The ear is a frequency analyzer. It does not care about the precise wave shape, it cares instead about the frequency components. A Fourier transformation can be used to transform the sound from time domain (signal amplitude at any given moment) to frequency domain (individual frequencies at any given moment).
The frequency cutoff in dependence on samplerate is described by the Nyquist theorem. In short imprecise but good enough version, you need at least two times higher the samplerate than the highest frequency you want to record/reproduce, or aliasing happens.
The test was done in 2008.
With long enough thin enough wires you get significant enough ohmic loss. But a cheap thick-enough wire will do the same job as an expensive thick-enough gold-plated cable.
The blind tests donât suggest an actual objective existence of such phenomenon.
I wouldnât think it is the case, at least at common sound pressures.
I am willing to take evidence. So far it is lacking.
Direct brain stimulation with focused ultrasound. That does not quite match the scenarios where the acoustic pressures are much lower and much more diffuse. Notice the effects were dependent on exact focusing of the ultrasound, even a centimeter away led to ceasing of the effect. Also, the âlow intensityâ designation in the article is likely to mean something along the lines of ânot producing thermal or cavitation effectsâ.
Which should be rather likely to manifest at the blind tests. It, well, as far as I know, didnât.
Well yes, I was talking about HOW the sausage is made because if its not put in there by somebody then there is nothing there to hear. As far as movies and low frequencies go check this out:
These sounds are not difficult to qualify and quantify, they have been worked in specifically for the physical effect they create. Its not supernatural magic but magic in the artistic sense. Show an explosion, play a huge sounding explosion and send out a sound that the listener can feel but not hear and youâll make him feel that physical sensation is an extension of what heâs seeing on screen.
The people that make music professionally usually have as good a listening environment as they can afford (Hopefully ) not because they want to hear the essence of the music but purely as a technical matter, to attempt to mix music that translates across a wide range of systems. This even means making less than an âidealâ mix for high fidelity reproduction not least of all because the aim is to make it good on headphones while on the bus.
Of course, there are people recording material that is meant to be listened to in an âidealâ environment, with fancy amplifiers, speakers, cables and room treatment. Why I think thatâs just snake oil is subject for another rant.
Iâve got no problem with people trying to reproduce music as best as possible, Iâm just critical of the fact that there really isnât a theoretically ideal model of a reproduction system that can make subjective art objectively more pleasing.
What about keeping the source file close to the original sound, and apply tricks like compression only during playback? Then the player could be configured to a high dynamic range quiet listening environment, or to car or headphones on the bus⌠The player can analyze the file before playing, or do it once and have saved hints to look up, or even have the hints as a parallel stream in the file.
There is not a âdigital spaceâ and an âanalog space,â there are just waveforms. Anyone who thinks 24 bit samples, 96,000 times a second, are not enough to record all the information that comes out of the mixing board at the studio, is not imagining correctly how much information that is.
Old recordings are âremasteredâ for CD. The labels think theyâre doing you a favor. New records and CDâs are usually encoded from the same master audio files. These are marketing choices made by the record companies, not characteristics of different physical media.
Iâve never defended Monster Cable but that test is a 2 meter wire in a controlled environment. As the original article stated (if you track it down) once you start running any real distance, the difference will be noticeable.
Iâm not sure why you are going on about ears being frequency analyzers when I was asking about your assertion that sample rate is somehow related to frequency - which it is not.
What blind tests? The one that showed short cables are the same no matter who made them? How does that apply to perception of the nuance of any given sound beyond the expected and conventional manner?
You miss the point. The experiment showed there is a measurable and definite effect on people caused by sounds previously thought to be undetectable which actually changes the sensory perception of people. That the effect could no longer be measured when the sound source was moved does not invalidate the idea that sound may produce almost imperceptible effects which change the way we perceive sound. It only demonstrates that the one effect we have discovered and have been able to measure either cannot be measured without focused and specifically directed sound or that that particular effect requires it.
Some years ago I went to United Record Pressing for a factory tour. Great fun and lots of history there. Iâve had records pressed there before and they do a great job.
As someone who has run vinyl centric labels on and off for a long time, the lead time from when a record is release to when it hits the P2P networks is generally less than 24hrs.
Indeed. Itâs kind of stupid to do tests in non-controlled environment.
True that, a clothes hanger wire is more resistive per unit of length. Compare with generic copper cable of the same cross section and you get the same cannot-hear-a-difference result.
