Shouldn't we upgrade the 20-20 audible range ?!

[sigbergaudio]

can I be?


And the science quoted just above and just for you says the exact opposite.
A very non-medical meta study.
Done by a digital music, EE, AES, PhD researcher.
with music:

with hundreds of people listening to music:

and with pretty clear and pretty positive conclusions about beyond-20-20:


P.S.
quite sure I am not the only one annoyed about the 'endless' repetitions in this thread. But who knows, maybe someone will post the science/evidence that says 20-20-audio = 1-100-audio.
Otherwise, I'll have a break... the EU footbal championship may be a bit more enjoyable. Not necessarily for Norway, but you can't have it all

I have read this meta study many years ago and many times, it is not very convincing. What we can agree on is that the repetitive nature of this thread is tiring.

Can you even yourself successfully conduct an ABX test on hires material? If not, why is this so important to you? Why not focus on an aspect of audio that makes an actual difference?

 

[lashto]

I believe that Lashto has convinced himself that:

• people can actually hear (but not through the ear-canal/ear-drum) well above 25kHz, even when the sounds are faint. He bases this on the works he quoted.
• people can actually hear well below 20Hz (also not at high SPL) and use other 'senses' than the auditory channel.
  There is actually some truth in that as the body can feel LF extension which adds to the experience. Unfortunately for speakers in a room this is not really possible. For ear/headphones is possible to go down to 5Hz for instance... but one will be missing the tactile feel.
• Another of his misconceptions is that recordings are all truncated sharply below 20Hz and above 20kHz and that transducers and amps do the same. The fact that most measurements only show 20-20k reinforces his belief as well as the mentioning of 'reaching 20-20k' in the folders and leaflets.
• Then he rants about microphones not reaching those limits and for some (usually specialized) mics that is true as they are shaped in FR and not flat for a reason. There are plenty of mics that far exceed the 20-20k.
• He also seems to believe speakers cannot extend above 20k based on misinterpreted 'info'.
• On top of that it looks like he believes the 'discrepancy' between live (and I assume not sound reinforced) and reproduced sound comes from some or all of the above arguments.
• he is convinced that he 'hears' with more than just his auditory channel. He is right as one also 'hears' with the eyes and body (LF extension at high SPL) and believes that low level >20kHz somehow enters the brain through bone conduction or another 'sensor' that is not defined.

Believing is a powerful incentive to have something proven and that has to be done independently.
I guess what he really wants is to have:

• DACs measured FR (in one plot) of 44kHz, 96, 192, 384 kHz sweeps (all the way down from 1Hz)
• speaker measurements up to 50kHz (from 10Hz up)
• headphone measurements from 1Hz to 50kHz
• amplifier measurements from DC to 1MHz ... just to be sure

All of this to satisfy his FOMO and 'for the science' part for those that think 20-20k is not enough.

DACs measured this way is pretty easy to do
speaker measurements from 10Hz might be a challenge even for a Klippel in a smallish room and above 20kHz requires expensive (calibrated) mics but possible. Don't know how the Klippel handles this.
Headphone measurements below 20Hz require perfect seal and is otherwise easy to do. Above 10kHz (or 15kHz for 5128) will have accuracy issues on HATS and other fixtures so the value of that remains to be seen. Also larger diameter drivers might show comb filtering even when a large membrane vibrates piston alike (which they won't at high frequencies anyway).
FR from DC to 1MHz is possible to do ... or at least to 100kHz. Certainly interesting for tube amps and today's switching amps.
I have seen many amp measurements (by Amir and others) to extend well above 20kHz so that is already covered.

In short.... Lahto's wishlist for making measurements below 20Hz and above 20kHz seems a good idea just because they are basic measurements and some of them are actually possible but rarely seen.

This thread will be an endless argument going back and forth about 'auditory channel', measurements and belief based on some 'research' that shows (or thinks he shows) is evidence.

I'm sure ABX tests will convince him he can't hear it if you truncate below 20Hz and above 20kHz but that may be because he has not seen independent measurements of gear he uses that shows it will reach 5Hz to 100kHz as that's where it matters (I assume using speakers).

an interesting post and thanks for the time and effort. Too tired to go nitpicking but it will be pretty impolite to ignore it.

