John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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Yes I tried it with Jan and SY the effect was impressive and the calibration was not that transferable from person to person.

Which is interesting in what it says about individual hearing mechanism processing. We found the same doing in-ear microphone recordings with the Etymotic ear-drum pressure zone probe microphones. When listening to a recording made with the mic probes at your own eardrums, the effect was totally convincing to the point where it fooled your eyes. By this I mean if you turned your head while recording, when listening to playback your vision would swim listening to that part.

Listening to a recording made on another's head was highly variable. Between the four of us doing the testing, only one other's sounded real to me, indeed one of us had very different ear slit-shaped canals and their recording sounded very off-putting.

Makes one appreciate how adaptive our aural processing is...you say potato I say potahtoe...

Cheers,
Howie
 
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I did once see an experiment showing how just a small amount of putty on the pinnae completely messed up height perception, but also noting that within a few days the brain would recalibrate to the new setup.

Maybe what we need is to take moulds of Pinnae and ear canal and send those off to calibrate the realizers of the future with?
 
Your brain does adapt over time. I had a ruptured eardrum a couple years ago and the initial weirdness of the frequency response went away after a few days. It was also hard to tell as it healed because it happens so gradually. In the end, the before and after tests from the audiologist show the difference, though.
 
I did once see an experiment showing how just a small amount of putty on the pinnae completely messed up height perception, but also noting that within a few days the brain would recalibrate to the new setup.
Maybe what we need is to take moulds of Pinnae and ear canal and send those off to calibrate the realizers of the future with?

How about genetically modifying all humans to have the same pinnae? I think we should use Prince Charles as the model: http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/26500/Prince-Charles-with-Big-Ears--26781.jpg

Howie
 
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Or his spitting image puppet?
 

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Your brain does adapt over time. I had a ruptured eardrum a couple years ago and the initial weirdness of the frequency response went away after a few days. It was also hard to tell as it healed because it happens so gradually. In the end, the before and after tests from the audiologist show the difference, though.

It certainly does adapt... I've had my ears syringed in the past - immediately afterwards the difference is dramatic, then the system adapts...
 
It seems to me that most here do not hear the actual sound differences that I hear in audio reproduction. You seem to be more interested in imaging or differences in your ear lobes, etc. Personally, the intrinsic sound quality is almost everything to me, and I could listen in mono, and be reasonably happy, but I do hear and am sensitive to sound quality of whatever I am listening to, including acoustic instruments. What is with you guys? Were you born that way? Is it your technical upbringing? Or could it be that you would rather listen to the performance itself, regardless of how well it is reproduced?
 
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I 'm in your last sentence Mr. Curl

George


Me too, BUT with a decent system setup in a good room and the right recordings the walls can vanish and you are transported to a different space. This is a magical illusion and sadly the recordings that have this captured are few and generally not the ones worth listening to for artist merit. But still nice when you find one. It's just sad that all efforts to create a realistic 3D soundstage have been stamped on and we are left with stereo or cinema effects sound.



The skylarks are getting territorial with the warmer weather. Their song I could listen to for hours. No hifi gets close!
 
It seems to me that most here do not hear the actual sound differences that I hear in audio reproduction. You seem to be more interested in imaging or differences in your ear lobes, etc. Personally, the intrinsic sound quality is almost everything to me, and I could listen in mono, and be reasonably happy, but I do hear and am sensitive to sound quality of whatever I am listening to, including acoustic instruments. What is with you guys? Were you born that way? Is it your technical upbringing? Or could it be that you would rather listen to the performance itself, regardless of how well it is reproduced?

Not everyone disagrees. I'd take good mono over bad stereo any day of the week.

Your final sentence, I think, covers most people here though. I'd rather listen to my car stereo than not listen at all.
 
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