Preference vs. audibility - please keep them separate.

[NorthStar]

I'm sure training would not hurt, but that really does not address what the perceptual rules are all about.

You may be interested to know though, that the brain has a whole bunch of tipping points. One of them has to do with how the brain processes music. Normally music is processed in the limbic system. This is why music can be toe-tapping, to say the least. But if the brain detects too many anomalies, for example if too many hearing/perceptual rules are somehow being violated, the processing will reach a tipping point wherein the processing is moved to the cerebral cortex. When that happens, emotional content tends to be lost. Now this is a a very subjective effect, obviously, the interesting thing is that we have done enough studies that there are now some objective concrete numbers on when this happens in certain (test) cases.

When you are auditioning cables, you are engaging the cerebral cortex rather than the limbic system. So- you can see that *what* you are doing with the stereo will affect the results that you get! This is one of the reasons why DBTs are not good science- because they do not deal with how our brains work and force it to use the cerebral cortex for processing. Yet the two bits of gear under test might yield very different (emotional) results in the home where someone is simply playing music, if one piece is a bit better suited to obeying human hearing rules than the other.

Good stuff Ralph. ...True, our brain intercepts music as emotional vibrating stimuli, and some type of music is more emotionally pleasant and stimulating than others.
The human brain has the same basic attributes in all people, only that the proportional distribution (emotional stimulus) can vary in one aspect more than another and from one people to the next. ...A lot is at play I believe, like our own state of growing up and our own exposition to the internal and external world, with all our physical visions and hearings. ...Plus our own DNA, biologic/ethereal composure and disposition.

There are scientific machines analyzing the human brain's perceptions on an emotional level (pleasant stimulus) from various type of music we listen to. And they are used in certain medical operations to help the patient in better coping (MRI scanning for example).

In audio, more often than not, we tend to be restricted by our own flawed rules (many of them, not all), and forgot to look (hear) beyond.
And it seems to me that further advancements (audio/music/acoustic exploration) is grossly missing, if I may say.

So I am glad that you brought this to the table; good food for the brain in the pursuit of better understanding and life's improvement in our music listening hobby.

P.S. Accidentally I erased my first reply; I had to restart over. ...I proceeded from memory and in the 'feel' of the present moment, which was still remaining from prior.

 

[Atmasphere]

^^ Thanks!

OK- so now to pile on some more: We are all familiar with the tube/transistor debate. Is that a preference, or is it something that is audible? The answer is of course, 'both'. One of the fundamental human hearing rules is how we perceive the sound pressure, or volume, of a sound. Turns out this is done by all humans the same way- the brain looks for odd ordered harmonic content. It is so sensitive to this that we can detect trace amounts that do not show up easily on our test equipment.

The odd orders (specifically 5th, 7th and 9th harmonics) can be called the 'loudness cues'. If they are enhanced artificially (distortion) then the system that does so will not only sound louder, but also brighter. This manifests in a number of ways in audio- the brightness of transistors and the 'dynamics' of SETs being two rather obvious examples.

Now some people prefer those aspects of those amplifiers. But (spoiler alert) I have found that if they **know** consciously that those properties are the result of distortion and nothing else, that the way they listen to the system changes! IOW I may have ruined it for you by telling you this. That is how important our brains are in this discussion...

 

[NorthStar]

Tubes, solid state, fuses, digital, analog, ...but don't forget the source, the true essence: the Music. :b
...Our brain is more emotionally receptive to the music type playing than to how it is reproduced.

 

[j_j]

This is because very little of the paper specs that we've admired for decades actually have all that much to do with how humans hear sound.

You are perhaps familiar with my comment that "SNR is mostly harmless" (think Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there). THD is a subset of SNR.

 

[j_j]

This is one of the reasons why DBTs are not good science- because they do not deal with how our brains work and force it to use the cerebral cortex for processing.

That is, of course, stuff and nonsense.

Can we stop with the quackery? Now, please. There is no dispute to speak of inside the scientific community, and that is that DBT or a cognate (computer administration is not DBT, for instance, but it also hides the identity of the unknown) is absolutely necessary.

When you involve your other senses, that will affect what you think you hear. The reasons are simple, and are why human beings are such a successful organism, we are good at integrating ours senses.

And we do it at a very, very low level, far from cognitive, so there's no avoiding it.