But I can add something new to the discussion. You know, just in case anyone thought that "100KHz is too far"

You are right, my "only way to be sure" wish goes to 1MHz. But just for now. And only because that seems to be the limit reached by the most recent research. For everyone's pleasure and fresh from the 2024 batch of true science, these are the vibration frequencies of your very own living cells

As everyone on this site knows: if something vibrates at X-kHz and you hit it with Y-kHz, you will have effects. Duh!
Like one of the potentials applications these guys are chasing:

destroying cancerous cells by targeting specific cell frequencies with focused ultrasonic waves [13]."

Judging by the cell's frequency spectrum, it looks like they may be able to do that with a classD amp. And audio technology will become the cure all to save the world. And don't forget: you heard it first on ASR!

 

[SIY]

these are the vibration frequencies of your very own living cells

Put down the bong while there's still time.

 

[MAB]

Put down the bong while there's still time.

When 'research' is replaced by a DuckDuckGo search of "Cell" & "MHz".

 

[pkane]

Put down the bong while there's still time.

I'm afraid it's too late...

 

[SIY]

When 'research' is replaced by a DuckDuckGo search of "Cell" & "MHz".

I suffer the disadvantage of actually doing vibrational and ultrasonic spectroscopy professionally.

 

[sonitus mirus]

I suffer the disadvantage of actually doing vibrational and ultrasonic spectroscopy professionally.

Is there a layman's hobbyist group that does this for fun?

 

[SIY]

Is there a layman's hobbyist group that does this for fun?

My students.

 

[lashto]

Put down the bong while there's still time.

if anyone follows the EU football championship, you'll know that Netherlands just won 3-0.
The only proper response to that is: cheers and bongs-up!

P.S.
I'll go out have some fun. All the grumpy old negativists are invited!

 

[SorenTyson]

The exact same is true in audio & most other places. If you design for only 20-20, your device will never (fully) achieve that. Start your design with a 1-100 target and you will finally get clean 20-20. .

This is an assumption of yours, not a fact.

My assumption is that going beyond 20-20 would add cost, complexity and size to speakers, with no audible benefits to the main chunk of the population.

 

[krabapple]

And if one complains about missrepresentation, the answer is ... more of it
Here's the real identity of 'this japanese fellow':

• multiple groups of Japanese/Asian researchers who either participated in the (multiple) initial studies or replicated some of them.
• a dedicated institute of Information Medicine, (partially) started because of the hypersonic research. No need to speak Japanese, just wait a few seconds and you'll see "Hypersonic Effect" in the main picture.
• just one other japanese fellow. A knows-nothing guy with publications cited by other 10000+ know-nothings.

oooh, 10,000 cites! How many are self-cites, and in what journals?

• tens of science journals and organizations that did publish this kind of research including Nature, JAS, AES...

And for your own pleasure here's an (indeed problematic) duplicate-post:
A meta study done by an AES guy: A Meta-Analysis of High Resolution AudioPerceptual Evaluation

Not sure how the conclusion could've been more crystal-clear than that... but please do state your next wish

You seem still utterly unaware of longstanding critiques of your sources. Nor do their results accord with your enthusiasms.
Not even Reiss claims high res bandwidth normally affects perception of audio. The effect he found , if you even believe he chose well in his inclusion/exclusion step (not everyone does), is quite rare/small.

And clearly there's no level of crankery you won't embrace in the service of your cause, if you take the existence of that Japanese 'Institute' as dispositive of anything. You might just as well assert that the formation of a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH (since renamed, for ass-covering reasons, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health ) happened because the evidence was so good for alt medicine treatments. It wasn't and isnt'; NCCAM was founded at the behest of a powerful US Senator convinced that bee pollen pills cured his allergies

I suggest also reading up on the history of parapsychological centers and labs associated with respectable universities.

 

[krabapple]

can I be?


And the science quoted just above and just for you says the exact opposite.
A very non-medical meta study.
Done by a digital music, EE, AES, PhD researcher.

Again, it took a statistical meta-analysis of results from a selection of studies (from among all ever published) -- including what sigbergaudio would call 'medical studies' -- to erect the molehill that Reiss reports.

Hardly an audio call to arms, even if you believe its conclusions are valid.. and there were/are AES, PhD, EEs, 'digital music' experts who do not...

