John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

[PMA]

Nice post, Howard! I am not a native speaker, so it would be much more difficult for me to explain in detail, you covered exactly what I meant.

Mmerrill, in case you have objections to certain measurements, please tell it exactly. Please do not speak about measurements in general terms as wrong or insufficient.

 

[mmerrill99]

If you read Pavel's words literally which you should, the inclusion of the words "...not necessarily..." intentionally modifies the sentence so it does not exclude the possibility of the audio event actually existing outside one's mind. It just means it may not which can be the case in my experience as well as I have related here more than once.

This is the the sentence before & the quoted one "As we know, this evaluation is time dependent, so the impulses in the train of impulses are perceived differently, even if they are same. What we hear does not necessarily means that it exists, it exists in our mind only."

I read this that he meant the impulses are exactly the same but the listening is done at different times & hence it is perceived differently because the brain behaves differently at different times, not because there is any difference in the actual signal.

I believe anyone being honest will never claim every thing they perceive is an actual event occurring outside their own brain. This applies to every sense as well. Look at a bright light for a second then close your eyes. You see a dark spot. Does that spot exist outside your brain?

I don't disagree that the brain can be deluded at times but I also think it is used as an excuse by those who can't explain how things are perceived based on their measurements ("the impulses are the same") rather than finding out about the workings of auditory perception & evaluating how their measurements may be failing them.
BTW, your analogy is a bad one as the dark spot perceived is created by the chemical reaction of the rods & cones in the retina that give rise to nerve impulses when light falls on them & leads to something called photo-bleaching. It's still the brain receiving nerve impulses not something the brain is creating out of nothing - it's just the way that particular sense works

Step into a chicken coop for a while and notice the smell is diminished. Has the actual airborne ammonia decreased, or is it your perception that has changed?

Again, it's about chemical structure of nerve impulses & how there is a chemical desensitising of the nerve receptors when continuously flooded with the same chemical

Listen to an AM radio for a while that initially sounds dull. After a while you will fail to focus on that, has the HF program level increased?

Again, we have various levels of attention that can be applied to any sense - & attention directed focus allows us to perceive different aspects of the sound - the same applies to what why we perceive different aspects of the same sound when we are doing a focussed ABX test Vs when we are just listening to the same music without having a difference test at the end of our listening

Our ability to re-normalize to long-term stimulus is one of the greatest survival adaptations our brains make. It allows us to discard steady-state data and concentrate on changes. With this in mind, Pavel's statement of:"What we hear does not necessarily means that it exists, it exists in our mind only" is accurate.

In the wider context that I quoted, no it's not accurate or correct

It may exist as we perceive it outside our heads, but not necessarily. Without external verification, all you know is what is in your head. This is why humans have developed metrics and instruments, to quantify the world outside our perception. Of course we have to pay attention to our senses, but then the important thing is to try and find out what the nature of the sensation is. This leads to the audio maxim of: measure, but then listen, and the corollary: listen, but then measure!

Cheers!
Howie

I agree with you here & all I'm saying is that we should stop the arrogance that is often demonstrated by those who are shackled to measurements - the arrogance that their measurements tell all & anything perceived which isn't explained in their limited measurements is necessarily a delusion created by the mind without any external signal characteristic

Nice post, Howard! I am not a native speaker, so it would be much more difficult for me to explain in detail, you covered exactly what I meant.

Are you saying my understanding of what you said is incorrect, then? Can I ask what you mean then by "As we know, this evaluation is time dependent, so the impulses in the train of impulses are perceived differently, even if they are same."?

And maybe explain this & how Max hears a difference " We can see that both input impulses overlap and responses overlap and there are no differences between the impulses" if you don't mean it's his delusion?

Mmerrill, in case you have objections to certain measurements, please tell it exactly. Please do not speak about measurements in general terms as wrong or insufficient.

Let's just start from the principle that is agreed by all sane people that measurements do not tell us how a device will be perceived which obviously means that measurements don't fully characterise the behaviour of a device when processing dynamically changing music signals.

Expanding this outside of measuring single devices in isolation (with simplistic test signals) to measuring how closely the waveform from the whole playback system output (yes, includes speakers & room) matches the original waveform recorded & we may have a closer handle on this.

If you can produce this then we will have something to better evaluate what we are hearing from a playback system.

