Audio Science: Does it explain everything about how something sounds?
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I shared two data points. One was the test we are talking about. The other was myself. I explained that my acuity in hearing small differences completely disappears when switch over time lengthens. I then asked if there are concrete data points like this supporting the opposite position that long term testing is more revealing. Since none has been provided, I have to rely on my own experience backed by independent tests and the position taken formally by the people who conduct this research professionally that short term switching is superior to long term listening.
As I said originally and repeated above, it is what I strongly believe in, from extensive experience in formal listening tests. What more should I have on my side to believe something to be true, relative to opposite position that has no formal, verifiable conditions to show it to be correct?
It is that truth I am trying to understand. The data we are discussing is a company making measurement equipment, saying this and that measurement is audible. Peter gave a thumbs up to that post. I am trying to figure out if Peter has now changed his mind and supports and believes in measurements reading on audibility of audio equipment. Because if he is, it is a turn around for him and we have accomplished something in this thread.
If I said "great" to someone saying they had done a sighted tests and reported the results, you would be entitled to question me on that just the same. Nothing should be polarizing about asking someone what their view is, if it is inconsistent with prior posts.
I think I have ignored him already since yesterday morning, after I had made the points that I wanted to make also for others while responding to him, but I may be mistaken, perhaps it was a few hours later -- aah yes, I replied about distortion in the evening simply because this was an interesting topic to look up reqardless. Either way, I agree with you, Steve. I don't understand why some still bother responding to him. I have ignored a trio of his posts this morning, because response would have been pointless and unnecessary.
It seems to me that there is music and there is sound. Sound is the carrier of the music and to many they are utterly inseparable as a result. I also think that audio science/audio engineering are only about sound, operating on the assumption that the "better" the sound, the better the musical enjoyment will be. ("Better" sound means, I think, sound such that each component in the chain is within human perception maximally faithful to the input source to it, except where proven psychoacoustic alterations to that sound are preferable or desirable to human listeners.)
Music does not become music until it is deciphered and processed at many higher unconscious and conscious levels of the brain. Until then, it is just a sequence of sounds processed by our ears and lower, purely unconscious levels of the brain. Music is the content and sound the conduit. But, it is important to get the conduit right lest it interfere with the content.
It is hard work and maybe impossible to fully achieve, but I have tried to focus more on the sound when doing equipment comparisons. I may be deluding myself in how effective I am in doing this. But, I try to tune out the effects of the music to get in touch with those unconscious "gut" reactions to the sound. I do not find that process enjoyable, though. It is mentally fatiguing, compared to just sitting back and listening and enjoying. Listening for enjoyment is the lasting payoff for all the hard work, fortunately. Also, fortunately, I have learned when not doing comparisons to listen to the music and just forget about the sound.
Using music for testing risks people being "lost in the music" and losing focus on the sound in the process. Music can be enjoyable and involve us even with less than ideal sound. I do it all the time on my car radio or the background FM music I have on around the house through tiny speakers. But, I know I enjoy it much more through the far better sound of my main system.
I think many audiophiles completely lose sight of this music vs. sound separation when comparing components. They may be looking for a greater musical high when listening, but that may obscure questions about the actual sound and which sounds better in comparing equipment. For one thing, a musical passage may have a different effect on us when heard again and again in quick succession. So, maybe we liked it better the first time in spite of better sound the second time, or vice versa. Maybe we have become bored with repeated hearings of the same music and we tend to unconsciously downrate the equipment then being played when that happens.
It takes discipline and focus to overcome this to hear the sound and temper our musical reactions when comparing equipment. But, again, maybe many audiophiles are so simple-mindedly focused on their musical enjoyment reactions, that they think those reactions will tell them all they need to know about a piece of gear: the quality of the sound will be revealed in the height of one's spiritual and emotional reaction to the music.