Dr. Reiss is interesting. He was President of the AES in 2002 and former co-chair of its Technical Committee on Hi Rez audio , of which he remains a member . It's a fascinating group in itself --- Meridian/MQA's Bob Stuart has been a very active member for as far back as I can see. Its purpose is frankly to promote high rez, in both respectable (production) and 'controversial' (home audio) contexts. I can't tell when Reiss was Co-Chair, but he too has been on the committee since at least 2017. There are no minutes available before then. Meeting notes on site show a lot of cheerleading for Stuart's work, and several aborted attempts to prove we can hear ultrasound. There's an embrace of the Japanese work, and I see the Committee has recently been offering a disgraceful forum to the notorious Milind Kunchur claiming a 'new undertanding of hearing' no doubt based on his discreditable work on perception of tiny timing differences, which JJ among others has eviscerated .

In fact I was hoping I'd see JJs name on the Committee membership roster, but , I guess not surprisingly, it never was.

Anyway: Dr. Reiss's research since 2016 (nor before, that I can tell -- that's mostly about sigma-delta modulators) isn't about perception of high res audio; indeed, in none of the papers I find from him since 2016 (the year his meta-analysis paper was published), does he even cite the paper.

Most of his latter day work is on sound synthesis for VR and video games and audio production. His bibliography papers that I've perused rarely contain the text 'kHz', 'audible' or 'resolution' at all, and never in contexts that relate to hi rez or perception of same.

This work on reverse engineering a stereo mix looks quite interesting but again, perception of high resolution audio appears irrelevant

https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~josh/documents/2023/Reverse%20engineering.pdf

Prof. Josh Reiss, Queen Mary, University of London

You'd think if hi rez mattered, it would matter enough to be mentioned in his work?

 

[Mnyb]

What about priorities and the order of things.

I personally tried resampling true high res recordings with >20 kHz content I’ve done this on several occasions , it was just some home made abx not of scientific quality, so I can not bet the farm on my results?
Never got anything but inaudible difference. just look at the fletcher munson/equal loudness contour to see why .
I did this on several occasions and I got convinced that actual production quality trumps format all the time ( as a side effect ).
So yes so what ? Spend our efforts somewhere else ?

I get the <20hz , you can feel this with some content

But just try yourself with some recordings of good quality ? If your still uncertain, but resample the stuff yourself, don’t compare different comercial sources of the “same” album ( it’s never the same , to may remasters of everything).

And it’s basically a nothing burger , you can enjoy this content everyday with the equipment we all have very few systems brick walled beyond 20k all the time . And there are several sources of this content. Very often the recording sounds amazing, but that not because the >20 k content.

And the practicall limitations of ones personal Hifi ? I would put fixing perfect fidelity to 40 kHz between place 1023 and place 1040 of things to fix for my personal audio nirvana ? There so much else not perfect or basically wrong to fix before this becomes important that you never get to it .

And are you 17 years old and female ? If not join the rest of us with limited hf hearing .

 

[ElJaimito]

Published and replicated science, not some "I think so" blalala.

Perhaps you would like to point to some of these replications?

 

[lashto]

Again, it took a statistical meta-analysis of results from a selection of studies (from among all ever published) -- including what sigbergaudio would call 'medical studies' -- to erect the molehill that Reiss reports.

Hardly an audio call to arms, even if you believe its conclusions are valid.. and there were/are AES, PhD, EEs, 'digital music' experts who do not...

Dr. Reiss is interesting. He was President of the AES in 2002 and former co-chair of its Technical Committee on Hi Rez audio , of which he remains a member . It's a fascinating group in itself --- Meridien/MQA's Bob Stuart has been a very active member for as far back as I can see. Its purpose is frankly to promote high rez, in both respectable (production) and 'controversial' (home audio) contexts. I can't tell when Reiss was Co-Chair, but he's too has been on the committee since at least 2017. There are no minutes available before then. Meeting notes on site show a lot of cheerleading for Stuart's work, and several aborted attempts to prove we can hear ultrasound. There's an embrace of the Japanese work, and I see the Committee has recently been offering a disgraceful forum to the notorious Milind Kunchur claiming a 'new undertanding of hearing' no doubt based on his discreditable work on perception of tiny timing differences, whihc JJ among others has eviscerated in the past.

In fact I was hoping I'd see JJs name on the membership roster, but , I guess not surprisingly, it never was.

Anyway: Dr. Reiss's research since 2016 (nor before, that I can tell -- that's mostly about sigma-delta modulators) isn't about perception of high res audio; indeed, in none of the papers I find from him since 2016 (the year his meta-analysis paper was published), does he even cite the paper.

