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Can you define me a threshold for "audible - hearable"?

Balle Clorin

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I use a calibrated umk and some app on my iPad to pretty much monitor volume spl in my room. So what I am going to say is obviously location dependent. With nothing playing music or tv. My room noise floor hovers between 50db and 60db. As I increase volume I don’t really hear what’s being played until I hit about 62>db. What I’m saying is the answer to your question may be specific to your listening room/location and personal hearing capabilities. Until you measure your room, it’s all a guess on our part.

I realize that this may not be the answer you were looking for. Just trying to help add context to the answer to your inquiry.
Those Numbers are very high are you sure it is correctly calibrated .? I use the AudioTools app calibrated against my RadioShack digital dB meter and get 35dB in my listening room in a inner city apartment . If a bus drives by with a distant brrr it goes to 40db , my softly running bathroom fan/ ventilation is just noticeable at 42db. Measuring 2 inches from the backside of my Samsung refrigerator Freezer gives 62db wich would be horrible to have as a threshold

Edit: using C weighing
 
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AdamG

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Those Numbers are very high are you sure it is correctly calibrated .? I use the AudioTools app calibrated against my RadioShack digital dB meter and get 35dB in my listening room in a inner city apartment . If a bus drives by with a distant brrr it goes to 40db , my softly running bathroom fan/ ventilation is just noticeable at 42db. Measuring 2 inches from the backside of my Samsung refrigerator Freezer gives 62db wich would be horrible to have as a threshold

Edit: using C weighing

Yes it’s calibrated, or was at one time. The proper cal file is loaded. I do make running comparisons with the internal mic of the iPad Pro just for sanity check sake. Yes I use DBc SPL slow for taking measurements. I live relatively out in the country, but have a pool the runs and has waterfalls noise, I have lots of wildlife sounds. Are my numbers high ? I honestly don’t know. You are the first to post your environmental numbers. So compared to you it seems so. Thanks for sharing your info.
 

AdamG

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Yes it’s calibrated, or was at one time. The proper cal file is loaded. I do make running comparisons with the internal mic of the iPad Pro just for sanity check sake. Yes I use DBc SPL slow for taking measurements. I live relatively out in the country, but have a pool the runs and has waterfalls noise, I have lots of wildlife sounds. Are my numbers high ? I honestly don’t know. You are the first to post your environmental numbers. So compared to you it seems so. Thanks for sharing your info.

I went back and cleared configurations and reapplied the cal file. Rechecked all settings and I did have a problem somewhere, not certain what I had set incorrectly. New ambient room spl is about 48 dBc to 52 dBc range. I do have all hard surface tile floors on slab and concrete/cinder block walls. High ceilings, 5 refrigerators (4 wine coolers). Ac is off right now but normally on about 8 to 9 months of year. Windows and large 4 panel sliders are open. So pool sound is the dominant noise in the room. Will have to do more experiments on this topic.

In addition to the above I do have pretty severe hearing damage/loss form career in Navy. So I don’t hear much anything below about 40 dBc to begin with. Some frequency’s better than others. I have built in 24/7 noise canceling system! Don’t need no damned Bose headphones! ;)
 

don'ttrustauthority

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I want to ask a question.... Is there some kind of threshold any kind of analytic data or scientfic research where you can say this difference is hearable between 2 compared audio files?

With audio analyzer softwares you can have rms, peak,lufs delta... like values or have spectrograms, spectrum analysis graphs... Is there any kind of information hidden in there to define a threshold for hearblity betwwen 2 compared audio files?

Note : I'm using deltawave audio null comparator software for this kind of comparison. https://deltaw.org/
Music is usally off in tempo, pitch, and loudness many times a second.

Are you aware why a clarinet can be distinguished from a piano when it plays the same note?

The question isn't whether minute differences in measured performance are audible at all. It's whether or not a person listening to music will notice the irregularity.

Amir loves to show off the capability of his expensive gear that he got such a great deal on because he's doing a service for the community.

You will never notice a 1 db channel imbalance at -110 db. No human would. Not even a trained musician.

To answer your question: test yourself and your friends. You should be able to answer this without relying on what others tell you.
 

IowAudio

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-So an amp or DAC with a SINAD of 70+db will be transparent for most listeners in a typical listening environment?

-Can an amp "bottleneck" a DAC or vise versa? Or would the speakers typically be the bottleneck? I'm not sure if SINAD is a good measurement to represent speaker performance.

-I live in rural Iowa pretty quiet and my listening space is in the basement with good acoustic treatment. Roughly my noise floor about 30db. I mostly listen to ripped CDs or WAV files so at best my music is going to have 96db of dynamic range, so considering my noise floor I only have about 66db of dynamic range left to work with... does this relate to the SINAD of audio gear.

