rowuk
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Pain in the ass, ex-patriot yank living in the land of sauerkraut
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Post by rowuk on Jul 6, 2008 11:12:50 GMT
I heard an interesting report on the radio yesterday (in the car, AM radio compressed to hell, but as it was only dialog, no big deal). www.hr-online.de/website/specials/wissen/index.jsp?key=standard_document_28060304&rubrik=19012There has been some real heavy research into how we hear. Although it is complex, they did a great job of explaining what they have found. What is interesting is that we do not hear directly. What our ears (regardless of condition) pick up is processed before AND after reaching the 2 cortexes for hearing that "decode" the signal. That preprocessing is based on our auditory experiences. What also came out is that one of the cortexes is "analytical" and the other "creative" and they get fed information from both ears. They played several examples of how masking works, why even missing information (like low frequencies) are added by our brain to make the experience more "believable". This also fits with another study I read that showed that even small frequency response errors in the mid band can destroy a recordings ability to image. If we lose hearing in one ear, apparently the only "loss" is the sense of directionality. All other things like filtering, frequency response remain the same. I'll try and find or (make) a decent translation, as here we would have an explanation why some audiophiles can hear the grass grow (or at least really believe it.......), hate tubes, hate solid state or anything else and also why musicians "hear" differently than engineers. The result will probably confirm something I have believed for a long time: there is more than one truth and that listening preferences can become a curse if the analytical side takes control of the experience.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2008 11:52:18 GMT
Robin I agree with that. On the 23rd November last year,(my son's birthday) my right ear shut down completely when my blood pressure apparently shot up quite high. It was very disconcerting to hear everything skewed way over to the left, yet, I still had some sense of direction .No, there was not even a small amount of hearing from my right ear at the time . Please don't try and tell us that musos,in general, but perhaps not you? Not only hear differently to engineers, but they hear the music better than engineers, and us other mere mortals ! I think that musos interpret music the way their own experiences and personal tastes dictate. Otherwise, why in general, is there so much crap played when musos get to select their own program material for Music Video shows etc. ? And it isn't just based on the visual impact either! Alex
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2008 12:37:44 GMT
Love all this stuff. A good post, however, this is not new information.
When I was doing my medical course we covered this with various experiments to prove the points.(Unfortunately had to dip out after 2nd year due my health failing, after 2 years never went back to finish the course)
When I get a chance I'll dig out some info from the course.
Although plenty of BS about who can hear better/different, there is truth in the "training" of your hearing, simple example...
As a drummer I listen for the drummers handywork in most things I listen to, can't help it! As a result I can easily pick out the nuances even in poor recordings that others cannot. This DOES NOT mean I have better hearing, only that my brain is trained/tuned/used to picking out what I WANT to hear.
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Post by dotnet on Jul 6, 2008 16:33:03 GMT
Yes, our brain has a much bigger say in what we hear than our ears. That's why audiophiles are among the easiest people to scam Cheers Steffen.
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rowuk
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Pain in the ass, ex-patriot yank living in the land of sauerkraut
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Post by rowuk on Jul 12, 2008 6:41:31 GMT
Maybe another heritical thought of the day:
High quality ( ;-) ) mp3s do sound different than the originals, could it possibly be that we are doing our brains a favor by leaving out the "missing" information that we supposedly don't notice anyway? In theory we would have more processing power for the rest by not having to subconciously filter............
Alex, as a "muso" I make no claim to "hearing" better or more accurately than anybody else. I just make the claim that 10dB of signal to noise, a couple of digital bits, several Hertz or a moderate amount of compression do not "spoil" MY PERSONAL musical experience. A mediocre musical performance recorded with high res analog solid state and played back on the finest of equipment will attract my attention for the first few notes only though. Technology is not my solution, fine musicians are. My audiophile experience is tempered by the believability factor. 6 feet more stage or more "slam" may be significant, but only if the experience sounds balanced to me. That is why I can sit on the solid state discrete/monolithic and valve fence and not be bothered - except by the intolerant. Both work for me and I consider myself "lucky".
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2008 7:01:59 GMT
Robin A great musical performance can trancend most limitations, except ,perhaps, low bit rate MP3 ? That reminds me, has anybody heard from Fanboi (Tony G )recently ? If his valve amplifier and speakers are anywhere near as good as his test disc, they should be pretty special. Alex
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2008 13:54:57 GMT
Not actually a factor. I'm sure everyone knows we only use partial capacity of our brains (some less than others ). This applies in differing extremes to every region of the brain. E.g. those parts involved in hearing are well above the task of "processing" what the mechanical ear can resolve, proven by the ability of filling in missing information. Also, a lazy listener (or someone who places less need for this sense ) can reduce the effectiveness of his hearing in the same way as a non-reader can reduce the eyes speed of recognition of detail. (speed reading involves recognising detail over a broader area) (Spot the difference between two photos (one edited), the avid reader will out perform the non reader significantly.) This is why a blinded person can increase their sense of hearing and touch, necessity, they are relying on the other senses to make up for the loss, the sensory parts of the brain are working to higher capacity.
