Is that meant to be C? No self-respecting C programmer uses gotos! And why are the label and goto outside the function?
main () {
while (1) {
printf("This product is snake oil.\n");
printf("No it isn't - I've tried it, and it works.\n");
printf("Your ears/brain are playing tricks on you\n");
printf("You can't knock it if you haven't tried it\n");
};
}
Hee hee! This is why I checked my silly little Basic prog for errors about 4 times before posting. 🙄
I always meant to learn C but never quite got around to it. I have a microcontroller project languishing on the back burner... One of these days...
It's bad enough that we're told to trust someone's ears, what's worse is when that someone is a man who from what I can gather is at least in his 60s. Do you know how much your ears have degraded by that age?
Right. Frequency response should not be confused with learned listening of whatever frequencies happen to be available. There is lots of information to listen to below 10kHz.
In addition, audiometric testing typically measures how loud frequencies have to be to be audible. If the volume has to be turned up to hear some frequency, that is not the same as not being able to hear that frequency at all. That being said, sometimes the volume might need to be turned up to impractical levels to reach audibility.
Audiometry: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
And of course, some people have especially well preserved hearing even in their 60's.
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And yet at the same time there's a world of loss in audible intelligibility as people age. It's not too far a stretch to assume that, as folks age, their ability to hear subtle differences is lost, as, under nominal conditions, these people are not hearing anything subtle. It's below their threshold. Yes, those who train may preserve or enrich their audible processing in spite of gross loss of hearing. I also don't know the literature characterizing well trained individuals with hearing loss to tell their instantaneous dynamic range. Anecdotes need not apply.
The adage of use it or lose it isn't fantasy.
The adage of use it or lose it isn't fantasy.
Sure, on average there is a gradual loss of nearly everything in terms of peak physical potential as time goes by, probably starting from somewhere around age 25. Maybe some kind of wisdom improves though.
Yes, our points are not mutually exclusive. But older individuals with good hearing are more the exception than the rule (at the population level I fully acknowledge).
For me the issue is not so much how good ones hearing is but rather whether one does a controlled experiment or not. That is to say, whether non-audible influences have been controlled for so that the test is a reliable indicator of only audible differences. This is pretty basic, although not always straightforward, scientific method; I am not reading any evidence of this being done.
It is also pretty standard snake oil methodology to have an "expert" in the room telling the listener about the product and showing all sorts of special setting up techniques and procedures and, of course, making sure the listener knows what they are listening to. No double-blinds allowed. Reminds me of door to door vacuum cleaner salespeople. The example of the pendulum is snake-oil perfection in that it is impossible for the listener not to know they are holding it. Presumably if the listener were blindfolded and the pendulum was secretly suspended in front of them by other means then this would "break the spell".
It is also pretty standard snake oil methodology to have an "expert" in the room telling the listener about the product and showing all sorts of special setting up techniques and procedures and, of course, making sure the listener knows what they are listening to. No double-blinds allowed. Reminds me of door to door vacuum cleaner salespeople. The example of the pendulum is snake-oil perfection in that it is impossible for the listener not to know they are holding it. Presumably if the listener were blindfolded and the pendulum was secretly suspended in front of them by other means then this would "break the spell".
In the case of hearing or listening ability, Earl Geddes said that we haven't seriously tried to study the top 5% of the population. He also said that to do so, we would need to develop new tests. My view would be that we don't really have optimal double blind test methodologies for some kinds of listening abilities. There has been neither funding nor academic interest for work focused in that area. Geddes says nobody cares what the top 5% can hear, it doesn't matter for most people.
It would seem that the only people who do care at all are those who like discussing what is snake oil and what isn't. Of those few who are interested, none are interested in funding the research Geddes said would be needed. In that sense Geddes appears to be right when he says nobody cares.
It would seem that the only people who do care at all are those who like discussing what is snake oil and what isn't. Of those few who are interested, none are interested in funding the research Geddes said would be needed. In that sense Geddes appears to be right when he says nobody cares.
The real problem is that the people in the audio field who think they are the top 5% usually aren't, which is the crux of the problem.
Yet the people that are quick to write "Just trust your ears" are extremely reluctant to demonstrate that they in fact trust their ears.
There may be a difference between demonstrating it to their satisfaction and to your satisfaction. Since Geddes says we have yet to develop proper tests for how the top 5% listen or hear, there may be some valid disagreement about what such a demonstration ought to consist of.
However for people who cannot hear a sine wave above 12kHz (i.e most over 50s) then they immediately disqualify from the top 5%. Those of us with Tinnitus likewise.
I have a theory. That the human mind tries no matter what to discredit an audio system as having realistic audio reproduction merely based upon the fact that the human brain knows that the audio system is what it is, an audio system, and not a performer or a band playing music.
Therefore the human mind of the audiophile is on an endless pursuit for perfection in audio reproduction that can never ever possibly be achieved, because the human mind will always move the goal posts forward and constantly forever find flaws to pick in the audio system and say "this is not real, this is an audio system, therefore this is not a realistic reproduction of sound."
We know that it is a fake reproduction of sound so therefore it must be imperfect.
I think therefore I am.
Same thing, I think I hear imperfections therefore there are imperfections.
Therefore the human mind of the audiophile is on an endless pursuit for perfection in audio reproduction that can never ever possibly be achieved, because the human mind will always move the goal posts forward and constantly forever find flaws to pick in the audio system and say "this is not real, this is an audio system, therefore this is not a realistic reproduction of sound."
We know that it is a fake reproduction of sound so therefore it must be imperfect.
I think therefore I am.
Same thing, I think I hear imperfections therefore there are imperfections.
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It would depend. If it were desired to find the top 5% in terms of frequency response range, sure.
If it were desired to find the top 5% in terms of listening for harmonic distortion of a 50Hz test tone, then maybe not.
If it were desired to find the top 5% in terms of listening for harmonic distortion of a 50Hz test tone, then maybe not.
I guess if the field was athletics, we would have thousands of self proclaimed Usain Bolt's...
Perhaps we need a championship and a ranking system 🙂
Any demonstration that ears can be trusted must involve just ears. Curiously, in most cases when other sensory input channels are disabled the ears seem to stop working too. Lame excuses are then offered. This does not rule out the possibility that there really are a '5%' with extraordinarily good ears, but very few of these people have yet been reliably identified.
Given the slope of the F-M curves at that point that would be an interesting if completely moot test. Anything over about 8% you hear as 100Hz for H2 at low levels.
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