Otherwise asking me to criticise in detail a small measurement view into this whole picture is an attempt to reframe into a very narrow perspective what is obvious to all

 

[mountainman bob]

I agree with you here & all I'm saying is that we should stop the arrogance that is often demonstrated by those who are shackled to measurements - the arrogance that their measurements tell all & anything perceived which isn't explained in their limited measurements is necessarily a delusion created by the mind without any external signal characteristic

Your whole post was on the money but I particularly agree with the whole arrogance thing......it’s almost as if what you hear isn’t isn’t important only what it measures, so as long as it measures correctly it will be right even if it sounds wrong; and if it sounds wrong (to me) and yet measures right then I am the problem.

Correct me if I’m wrong here?

It’s why I don’t take part in organized religion......you are shamed into thinking you shouldn’t have a differing opinion.

 

[mmerrill99]

Your whole post was on the money but I particularly agree with the whole arrogance thing......it’s almost as if what you hear isn’t isn’t important only what it measures, so as long as it measures correctly it will be right even if it sounds wrong; and if it sounds wrong (to me) and yet measures right then I am the problem.

Correct me if I’m wrong here?

Yes, that's what I'm saying & we see it regularly on here.

It’s why I don’t take part in organized religion......you are shamed into thinking you shouldn’t have an opinion.

I recently called them in one of my posts, "ABX Puritans"

 

[scottjoplin]

all these arguments about how bad our hearing is makes me wonder how blind people manage to function at all?

Measurements are very accurate, the fact that we can measure things that the auditory system doesn't deem relevant doesn't mean our hearing is bad.

How do we know another’s mood just from slight inflections in speech?

Speech is a very good test of both our hearing and audio equipment

 

[mountainman bob]

Measurements are very accurate, the fact that we can measure things that the auditory system doesn't deem relevant doesn't mean our hearing is bad. Speech is a very good test of both our hearing and audio equipment

I’m not saying the measurements aren’t accurate.....I’m saying it’s the dismissal of the relevance of what we/some hear that irritates me.
And I would think it would irritate anyone else that has spent the time and effort to train themselves in the art of listening.....to say one is delusional in being able to hear subtle differences and then make an informed opinion of those differences is not acceptable to me.

Edit.....and yes I use vocals a lot as a reference, it really amazes me how a little tweak can change the vocal character but yet not seem to affect anything else.

 

[scottjoplin]

I’m not saying the measurements aren’t accurate.....I’m saying it’s the dismissal of the relevance of what we/some hear that irritates me.

I know, my post was a counter perspective to BV's

And I would think it would irritate anyone else that has spent the time and effort to train themselves in the art of listening.....to say one is delusional in being able to hear subtle differences and then make an informed opinion of those differences is not acceptable to me.

Sorry I don't know what "training themselves in the art of listening" means But I take your general point

 

[mountainman bob]

Sorry I don't know what "training themselves in the art of listening" means But I take your general point

Art of hearing, sound interpretation, paying attention.....whatever you wanna call it!

 

[scottjoplin]

Listening?

 

[mountainman bob]

Listening?

Your a funny one ain’t ya

 

[mmerrill99]

Listening?

You might be making the mistaken assumption that we perceive all the characteristics in the waveform when we 'listen' as if all is revealed to the listener. Again, perception, isn't like that - it is directed, either from the top down by attention/focus or from the bottom up by a something in the soundfield that attracts our attention.

Ever notice how it's difficult to find the difference in "spot the difference" pictures - even though both images are in front of us at the same time, we aren't taking in all the aspects of the image in one go, otherwise it would be trivial to spot the difference.

What if we were being asked to spot the difference between two movie snippets? Do you think you would be able to find the difference?

Think about what is happening in an ABX auditory test

 

[scottjoplin]

You might be making the mistaken assumption that we perceive all the characteristics in the waveform when we 'listen' as if all is revealed to the listener. Again, perception, isn't like that - it is directed, either from the top down by attention/focus or from the bottom up by a something in the soundfield that attracts our attention.

Measurements are very accurate, the fact that we can measure things that the auditory system doesn't deem relevant doesn't mean our hearing is bad.

 

[hhoyt]

This is the the sentence before & the quoted one "As we know, this evaluation is time dependent, so the impulses in the train of impulses are perceived differently, even if they are same. What we hear does not necessarily means that it exists, it exists in our mind only."

I read this that he meant the impulses are exactly the same but the listening is done at different times & hence it is perceived differently because the brain behaves differently at different times, not because there is any difference in the actual signal.

I will defer to Pavel here, but I believe he did indeed state the three clicks in each triad are the same. I hear each click differently and attribute it to the tensor tympani and stapedius muscles contracting to limit amplitude. There make a dull thump sound after each contraction as they relax. Like most noises resident inside your body we become normalized to the sound and do not notice it, but if an impulse repeats quickly enough, the residual tension in these muscles will attenuate the next impulse. The damping effect of these muscles has a greater affect on HF than LF, so in a string of impulses at sufficient volume the first one will be perceived to have more HF content. I don't know if this is what is happening here with me, but it is possible.

