Inherent Design Question: Inherent sonic characteristics that cant be measured?

[picowallspeaker]

Originally Posted by croseiv

Live is uncompressed (fully lossless).

But you may sleep all the time

[Generic George]

My problem with the "can't be measured" position is that it essentially comes down to "Audio reproduction is MAGIC".

I mean seriously.

1) We can find sub-sub-sub atomic particles that exist for essentially no time what so ever
2) Can generate, recieve and manipulate signals into gigahertz and beyond
3) Have radars that can give you a detailed picture from what are basically faint echos of radar frequencies
4) We can find planet orbiting stars hundreds and thousands of light YEARS away by nanoscopic changes in the light detected from the star and even determine what the major components of the atmosphere are.

All of these require accuracy and precision in both playback and/or detection of unimaginable magnitudes just 30-40 years ago.

Yet some how recording and playing back a simple 20-20khz signal is impossible to do accurately?

I'll grant that the physical process of reproducing sound is considerably more difficult than recording it or playing it back up to the point at which the sound frequencies are physically created. And that there are limitations to most of the devices we use currently.

Even there it is mostly a question of cost and space. You can get a 1hz fan woofer, it will just cost you $10,000 or so and require a room of it's own. There are super tweeters that will go up to 100khz, when most people can't even hear the supposed max of 20khz.

Most of the "can't be measured crowd" seem to be stuck on the sonic equivalent of Xeno's paradox.

The human ear is a marvelous thing, but we're deaf and blind compared to a lot of animals and it simply doesn't possess magical powers.

That's the domain of the human mind, which can be persuaded to believe in anything.

[454Casull]

Originally Posted by Pano

Do you mean that speakers can't reproduce it if it's there, or that stereo recordings don't contain it?

Both. How can either the microphones or speakers capture imaging cues anywhere besides on a straight line between them?

[454Casull]

Originally Posted by Generic George

My problem with the "can't be measured" position is that it essentially comes down to "Audio reproduction is MAGIC".

I mean seriously.

1) We can find sub-sub-sub atomic particles that exist for essentially no time what so ever
2) Can generate, recieve and manipulate signals into gigahertz and beyond
3) Have radars that can give you a detailed picture from what are basically faint echos of radar frequencies
4) We can find planet orbiting stars hundreds and thousands of light YEARS away by nanoscopic changes in the light detected from the star and even determine what the major components of the atmosphere are.

All of these require accuracy and precision in both playback and/or detection of unimaginable magnitudes just 30-40 years ago.

Yet some how recording and playing back a simple 20-20khz signal is impossible to do accurately?

I'll grant that the physical process of reproducing sound is considerably more difficult than recording it or playing it back up to the point at which the sound frequencies are physically created. And that there are limitations to most of the devices we use currently.

Even there it is mostly a question of cost and space. You can get a 1hz fan woofer, it will just cost you $10,000 or so and require a room of it's own. There are super tweeters that will go up to 100khz, when most people can't even hear the supposed max of 20khz.

Most of the "can't be measured crowd" seem to be stuck on the sonic equivalent of Xeno's paradox.

The human ear is a marvelous thing, but we're deaf and blind compared to a lot of animals and it simply doesn't possess magical powers.

That's the domain of the human mind, which can be persuaded to believe in anything.

Agree 100%, with the caveat that we don't fully understand what the human mind desires when it comes to audio reproduction in a room.

[Generic George]

Originally Posted by 454Casull

Agree 100%, with the caveat that we don't fully understand what the human mind desires when it comes to audio reproduction in a room.

Yes. I think the fundamental issue in many respect may be that hearing, which for the sake of this argument I will define as your mind interpreting the signals input to it by our senses, is a distinct phenomena from the physical sound wave mechanically impacting our ear drums.

"Hearing" in the way I tend to think of it, is something that takes place entirely within the mind and that is affected by how a particular mind processes and reacts to the signals. So I can believe that two people might have very different "hearing" of the exact same audio signal and thus be unable to agree on how "good" something sounds, but the difference isn't in what the physical sound is, but how those minds react to it.

I think someone earlier in the thread also said something to the effect of "We don't necessarily understand what measurement corresponds with what characteristic of the sounds we hear is.".

Which I would agree with.

[Joel Wesseling]

It's not Magic. Its a real Formation.

You can be influeced to hear something initialy but over time you will hear whats actualy there.. Developing more experience will let you hear whats there faster..

Since all hi end speakers are flawed I look for speakers where there is no single major flaw that sticks out so bad that you will not be able to live with it for a long time and this will make it seem positively special..

[DavidL]

Originally Posted by Generic George

That's the domain of the human mind, which can be persuaded to believe in anything.

THIS ..........is why are are audio magazines that pander to the naked ape albeit rich apes

[picowallspeaker]

Originally Posted by Joel Wesseling

You can be influeced to hear something initially but over time you will hear whats actually there..

and then ( at the time)

.. Developing more experience will let you hear whats there faster..

That's the process of acquisition, like learning a tune

[tvrgeek]

We went through all this over in the lounge talking about amplifiers.
Everything can be expressed by it's transfer function. Law of physics. What factors need to be included is where we run afoul and things get all subjective.
It is quite true we don't fully understand how we hear or process what we hear. That does maybe add weight to selecting one measurement or another but it does not change the list of things we can measure. It may change the subjective quality of a driver from one person to another. It won't change the driver.

We can measure the simple frequency response
We can measure pulse decay
We can measure breakup modes
We can measure simple harmonic distortion
We can measure IM distortion
We can measure compression
We can measure mechanical reflections and diffraction
We can measure non-linearaties with excursion
We can measure the effect of the reactive load of the circuit driving it

I don't think we need magic. My experience says basic frequency response and basic harmonic distortion are 99% of the game. The crossover is the other 99% of the result.

I have to agree with Joel. That is why I always recommend understanding speakers by listening to one that has for 20 or so years been doing nothing particularly wrong. The Vanderstein 2ce. Think long and hard about what you can do better.

[picowallspeaker]

Originally Posted by Joel Wesseling

It's not Magic. Its a real Formation.

I read Foundation
Indeed
formation is good
also animation