 

[j_j]

The odd orders (specifically 5th, 7th and 9th harmonics) can be called the 'loudness cues'. If they are enhanced artificially (distortion) then the system that does so will not only sound louder, but also brighter. This manifests in a number of ways in audio- the brightness of transistors and the 'dynamics' of SETs being two rather obvious examples.

Err, any harmonics will increase loudness disproportionally to their contribution to signal level, not just odd harmonics. The higher the harmonic, the more the effect (more or less, obviously a 50k harmonic doesn't do much for us), but the bigger the chance for seriously annoying sound, too.

Claiming some orders are the loudness cues is misleading, 2nd, 4th, and 6th are just as effective as 3rd 5th and 7th, and all harmonics will not have much effect if there is substantial signal level present already at those frequencies.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

^^ Thanks!

OK- so now to pile on some more: We are all familiar with the tube/transistor debate. Is that a preference, or is it something that is audible? The answer is of course, 'both'. One of the fundamental human hearing rules is how we perceive the sound pressure, or volume, of a sound. Turns out this is done by all humans the same way- the brain looks for odd ordered harmonic content. It is so sensitive to this that we can detect trace amounts that do not show up easily on our test equipment.

The odd orders (specifically 5th, 7th and 9th harmonics) can be called the 'loudness cues'. If they are enhanced artificially (distortion) then the system that does so will not only sound louder, but also brighter. This manifests in a number of ways in audio- the brightness of transistors and the 'dynamics' of SETs being two rather obvious examples.

Now some people prefer those aspects of those amplifiers. But (spoiler alert) I have found that if they **know** consciously that those properties are the result of distortion and nothing else, that the way they listen to the system changes! IOW I may have ruined it for you by telling you this. That is how important our brains are in this discussion...

Fascinating. I thought sound pressure was the objective measure of the deviation from atmospheric pressure measured in decibels, and that loudness was the human perception of volume, and different from sound pressure as a result of human hearing being particularly sensitive around 2 to 4 kHz. I didn't know loudness perception was mostly a function of human sensitivity to odd order harmonics. Could you point me to some online resources where I could learn more about this effect?

Tim

 

[j_j]

Fascinating. I thought sound pressure was the objective measure of the deviation from atmospheric pressure measured in decibels, and that loudness was the human perception of volume, and different from sound pressure as a result of human hearing being particularly sensitive around 2 to 4 kHz. I didn't know loudness perception was mostly a function of human sensitivity to odd order harmonics. Could you point me to some online resources where I could learn more about this effect?

Tim

I would suggest that you check out Fletcher and Zwicker, instead, those models work.

 

[j_j]

Oh, and, you could check out my "loudness tutorial" at www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ppt.htm if you want some modern information, of course it's directly based on Fletcher, and it works fine.

 

[NorthStar]

www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ppt.htm

Very cool j_j, thx!

* In the Rain; Seattle?

 

[j_j]

Very cool j_j, thx!

* In the Rain; Seattle?

Well, 10 miles away from there. But looking at your location, you probably know the drill. You should look up a U Vic prof name of Dreissen if you want to hear more complaints about me

 

[Orb]

Err, any harmonics will increase loudness disproportionally to their contribution to signal level, not just odd harmonics. The higher the harmonic, the more the effect (more or less, obviously a 50k harmonic doesn't do much for us), but the bigger the chance for seriously annoying sound, too.

Claiming some orders are the loudness cues is misleading, 2nd, 4th, and 6th are just as effective as 3rd 5th and 7th, and all harmonics will not have much effect if there is substantial signal level present already at those frequencies.

You are right to clarify this but be fair I think/hope the statement was done to keep this simple and more about the context, otherwise it becomes way too complex for this thread.
It is fair to say one must look at both the individual partials/harmonics and critically time domain at the same time for the interesting effect of the loudness cue on perception, as both are applicable (was an interesting research paper going back a couple of years investigating further and in more detail loudness perception/cues primarily with a piano using DBT selection along with measurements and "controlled" notes)

Cheers
Orb

 

[Gregadd]

i can't preferit i f it's inaudible is not that the point of ABX?

 

[Atmasphere]

That is, of course, stuff and nonsense.

Can we stop with the quackery? Now, please. There is no dispute to speak of inside the scientific community, and that is that DBT or a cognate (computer administration is not DBT, for instance, but it also hides the identity of the unknown) is absolutely necessary.

