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December 2, 2007 - 11:20am
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Audiophiles and Golden Ears: Science explains?
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I'm not sure what your point is KBK, but I thought that article made sense. And well it should - it seems like a well-designed test.
It also confirmed what I've observed for many years. When you watch a music video your hearing acuity is reduced by the video, and vice versa. I've often noticed that music sounds better when accompanied by visuals because the brain is distracted from aspects of the music that could be considered "bad" sounding.
Are you saying you disagree with that article?
--Ethan
I believe the connection between auditory and visual works the other way as well - at least in a sense.
For example, when attending an orchestral concert I am much more able to pull out just the sound of a flute when I can see the flute and focus on it. When I close my eyes I can't hear the flute as clearly.
Yes, that too. In fact, that's why my last two music projects were videos rather than just the music. It's even easier to hear a guitar or cello because they're bigger than a flute and the hand gestures are larger.
--Ethan
Totally great thread.
I am sure that there are actually two distinct correct answers to this idea of
I don't disagree with the article. What I disagree with, is that we've all had this sense or capacity all our lives. Over time, we have honed it to a sharp edge. Some..more so that others. If one does not have this sense, or particular 'skill' sharpened... then what is it, in a given person, that makes them exist in such reflection of their own ego..and that projected upon others to such a degree..that they might think that it is impossible for me to tell the difference between two cables?
What I tell those folks is:
I have accepted that I will never play basketball like Jordan. I have accepted that I will never be the most perfectly muscled or fasted running man. I have accepted that I am not the most handsome. I have accepted that I will never be rich enough to run around the world in my own Jet, and eat Caviar all day. Nor am I about to wind the Nobel prize in physics.
Perhaps the hardcore objectivists should simply accept that they obviously can't hear worth a damn.
I originally had the whole article here, as these things have a habit of disappearing. Then there would be no reference for what anyone was even speaking about.
What I'm indicating, is that this point makes a case for long term listening tests being a very workable and correct aspect of product evaluation. No DBT-single afternoon type test, with regards to truly evaluating a given piece of gear.
Then the aspect that we hear by the leading (positive) edge of the given transient (and time it lasts), over time, and with respect to level. So, transient leading edge, timing between them, and level. That is about 90% or more of what the ear hears by. It largely ignores the rest.
When we measure audio equipment, we measure in a LINEAR fashion and we weigh those results with respect to that entire signal recorded and in a LINEAR manner.
Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to correlating those results to what the ear hears.
Those tiny bits I mentioned comprise nearly 100% of what the ear uses to 'hear' something..yet...when addressed in a 'whole signal' linear sense..they constitute less than 10% of the whole signal!
Now for the interesting part: That tiny 10% or less that the ear hears..is the part of the signal that suffers the GREATEST amount of damage or CHANGE when there is a change in the piece of gear, be it signal, change in power, change in chassis, change in transformer, change in components (resistors, wire, transistors, capacitors, etc)..whatever.
Yet, when any of these given parts or components are changed, the distortions figures don't change.
It's pretty damned simple.
The measurements have just about jack shit to do with what the ear hears.
It's as simple as that.
If you want measurements to correlate to what the hear hears...then sample the given signal at about 500khz, with about 16-20 bit depth..then create an analysis algorithm that only looks at the signal in the way the ear hears.
At that point you'll likely come up with changes in the signal of about 3-10%..as you are finally...for the first time..weighing the measurements in the way the ear hears.
I've kept this piece of given info to myself for the past (nearly) 15 years, for the most part. I've used it in a non-critical and non-measurement way, and it has served me well. Perhaps it's time for the industry to get the objectivists off their backs by showing how correctly weighted measurements correlate exactly to what the golden ears actually say that they hear.
It will take time to get the measurement and weighting criterea exactly right, but it is definitely worth the effort.
I suspect, that any of you that have an understanding of what I'm speaking of (attempting to explain), have already figured out that this is a 'true thing', and you are already using it to understand some aspects that have escaped you over the years.
