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Article: Impact of Color on Perception of Loudness

600lbs of Sin

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Perhaps this study explains my disdain for the artist Pink.

https://images.app.goo.gl/ud49oZ4n7ggH3Z8s5

I often tell my wife, it can’t be too loud unless it sounds bad.

The dude at Guitar Center wailing away, causes one to walk towards or away him.
 
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anmpr1

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This reminds of of years ago hearing that Mark Levinson amplifiers had a reputation for "dark sound." Could it have been because their gear was mostly black?

I remember reading a review of two practically identical Grace tonearms (G-707). One was black anodized, the other shiny chrome-silverish aluminum. The 'reviewer' commented that the black tonearm did make the sound 'darker'.

The pros have known about this for a long time. If you want a red hot sound for your mix you'd use:

maxresdefault.jpg


For a softer, cool bluesy R&B tone it's:

acme.jpg


And if you're not sure, but want to mix 'n match you can go for:

dbx.jpg
 

VintageFlanker

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This reminds of of years ago hearing that Mark Levinson amplifiers had a reputation for "dark sound." Could it have been because their gear was mostly black?
Wouldn't be surprised.

In the same league:

- Silver sounds brighter
- Gold plating lower the highs.
- Rhodium sounds brighter again.
- Copper sounds warmer (cause the color is so warm)

Etc etc.

Funniest part here is how the guy is unconsciously influenced by the color of the metal. The warmer (red/gold copper) produce the warmer sound and the coldest (white silver/rhodium) has to have a bright reproduction.
 

Spocko

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So this begs the question of whether "high quality" home theater audio is an oxymoron? The impact of movies is all visual, especially bright, vivid visual impact for action movies or deep colors from art house movies. All the more reason why AVR companies are actually allocating less of the product budget on sound quality than in the past - if they are running tests while playing movies, I can imagine that the audience are so engrossed with the movie that any differences is "sound quality" is completely lost in the moment. Speaker matching for timbre consistency and bass management are probably more important than anything else for HT audio.
 

Audioagnostic

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Hmmm...

https://www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/ICA2010/cdrom-ICA2010/papers/p175.pdf

"at least 11 subjects"

"but the effects showed large interindividual variability. Some subjects were apparently not influenced by the presented visual stimuli, while others over- or underestimated loudness by about 1 to 5% with maxima up to 9%"

multiple sessions, inconsistent results

View attachment 41360

clustering (aka cherry picking on that small a sample size)...

"The first group with ten subjects shows no colour influence, relative shift in loudness judgement / % n = 10 F(4,36) = 1.4; p = 0.24 c1 c6 c7 c22 c17 −15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20 n = 5 F(4,16) = 5.3; p = 0.0065 ∗ ∗∗ c1 c6 c7 c22 c17 colour Figure 9: Grouping of subjects for loudness judgements of cars combined with differently coloured video sequences of a car passing by. while the second group with five subjects rates sounds combined with c1 and c7 as louder compared to c17. "

testing for multiple scenarios and clustering on small sample size, no wonder some effect was seen.

Note: I am not denying the existence of interactions between the senses, the impact of the environment but... :rolleyes:

But I concede that maybe I have read that paper in a wrongly colored room, listening to the wrong type of music...


I think you are right. They show different sessions with varying levels of differences. Why not average all sessions? Likely bcause then there is no significance... Some panels have a very low n rendering statistics meaningless.

Note that in the example Amir shows there is only a difference between pink and black radio's. This difference is not there when comparing colours per se.

Nice idea but unconvincing study.
 

Theriverlethe

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Gosh, my Quad amp and preamp are a deep tan, I wonder what they sound like. My ESL's are black with mahogany trim but they are anything but dark sounding, they just sound great.

I found this report quite interesting, timely, as I am just in the process of redecorating my listening room.

My SVS Primes are pretty bright without EQ. It's probably the shiny metal grille on the aluminum tweeter.
 

nintendoeats

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I think you are right. They show different sessions with varying levels of differences. Why not average all sessions? Likely bcause then there is no significance... Some panels have a very low n rendering statistics meaningless.

Note that in the example Amir shows there is only a difference between pink and black radio's. This difference is not there when comparing colours per se.

