I was tuning my car stereo and today I was listening at a rather loud volume and I was like damn this sounds awesome! But then I noticed that the tweeters turned on their self protection circuits, which meant they were being driven hard. Wierd, I thought. I noticed there were some peaks in some areas in the overall freq response, but I just thought maybe this was just some odd node or whatever I couldnt tune out with my 1 octave EQ.
I then was at home tuning the subwoofer level and then threw the system on the RTA. I went to do some adjustments, when I made an extreme adjustment to one knob and I was like, wait a minute, that just had NO effect at all. I look down and sure enough, the EQ "engage" button was set to DISENGAGE. Oh my god, I've been listening all this time since I did a redo of my stereo (maybe a week or so) with the EQ bypassed, and I thought it sounded "good". I was also wondering why when I was tuning before with the RTA I couldnt tune out these particular peaks and dips. but still, my ears told me that it sounded "good". Immediately I reEQ'd the system with the RTA as best as I could. This time making sure it was engaged. When I listened to it again, at first I was like "wow what dull sound". but after a little bit it was like this sounds much more natural, but once again i have to readjust the system gain structure, now that I have the EQ properly running.
Needless to say I was dissapointed in myself for not immediately noticing. It was before, I remember a 500 hz EQ had been turned up slightly by accident, but immedinately I could recognize that there was something wrong with the sound. But this time my ears let me down!
Can we say listener bias or am I loosing my hearing???
I then was at home tuning the subwoofer level and then threw the system on the RTA. I went to do some adjustments, when I made an extreme adjustment to one knob and I was like, wait a minute, that just had NO effect at all. I look down and sure enough, the EQ "engage" button was set to DISENGAGE. Oh my god, I've been listening all this time since I did a redo of my stereo (maybe a week or so) with the EQ bypassed, and I thought it sounded "good". I was also wondering why when I was tuning before with the RTA I couldnt tune out these particular peaks and dips. but still, my ears told me that it sounded "good". Immediately I reEQ'd the system with the RTA as best as I could. This time making sure it was engaged. When I listened to it again, at first I was like "wow what dull sound". but after a little bit it was like this sounds much more natural, but once again i have to readjust the system gain structure, now that I have the EQ properly running.
Needless to say I was dissapointed in myself for not immediately noticing. It was before, I remember a 500 hz EQ had been turned up slightly by accident, but immedinately I could recognize that there was something wrong with the sound. But this time my ears let me down!
Can we say listener bias or am I loosing my hearing???
Reading your post, it seems to me there's nothing wrong with your ears. It's just that we are sometimes betrayed by our 'I'.
What we perceive is only to a small extend determined by our ears. Sure, we have to get the sound inside our head, but from there on a lot goes on we have no clue about.
Neurological research has shown that the brain actually funnels all those 100's of thousands of bits of inputs into what they sometimes call a 'landscape' of sound, a multidimensional structure defining all the properties of what we 'think' is what we hear. Now, if you expect something to hear, the brain actually constructs the landscape ahead of time (anticipation) as close as it can remember to what it is expecting. But it goes even further. It increases the gain of the frequency and impuls sensing channels, that would reinforce the landscape as it expects it. Conversely, it decreases the gain of those input channels that would detract from the expected landscape. These 'channels' are not in the ear, but are part of the very complex, multi-feedback processing in the brain itself.
So, anything that would be in contradiction to what you are expecting must really make a very, very strong impression, or else it will simply be ignored. You just never become aware of it.
This all goes on almost completely hidden from our conciousness.
So, with that in mind (pun intended) your experiences are nothing out of the ordinary. But it is unsettling if these things come to the surface once in a while, because we feel betrayed by ourselves! But then again, the easiest person to fool is, indeed, yourself.
Jan Didden
What we perceive is only to a small extend determined by our ears. Sure, we have to get the sound inside our head, but from there on a lot goes on we have no clue about.
