"Things that cannot be measured"

[SIY]

There likely are things that we aren't aware of yet. Not every measurement we currently use has always existed. New discoveries and methodologies will continue.

There's likely a lot of differences in the way our ears and brains process sounds compared to a computer and a microphone. The very physical shape of our ear canal itself can have an effect.

That being said, I'll still believe measurements over someone on YouTube using too many adjectives.

I’ll still believe ears-only evaluation.

 

[raistlin65]

By the way, we should distinguish between "I hear a difference" and "Any sophisticated and experienced audiophile with an appropriately transparent system will hear a difference."

The emotion of the performance gets to play a role in the first one, and even one's multi-sensory perception of the total listening experience (including what they see, and even what they paid). As soon as we imply that it is transferrable to others, we have something additional to prove--that others will perceive it, even if they do not value what they see or pay for the same way. And the second statement, even if implied, plays on a subversive emotion to be perceived as an expert, or to be associated with celebrities.

Rick "'you would share my preference if you were as good as me'" Denney

I think it's better not to use the verb "hear" at all, but rather perceive. Arguably, there's way too much audio processing going on in the brain for us to reliably know when what our ears hear is what we are perceiving.

Moreover, if we always use the term perceive, then that always makes the point that perception is involved. And eventually, our message might get through to some people if they, too, get caught up in using the term perceive.

 

[rdenney]

I agree, but I was careful with those terms. I used "hear" where others use "hear" incorrectly--hence the quotes--to distinguish the motives for such statements. In my explanation of those motives, I used "perception".

Rick "recalling Bobby Darin, who is attributed with 'people hear what they see'" Denney

 

[Head_Unit]

is there possibly another measurement out there be to found.

I personally believe technical ability exists to measure pretty much whatever we need to about audio at this point. HOWEVER we tend to measure almost entirely in the steady-state, because dynamic testing is more of a pain in the butt. Yet our hearing is dynamic with time, not steady-state at all. I also feel we really don't know as much as we might think about how sensitive people are to various forms of distortion. So just because we CAN measure "everything we need to" does not mean we are doing so, or even know what to do.

 

[JSmith]

Human responses to audio in the form of feeling cannot be measured. Perception is fluid, measurements are at specific points in time.



JSmith

 

[Phorize]

Human responses to audio in the form of feeling cannot be measured. Perception is fluid, measurements are at specific points in time. I’d add that the ‘fluidity’ of feeling is a cognitive illusion, the feeling is arising only in a point of time, it’s just that memory and various cognitive bias’s give rise to a subject impression that there is a continuum whereas in reality there is only the present.



JSmith

I think that’s not quite the case. Neuro imaging results can be correlated to subject reports of sensation etc. It’s not direct measurement of ‘feeling’ but it’s a process that has led to a lot of insights into the behaviour of complex systems such as the default mode network.Bottom line is that ‘feelings’ are material events in the material world and therefore can be measured if we have the right knowledge. I’d add that the ‘fluidity’ of feeling is a cognitive illusion, feelings can only occur as material events in the present, the sense of a continuum is the result of various cognitive biases. We could get into the issue of there being no ‘thinker’ doing the feeling.

 

[Xulonn]

I personally believe technical ability exists to measure pretty much whatever we need to about audio at this point. HOWEVER we tend to measure almost entirely in the steady-state, because dynamic testing is more of a pain in the butt. Yet our hearing is dynamic with time, not steady-state at all. I also feel we really don't know as much as we might think about how sensitive people are to various forms of distortion. So just because we CAN measure "everything we need to" does not mean we are doing so, or even know what to do.

Have you ever seen a show by master stage magicians/illusionists such as like Siegfried and Roy? I attended their show in Las Vegas in 1979. They fooled my brain even better than my audio system! What we know as "perception" does not always correlate with reality.

