Cats and CD vs. vinyl

[Drumhead]

I wonder how a CD sounds with a cat's hearing?

I have noticed that the sound volume when my cats prefer to leave the room is much louder for vinyls than for CDs. I'm aware that this is not a scientific proof, that the statistics are insufficient, if not non-existing, that the effect could have other causes such as simply sharper transients on CDs than on vinyls and all that - But bear with my little thesis and observation. Cats are supposedly able to hear frequencies up to about 48 kHz so the sampling frequency of CDs must have some audible tone, timbre, distortion or other effect on my furry friends' perception of CD sound.

Does anyone here share the same experience?

Just a thought: Would it be possible to sample a piece of music with for instance half the normal sampling rate and get a feel for the effect myself with my own ears? By 'possible' I mean: Is it something that can be easily done with a normal sound card in my PC and/or Audacity? (I never noticed an option to choose a sampling frequency in the audible range: As far as I recall the choice is between 22, 24, 48 and 96 kHz. And 80% of all the functions in Audacity leaves me clueless as to what they are and do ). Perhaps somebody knows an off-hand trick to do this.

(Hope the Lounge is an appropriate forum for this post, or that a moderator will guide it to a better place).

[Osvaldo de Banfield]

Perhaps you can do another test with a plant, like the very interesting article (almost for me) from Cleve Backster. Plant's hasn't ears, but in my experience they definitively can listen. And they feel.

[thoriated]

Cats are probably more sensitive to the Gibbs brick wall filter anomalies than humans - the top CD octave probably sounds more crapped out to them.

[Drumhead]

Sorry, Osvaldo, leaving innocent plants in my care would be cruelty against them. I simply don't care enough about them and they die. End of story :-D

[DF96]

Conventional DAC or filter-less NOS? This could make quite a difference to what a cat might hear.

[Cassiel]

Plant's hasn't ears, but in my experience they definitively can listen. And they feel.

Well, that explains many things. From now on I will abstain myself from making comments in front of my plants. They look depressed right now. Fear the Inquisitor.

[Drumhead]

Conventional DAC or filter-less NOS?

I have no idea. I have been playing CDs for a while on a cheap Denver DVD-player.
Maybe this answers your question?

Yesterday I finally got enough of it and bought a Denon CD-player (for reasons that has more to do with convenience and ease-of-use than sound - the DVD-player has no display to tell you wich track is playing, no cutout on the sides of the drawer so you can grab the CD by the edges and was really sluggish to change tracks, start/stop a.s.o.). So far I haven't noticed any difference in the sound between the two players, but I haven't really compared them either. I'll try to notice if the too-loud-for-cats threshold has changed now...

[M Gregg]

Well,

I have two examples.. unfortunately not cats though..

Some years ago when I was using meridian cd player and linn LP12..the dog would go behind the sofa with the CD on, when playing a record he would sit by the tube amp and go to sleep..

The same would happen with my son at the time a baby..he would go to sleep with record playing but not with CD..and its interesting because it would happen with heavy rock..or soul music..or R&B..

Regards
M. Gregg

[Mooly]

In one of his books John Linsley Hood mentioned his cat Fingal and how it would leave the room when testing some supposed "ultimate" commercial amplifier. Not sure what the source was though CD or LP.

[Drumhead]

Originally Posted by M Gregg

Well,

I have two examples.. unfortunately not cats though..

Some years ago when I was using meridian cd player and linn LP12..the dog would go behind the sofa with the CD on, when playing a record he would sit by the tube amp and go to sleep..

The same would happen with my son at the time a baby..he would go to sleep with record playing but not with CD..and its interesting because it would happen with heavy rock..or soul music..or R&B..

Regards
M. Gregg

Cats, dogs and babies all (normally) have hearings that go beyond 20 kHz. So I would call this a valid observation.

Fortunately, I'm no longer cursed with the ability to hear much over 14 Khz. It has been some years since I was unable not to notice a CRT-TV by its line-shift ringing even several rooms away, if the doors vere left open. That is 15.625 kHz in Europe AFAIK. As a child, up to my late teens, that tone really annoyed me. Turning up the volume on the TV usually helped drowning it. But I remember some TVs vere so badly constructed that the audio circuits were also infected with that constantly ringing tone and just amplified it