Neurological research has shown that the brain actually funnels all those 100's of thousands of bits of inputs into what they sometimes call a 'landscape' of sound, a multidimensional structure defining all the properties of what we 'think' is what we hear. Now, if you expect something to hear, the brain actually constructs the landscape ahead of time (anticipation) as close as it can remember to what it is expecting. But it goes even further. It increases the gain of the frequency and impuls sensing channels, that would reinforce the landscape as it expects it. Conversely, it decreases the gain of those input channels that would detract from the expected landscape. These 'channels' are not in the ear, but are part of the very complex, multi-feedback processing in the brain itself.
So, anything that would be in contradiction to what you are expecting must really make a very, very strong impression, or else it will simply be ignored. You just never become aware of it.
This all goes on almost completely hidden from our conciousness.
So, with that in mind (pun intended) your experiences are nothing out of the ordinary. But it is unsettling if these things come to the surface once in a while, because we feel betrayed by ourselves! But then again, the easiest person to fool is, indeed, yourself.
Jan Didden
Keld said:
Well, it really is more of an ASP. But if you or anybody else REALLY are interested why you are fooled so often and so easy by yourself, read for instance John McCrone's "Going Inside: A tour around a single moment of conciousness". Amazon.com has it.
And the stuff I posted above about the "multidimensional landscape" of perception also goes for vision, smell, etc. That's one reason why eyewitnesses often report confliction evidence, although they saw the same scene, and all have excellent vision. Like people hearing the same music, having excellent ears, report different perceptions. Isn't mother nature devious??
Jan Didden
eRiCdWoNg said:
Well, whats the EQ you are using? I've really never had an EQ that I could live with, and I've had a few. They always flatten the image (talking 2 channel stereo) to some degree. The best analog eq's I've played with are SoundCraftsman's and some of the SAE units. There is allot of cascaded filters in eq's, all analog, all with their problems (nothing is perfect), and things get compounded by the time the signal is reaching the output. I'd rather just deal with a clean signal, amplified clean, reproduced as best as possible with the speakers, and deal with room problems passively (room treatments and placement).
Digital EQ's? Something I haven't played with much, but they seem promising.
Listener bias? Yeah, why not, its not a bad thing.
Loosing your hearing? No, I think you've made a discovery. Just don't go off the deep end with flea powered single ended triodes, LSD inspired Dr Seuss designed horn speakers, and interconnect cables that have to be aligned with magnetic north to sound their best.
Ive had the same experience with speaker cables.....till I made a friend of mine help me out with a blind test. In the blind test I couldnt tell the difference between silver, silver plated and copper. Prior to the blind test I was dead sure the difference was huge, as in day and night
I guess its all down to the power of suggestion.
Keeps the snake oil companies in buisness though.
Sometimes Id wish I had not made the blind tests, the silver interconnects were not that expensive to make, and they did improve the sound quite a bit
Magura
I guess its all down to the power of suggestion.
Keeps the snake oil companies in buisness though.
Sometimes Id wish I had not made the blind tests, the silver interconnects were not that expensive to make, and they did improve the sound quite a bit
Magura
Thanks for the replys. I'm using an AudioControl EQXii unit. Its wierd it has 1/2 octave EQs from 200 hz down and 1 octave EQs for 200 Hz up. I wish it was the other way around. I
I do plan on getting an AudioControl DQX (digital EQ, 31 band graph, 2 or 3 band para and 3 or 2 way linkw/riley xover) but at over $400 street price even used thats a decent chunk of change.
My opinion of EQs is this- in my house I do not use an EQ. I am able to aim and position the speakers (and they are accuarate enough on their own) that it does not need EQ.
On my PA/DJ system in the house I have set it up so that I do not need an EQ and it even RTA's relatively flatly. However I do have one and take it cause at events theres NO controlling the acoustics in many cases.
But In the car, where it is extremely hard to play with positioning and aiming (to some degree) with a car cabin full of resonances and it being a lousy enviroment to listen in anyway...
However a lousy EQ job no matter how great the EQ is would destroy the sound. But a EQ job done properly and in moderation can help smooth out the sound but would take away from the over all sensitivity of the setup.
