Gnobuddy, you are being trolled. If you keep feeding it, it will continue to do what it does best.
Certainly true. I saw many instances of people hearing what they had been told to expect when involved in electroacoustics. Especially when in open demonstrations, where no one wants to be seen to disagree with the expert... Roughly the same reason that a show of hands is a really bad way to take a vote.
What an audiophile (hifi enthusiasts) thinks he hears or doesn't hear is unprovable, that is why audio related threads can go on and on and on and on.
Some is unprovable, and some may be unproven. Otherwise, an over-simplification. That would be my view. Others may differ.
For "unproven", I am thinking mostly about this: DF96 did, correctly I believe, point out there is a statistical tail, albeit probably small, and it could be studied in more focused detail using the latest technology and human subject research techniques. Somebody with the research chops and other necessary resources just needs to step up to the plate and do it.
And think about all the fun we could have arguing about the results! 😀
For "unproven", I am thinking mostly about this: DF96 did, correctly I believe, point out there is a statistical tail, albeit probably small, and it could be studied in more focused detail using the latest technology and human subject research techniques. Somebody with the research chops and other necessary resources just needs to step up to the plate and do it.
And think about all the fun we could have arguing about the results! 😀
Exactly what I've read, many times, over many years.
I could not agree more. I usually point to optical illusions at this point, as a reminder that our perceptual processing systems are quite capable of being fooled. We can (and do) see things that aren't there. Equally, we hear things that aren't there.
See the black dots flashing on and off in the attached image? They aren't actually there...
-Gnobuddy
Attachments
The presentation of an Audiologist graph would be the best proof of just who qualifies to be taken seriously. If the line on the graph is not flat from 30hz to 16khz then that's a fail.
Excellent point!
However, a problem may arise when a somewhat deaf person assumes most people must being imagining things. Where do we draw the line? When 51% of people can't hear something, the other 49% are imagining? Or 95%?
Oh, I dunno, I thought Mark and I had a perfectly civil exchange.
Mark and I don't share the same opinions about Hi-Fi, but I completely support other people's rights to believe in something quite different from my own beliefs. As long as it isn't unethical, and doesn't involve hurting people or animals, it's not really my concern, is it?
-Gnobuddy
Thus demonstrating that probably most people have little understanding of what standard audiology testing actually measures? Haven't we been over this before?
Here are some standard tests:
Types of Tests Used to Evaluate Hearing in Children and Adults
They don't all produce graphs of frequency response. None of them measure ability to hear distortion. Come on.
Anyway, maybe you are thinking about an audiogram:
The Audiogram
Basically, the fix for a poor audiogram is to use hearing aids that employ multi-band compression to bring all sounds into the audible range.
Once somewhere in the audible range, speech recognition is possible. And if distortion was learned like listening to a language, it can be heard too.
Personally speaking, I don't need hearing aids to hear speech or some types of distortion.
But if you decide to respond to this, PLEASE SPEAK UP, I LOST MY GLASSES! 😛
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My favourite posts about what is 'hi-fi' might not be in this thread. I found them some time ago and pasted the choice pieces into a text file for my own use. They were written by member 'graaf' and I quote a few sentences:
We can do it the same way we (humans) study thousands of other statistical systems. (For example: how do doctors decide who is overweight, and who is obese? Or how do we decide who has average intelligence, and who is a genius?)
Step 1: Take data on a reasonably large number of people.
Step 2: Calculate the mean and standard deviation of the data.
Step 3: Disregard data that is more than three standard deviations away from the mean.
That procedure includes 99.7% of all data, and excludes 0.3% of outliers.
In a perfect world, that would mean there are around three people out of every thousand who have super-normal hearing, that we haven't taken into account. In practice, minor statistical and experimental errors are more likely the cause of the supposed super-normal hearing abilities of those people.
Multiple studies like this about human hearing have been done over the years - by Bell Labs, by doctors and public health officials, by Dolby Labs and THX and independent audio testing companies, even by loudspeaker manufacturers and the people who test the effectiveness of MP3 encoders.
The final conclusions haven't changed a whole lot in many, many decades. Flat response from 40 Hz to 15 kHz, and THD below 0.5%, and there won't be any significant audible flaws. Widen that out, make it 30 Hz to 20 KHz and THD below 0.1%, and virtually nobody will be able to hear any flaws.
As I keep saying, audio electronics routinely meets or exceeds those specs. But speakers and living rooms don't. That's where there is still progress to be made.
So I no longer worry about my audio electronics. If I need a receiver or a CD player, I just head down to the nearest thrift store, and see if they have a working one for sale. Brand and model are irrelevant, they are all essentially perfect. They all have too much power and too little distortion to matter.
No such luck with speakers, unfortunately. Most sound horrid. A few sound okay, maybe even good. A very few sound good enough that I can forget about them and just enjoy the music. Those are never thrift-store finds, unfortunately! 🙂
-Gnobuddy
If I move my eyes, yes. If I keep them still, no. So what does that prove? That your illusion can be overcome with a little effort. Next! 😀
I am an ectomorph. By the "official" figures I am underweight. My son is an endomorph. With the same figures he is overweight.
You must try a bit harder. Next!
That probably is sufficient to provide us with all the mastering engineers society requires. Except, of course, that hearing some kinds of distortion is learned, so we don't necessarily have to rely only on outliers for some things.
By the way, much of hearing pitch is learned, for most people. Some resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_training
Note that most ear training is like leaning language. As I still hold is the case for much distortion hearing.
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2015/05/28/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-be-possible-some-adults
As an aside, I am also interested in rhythm ear training, particularly for hearing micro-timing between genres. The old country music train beat is a particular variation of a common timing variation (as verses pure clock-accurate metronome timing) that occurs in many musical styles from Brazilian, to pop, to jazz, to some rock, and even some newer metal. A style that remains very evenly metrical is traditional metal. And music produced on computers, exactly on the grid, necessarily comes out exactly evenly timed. So, we hear more of that style today, because so much must is computer generated or edited. Anyway, I am amazed at how many people are oblivious to micro-timing of rhythms.
Maybe it's time you start doing some actual DIY. This is diyaudio, afterall, where you can seek out find something better.
This is not just another audio forum.
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I do lots of DIY audio, thanks. In the area of guitar amps, where there are still things to be learned, and interesting noises to be made.
Nothing to do with Hi-Fi or accurate reproduction of a signal, though. There, there is nothing new to be learned, and no progress to be made, at least when it comes to the electronics.
-Gnobuddy
Hardly. According to your own words, you cannot overcome the illusion while allowing your eyes to move. Your eye-brain perceptual system is flawed, it shows you things that aren't there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
With an optical illusion, sitting there in plain sight, you can look at it repeatedly, and try to find some way to stop your deluded brain. With an auditory illusion that flashes by and is gone for ever, how do you know if it was an illusion, or not? Does the illusion show up only when you're breathing? Only when you're moving your eyes? Only when your heart is beating?
(There has been plenty of research on auditory illusions too, by the way. They are quite real.)
Of course there are thousands of other optical illusions, and you can't think your way out of the others, either. And the ultimate, gigantic, optical illusion: there is a huge "blind spot" in your field of vision. But you (and I, and everyone else) doesn't even notice it, because our brains fool us into not seeing how blind we are!
Big picture: are you seriously trying to claim that optical (and auditory) illusions don't exist? Because that is a quite untenable position to take, given the amount of data to the contrary.
-Gnobuddy
Well, I would have to disagree with your last statement about audio electronics. But I suppose that as long as you go for the thrift store rejects there will be no progress for you.
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