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rowuk
Been here a while!
Pain in the ass, ex-patriot yank living in the land of sauerkraut
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Post by rowuk on Jul 18, 2008 22:40:03 GMT
Not actually a factor. I'm sure everyone knows we only use partial capacity of our brains (some less than others ). This applies in differing extremes to every region of the brain. E.g. those parts involved in hearing are well above the task of "processing" what the mechanical ear can resolve, proven by the ability of filling in missing information. Also, a lazy listener (or someone who places less need for this sense ) can reduce the effectiveness of his hearing in the same way as a non-reader can reduce the eyes speed of recognition of detail. (speed reading involves recognising detail over a broader area) (Spot the difference between two photos (one edited), the avid reader will out perform the non reader significantly.) This is why a blinded person can increase their sense of hearing and touch, necessity, they are relying on the other senses to make up for the loss, the sensory parts of the brain are working to higher capacity. When we have non-linear playback in the range from 250Hz to about 5K, the first thing to go is the 3d image. That is why fine full range systems put up such a fantastic soundstage compared to multiple band type speakers. Even if the bass does not go very deep, our brains still manage to get a great sense of space. The reason for that is that the processing power between the ears is needed to fill in information based on experience. The more complete the frequency response and tone color, the bigger the stage. An MP3 can get the frequency response right and the tone color of the instrument, and even some decent imaging - regardless of the audiophile shortcomings. Maybe there is hope that hamburger can still taste like steak, even if the consistency is not the same................
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Post by fanboi on Jul 19, 2008 13:58:40 GMT
Don't see me ever liking mince charred on the outside and blue in the middle Good point you made rowuk about the performance quality - I find one of my favourite pieces is a recording of B's Opus 61 concert for violin and orchestra which is one of the most abused records in my collection and absolutely chock full of surface noise on one side, but I put up with that for the sake of the performance (I have 2 other recordings of the same piece by other orchestras and they just do not have the same performance quality IMO). Seems to me that is not so much how we hear as how we listen if I could make that distinction - occasionally when I have made a significant equipment upgrade I will find myself hearing a familiar piece in a completely new way. This happened recently - I put on a recording I have heard many times without thinking it anything special, as a "needle warmer", my present cartridge seems to need around 20 mins to warm up, and left it play as I did other things - the music was so different and striking that I stopped and sat down to listen as if to something completely new, which, in a manner of speaking, it was - this was one of the stock in trade recordings of the normal orchestral repertoire - Pictures at an Exhibition, Sargent and the LSO - yet I had never really heard it in all its variety as I did then (and am again at present). I have recently made a fairly major upgrade in the analogue front end and am still enjoying the newness of everything I play - but this one was completely out of left field. Guess for me, unless testing something in particular, I listen to whatever fits the mood and it is only if something strikes me as discordant, distorted or somehow wrong that I shift more to listening the the equipment than the music. I suspect that engineers and musicians do not hear differently particularly much more to the point is that they listen for different things. I recall reading one reviewer saying that his wife is a musician and that while she could not analyse a musical performance as he did for his reviews she could very quickly tell if it sounded right or not. IIRC her comment on his Name deleted SS amps after their replacement with glowing bottles was that they had sounded 'clattery' Glad you like the test disc Alex, do not know if you would approve of the sound of my system, but since I do I am content with that. I would note that having recently been tinkering with yet another valve amp I am fairly sure that I prefer the sound of the SET over the PP - but my analogue frontend is all SS as is my DAC, Buffer and CDP and I did not buy the Aopen mainboard they built a few years ago with an onboard valve stage sound card rowuk - thanks for the recommendation of the Baroque trumpet recording some time ago - that is a real favourite with me.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2008 21:23:40 GMT
Tony You will probaably loathe this idea, but have you considered copying that much loved vinyl album to your HDD , and used a program such as a later version of SoundForge etc., to automate the removal of the worst of the annoyances,without affecting the original performance to any noticeable degree ? What you do with the restoration, is then up to you, as then leaving on the HDD, or perhaps making a high resolution audio DVD. Alex
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Post by fanboi on Jul 20, 2008 3:11:17 GMT
Alex, way off topic here, my digital frontend still has no high res DAC ability and is not as good as my analogue frontend. For noise removal I prefer Sound Laundry, it is wonderfully interactive and non-destructive and allows you to hear the difference track in realtime to avoid overdoing it. If I were to take that course I would have to record in hi-res and then convert down to Redbook - seems easier to play the record for now, maybe if I get/build a music server of some sort I might go there. ciao
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