The 'need' was based on fas42's post, which posited some ideas that completely defy my understanding of most things, but alluded to some "audiophile" quality that distinguishes itself from "normal" human beings.
dave, are you familiar with the expressions "flogging a dead horse" and "digging a deeper hole"? Four to five per cent of your waking hours includes everything else you need and want to do in your life; washing, toileting, eating, driving, reading, working, cooking, laundry, gardening, taking the rubbish out, watching TV, etc. Saying it repeatedly does not and will not make it any more plausible, nor any more likely I, or anyone else, will believe something that is so unlikely and, I'd even tend to say, absurd.
If the 10,000 hours "rule" came from Malcolm Gladwell, then I can see the attraction. Gladwell is, from the utter rubbish I've read of his, a very poor writer who takes some very simplistic notion and writes a badly written book based on flimsy "evidence" to try to popularise an idea that has no merit, apart from appearing to answer a question that hasn't been asked.
Of all of the books I've read that have been an absolute waste of time, Gladwell's take the cake. There seems an initial plausibility in his ideas, however, a two minute think about them shows it to be shallow and meaningless. The 10,000 hours "rule" is just such one.
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You are making a lot of assumptions of my life at the time. No TV, a 2 minute commute to work, 9-12 hr work days with much time at home as well doing the same.
dave
I've known about this Dave Moulton's "Golden Ears" audio ear-training program for a decade or so, made mostly for recording engineers, and I've considered getting it:
KIQ Productions
But then I've wondered "Do I REALLY want to hear that well?" If I intended to work in the audio field, in a studio or designing audio equipment, I'd do it, but there's plenty of people doing that and I don't see anything I could add to the field.
So this will remain a "hobby" for me, and I'm not sure I want to be able to hear THAT well. When I hear bad sound reproduction, it sounds bad enough already!
I did a lot of reading on rec.audio.pro for many years staring in the late 1990s, and have played around with recording and using a few different microphones. I do have this microphone comparison CD, and it clearly shows the different sounds between different microphones:
3D Audio's 3D Mic CD
And you don't need to have "full hearing" to 20kHz to hear the differences, either. My ears top out at around 10kHz (some of that is age, and some due to the heavy metal bars in my 20s).
But the recording people have the best ears, and they definitely trained themselves for it, they didn't get into the field because they could hear differences from the start and know what caused the differences. They know about fooling themselves with "fixing" a sound by turning a knob, then realizing the knob is in an inactive channel. About 15 years ago it took me a while to hear the difference between a 128k MP3 and CD audio, not because the differences weren't there, but because I didn't know what to listen for. I got an encoder and a good jazz CD, and with critical A-B comparisons of the .wav file form the CD and the encoded mp3 I could start to hear the difference (for one thing, sharp snare drum sounds got "smeared" with mp3). So yes, you can absolutely learn these things. The sounds are there, you just have to know what to listen for.
On the other hand, many (amateur) guitarists pay little or no attention to the tone or even the tuning of their instrument.
This is always a good video to drop into threads like this:
Audio Myths Workshop - YouTube
Ethan also has some youtube videos on music theory. He says the "standard" time to become a professional musician is 5,000 hours of practice at three hours per day.
KIQ Productions
But then I've wondered "Do I REALLY want to hear that well?" If I intended to work in the audio field, in a studio or designing audio equipment, I'd do it, but there's plenty of people doing that and I don't see anything I could add to the field.
So this will remain a "hobby" for me, and I'm not sure I want to be able to hear THAT well. When I hear bad sound reproduction, it sounds bad enough already!
I did a lot of reading on rec.audio.pro for many years staring in the late 1990s, and have played around with recording and using a few different microphones. I do have this microphone comparison CD, and it clearly shows the different sounds between different microphones:
3D Audio's 3D Mic CD
And you don't need to have "full hearing" to 20kHz to hear the differences, either. My ears top out at around 10kHz (some of that is age, and some due to the heavy metal bars in my 20s).
But the recording people have the best ears, and they definitely trained themselves for it, they didn't get into the field because they could hear differences from the start and know what caused the differences. They know about fooling themselves with "fixing" a sound by turning a knob, then realizing the knob is in an inactive channel. About 15 years ago it took me a while to hear the difference between a 128k MP3 and CD audio, not because the differences weren't there, but because I didn't know what to listen for. I got an encoder and a good jazz CD, and with critical A-B comparisons of the .wav file form the CD and the encoded mp3 I could start to hear the difference (for one thing, sharp snare drum sounds got "smeared" with mp3). So yes, you can absolutely learn these things. The sounds are there, you just have to know what to listen for.
