Our perception of audio

[Wombat]

Because we weren't at the recording session(or if we were our memory of it will be partial and inaccurate) and cannot directly hear what is captured on the recording medium, the rest of the subject of audio performance reproduction is based on speculation. Audiophiles spend lots of time on seeking minutiae relating to performances that only exist in their minds.

 

[Nowhk]

Because we weren't at the recording session(or if we were our memory of it will be partial and inaccurate) and cannot directly hear what is captured on the recording medium

But even if we were there, listening the same piece at different places, in different moments of takes... audio always change, EVER.
There's no an objective session!
Probably there isn't objectivity at all in this world

So why struggle with different gears if in the ends they are still (basically) playing shaped sound.
Especially when there isn't a fixed starting point/sound.

 

[Wombat]

But even if we were there, listening the same piece at different places, in different moments of takes... audio always change, EVER.
There's no an objective session!
Probably there isn't objectivity at all in this world

So why struggle with different gears if in the ends they are still (basically) playing shaped sound.
Especially when there isn't a fixed starting point/sound.

Why add inaccuracies?

 

[Nowhk]

Why add inaccuracies? View attachment 15961

Correct. In both case you are not playing the "truth". But in one case you also spend lots of money and fatigue
I don't say its wrong, I just saying you are still mess with the piece (but again, not really sure there's a "definitive" piece).

Are people aware of this in your opinion?

Some are saying that differences introduced by playback systems are below the noise floor of interest for listeners; in some aspect it makes sense... but than the whole world of pro gears become "stupid", so I don't think that's a correct answer.

Another consequence is that more you are aware about differences in audio, the more you are getting stuff variables in your listening experiences.

 

[Wombat]

Correct. In both case you are not playing the "truth". But in one case you also spend lots of money and fatigue
I don't say its wrong, I just saying you are still mess with the piece (but again, not really sure there's a "definitive" piece).

Are people aware of this in your opinion?

Some are saying that differences introduced by playback systems are below the noise floor of interest for listeners; in some aspect it makes sense... but than the whole world of pro gears become "stupid", so I don't think that's a correct answer.

Another consequence is that more you are aware about differences in audio, the more you are getting stuff variables in your listening experiences.

I think there is too much overthinking(on trivia) in audio. There is also too much under thinking(on fact), also.

 

[Cosmik]

Great words, but they still trigger to me the unanswered paradox

If Music is really based on Audio (i.e. its based/depends of it), this means that YOU (as listener), having the ability to playback records as you want, you have the ability to change the Music itself, simply adopting different gears/speakers/rooms (as said many times, don't think to this about melody or harmony which will be kept almost everytime, but to timbre or things like dynamics).

This make me thing really hard about this topic, because it seems really weird!
Really: its a sort of deceitful reinterpretation.
Nothing you can do about this: you will always affect audio!! Are you really affecting Music so? Are you saying this?

Like eating a meal. You can eat it in any way you like, even though it starts off as a perfectly presented plate of sushi. It's just part of life.

Maybe you can modify your meal a bit with the amount of sauce you add, or eat it slowly or quickly. But that's different from substituting something less tasty for one of the ingredients or tainting it with something that doesn't belong.

 

[Nowhk]

Maybe you can modify your meal a bit with the amount of sauce you add, or eat it slowly or quickly. But that's different from substituting something less tasty for one of the ingredients or tainting it with something that doesn't belong.

Why its so different? In any case you "edit" somethings.
Why change the amount of sauce (which make a difference) is different from swap an ingredient (which make a difference)?

The two differences are different, of course, but they are both "different".
Why the former is accepted?

If you can discriminate a difference, you have introduced a change.

 

[solderdude]

If you can discriminate a difference, you have introduced a change.

I don't think these two things are always related that well, discriminate a difference and introducing changes.

For instance some things in an audio system may not have changed at all but circumstances concerning the perception (the discrimination part) may have changed. A home stereo system during the day with lots of sounds around you and a busy mind sounds discriminatingly different from the exact same system when listening to it while relaxed, later in the evening with soft lights in the room.

You can also make small changes yet may not discriminate them.

An analogy in food: The exact same food can taste very different when a certain food or beverage has been consumed prior to it which affects our taste-buds while the food is still the same the perception of it may change.

 

[Wombat]

Ah, the danger of analogies.

 

[Thomas savage]

Anyone caught using food analogies has to spend a week wearing their underpants outside their trousers..., oh wait..

 

[Nowhk]

I don't these 2 things are always related that well.

For instance some things in an audio system may not have changed at all but circumstances concerning the perception (the discrimination part) may have changed. A home stereo system during the day with lots of sounds around you and a busy mind sounds discriminatingly different from the exact same system when listening to it while relaxed, later in the evening with soft lights in the room.

An analogy in food: The exact same food can taste very different when a certain food or beverage has been consumed prior to it which affects our taste-buds.

I was refering to differences in term of "what I perceive" in fact, not the actual audio that has been changing. But considering also this, the components that (always) change are many.

Both "audio" and "perception" from the "same" physical record will change.
This seems to corroborates the fact that things are aleatory and change even if we try control them.
I would says that introduced differences are a fact.