Further, many audiophiles react negatively to attempts to measure the sound itself rather than the music. It seems to me, as I said, sound, rather than musical enjoyment, is the focus of almost all testing and measurement in audio science. Many audiophiles just do not get the distinction or why it is important. Some even think that audio science is nonsense because it should be measuring our musical pleasure, rather than just sound. Or, it should even dispense with all those confusing measurements of the sound. But, musical pleasure, emotion, etc. are very variable and fleeting things. Same system, same song, same symphony = different reactions at different times in the same listener due to random externalities, greater familiarity, boredom, etc.
Yes, much audio science listener preference testing uses music, in spite of the problems I have cited. It is still trying to measure the underlying sound, not music preferences, though. Test fatigue would likely be much worse, and results much less relevant and more questionable if non-musical sounds were used.
I think this long term vs. short term listening debate is also possibly a manifestation of the inseparability of musical enjoyment from sound in many people's minds. Long term listening leaves plenty of room for non-fatiguiging musical enjoyment, while short term listening comparisons do not. But, to repeat, I think it is faulty and fraught with potential problems to try to rate equipment performance on the musical enjoyment you receive from it, rather than quick comparisons of the sound of that equipment to something else. And, it is the sound, not the music, that is well known to be affected by short term acoustic memory, partly because hearing sound is fundamentally an unconscious phenomenon, while music is not.
To wrap up, years ago when the Quad ESL63 speaker was just released, a dealer told me another customer heard them and he thought they sounded so beautiful, he cried. I said, dammit, it was the music that made him cry, not the sound. I did not buy them. I was expecting the anemic deep bass, but the extreme highs did not impress me either.
Music does not become music until it is deciphered and processed at many higher unconscious and conscious levels of the brain. Until then, it is just a sequence of sounds processed by our ears and lower, purely unconscious levels of the brain. Music is the content and sound the conduit. But, it is important to get the conduit right lest it interfere with the content.
It is hard work and maybe impossible to fully achieve, but I have tried to focus more on the sound when doing equipment comparisons. I may be deluding myself in how effective I am in doing this. But, I try to tune out the effects of the music to get in touch with those unconscious "gut" reactions to the sound. I do not find that process enjoyable, though. It is mentally fatiguing, compared to just sitting back and listening and enjoying. Listening for enjoyment is the lasting payoff for all the hard work, fortunately. Also, fortunately, I have learned when not doing comparisons to listen to the music and just forget about the sound.
Using music for testing risks people being "lost in the music" and losing focus on the sound in the process. Music can be enjoyable and involve us even with less than ideal sound. I do it all the time on my car radio or the background FM music I have on around the house through tiny speakers. But, I know I enjoy it much more through the far better sound of my main system.
I think many audiophiles completely lose sight of this music vs. sound separation when comparing components. They may be looking for a greater musical high when listening, but that may obscure questions about the actual sound and which sounds better in comparing equipment. For one thing, a musical passage may have a different effect on us when heard again and again in quick succession. So, maybe we liked it better the first time in spite of better sound the second time, or vice versa. Maybe we have become bored with repeated hearings of the same music and we tend to unconsciously downrate the equipment then being played when that happens.
It takes discipline and focus to overcome this to hear the sound and temper our musical reactions when comparing equipment. But, again, maybe many audiophiles are so simple-mindedly focused on their musical enjoyment reactions, that they think those reactions will tell them all they need to know about a piece of gear: the quality of the sound will be revealed in the height of one's spiritual and emotional reaction to the music.
Further, many audiophiles react negatively to attempts to measure the sound itself rather than the music. It seems to me, as I said, sound, rather than musical enjoyment, is the focus of almost all testing and measurement in audio science. Many audiophiles just do not get the distinction or why it is important. Some even think that audio science is nonsense because it should be measuring our musical pleasure, rather than just sound. Or, it should even dispense with all those confusing measurements of the sound. But, musical pleasure, emotion, etc. are very variable and fleeting things. Same system, same song, same symphony = different reactions at different times in the same listener due to random externalities, greater familiarity, boredom, etc.