When you involve your other senses, that will affect what you think you hear. The reasons are simple, and are why human beings are such a successful organism, we are good at integrating ours senses.

And we do it at a very, very low level, far from cognitive, so there's no avoiding it.

You are correct, the brain does this without our awareness of it. FWIW this is the result of studies by Dr. Herbert Melchur- a neurochemistry scientist who sat on the Nobel Prize committee if I recall right.

Err, any harmonics will increase loudness disproportionally to their contribution to signal level, not just odd harmonics. The higher the harmonic, the more the effect (more or less, obviously a 50k harmonic doesn't do much for us), but the bigger the chance for seriously annoying sound, too.

Claiming some orders are the loudness cues is misleading, 2nd, 4th, and 6th are just as effective as 3rd 5th and 7th, and all harmonics will not have much effect if there is substantial signal level present already at those frequencies.

Fascinating. I thought sound pressure was the objective measure of the deviation from atmospheric pressure measured in decibels, and that loudness was the human perception of volume, and different from sound pressure as a result of human hearing being particularly sensitive around 2 to 4 kHz. I didn't know loudness perception was mostly a function of human sensitivity to odd order harmonics. Could you point me to some online resources where I could learn more about this effect?

Tim

To both of these the work that showed this was the case was conducted by General Electric back in the 1960s. I've not found the results of that study online- I had to read about in one of those book thingys. Its pretty easy to prove, FWIW, with very simple test equipment.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I like those book thingies. Did this GE study exclusively link loudness perception to odd-order harmonics, or find that they were noticably stronger in creating that perception? Because I don't think there's any argument that they contribute. The question is are they any more significant than even order harmonics, or simply content in the range where human hearing is most sensitive?

Tim

 

[NorthStar]

10 miles from Seattle

Well, 10 miles away from there. But looking at your location, you probably know the drill.
You should look up a U Vic prof name of Dreissen if you want to hear more complaints about me

No, I don't; I only look at the 'bright' side of people. :b ...The only side that can be truthfully useful to me.

Are you JJ Johnston from Secrets?

* Yes, I know the drill (rainfall and rainbow).

 

[Gregadd]

Well, what kind of a test would you set up Greg to really establish audible differences (or not) in say two power amps?

"manufacturers who often regularly rely on sighted audibility tests as a check on their progress towards better sound. " jkeny
Put or shut up? I don't really care about small differences. Sighted trial and error work for me.
There, is that enough fodder for attack?

 

[Groucho]

It is fair to say one must look at both the individual partials/harmonics and critically time domain at the same time for the interesting effect of the loudness cue on perception, as both are applicable...

... and other contributors talking about harmonics etc.

Is the intention to use these phenomena actively in our audio equipment or just to note their effect in order to better understand what we're hearing?

Because my feeling is that there are two factions at work: one is attempting to build straightforward objectively linear systems (solid state & digital) where these phenomena are considered irrelevant unless they're part of the recording. And the other faction is attempting to build some sort of musical instrument that harnesses these phenomena - via a very indirect route indeed. (I have to admit, however, that the sceptic in me thinks that it's just that they're so hung on up on analogue stuff, that they're really just trying to justify their chosen systems' deficiencies in terms of mumbo jumbo!)

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

... and other contributors talking about harmonics etc.

Is the intention to use these phenomena actively in our audio equipment or just to note their effect in order to better understand what we're hearing?

Because my feeling is that there are two factions at work: one is attempting to build straightforward objectively linear systems (solid state & digital) where these phenomena are considered irrelevant unless they're part of the recording. And the other faction is attempting to build some sort of musical instrument that harnesses these phenomena - via a very indirect route indeed. (I have to admit, however, that the sceptic in me thinks that it's just that they're so hung on up on analogue stuff, that they're really just trying to justify their chosen systems' deficiencies in terms of mumbo jumbo!)

In the context of this conversation, I think it's about a theory that odd-order harmonics create more dramatic loudness perception, are more prevalent in SS gear, and create harshness at high volume in that gear that is not present in tube equipment. I've asked for clarity around that, but I think that's the point.

Tim

 

[Gregadd]

Of course assumes one a tube based vinyl system can't be linear. and that there is some irrational attachment to that gear.To go al ittle further it assumes that the irrational attachment does not exixt on the other side

I submit it is not irrational to want your system to sound like real music. Indeed it is confusing to me why anyone would accept anything less for science or any other reason