Than again: why in your opinions less differences would be better than big ones?

 

[solderdude]

Anyone caught using food analogies has to spend a week wearing their underpants outside their trousers..., oh wait..

 

[Cosmik]

How about this?:

We can think of a musical event as a collection of 'objects', each of which is self-contained and separate, and which, even when channelled with others into a communications pathway, should be preserved as separate objects.

The human listener can tolerate benign, *coherent* phenomena such as room acoustics and volume change, which don't damage the ability to work back to the original objects. The human listener can also tolerate their own internal mood, tiredness, etc. because again these don't impede the ability to work back to the original objects - even if they change today's perception of the music compared to yesterday's, which is just what keeps life interesting.

The important thing is to preserve the original objects, which is the reason for high quality reproduction. Low quality reproduction mashes the separate, integral objects into a paste that cannot be separated by the human listener back into the original objects.

However, most audio people, even those seeking high quality reproduction, think of audio as a paste e.g. they talk about 'mid range' even though there is no such phenomenon in sound, music or acoustics. 'Mid range' only exists in the weird world of audio, and referring to it as though it is a real thing is a giveaway that keeping the objects separate is not the primary objective; adjusting 'colour' or 'flavour' of a notional paste is the limit of ambition. If some systems do manage to keep the objects separate, it is by good luck rather than intention.

 

[Thomas savage]

@Cosmik you need to start wearing your underpants on your head, it’s the rules now.

 

[solderdude]

I was refering to differences in term of "what I perceive" in fact, not the actual audio that has been changing. But considering also this, the components that (always) change are many.

Both "audio" and "perception" from the "same" physical record will change.
This seems to corroborates the fact that things are aleatory and change even if we try control them.
I would says that introduced differences are a fact.

A definition thing perhaps.
Audio is everything that is involved with sound recording/reproduction from microphone to speaker/headphone.
Before the microphone and after the speaker/headphone there is acoustics.
Music is what is created and the essence of it can be recorded but not all of it as recordings are not holographic.
Perception (of audio) is the interpretation of a human brain of the added sound-pressure changes reaching the eardrums.

Why would both 'audio' and 'perception' change when audio and the recording is still the same but perceived differently because of the brain doing other things with the info from the 'ears' ?

Than again: why in your opinions less differences would be better than big ones?

Why would I have that opinion ?

 

[Cosmik]

@Cosmik you need to start wearing your underpants on your head, it’s the rules now.

Like this?

 

[Thomas savage]

Like this?
View attachment 16016

Yes, precisely like that , it’s how I imagined you anyway.

 

[Nowhk]

We can think of a musical event as a collection of 'objects'

Please: define "objects".

Do you mean as the perceptions we have? (timbre, Melody, etc).
Or do you mean some sort of abstract things we sort out from the perceptions above?
Or the meanings we sort out from the perceptions linked to our memory?
Or somethings other?

 

[Cosmik]

Please: define "objects".

Do you mean as the perceptions we have? (timbre, Melody, etc).
Or do you mean some sort of abstract things we sort out from the perceptions above?
Or the meanings we sort out from the perceptions linked to our memory?
Or somethings other?

Some of all of that. The way I see it is this:

What reaches our ears is 'a signal', a 2D wiggly line, but our brains decode it into the original acoustic 'objects', and at a higher level they also follow progressions of rhythm and melody, etc.

The brain could be mistaken about the acoustic objects: what sounds like two people singing could really be four, but one of the singers might be singing in exact antiphase to one of the other singers and cancelling them both out at the microphone - but this is very unlikely! Maybe the vocalists are adept at singing phonemes in clever rotation and chopping the words up between them. Anything is possible, but in reality, our brains use logic, familiarity and continuity to decode the signal back into the most likely integral objects.

Each object has its own timbre, rather than 'the signal' having timbre.

Without knowing about the nature of microphones, cables, recording systems, speakers, human listeners would never think in terms of 'the signal', but would only think in terms of the objects. An orchestra conductor would never say "I need more mid range!"; he would say "I need more violins! And less of the trumpets". He wouldn't say to the whole orchestra "I don't like your timbre...", but he might say "The trombone is too strident...".

But poor reproduction (frequency response, distortion, phase, timing) means that in audio, the acoustic objects are often blurred together in *meaningless* mechanical/electronic-related ways that have nothing to do with real sound and acoustics. And this, coupled with knowledge about the mechanics of audio reproduction, is where the audiophile transition is made from objects to 'signal'.

Once the separation between the objects is degraded sufficiently, all that is left is to adjust the 'colour', 'flavour' or 'timbre' of the stream of lumpy audio paste - and people can actually enjoy listening to it, but it is a different mode of listening compared to musical 'objects' in the live situation. The higher level stuff (melody etc.) probably remains intact, but some of the lower level complexity and/or simplicity is gone, replaced with a synthetic, artificial, uniform substitute.

As this substitute is regarded as 'high end' there is no reason for anyone to strive for anything better.

 

[Theo]

Have you tried listening to natural sound recordings, like birds in a soundscape? You may be able to judge the realism, or the plausibilty at least, of what you hear? Even if you were not at the recording session?