There's several things coming into play. Different gauge string do have harmonic difference, both in amplitude and in (slight differences in) frequency, but also, the string FEELS different (it's of course smaller, and easier to "bend" sharp), and that can (unconsciously!) affect how the musician hears it. I recall a synthesizer owner talk about adjusting the instrument's attack (how fast a sound comes up to full volume when a key is pressed) while a professional pianist (who had little or no experience with electronic keyboards) was playing it, and he was surprised that the pianist was claiming to feel a difference in the keyboard's action with different attack settings.Well,
Here is a thought. Can women hear better than men?
Ie can a woman hear a child cry at a distance.
Can people that play an instrument be different?
Ie some guitarists I know are VERY touchy about their guitars strings (They sound different) I thought an "E" was just an "E".
But we are just kidding ourselves surly a 10 "E" string must be the same as an 8 right..they just make them to fool us!
How can an E note be different through transformers it wouldn't be an E would it?
And a High E couldn't be distorted more than a low E could it through the same transformer.
The person that can tell a plank of wood from a violin etc.
Perhaps the ability lies in the ability to retain mental images or sounds for longer duration. ie compare one to another.
Regards
M. Gregg
On the other hand, many (amateur) guitarists pay little or no attention to the tone or even the tuning of their instrument.
This is always a good video to drop into threads like this:
Audio Myths Workshop - YouTube
Ethan also has some youtube videos on music theory. He says the "standard" time to become a professional musician is 5,000 hours of practice at three hours per day.
Ears that can distinguish power plugs and power cords are actually unobtainium ears. They tend to disappear when the letters DBT are uttered.
Interesting that some have confused what I was stating, my intent was to say that many "normal" people do have very sensitive hearing, but may have no interest in audio. An 'audiophile' is merely someone who spends a significant amount of time pursuing refinement of sound reproduction - and quite often their interest is in aspects of the sound which don't really contribute to it being "realistic". Which is what some people, audiophile or otherwise, are sensitive to ...
benb's comment about 'smearing' of treble sounds is on the money, that's usually the giveaway of poorer sound. Like many things in life, once one 'tunes' into the characteristics, the signature of something happening then it becomes relatively straighforward from then on to pick the presence, or absence ...
benb's comment about 'smearing' of treble sounds is on the money, that's usually the giveaway of poorer sound. Like many things in life, once one 'tunes' into the characteristics, the signature of something happening then it becomes relatively straighforward from then on to pick the presence, or absence ...
It is actually the brain and not the ears, and DBT do not work inline with how the brain works so DBT are useless as a tool...
yeah - brains are hardwired to "cheat" - use everything, all senses, memories, opinions, at an unconscious level
by the time we are aware the brain has already altered the signals from the auditory neurons and put it through a very highly biased correlation generator - we strive to "make sense" of everything in relation to everything else - giving rise to "superstitions" - tons of false correlations appear to be the cost of finding true causal relations that improve survival
but thats what training/learning is all about – tuning the brain to do new things it formerly found difficult – even distressing
DBT is necessary to cut out extraneous clues – Sy's – “really just use your ears”
so train with a Blinding protocol, controls if you want to learn what your ears really hear
by the time we are aware the brain has already altered the signals from the auditory neurons and put it through a very highly biased correlation generator - we strive to "make sense" of everything in relation to everything else - giving rise to "superstitions" - tons of false correlations appear to be the cost of finding true causal relations that improve survival
but thats what training/learning is all about – tuning the brain to do new things it formerly found difficult – even distressing
DBT is necessary to cut out extraneous clues – Sy's – “really just use your ears”
so train with a Blinding protocol, controls if you want to learn what your ears really hear
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what can you do if thats what there is
but its very naive to believe that things were much better before
most of it sounded horrible
one reason why 'audiophile' reference recordings were 'invented'
it was needed to have good sound
or to prove that your speaker 'could' sound right
and I can tell you 100% that those who does not spend all their money and time on audiophile hifi stuff like we do, they have much better sound today than they would have had before
well, sorry about that 'sour outburst'
It depends on what you mean by "before".
Before what?
Back in 1973 most of my friends were spending anywhere from $250 up on speakers alone. I think minimum wage was $1.00/ hr, and take home for an E-3 in the NAVY was less than $300/month.
After I got out of the military and went back to school, friends were using Magnaplaners, Klipsch, Pioneer, and other quality speakers.
Amps ranged from Dynaco, McIntosh, to Sony, Pioneer, Crown, etc.
Do we really have much better sound today?
I think the biggest issue is that commercial sound recording is not marketed at our segment of the market. Look at the push for MP-3 and download music vs hard copy vinyl or CD.
I expect we are and since the 60s have been a small part of the overall music market. We probably only account for 10% of it.
Who is the music industry going to go after? 10% or 90%?
Before what?
Back in 1973 most of my friends were spending anywhere from $250 up on speakers alone. I think minimum wage was $1.00/ hr, and take home for an E-3 in the NAVY was less than $300/month.