Yes, much audio science listener preference testing uses music, in spite of the problems I have cited. It is still trying to measure the underlying sound, not music preferences, though. Test fatigue would likely be much worse, and results much less relevant and more questionable if non-musical sounds were used.
I think this long term vs. short term listening debate is also possibly a manifestation of the inseparability of musical enjoyment from sound in many people's minds. Long term listening leaves plenty of room for non-fatiguiging musical enjoyment, while short term listening comparisons do not. But, to repeat, I think it is faulty and fraught with potential problems to try to rate equipment performance on the musical enjoyment you receive from it, rather than quick comparisons of the sound of that equipment to something else. And, it is the sound, not the music, that is well known to be affected by short term acoustic memory, partly because hearing sound is fundamentally an unconscious phenomenon, while music is not.
To wrap up, years ago when the Quad ESL63 speaker was just released, a dealer told me another customer heard them and he thought they sounded so beautiful, he cried. I said, dammit, it was the music that made him cry, not the sound. I did not buy them. I was expecting the anemic deep bass, but the extreme highs did not impress me either.
What would your reaction be if I said that you can hear such changes even though we can arrange to prove that nothing whatsoever has changed in the equipment?
What would your reaction be if I said that I can convince you to change your mind and "unhear" that change, again with nothing whatsoever changing in the equipment?
Impossibilities even though we can arrange for tests to generate such results? And for measurements and psychoacoustics to match them?
This is supremely important point and a concept I learned from JJ called "elasticity" of our experience. The exact same hardware, and music, results in different perceptual experience in every instance. I have routinely arrived at work, thought someone had screwed up the demo system as it sounded "bad," only to find out that nothing had changed and then when I listen the second time with that knowledge, it sounded just as enjoyable as before! Same hardware, same music, but different experiences.
Without self-awareness of such things, we quickly attribute the change in what we thought we heard to technical factors. Then power of suggestion kicks in and we continue to hear those changes. It is for this reason that when we formally test for these differences, they disappear. Because ultimately the hardware was not responsible. It was the elasticity of our experience coupled with continued self-reinforcement that caused us to believe in what we believed.
The first "datapoint - the paper - is a specific that cannot be universalised - so it is therefore not a datpoint for this discussion.
This second "datapoint" - your experience - is no different from the "data point" that some of us have related - our experience. We have always stated that certain differences are not suited to ABXing & better suited to more holistic listening such as that involved in long-term listening. The opposite applies, certain differences will be more suited to ABXing than long-term listening. I just find that, given the problem with doing a "proper" ABX test, long term listening offers the better option for most people. It may just be a matter of pragmatism but a pragmatism that says, hey if I can't hear this in my long-term listening but can in A/Bing, what does it matter as this is my typical casual listening technique, not A/Bing
But no tests have been produced by the "people who conduct this research" that demonstrate ABX is SIMPLY (UNIVERSALLY) better than long-term listening - the chosen source material or methodology needs a more critical analysis than is being given. I mentioned Nousaine's paper which s also normally cited in this same debate & pointed out that the listeners were trained before the A/B testing but no such training given before the long-term testing. If this doesn't demonstrate a severe bias on behalf of the experiment design, I don't know what would? In regard to the Clarke paper I would like to see behind this headline THD figure of 2.5%. It's rather surprising that this is used to identify the source material & the description of it being a type of grunge but given that this experiment was designed by a co-originator of ABX testing, maybe it's not such a surprise?
I've seen this guy, Clarke also showing his bias by being shown up in his lack of knowledge about statistics in his discourse with Leventhal on Stereophile, concerning false negatives!
That's fine, Amir, you have a firm belief based on experience - no more, no less than others here who have the opposite belief. The bit about "formal, verifiable conditions to show it to be correct" is just posturing, I'm have to say as you have shown no such to support your position - why should you demand it of others?
