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The lens that can see its own flaws

Blumlein 88

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http://lesswrong.com/lw/jm/the_lens_that_sees_its_flaws/

I think this essay encapsulates much that illuminates the approach of subjectivist audiophiles vis a vis with how many of us here on ASR approach understanding of hearing, audio and psychoacoustics.

One can listen to understand audio via only how it makes you feel. Or one can use understanding of how feelings in your brain and flaws in your humanity can detach you from reality. With understanding of your lens you can at least take some corrective action to maintain correspondence with what is real.

As the essay concludes:

But a human brain is a flawed lens that can understand its own flaws—its systematic errors, its biases—and apply second-order corrections to them. This, in practice, makes the flawed lens far more powerful. Not perfect, but far more powerful.
 

RayDunzl

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I was listening this afternoon and when the left channel hit 001011010100101101001110 and the right hit 001011001010001110100101, I thought, what are the chances of that?!?!

Is it 1 in 2^24 x 2?

Or is it 100%, since it happened?

Then I thought, so what?

As for the article, I think I thought I thunk he's being pretty hard on the intellectual capabilities of mice.

Then I found this:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26639-the-smart-mouse-with-the-half-human-brain/
 

fas42

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I like the "if you can understand your mind as a mapping-engine with flaws in it" bit - as pointed out elsewhere, the ears have an amazing ability to compensate - consider someone walking in front of you while listening to live sound: you barely register a change in the perceived sound, even though the direct sound is dramatically altered during this transition - the brain madly compensates for the altered physical sensations, "correcting" on the fly.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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I was listening this afternoon and when the left channel hit 001011010100101101001110 and the right hit 001011001010001110100101, I thought, what are the chances of that?!?!

Is it 1 in 2^24 x 2?

Or is it 100%, since it happened?

Then I thought, so what?

As for the article, I think I thought I thunk he's being pretty hard on the intellectual capabilities of mice.

Then I found this:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26639-the-smart-mouse-with-the-half-human-brain/

Well one needs some restraints on this kind of activity. Mice have hearing to a solid 100-120 khz. Imagine the kind of sample rates we'll need to satisfy subjectivist recursively thinking audiophile mice. On the other hand, mice with full human brain thinking capability would make fantastic space explorers. Sending mice to Mars is a walk in the park vs humans. They can pre-colonize it for us.
 

RayDunzl

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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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They'll need a good lawyer.

Sending animals into space is strongly criticised by animal rights organisations.[48]

The Chinese gov't don't care 'bout no animal rights. The Russians and Americans already have sent monkeys to space several times. Private companies will probably just get an informed consent form signed by sentient mice. Then sue any group that opposes the mice exercising their free will to take possession of their own life by going to colonize mars as some chauvinism of humans against other animals. . Of course while not mentioning they were genetically engineered to always want to go into space.
 

RayDunzl

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Chinese.

I like the Countdown Girl in this one:


The rest of it seems pretty upbeat, too.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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Chinese.

I like the Countdown Girl in this one:


The rest of it seems pretty upbeat, too.

I think the Countdown girl is just excited because of the phallic imagery at the end of the film.
 

RayDunzl

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Cosmik

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...the ears have an amazing ability to compensate - consider someone walking in front of you while listening to live sound: you barely register a change in the perceived sound, even though the direct sound is dramatically altered during this transition - the brain madly compensates for the altered physical sensations, "correcting" on the fly.
I don't think of it as a mad scramble: the ears/brain is simply a 'direct sound extracting engine' that uses frequency and timing to separate the direct sound from the reflections. This is why, for example, cabinet diffraction looks bad in frequency domain measurements but nobody can hear it. Each ripple in the frequency domain has a corresponding ripple in the timing of transient sounds so the brain doesn't register any change at all.
While I try to minimize visible diffraction ripples in the frequency response for good measure, I have no evidence that even strong diffraction effects have significant audible consequences.
It is also why EQ'ing a flat frequency response at the listening position sounds worse than just playing a 'flat' speaker into the room and allowing the room to do what it does.
 

Kal Rubinson

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I like the "if you can understand your mind as a mapping-engine with flaws in it" bit - as pointed out elsewhere, the ears have an amazing ability to compensate - consider someone walking in front of you while listening to live sound: you barely register a change in the perceived sound, even though the direct sound is dramatically altered during this transition - the brain madly compensates for the altered physical sensations, "correcting" on the fly.
That is exactly what I experienced with the BeoLab90s in Geoff Martin's lab: As he passed in front of each speaker, there was little to no change in the perceived sound. Not only did he walk across in front of the speakers, he was carrying an acoustically-absorbent panel with him.
 

fas42

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That is exactly what I experienced with the BeoLab90s in Geoff Martin's lab: As he passed in front of each speaker, there was little to no change in the perceived sound. Not only did he walk across in front of the speakers, he was carrying an acoustically-absorbent panel with him.
Interesting! Note, Gary Koh from Genesis speakers is keen on using this as an assessment tool when listening to speakers.
 

Dynamix

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My brain is just great. People tell me this. It's YUGE.
 
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