Theodore Roszak and Floyd W. Matson (The Broken Image, The Making of a Counterculture) wrote brilliantly and with passion about our need to embrace the sensual, spiritual and intellectual elements of our being as an integrated whole. The danger of accepting, without challenge, the reductive reasoning of objectivist scientists (who claimed knowledge of behavior and being through experimentation and observation of these elemental pieces), was the misunderstanding that human physical elements could be accurately partitioned, analyzed and observed outside the context of the whole person.
Not only was it impossible to not change and objectify the observed, therefore changing the true nature of our understanding of any phenomena exhibited by same, the very act of observation established an
That's preposterous. I am as hard-core an objectivist as they get, and I've also been a professional recording engineer and professional musician for most of my adult life (59 years). I can hear and assess music and audio fidelity as well as anyone. I'm currently doing a project playing the cello on a tune for a very famous recording engineer.
What do you think is missed when audio gear is tested and why? Please be specific!
Why do you think that? Again, please be very specific! In my experience, the top 20 dB matters most, and once you get to -40 dB most artifacts are inaudible dues to masking. Unless the artifacts are so far removed in frequency that masking is reduced. That's not likely to happen in practice, but even with widely disparate frequencies, once you get to 60 or 70 dB down it's again inaudible. All of this stuff can be measured and confirmed to a much higher resolution than anyone could possibly hear. I've done it many times myself.
If something really changes, I promise you it can be measured. To believe otherwise is to believe in magic.
Right, because nothing really changed!
--Ethan
I hope this discussion continues, I would learn a lot.
And cello! One of the most deliciously expressive instruments there is, and still under appreciated in my opinion.
Now there's an excellent test for measuring one's prowess at suspending disbelief... sadly it seems I rate rather poorly.
Yes and on the visual theme I have seen it written that a woman straddling a cello is not so ladylike. Perhaps so but as far as I'm concerned there are few things in all of music as visually enticing!
Heh, Kate Dillingham is a good friend and my former teacher:
http://www.katedillingham.com/
IMO this is mighty attractive too (scroll down a bit):
http://www.careymorephotography.com/bio.html
Okay youz guyz, quit drooling and get back to work!
--Ethan
Ethan, I also agree that it makes sense. However, it doesn't really answer the question what makes one person's ears "golden" and another person's ears not. If the trained musicians can hear well despite visual interference, then training is a big part of it, it so seems. If the visual stimuli negatively influences the auditory perception, logicaly then results of sighted listening tests should be called into question.
I still think that sighted listening tests have value and merit, but can't help but wonder whether the "differences" heard in such a manner is biased by vision, or other distractions that we may or may not think are distractions. In that sense, I still follow the objectivist line, but depend on my ears too.
Often, when I'm concentrating on hearing a difference, or adjusting a speaker tuning, or instrument tuning, I close my eyes. Hmmmm....? Of course this is oversimplified, but maybe closing one's eyes during a DBT would help. I personally have done tests in this way, and it helps me. Maybe your (collective your) mileage will vary.
Like any other type of human perception, I there are near countless variables - experience, training, inherent ability, emotional state, distractions, anxiety . . .
Likewise, whether a component is "musical" depends greatly on the type of music played, the preferences of the listener, etc.
Accordingly, I have more faith in long term listening for distinguishing whether components are more "musical" than DBT switching.
DBT is superior however for other purposes, such as psychoacoustic studies. Typical DBT involves knowing for certain that there is a difference between two samples and testing subjects to see if the differences can be perceived or how it is perceived.
DBT as it is applied to audio is often poorly applied, trying to distinguish between too many variables at once. For example, subjecting me to DBT of two speaker cables. This is bad practice; it simultaneously tests whether there is a difference in the cables and, if so, whether I am able to perceive them. A negative answer provides evidence both that I can't tell and that there is no difference. We really haven't learned anything.