The frequency analyzer of the ear has a cutoff it doesnât go above. The sensing structures just arenât there. Thatâs important.
The samplerate is providing another cutoff, for the recording/playback. Thanks to our dear friend Nyquist we wonât get above half the samplerate with the frequencies we can handle. If this cutoff is higher than the cutoff of the ears, weâre golden. Going a bit higher is beneficial to have a margin to be sure but at 48 kHz we have 24 kHz we can reproduce anyway. (22 kHz for 44 kHz, 48 for 96 which is already an overkill, and for some reason thereâs also 192 kHz available on some systems; I donât complain as these unnecessarily high rates are useful for other non-acoustic purposes in the lab.)
The other ones too, looking for other variables. I donât doubt they exist.
Other tests for other aspects. This one tested just the cable.
Iâm perfectly on it.
The experiment was about localized stimulating of brain tissue. You could likely get a comparable result with directional ultrasound, transcranial magnetic stimulation, or maybe even localized microwaves. Or invasively by electrode implants.
For this effect you have to have good coupling of the transducers to the skull and fairly accurate positioning. No chance to get this with sane amplitudes of ambient ultrasound in general environment.
Given how common ultrasound is in technological processes, with amplitudes orders of magnitude above whatâs to be expected as higher harmonics in music, one would expect that such effects would be already discovered and described in the industrial safety literature. Indeed, there are effects, but they are at insanely high powers and of mechanical or thermal nature.
The particular effect requires any sort of deep brain tissue stimulation. As of the role of ultrasonic frequencies in music it tells exactly nothing.
Hereâs the thing Shaddack, Iâm trying to get the point across that many people feel there is a difference between analog and digital playback and recording and that we have observed direct effects from sound outside the generally accepted range of human perception. Further, these effects have been shown to actually change our perceptions directly. Given that knowledge we have two general ways to proceed.
Assume all of our knowledge in this area is complete and will not increase therefore these people are imagining things.
Assume or knowledge in this area is incomplete and will increase therefore these claims should not be immediately dismissed.
You have chosen option 1. I have chosen option 2.
Given that both knowledge and entropy (is there really a difference) continue to increase in the universe, option 2 seems more reasonable to me.
Add two waves together, one audible and one inaudible, and the resultant audible wave is altered.
How much? Eh, probably canât hear it unless you are a, uh, super hearer. Or if the addition of a number of waves creates a new standing wave. Or I guess if it alters the position of the audible nodes and antinodes.
Mostly Iâve learned to just not care and listen to my records. Next up, Stephan Grapelli!
Define superior sound, you can quantify fidelity, bandwidth, etc; better is subjective.
Speed is about as objective as you can get.
Better is like the difference between obscenity and art, you have to consult the judge and jury at your trial.
Otherwise opinions on what makes music sound better are like UranusâŚ
Be aware that I could really care less, but to some passionate people apparently need something retro or specifically distorted in their music. Of course any distortion can be added by a digital filter, but reasons.
And I even understand those reasons. I just like it better when people distinguish between their own emotional reasons and objective facts.
I prefer to tune my guitar with a tuning fork. My cell phone can run those guitar tuner apps just fine, and the only reason to stick to the analog method is that I like it better.
Thereâs a third option and it has to do with how our brains interpret the sounds we perceive and our expectations about certain sounds. Example:
Optical effects and psycho acoustic effects have on thing in common, theyâre the way our brain makes sense of visual and auditory stimuli.
Psycho acoustic effects are well known and used in audio production to create a final impression on the listener. You do in fact hear things that arenât there and sometimes, you donât hear things that are really there. Theyâre deliberately placed to cause the sensations you mention.
Heh, I tune to the A 447.5 harmonica our lead guy plays
Kinda funny story, our fiddle player brought in a new tuner one day. It had accidently be calibrated to A 435 (she swears it was a âbutt calibrationâ). That was a fun warmup song.
Absolutely, but if such an effect was recorded on the master and then you make a digital and an analog copy and play them both back, you are going to get the same effect on both playbacks.
I donât want to impress some false dichotomy on the discussion but I donât think that this third option youâve suggested is actually related to the fact that some people think analog has an ineffable quality that digital does not re-create. But I do think itâs an interesting topic nonetheless.
) not because they want to hear the essence of the music but purely as a technical matter, to attempt to mix music that translates across a wide range of systems. This even means making less than an âidealâ mix for high fidelity reproduction not least of all because the aim is to make it good on headphones while on the bus.