Nice idea but unconvincing study.

I agree. I think that doing a study like this would be more compelling with a large number of participants who do a small number (preferably one) of trials. For example, just have somebody see a black radio and judge the loudness. There is then no risk that the previous sound that was "pseudo-randomly" selected will affect their judgement.

It's hard to draw any conclusions from the study as-described.
 

SimpleTheater

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My phone's headphone output wasn't capable of pushing my planar magnetic headphones until I got these amazing cables.
pinkcables.png
 

RayDunzl

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Gosh, I painted my room with the wrong color! No wonder my neighbors hate me.

Repaint with the complementary color and see if it makes you hate them.
 

eliash

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This is a digest of an interesting study I posted elsewhere on the impact of color on our perception of loudness. It is based on the paper presented at the International Congress on Acoustics (ICA):

Colour-influences on loudness judgements
Daniel Menzel, Norman Haufe, Hugo Fastl
AG Technische Akustik, MMK, Technische Universität München, Germany

Hugo Fastl is one of our authorities on psychoacoustics so when he talks, or rather writes, I take notice :).

The test was simple enough:


In a nutshell, the listener would have to determine how loud something is while a color image was displayed in front of them on the LCD monitor. Different images were used for each trial. I will just post the one using controls that may be on some audio gear:

Depending on the color of said control, this is how the perception of identical sounds rated:


The results indicate that when pink radio controls were presented, the listener thought the loudness was the highest! Conversely black controls made the listeners think loudness was lower than other colors.

This reminds of of years ago hearing that Mark Levinson amplifiers had a reputation for "dark sound." Could it have been because their gear was mostly black?

Anyway, while we usually talk about other factors impacting our impression of sound, it is remarkable that factors like color of gear can impact what we perceive.

Audiophiles often deploy (useless) tweaks and report volume changes. Perhaps the visual factor is contributing to that.

I will leave you with the paper abstract:

View attachment 41352

And the important lesson of using blind/controlled testing to eliminate all factors but sound....


Sounds to me like the article was released on a 1st of april...
 

MediumRare

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Sounds to me like the article was released on a 1st of april...
There's an enormous body of data on how color affects perception and behavior. Hospitals, police stations, call centers, etc. ad infinitum select their colors scientifically because of the measurable, repeatable, and importantly, significant, effects.
 

JustPoo

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I remember a study involving strawberry mousse. I wasn't asked to participate :(. I think the gist was that people think that strawberry mousse is sweeter and full of flavour when served on a white plate as opposed to a black plate. It could be a similar reason why some restaurants have served my (chocolate, or what's the point?) desserts on black plates whereas Ms Poo's fruity desserts always came on white ones. Or it could be mere aesthetics. I think it was the same study that showed no difference when the plate shape was changed. I'm gonna tell that to the next waiter who comes at me with a square one.
 

MediumRare

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I think it was the same study that showed no difference when the plate shape was changed. I'm gonna tell that to the next waiter who comes at me with a square one.
Square deserts cost more. The bigger the plate the more the dessert costs, even when (especially when) the dessert itself gets smaller.
 

ernestcarl

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Here's the thing: there are shades of pink that look okay to nice, and there are shades of pink that look absolutely hideous.

There's more to a color than its familiar, singular looking name might imply.
 
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eliash

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Heres the thing: there are shades of pink that look okay to nice, and there are shades of pink that look absolutely hideous.

There's more to a color than its familiar, singular looking name might imply.

True, there are colours (some special red to orange in my case, fortunately very seldomly experienced - I am serious about that one) that even causes a flickering in my perception, but I haven´t noticed any drop or increase in ambient loudness during such an effect...nor while looking at any pink coloured desserts;)
 

milosz

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I recall reading a paper on a study done by the National Research Council of Canada, who were doing quite a lot of hi-fi basic research at one point. They took two identical 2-way speakers - made identically and also tested to measure within 0.5 dB of each other at any frequency 20-20,000 Hz- and played them for an audience of testers. One speaker's cabinet was painted red, the other was blue.

To a high degree of statistical confidence, listeners reported that the red speaker sound warmer, more emotional. The blue one was neutral, analytical.

My speakers are white, and I can change their sound by wearing colored glasses. :cool:
 
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