Yet, such testing could be helpful as a data point for my individual purchase decision. If I cannot perceive a difference it doesn't matter if there is no difference between the cables or I can't hear the difference. Either way I shouldn't buy new cables. If long term listening also does not establish a preference the wallet should remain firmly shut.
I'm not a fan of the term "golden ears" because it doesn't really say anything. Who decides who's ears are golden, and using what criteria?
As I see it there are two main components. One is having accurate relative pitch, which is mostly innate but can be improved with training. The other is entirely training - learning to hear subtle things like notes that are very slightly out of tune, certain kinds of distortion, peaky resonances in musical instruments and loudspeakers, and so forth.
I can spot JPG artifacts at ten paces because I work with graphic editor software all the time. Once a friend came over and I showed him those artifacts on my cable TV's music channel. While MP3-quality music plays, they also have title screens that are lossy compressed. I pointed to the little dots around the text, and he asked how do I know that's lossy image compression. I told him he had to trust me, but that I'm certain because my experience shows me what to look for.
In audio I can spot IM distortion because of its non-harmonic nature. I'm sure I can hear IM components that are at a lower level than most people just because I've been working in pro audio for so many years. I can hear it because IM grunge has a certain quality. So this is the "training" part. Likewise, I've always had good pitch recognition and could always tune a guitar and sing in tune even if my voice quality sux. But when I started playing the cello 15 years ago I became aware a few months later that my fine pitch recognition had improved. This too is training.
I'm sure most people can tell when audio sounds "good." We've all been to concerts that sounded fabulous, and afterward everyone in the lobby is saying how good it sounded. Yes, people are often fooled by phony bass where the upper bass range is goosed to give the illusion of fullness. But that too is not hard to recognize with a little training.
--Ethan
I had another thought on this. When I used to own a big pro recording studio I had a partner that was a lot better than me at turning the knobs to make things sound good. He didn't know much about the science of audio, but he had a natural talent for knowing what sounded good and, more important in that context, knowing what sounds were objectionable and what specifically to tweak to improve it.
I'm sure he got even better at that over time, but his natural ability for this was quite a bit better than the other studio partners. The point being that it wasn't so much his ability to hear fine detail better than most people, but knowing how to interpret what we all heard and knowing better than us what to change to make it sound more pleasing.
--Ethan
Sensitivity to different distortions products has been described. Your studio savant may, in fact, have actually been able to "out-hear" when it came to identifying unpleasant artifacts.
Edison, while almost deaf, was very sensitive to even order harmonics, as I recall.
It might have been odd order, though, I get mixed up. It was the "bad" harmonics that he excelled in hearing.
Pardon my even/odd byslexia.
Nice posts, Ethan.
Buddha, it is the odd order harmonics that are least pleasing, especially as the number gets higher.
Think of a vibrating string as the fundamental or first harmonic.
Lightly touch the string in the middle and pluck it again. It will sound an octave higher (the second harmonic) and pleasing.
Touched at the one-third point the string will sound an octave and a fifth higher (third harmonic). Not an unpleasing interval in relation to the original, but not as nice as the octave.
As one goes higher and higher the odd-number harmonics become more and more discordant.
Now comes something I don't understand. Clarinets exhibit strong odd harmonics (fundamental, 3rd, 5th, etc.) in their sound spectra, and weak even harmonics (2nd, 4th etc.). Flutes are the opposite, comprising strong even harmonics along with the fundamental. But both sound pleasing, just different.
I have always found the relationship between music and mathematics magic.
This is fascinating, and I think it makes a whole lot of beautiful sense. Yesterday I discovered this excellent article by George Reisch, discussing the same ideas.
Wow, that was a great dscussion. Thanks for the link.
Dave
I've also noticed the same improvement in bad sound when the sound is supplimented with video when listening/viewing adult videos.
Heh, the "prettier" the video, the better the music sounds!
Bump.