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Wow Steve, you used to be such a fun loving guy back in '02, out to terrorize the world and all, but still fun loving and full of evil laughs. What happened?
Only liquids in stomach is usually a cold Newcastle or a nice Scotch...but we digress.
Oh yes, Audio Science, the horror, the horror....
cheers,
AJ
Where's your scientific contribution in this thread AJ?
This is an Audiophile Forum yet post after post you have nothing but contempt for Audiophiles, you can barely control yourself even in this post.
david
Well, if you could limit this only to what your hear and not what you read, that would be one less variable. It would also be the definition of a blind (audio) test. Only what you hear. Trusting your ears and nothing else.
I'm not asking you to prove anything. Just informing you of all the variables you (and Bud etc.) seemed unaware of. Questioning your assumptions, yes.
No idea who/what you are talking about there. Of course I'm having fun discussing audio on an audio forum. I enjoy that. The question is why are so many others having a conniption discussing audio on an audio forum!
This thread is specifically about audio science, so I participate. It's what little I know. Not magic or witchcraft.
Imagine me going on a Financial or Biochemistry (which I know scant little about) forum and telling everyone there they are idiots who know nothing about Biochemical science and that my purely psychogenic perceptions/observations and voodoo rituals/doll pins were all that mattered, not their stupid science, because science doesn't know everything blah blah. How do you suppose I would be received?
cheers,
AJ
I think these posts raise a very interesting topic. There seems to be this misconceived binary thinking demonstrated in both of these posts - the idea that we have just two aspects to what we perceive: sound & emotional reaction to that sound. This binary thinking leads to all sorts of issues.
One of which is to use pure tones in tests of hearing & indeed tests of audio reproduction systems. It's like trying to judge how we will experience driving a car by measuring it's performance on a rolling road.
The important aspect about auditory perception is that there is an inner structure & outer structure to what we hear - micro & macro aspect to it. I'm not talking about the musical enjoyment or emotional content of the music but of the middle ground between pure sound & music. We all perceive the attack, sustain, release of various instruments within the first attack of the sound & make a certain guess about the nature of it's origin which can be adjusted as the sound progresses through sustain & release. It's the relationships between aspects of the "sound" that defines our recognition & categorisation of what we are hearing. At a higher, more holistic level, we organise these auditory objects into an auditory scene, whereby we track these auditory objects, at will through a dynamically changing soundfield.
This all operates on a moment to moment basis & is being studied in at least one research area I know of called Auditory Scene Anaysis. The objective of this research is to discover the rules & techniques we use to accomplish this incredible feat. It's the equivalent of sitting in the corner of a swimming pool in which we have two hands dipping in the water & being able to tell how many people or objects are in the pool, what they are doing & being able to follow each one individually as they move about in the pool & change activity.
As far as a replay system is concerned - if it's producing a soundstream which mismatches in any way our ASA rules/expectation we find the illusion broken. This is the nature of what we are trying to achieve in our reproduction systems - trying to make them follow all our ASA expectations/rules BUT we don't yet know what these rules are.
Working on the basis of trying to match the input to the output with the least amount of change has brought us a long way in creating this illusion but we have reached the crisis point identified in this thread. The crises consists of two elements:
- The first one, which hasn't yet been discussed is - "audio science" uses a definition of audibility in it's measurements to dismiss certain differences as "below audibility". Is this warranted when we are talking about dynamic signals like music rather than the simpler test signals used to "establish" this audibility threshold. Remember nothing should be taken for granted even though I know there will be many here that consider this question a sacrilege.
- The second element which has mostly been discussed here is - do we measure all that is important to our auditory perception? The glaringly self-evident answer is no!
Finally, if we don't know how our auditory perception works (& we don't) then how can these two questions be answered?
Every time I click "new posts" there is another post made in this thread. The vast majority of others just lay dormant. I think I now know what this forum has become. If this is what it means to be an audiophile I'll gladly not be one.
Simmer down David. Ok, so you still can't provide any audible evidence of amp warm up, or one single sound audio science can't explain. That's become obvious.
