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your piece was a "joy" to read.

(hope you're workin' on the next one)

"...using poetic analogies to describe them because that is how our brains work." Is an interesting line.

I've had no direct experience of this right-brain/left-brain phenomena but I do know as an artist

if I want to make art that's both strong (visually) and deep (symbolically and emotionally); art capable of

being understood in any culture, I have to somehow be connected to something that feels universal,

pre-conscious, and pre-historic. Like listening to music.

Now please tell us about those summer storms in Lincoln, Illinois. (I grew up in Illinois)

Thanks for the nice read

hr

Thanks a lot for this very interesting article.
I have a personal question: I have always suffered from a quite low ability to understand lyrics of any song, even in my mother tongue (French). Can it be related to the fact that I listen to music with my right brain, and therefore my left brain is not active enough to understand the words?
Is it a common problem for other people?
Regards,
Thierry

Thanks for the thought-provoking article.

Re: your point that

There is no "absolute sound"—just pleasing illusions that are an aural simile of the original experience, created by the mind, heart, and skill of the performers (and the recording engineers), realized in our homes by our carefully curated audio equipment.

I (mis?)read from this that the "absolute sound" is in fact the sound that was initially produced and experienced in the space of the studio or hall or other venue: the "original experience".

I think it's worth pointing out that a huge amount of music today (and over the past 30 years or so) is simply not made that way - think bedroom producers, autodidacts mixing on computers wearing headphones, Aphex Twin*, etc. - which of course only strengthens the point you're making: there is certainly no "absolute sound" when the music may have been conceived in a virtual vacuum.

And so, as you say, the drive of an audiophile should not be to pursue something that is absolute/perfect, but simply to conjure those "pleasing illusions" in the best way we can, according to our own preferences.

*Aphex Twin once commented that he loves listening to the same piece of music (his own or other) on as many different pairs of headphones as he can, just to hear the full spectrum of variables produced by different can designs.

refers to the live experience provided by equipment in internal spaces.

It does not refer to the 'source' reference.

While an illusion and though there may be many different flavors of the illusion, I do not believe it follows the 'as you like it' axiom.

I would argue that Aphex Twin produced with a live performanc in mind would mimic the absolute sound, however maligned by individual biases.

It is the pursuit of the live presentation, not to source, nor to personal whim.

I think there is a magazine that has a large discussion of thought on this subject... just guessing.

Finally someone really educated has perfectly expressed the differences between individual perception and scientific explanations. I have understood this many years ago. That's why I smile every time the objectivists ask for double-blind tests: the brain and the emotions are the only tools that can select what is right or wrong, and each of us has it with a different capacity...
Thank you for such an excellent article that should enlighten many who fail to understand...

in terms of describing with words how we feel - it is hard and non-unique. What I might refer to as velvety sound might be something else for someone else.

However, as a person trained in physics, I know that what we hear can be measured. Everything that reaches our ears is a physical process, there's no magic going on. The issue is some people want to believe that the quantities they measure (eg freq response) fully characterize the sound, and this is the problem: they don't. I don't know what measurement we are missing, what I do know is the few things we do measure are not enough.

Even the things we do measure are measured incompletely. Example: THD is measured as the distortion on a max-level signal. You put a 2Vp-p sine wave into an amp and measure how much it is different at the output. But music does not occur at max volume, in fact most music occurs at low volume - this is why a class A-B amp sounds better than a class B generally: it avoids crossover distortion at low levels, and at high levels this distortion is masked by the sheer size of the signal.

So for starters, one should measure THD from a very low level to the max level and weight the measurements by an average distribution of volume in music (which kind of looks like a gaussian or bell curve - max at zero). That would give you a THD that makes more sense. That will also make amps with crossover distortion look worse than if you measured THD as it is measured today. I would bet that the current spec for THD measurements was created to make these amps look good.

It feels like green eggs and ham...

I like music in my car.
I like music played in a bar.

I like music on my Hi Fi.
I like it on a PA, no lie.

I like music on a bus.
I like music on cannabis.

Are there really any people who need the 'high end' fetish in order to actually allow them to fully enjoy their music?

I mean, I get it, listening to the Hi Fi is fun and all, but it's not like I have to sit in the holy sweet spot in order to fully grasp Beethoven.

There has been an odd trend these last 10-20 years where we find our fellow audiophiles trying to rationalize our fun hobby into some righteous form of obsequious genuflecting to the altar of the high end. It smells more of excuse than exaltation.

Really, you need to hear the subway in order to grasp Bellafonte at Carnegie Hall? Does anybody really care where to dog bark images on "Amused to Death?"

Let's not confuse a sonic fetish for true musical love.

Isn't everything an illusion? A relationship? Democracy? Justice? Equality? All concepts in our head (to make life bearable until and because of death). And indeed, there is not such thing as "absolute sound" because everything is subjective. There is no reality or truth, at most an agreed upon or at best an approachable greatest common denominator

I am a registered psychologist who works closely with a think-tank on the implications of neuroscientific insights in both organisational and individual contexts and being involved in the HiFi industry. The topic Brian outlined so well is close to my heart. Although I would prefer not to refer to the left and right brain notion that at best is an accessible analogy of how the brain works (based on my understanding of current understanding from the evidence in the field of neuropsychology) but rather highlight the integral working of the brain, where various systems and processes are working holistically together to create meaning of sensory stimuli, the take-aways are still the same. I often refer to how “intend”, that of the artist, and this is very much in the subjective domain, is relayed and transformed by a closed and mechanical system (recording and hifi chain), and then finally decoded not by the speaker in the room but by the listener through both unconscious and conscious processes (once again therefore in the highly subjective domain. Not only memories but also sub-conscious content influence how we “create” the meaning of what we experience.
Furthermore, our senses are most likely working, not as stand-alone processes but rather in sync with an intricate interplay amongst them in creating meaning as we start to understand from the studies of Synesthesia. The insights from Quantum physics, for example, the uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, is another topic that could be part of this conversation. Loosely interpreted in our field of interest, it reads for me as follows; we can either focus on the sound or the music, but probably very difficult to do both simultaneously.

All this and much other evidence from various scientific disciplines should be factored into the discussions of music reproduction in our homes and lives. Although I fully understand the value of the contribution of the empirical school, the measurement approach and attempts by those who want to bring some rigour to our field of interest, I think we should guard against a narrow view and a mechanistic approach to the challenge. If we are going to be scientific, we should embrace all the sciences and not only those that suit our paradigm.

..hard, soft, warm, cold, full, thin, direct, deep, dynamic, compressed;
there is just no way for one to communicate one's inner aural experience without a metaphor.

....... and analyze it scientifically arises from the differing functions of the brain's right and left hemispheres." qtd B Richardson.

Listening & eating are 2 vital human functions, hopefull nobody would disagree to.

Eating is more complex than listening, IMO.

Our sensing of eating is derived from our brain sensing the look, smell & taste of food. That being the case, do we need to worry about which parts of our brain in analyzing "scientifically", say, the quality, the origin & degree of contamination of the food being eaten?

Not even any neutritionists would ever do such scientific analysis of food, let alone psychologists, IMO.

So why music listening should get involved in whatever scientific analysis by our brain as suggested by a psychologiist here ?

A strawman propostion or what ? Hopefully my ignorance would not wash my common sense logic down the drain !

Jack L