I suppose I got used to the "peaky" and harsh sound of the car system. It didnt take much extreme tuning to bring it in check which means the frequency response was already pretty good but a tad bit on the bright side along with some peaks in the midrange. Its sorta like watching a slightly misadjusted TV, at first you may notice but within a few minutes your eyes adjust.
I do plan on getting an AudioControl DQX (digital EQ, 31 band graph, 2 or 3 band para and 3 or 2 way linkw/riley xover) but at over $400 street price even used thats a decent chunk of change.
My opinion of EQs is this- in my house I do not use an EQ. I am able to aim and position the speakers (and they are accuarate enough on their own) that it does not need EQ.
On my PA/DJ system in the house I have set it up so that I do not need an EQ and it even RTA's relatively flatly. However I do have one and take it cause at events theres NO controlling the acoustics in many cases.
But In the car, where it is extremely hard to play with positioning and aiming (to some degree) with a car cabin full of resonances and it being a lousy enviroment to listen in anyway...
However a lousy EQ job no matter how great the EQ is would destroy the sound. But a EQ job done properly and in moderation can help smooth out the sound but would take away from the over all sensitivity of the setup.
I suppose I got used to the "peaky" and harsh sound of the car system. It didnt take much extreme tuning to bring it in check which means the frequency response was already pretty good but a tad bit on the bright side along with some peaks in the midrange. Its sorta like watching a slightly misadjusted TV, at first you may notice but within a few minutes your eyes adjust.
what you where talking about is also how you never notice your own blind spots in your vision. Everybody has blind spots , but nobody sees black spots in their vision, just one big picture. I guess whatever "function" (c++ ) that is, it must be a global function since can be used by more than one sense.
) that is, it must be a global function since can be used by more than one sense.TNT said:
Have to disagree with you as to this not always being the case as far as power amps go.
The sound of my power amp changed dramatically.
This is not something I or anyone else would have gotten used to or eventually accepted.
Nope, I didn't measure it before and after.
I do believe that we get used to different things - I think there is such a thing as "pyshco -acoustic effect"
However, not everything that is not easily explained is hocus pocus _big grin_
And it can be easily discernable.
Regards
Ken L
Re: Re: Must admit- I was deceived by my own ears
Durn John, you just described my system! _grin_ Pretty Close anyhow _bigger grin_
Of course, I've been playing in the deep end most of my life. Hehe.
A few things you left out though, everything really does sound a lot better if you wear this cool little party hat made of silver tinfoil folded at specific points and places that neutralize spectral harmonics.
Also, if everything doesn't sound right - you do know that things can sound differently at different times with no changes to the system don't you?- anyhow if you hop around on one foot singing dixie and complete three full circles doing so will almost always neutralize the bad feng shui.
Lastly, anyone who actually uses SS technology, 300Bs, horns, Lowthers, sealed dyanmic drivers and a digital crossover and actually expects it all to sound good has _GOT_ to be kidding, or at least half -nuts _ weird, loopy, guilty, grin_
hehehehehe
Regards
Ken L
johnkramer said:
Just don't go off the deep end with flea powered single ended triodes, LSD inspired Dr Seuss designed horn speakers, and interconnect cables that have to be aligned with magnetic north to sound their best.
Durn John, you just described my system! _grin_ Pretty Close anyhow _bigger grin_
Of course, I've been playing in the deep end most of my life. Hehe.
A few things you left out though, everything really does sound a lot better if you wear this cool little party hat made of silver tinfoil folded at specific points and places that neutralize spectral harmonics.
Also, if everything doesn't sound right - you do know that things can sound differently at different times with no changes to the system don't you?- anyhow if you hop around on one foot singing dixie and complete three full circles doing so will almost always neutralize the bad feng shui.
Lastly, anyone who actually uses SS technology, 300Bs, horns, Lowthers, sealed dyanmic drivers and a digital crossover and actually expects it all to sound good has _GOT_ to be kidding, or at least half -nuts _ weird, loopy, guilty, grin_
hehehehehe
Regards
Ken L
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