Shadrach
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2019
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I think there is a problem with 'officially endorsed' test tracks for assessing stereo performance through listening.
At some point there must be an opinion of what sounds right. Of course for well know tracks this base line is going to be some unreliable memory of what the listener liked best in some system.
What we found in our amateur tests was a completely unknown track proved more helpful because the listener didn't have a memory reference and also tended to listen more attentively due to the lack of reference.
It sort of bears out what we found many years ago testing avionic communication systems; the listener hears what they expect. If you injected some complete nonsense into a verbal set of instructions you got asked to repeat the message; the listener had realized that they hadn't understood the message and re-concentrated their attention. On the second repeat the message had a better 'fully understood' response than the messages that may be common in the situations being dealt with. It's a bit like the brain doing interpolation, trying to fill in what it thinks is missing.
This may be fine for recreational audio but it's not somethinng you want in a combat situation.
At some point there must be an opinion of what sounds right. Of course for well know tracks this base line is going to be some unreliable memory of what the listener liked best in some system.
What we found in our amateur tests was a completely unknown track proved more helpful because the listener didn't have a memory reference and also tended to listen more attentively due to the lack of reference.
It sort of bears out what we found many years ago testing avionic communication systems; the listener hears what they expect. If you injected some complete nonsense into a verbal set of instructions you got asked to repeat the message; the listener had realized that they hadn't understood the message and re-concentrated their attention. On the second repeat the message had a better 'fully understood' response than the messages that may be common in the situations being dealt with. It's a bit like the brain doing interpolation, trying to fill in what it thinks is missing.
This may be fine for recreational audio but it's not somethinng you want in a combat situation.