After I got out of the military and went back to school, friends were using Magnaplaners, Klipsch, Pioneer, and other quality speakers.
Amps ranged from Dynaco, McIntosh, to Sony, Pioneer, Crown, etc.
Do we really have much better sound today?
I think the biggest issue is that commercial sound recording is not marketed at our segment of the market. Look at the push for MP-3 and download music vs hard copy vinyl or CD.
I expect we are and since the 60s have been a small part of the overall music market. We probably only account for 10% of it.
Who is the music industry going to go after? 10% or 90%?
The thing is we have went backwards and have adjusted our standard of " accurate "hearing to include ever present artifacts due to power compression of direct radiating small speakers, even with lots of great clean amp power, it is glaringly there, and gets worse as they heat up. Mind you I do mean small speakers like B&W 801s. To some those are considered large but the power compression is still quite evident and at the moment I have big Classe on it. Still evident at decent volumes. A great amp makes it bearablem but once your ears are adjusted to that power compression sound you may never know poop from polish. You will just think you have great poop. Only big speakers with horns and compression drivers or great headphones can tip you off into acute hearing land. The rest is just sugar pills and mirrors. And you do not even need to be an audiophile to hear the difference, though it may make you one quickly.
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We are still getting lots of discussion about training the ear. I am more interested in the nature of the innate capabilities a person is born with and whether these can be measured. For example, take perfect pitch. I think it is reasonable to assume not everyone has this and that it is not something that anyone can be trained to have. it would be interesting to compare the genome of people with perfect pitch to see if there were any genes in common.
What other abilities people say were possessed by the golden ears brigade that we check out for a sepcidic gene?
Cheers
ian
What other abilities people say were possessed by the golden ears brigade that we check out for a sepcidic gene?
Cheers
ian
How sure are we that there is any such thing as a Golden Ears? In double blind tests, do their abilities just evaporate like the morning mist? I can't prove it, but if I was forced to bet, it would be that 99% of all Golden Ears-esque claims within these pages are pure fantasy.
Something may be worth reading regarding perfect pitch:
BBC News - Perfect pitch may not be so 'perfect'
BBC News - Perfect pitch may not be so 'perfect'
I won't try and get into another round with you, Pete, but seriously, this is an amp problem. Those 'great' amps are not so great, I've heard plenty of monsters over the ears, and they nearly all fall into a heap in the way you describe when the heat's on - the compression is 100% inside the electronics.
How do I know? Because I've heard both sides, over and over again - I have zero tolerance for the normal, compressed, hifi sound ...
You've mentioned Khorns a few times, and I chased down some performing on YouTube. The best were the real deal, easy to pick what turns you on, but they are also capable of sounding truly appalling - GIGO ...
fas, you have surpassed yourself this time. As much as I am continually impressed at your re-writing of the laws of physics and, occasional, debunking of the medical findings established through extensive research, in this case you have redefined the phenomenon known as "compression" by asserting, with absolute and total certainty, that it is not a property of speaker drivers, as previously thought through detailed and extensive research and testing, but caused by amplifiers. Not only that, but even very high spec amplifiers, held in the highest esteem around the world by hundreds of thousands, are rubbish and not worth anything at all.
Hmmm, the only thing left is ask whether you are an active contributor to the forum wiki, so that all members, and particularly new members, can have their obvious and long-held views corrected?
(Sorry mods, I couldn't help myself. Anyway, what Pano said on another thread about fas.)
That's OK, Absconditus, I'm pushing a Political Incorrect line here, so I'm bound to get some reverse thrust ...
The thing is, this is what particularly interests me in audio: what stops conventional hifi, most of the time, sounding any better than, well ... 'hifi'. One factor, as peteleoni points out, is that frequently the sound subjectively compresses as the volume rises, and my interest has been to understand what's causing that. Most people immediately point the finger at the speakers, and, yes, it can be 'solved' by using very efficient speakers. However, I chose to go down the electronics route, and have said to myself, many times, "Well, that's bloody amazing! Who would have thought that that tiny/crappy speaker could produce so much clean, high volume sound!!"
I'm afraid experience trumps theory, research every time - in my book ...
fas42, I assure you that some Khorns can sound very bad, having nothing to do with the amp. They varied widely. They varied a hell of a lot more than good strong modern solid state amps vary. The Khorns need very little amp, as all speakers should need. What did not vary is the soundness of the design. IMO the new "Khorn" will be built eventually by Tom Danley and it too will not, as all great speaker do not, need very much amp. This is not dictated by my personal preference, it is dictated by physics. if you speaker is small and you need a big amp, you make the power compression distortion tolerable, and that compression though made tolerable by an amp with gobs of headroom, is measurable and audible. Does it take golden ears to hear it? I don't think so, just a comparison probably.
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