. Shall we continue?

[semente]

20 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

Assuming reproduction perfection, If you have a "well done" recording that had say 20 microphones at different heights and depths and i suppose you would need 20 different channels of information for each of the microphones, how would that be composited into stereo and how would one measure for reproduction accuracy?

 

To measure for reproduction accuracy you use test signals.

 

A stereo mix is not real stereo, which requires 1-mic to 1-channel to 1-speaker, center mic to center speaker, left front mic to left front speaker, etc.

A stereo mix is a colage, can be amazing but never truly realistic:

 

 

[SoundAndMotion]

11 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Empirically, we can subtract the two waveforms and listen to the differences. I don't need to know what TIM or jitter or THD or IMD is to be able to tell if two waveforms measure different, by how much, and whether this difference is audible.

 

Hi Paul,

I agree with everything you say, except what I have quoted and bolded. From your work with deltaw, I assume you'll correct this assumption of mine: Always (or nearly so), when you subtract the two (digitized analog) waveforms, the result is never all zeroes. This leads to two problems:

You assume that if you listen to that difference and can't hear anything identifiable, that means you can't hear the difference between the two waveforms. Similarly, you assume that if you generate that delta-wave, and you "know the limits of audibility", you can just declare the difference is inaudible. For any pair of waveforms you've encountered, the assumptions may have been true. But I reject the notion that your assumptions describe the way differential and absolute thresholds actually work. So I reject the idea that you can tell whether this difference is audible with deltaw. I wouldn't be convinced without a listening test. I mentioned that is the starting place for me in my post.

 

So if 2 analog waveforms, distinguishable with a listening test, never null completely, and you can't declare the difference is inaudible, you have not measured the effect.

 

What effect? I'm dangerously close to the argument "if you haven't measured everything and you don't know everything, then you just can't be sure". But I'm quite comfortable walking this tightrope in this way: I do know about the nonlinearities in perception and that superposition does not always apply (not speculation). I do know how nearly all the threshold experiments you use to discuss "audibility" were done (do you?), or perhaps you also do and have a relevant reference. I do know sensory perception is fine-tuned for pattern recognition, not detection or discrimination of simple stimuli or noise(s). The ear is not a good microphone and the eye is not a good camera, but both do their tasks better than their mechanical counterparts. In your favor: most complex stimuli have higher absolute and differential thresholds than simple stimuli. In my favor, not all.

Cheers, SAM

 

3 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

That is called religion.

 

 

No semantic games. Just because you personally can't measure something doesn't mean that it is unmeasurable (by someone else) ... ditto, so Russian is speakable, Law is practicable and travelling to the moon is possible, just like measuring things  

I agree the hardcore on both extremes have unshakable beliefs that can be called religion. 

 

Your list (derived from mine) of do-ables don't apply to me or anyone with the same level of training as me. For my list, there are people who are better trained. If an effect that can be verified by listening test has never been measured, then no one knows how or has had the training. It may be easy to measure, or not. But you have to know how/what to measure. The semantic game: I say they can't (without more info); you say they can. Some people will agree with me, some with you. There is no need to play with the words anymore.

[SoundAndMotion]

2 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

-Perceptual limits is my field. Do we know some (specifically defined) audibility limits? Yes. Do we know all that are necessary to understand perception of reproduced music and the ability of current equipment to do "well"? I don't know, but my experience tells me to truly doubt it.

 

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

Then I trust you understand that a microscope and telescope extend the perceptual limits of the eye, and do amplifiers extend the sensory limits of the ear. An oscilloscope extends the frequency response of the ear upward and similarly the amplitude sensitivity. Shall we continue?

 

Ah! You added something.

 

We should continue... until you make a point. Did i miss it? Extending perceptual limits along one conceptual dimension (e.g. seeing distant things or very small things) does not extend all limits. Even mentioning both telescope and microscope show that; also neither one extends my ability to read a paperback as well as reading glasses.

 

Yes, I don't see how what you write answers what I wrote... I must not have been clear. Probably not worth the effort for either of us.