I never claimed amp warm up sounds or some form of audible N-rays being emitted by stereos. Why direct your wrath at me? How about focusing on the thread topic/arguments instead, even if the questions that arise cause you outrage because you have no answer?
Time to walk the dogs and listen to some gorgeous music. Enjoy the rest of your day, fellows.
Cheers
Al
As has been pointed out before - this "elasticity of our experience" is surely one reason why a single blind test is less reliable than a longer-term period of listening ? A single blind test can easily be biased by this "elasticity". Your anecdote of "bad sound" was not explained to be based on anything other than your internal state so blind or not this would have been your impression of the sound.
Given a longer listening experience, over many days or weeks, a larger variety of such "elasticity" as a result of inner emotional state happens & what's constant in the sound can be perceived through any such biases. Not to mention a wider variety of music used, etc.
Like I said you can't help yourself, at least no more emojis! Its enough of this please impress with your scientific knowledge.
david
I was going to post this youtube music video in my own thread, but I hope Peter will forgive me:
I’m unsure what this topic has to do with anything about the topic at hand. But then again, I wonder the same about “audio science”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems Mrosella incorrectly used the word unconscious when perhaps sub-conscious would have been more appropriate. Since unconscious is a state that remains completely disconnected from our conscious state (think comatose) whereas our sub-conscious state has direct communication with our conscious state.
Although Morsella employs excellent analogies between the workings of the sub-conscious? and the conscious states, I’m still at a loss for what this has to do with the price of tea in china. Especially since this subject could just as easily be introduced and equally apply to and benefit (or not) one sitting on the toilet or picking up their kids after school with similar potential end results. IOW, might this be yet another of the many rabbit holes introduced to further overly-complicate and convolute what should be the simple sub-conscious and conscious pleasure of listening to reproduced music that may or may not sound a bit like the original performance?
I think Morsella potentially compromises his credentials and position in his opening statement:
To the contrary, I would attest that our conscious state is the final arbiter deciding an existing action or even creating a new action to invoke, including the decision to override our “instinct”. Our consciousness is indeed the conductor and the music generated by the orchestra is the result of actionable decisions made by the conductor (our consciousness).
For example, as C.S. Lewis explained: When we hear the blood curdling screams of a stranger down the street. Our instinct for self-preservation tells us to run in the opposite direction (since neither I nor my family are in danger) of this potentially harmful situation. But our consciousness gives us the ability to suppress and override our instinct and instead of running away, we run toward and confront the danger.
Moreover, I think Morsella potentially further compromises his credentials and position by introducing evolution into the mix as shown here:
If there was any truth to this, who’s to say animals aren’t in the process of graduating into complex social beings as we speak? Moreover, since one needs to look at a presupposition's potential as well as the actual implications, could Morsella also be implying that the complex social beings living in the inner-cities are only slightly less evolved than those living in the suburbs? Yikes.
If there was any truth to this, Morsella seems to imply here that our unconscious has its own mini-conscious state in order to recognize this complex dilemma.
Again, if there was any truth to this, Morsella seems to imply that our unconscious states would have had to already include some type of conscious state to determine a need for a state that supposedly had not yet existed e.g. creativity, problem solving, etc. Unless perhaps Morsella is implying that our unconscious had the ability to look into the future-needs corridor (perhaps implying our unconscious is omniscient?) and predetermine a yet-to-exist solution to an existing problem, including our apparent need for morals and ethics and our apparent need to live not too far from the best shopping mall in the area.
Pure and simple, that would be some coma. That is, if any of Morsella’s presuppositions here contained any truth.
Where I see the introduction of Morsella’s essay as being somehow related to audio, science, and/or audio science, is on the surface Morsella makes a few good points, but in the end it’s yet one more unrelated topic whose contents are questionable to once again divert our attention from the real topic at hand.
Much like “audio science” (sic). Only one layer further removed.
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