BTW, your analogy is a bad one as the dark spot perceived is created by the chemical reaction of the rods & cones in the retina that give rise to nerve impulses when light falls on them & leads to something called photo-bleaching. It's still the brain receiving nerve impulses not something the brain is creating out of nothing - it's just the way that particular sense works...Again, it's about chemical structure of nerve impulses & how there is a chemical desensitising of the nerve receptors when continuously flooded with the same chemical....

Actually given the possible explanation I gave for the middle ear action, the examples I gave would be very similar in nature, but I too have a problem with analogies; they really only apply to themselves and can unintentionally bring information unrelated to the subject of the analogizing...they are not a great idea in a discussion of facts.

I agree with you, people become too polarized and unaccepting of other view points. It seems to be a disease spreading around these days in general...

Cheers!
Howie

 

[mmerrill99]

Scott, are you trying to say that measurements show all or what is you rpost meant to convey - I really don't see what point you are making (or even if you are making a point)?

 

[mountainman bob]

You know what I find interesting that keeps being said....’If it can be heard it can be measured’

But how do you actually know the ‘feeling’ or the delusion as it’s been described is not actually part of the hearing process?

Maybe some just have a better handle on this unmeasurable aspect of things.
It is repeatable in my experience to get a particular ‘feeling’ or emotion from tweaking things I’m told shouldn’t matter.

 

[scottjoplin]

You know what I find interesting that keeps being said....’If it can be heard it can be measured’
But how do you actually know the ‘feeling’ or the delusion as it’s been described is not actually part of the hearing process?

You are getting to the crux of what sound is, what do you think it is? I know for a fact I hear things that can't be measured, in my case it's called tinnitus.

 

[PMA]

Yes, the individual impulses are same enough. And they may be subjectively perceived differently because, as is well known, subjective evaluation is a mix of time and frequency perception, starting with timing sensibility and continuing with frequency sensibility. We can detect attacks well and not the decays. Frequency is identifiable after some time, not immediately.

Groups of impulses differ in L/R time shifts, as was several times explained, however thread discussion does not allow for any continuity. Time shift of 10 us between channels is in case of such short impulses perceived rather like timbre change than imaging shift. Level change would result in image shift for such short impulses. Hearing is a brains action, that's why perception doesn't reflect physical reality exactly.

 

[mmerrill99]

I will defer to Pavel here, but I believe he did indeed state the three clicks in each triad are the same. I hear each click differently and attribute it to the tensor tympani and stapedius muscles contracting to limit amplitude. There make a dull thump sound after each contraction as they relax. Like most noises resident inside your body we become normalized to the sound and do not notice it, but if an impulse repeats quickly enough, the residual tension in these muscles will attenuate the next impulse. The damping effect of these muscles has a greater affect on HF than LF, so in a string of impulses at sufficient volume the first one will be perceived to have more HF content. I don't know if this is what is happening here with me, but it is possible.

Ah, I see - good point - yes, it's possible

Actually given the possible explanation I gave for the middle ear action, the examples I gave would be very similar in nature, but I too have a problem with analogies; they really only apply to themselves and can unintentionally bring information unrelated to the subject of the analogizing...they are not a great idea in a discussion of facts.

I see the point to your examples now given the above. What I was pointing out was that these perceptions are not created out of nothing but actually had a psychical basis for it & was not just a delusion.

I agree with you, people become too polarized and unaccepting of other view points. It seems to be a disease spreading around these days in general...

Cheers!
Howie

Yes, it's been said often on this thread, people need to keep an open mind & be open to learning new things. A major part of being able to achieve this is to constantly (or at least regularly) evaluate one's own position

 

[PMA]

You are getting to the crux of what sound is, what do you think it is? I know for a fact I hear things that can't be measured, in my case it's called tinnitus.

You might be surprised, it can be measured by an in-ear sensor. Human ear in case of tinnitus acts like acoustic transmitter and the sound may be measured. Please search web for scientific publications.

 

[tapestryofsound]

I’m not saying the measurements aren’t accurate.....I’m saying it’s the dismissal of the relevance of what we/some hear that irritates me.
And I would think it would irritate anyone else that has spent the time and effort to train themselves in the art of listening.....to say one is delusional in being able to hear subtle differences and then make an informed opinion of those differences is not acceptable to me.

Learning to make, tune, and play a musical instrument will change how the inner ear perceives sound forever, and in terms of audio, for the better - actually.

Geez, what’s with these people ........ not you, MMB