-I ordered a VTV Hypex NC252MP and a Topping D30pro just to try out and compare to my Marantz SR4021 stereo receiver and SMSL M100 DAC. Also Danny at GR basically said my system is crap and cannot resolve the differences of his fancy cables, since I've tried a few fancy cables and never really noticed a consistent discernible difference. But yet he markets his cables for everyone to try touting they'll make a difference... idk.

-I'm sure these question have been asked before, if so post the link. Thanks in advance.
 

BDWoody

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So one can imagine that some humans have some physiological differences that all "bat-like" hearing - or something like that.

Certainly, in the same sense maybe someone can jump 50' high, and run the mile in 2 minutes...but until someone demonstrates any kind of superhuman hearing (or other) skills, I'll bet against it, in exactly the same way I'd bet against either of the above.
 

krabapple

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There is a great deal of difference between a skilled listener hearing a Just Noticeable Difference (JND) in a demanding A/BX test and hearing a large enough difference to have a preference while listening to music in a more normal setting.

I wish this point could be hammered into every audiophile's head.

Hey Joe Audiophile, even if academic research with trained subjects under optimized controlled conditions shows that a JND exists, *your* report of hearing it at home while rocking out to Norah Jones is still dubious.




.
 

tikky

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@amirm Amir on his reviews keep saying that -115 inaudible but how do we know that it's inaudible? Is there any scientific research?
 

AdamG

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Wes

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Certainly, in the same sense maybe someone can jump 50' high, and run the mile in 2 minutes...but until someone demonstrates any kind of superhuman hearing (or other) skills, I'll bet against it, in exactly the same way I'd bet against either of the above.

Like all other aspects of animals, we would expect hearing abilities to be normally distributed about a mean. There are demographic differences, and training is clearly possible as well.

so it depends on how super super is
 

levimax

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REW has a signal generator where you can play a tone and add in various harmonic distortions at different levels and different orders. From my experience test tones are much easier to hear distortion on than music. For me I can not hear distortion on a test tone @60 dB or lower so for me that is my threshold. I would highly recommend you try this yourself so you can see how little - 60 dB of distortion really is.
 

BDWoody

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@amirm Amir on his reviews keep saying that -115 inaudible but how do we know that it's inaudible? Is there any scientific research?

It's been a while since the shoutometer made an appearance, but this seems like a good time.

It ignores atmospheric attenuation as it is meant be more conceptual, but it illustrates how quickly it becomes more of an exercise in engineering excellence than a pursuit of further sound quality.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-shoutometer.2555/
 

tikky

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I hope Amir can create a video about it. We have to find a real scientific result. There are some cases for example DeltaWave PK Metric fails.
 

IowAudio

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I believe Amir has mentioned really most listeners can't distinguish much beyound 70db SINAD. Once your above that differences become less apparent to most people...
 

escksu

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I want to ask a question. Let's say you have 2 audio files to compare and they sound very similar. You can't spot and hear the difference with ABX blind test. "You can't hear the difference" doesn't mean that other people can't hear it,too. Hearing depends on where you listen, how you listen, how loud you listen, your hearing skills... etc and all these change from person to person. So here is my question :

You have 2 very similar audio files. You can't hear the sound difference between them and you want to know if the sound difference between these files have a chance to be heard by some other people. Is there anyway to make an assumption about the difference between 2 compared files is hearable or not ? Is there some kind of threshold any kind of analytic data or scientfic research where you can say this difference is hearable between 2 compared audio files?

With audio analyzer softwares you can have rms, peak,lufs delta... like values or have spectrograms, spectrum analysis graphs... Is there any kind of information hidden in there to define a threshold for hearblity betwwen 2 compared audio files?

Note : I'm using deltawave audio null comparator software for this kind of comparison. https://deltaw.org/

Yes to a certain extent. Threshold like human hearing limits do apply but subjective ones are extremely hard to quantify. Even bigger problem are perceived differences and placebo effects. Even if you do the same test to same group of people during different times, the results will vary.
 

krabapple

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I hope Amir can create a video about it. We have to find a real scientific result. There are some cases for example DeltaWave PK Metric fails.


How about you peruse a psychoacoustics, psychophysics, audiology, or sensory testing textbook before assuming there are no 'real scientific results'?

or , hell, wikipedia
 

tikky

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How about you peruse a psychoacoustics, psychophysics, audiology, or sensory testing textbook before assuming there are no 'real scientific results'?

or , hell, wikipedia

I did read those books, these are mostly made over SPL measurements, and sure I accept it. The goal is here when there are 2 audio files and we create the DELTA differences, what is the absolute threshold scientifically. For example, you use 2 compressor emulations shootout and they sound identical, when I flip the phase the delta signal goes down to -85dbFS. But I can always pass the ABX test, by looking for the number of harmonics they add, clarity, and transient response.
 
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