Most of his latter day work is on sound synthesis for VR and video games and audio production. His bibliography papers that I've perused rarely contain the text 'kHz', audible' or 'resolution', an never in contexts that relate to hi rez or perception of same.

Glad you seem to enjoy mr Reiss and his work a bit more than this-japanese-fellow.
Would you care to cite some of those "experts who do not"? Particlarly the one study which already debunked mr Reiss' meta .. and why not, everything else beyond-20-20.

This work on reverse engineering a stereo mix looks quite interesting but again, perception of high resolution audio appears irrelevant

https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~josh/documents/2023/Reverse%20engineering.pdf

Prof. Josh Reiss, Queen Mary, University of London

Quoting (interesting) sources is highly welcome. Even if they do not have much to do with the thread/subject.
Reverse engineering is one of my favorite 'arts'. And lately I particularly enjoy this kind Scientists Recreate Classic Pink Floyd Track From The Brains of Listeners

 

[SIY]

Glad you seem to enjoy mr Reiss and his work a bit more than this-japanese-fellow.

It's the difference between being worthless and being stubbornly wrong.

 

[lashto]

Perhaps you would like to point to some of these replications?

how about a lot of them ?
The AES seems to care about those studies. Enough to create and publish a nice collection of them.
To get an idea about the size of the 'phenomenon': 31 published studies by 30+ researchers over a time frame of approx 1991-2020.
Provided by the AES as "an entry into this literature."

 

[lashto]

I was listening to an alltime favorite album today Alphaville Forever Young. Should be a familiar title for most ASR readers.
And at some point I figured out a peculiar thing: every single title in that album can be easily connected to this thread and/or time:

1. "A Victory of Love" : may happen anytime, anywhere
2. "Summer in Berlin" : currently ongoing: the European summer of football in Berlin/Germany
3. "Big in Japan" : supposed to be "mind-blowing and irritating at the same time". Any similarity to this thread and the japanese Hypersonic Effect is pure coincidence
4. "To Germany with Love" : the German summer of football again
5. "Fallen Angel" : supposedly about Alphaville themselves...
Side two
1. "Forever Young" : everyone in this thread
2. "In the Mood" : almost everyone in this thread
3. "Sounds Like a Melody" : many things in this thread
4. "Lies" : we surely got some of those, too
5. "The Jet Set" : about "anarchy, freedom, love, fun and the end of the world". We may have too much of some and too little of others.

Pick your choice ... or just enjoy the whole album
1984 original

2019 remaster

 

[krabapple]

how about a lot of them ?
The AES seems to care about those studies. Enough to create and publish a nice collection of them.

You mean the AES Technical Committee on High Resolution Audio. Whose purpose is to promote...high resolution audio. And whose memebership includes some who have tried for years to make money off of selling high resolution audio. And which, when it was frustratedly casting about for evidence that its subject matter mattered to home audio, called for its member to gather the (oft-questioned) Japanese work together...because it's all they got (Btw, I already had done that on Hydrogenaudio but they never asked me ;> )*

But hey, enjoy your blind appeals to authority, I realize it's all you got.

To get an idea about the size of the 'phenomenon': 31 published studies by 30+ researchers over a time frame of approx 1991-2020.
Provided by the AES as "an entry into this literature."

I get the feeling you don't know how academic science works. The list shows that it's just *three* researchers/labs responsible for 26 of those 30 papers. Some of which papers are about perception of different bit depths, not sample rates. That 16 vs 24 bits can be audible isn't controversial.

And indeed even the AES Committee itself, in later years, tried to move beyond the problematic, apparently hard to prove 'ultrasound' stuff, into promoting other aspects and definitions of 'high resolution' including bit depth (which really is what the term should apply to, as it's the bit depth that sets the bounds of audio resolution-- the smallest recordable difference in level, and the loudest level recordable).

* I note they don't cite any of the Japanese researchers whose work that *did not* support perception of hi rez sample rates. Surely your 'thousands' of refs that you claim to have perused, include those too?

 

[SIY]

as it's the bit depth that sets the bounds of audio resolution

Quibble- with dither (which is universal), bit depth sets the noise floor, not "the smallest recordable difference in level." I did a demo here a couple years ago with a cheap Behringer interface showing tones well below the LSB.