You - and many other audio fans - seem to have difficulty distinguishing between the reality of physical phenomena vs the subjective quagmire of human perception. The former can be measured with relative ease, while objectively measuring what we humans "perceive" is extraordinarily difficult and fraught with pitfalls and inconsistencies.

 

[Head_Unit]

You - and many other audio fans - seem to have difficulty distinguishing between the reality of physical phenomena vs the subjective quagmire of human perception. The former can be measured with relative ease

I think my post was not clear enough about MY beliefs.
- I am extremely skeptical that for instance speaker cables in particular make big audible differences, or indeed detectable differences at all.
- For connection or power cables, I believe if there are differences caused it is not because the magical unicorn strands provide a better path for the highs while the woven Bigfoot hair conducts the lows better. I think if cables cause audible differences the mechanism will be some kind of change in grounding and/or EMI induction and nothing to do with the audio per se.
- But as a scientist I must admit to having done almost zero testing for myself.

I don't have any problem distinguishing between physical reality versus subjectivity. HOWEVER:
- I believe if we could peer into people's brains in some way (MRI?) we would find that their expectations would cause REAL changes in their perceptions, even in the total absense of physical differences, similar to the placebo effect.
- I also firmly believe we still don't know everything about hearing, particularly in the areas of sensitivity to various distortions and in the area of sensitivity to time response.
But let me highly qualify this last statement is NOT saying "we don't know how to measure everything" in the same way that is used by cable proponents. Those are electronic components, and it therefore should be possible to measure physical changes in the signal, which I believe we DO know how to measure 6 ways from Sunday. The lack of such measurements by cable proponents is a large Occam's Razor argument against cables. IF changes are shown physically, THEN we could argue about whether they are audible, like here
https://www.stereophile.com/content/what-difference-wire-makes-jenving-approach
(which perhaps purposely does not get into the question of whether the differing measured results are audible. I wish they would repeat this for some interconnects). If a cable maker cannot show even minute physical changes in response OR in grounding/EMI, then I call bullshit on any claims that the construction affects the audio.

Without measurement, it ain't science, it is religion.

 

[raistlin65]

- I believe if we could peer into people's brains in some way (MRI?) we would find that their expectations would cause REAL changes in their perceptions, even in the total absense of physical differences, similar to the placebo effect.

You might like this research

We hear what we expect to hear
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210108120110.htm

 

[Wes]

Human responses to audio in the form of feeling cannot be measured. Perception is fluid, measurements are at specific points in time.



JSmith

Maybe not, but they can ranked. And then non-parametric statistics can be used on the rankings.

 

[RayDunzl]

We hear what we expect to hear
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210108120110.htm

"During the last 20 years, neuroscience research has revealed that the cerebral cortex constantly generates predictions on what will happen next, and that neurons in charge of sensory processing only encode the difference between our predictions and the actual reality."

That may go toward my preference for music that does not meet my expectation for the next note.

I'll skip through some currently popular tune just to see what;s there, if I can guess the next notes my brain isn't stimulated enough to care, and I skip ahead, usually I get what sounds like a replay of the first part, and skip to the next tune in the "see what's there" list.

Exceptions, as always, but that's how I generally operate.

"Most people can't deal with that abstraction -- or don't want to. They say: "Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music." - F.Z. (speaking sarcastically)

 

[Xulonn]

I think my post was not clear enough about MY beliefs.

Apologies for the misinterpretation. However, my post also demonstrates a bit of my position on audio science - and some audio consumer issues, and I think that my comparison to illusionists is valid. I share your interest in the mechanisms of the human brain with respect to the sensitivity to stimulation and interpretation of the chemical and electrical signals it receives. The interaction of neurophysiology and psychology is complex and fascinating.

I do believe that scientific instrumentation is capable of detecting sonic differences that are well below the threshhold of human "hearing". How our brains process those stimuli is fascinating, as is how our beliefs and personalities interpret our "perception" of sound. It's too bad we cannot measure highly variable neural "distortion" in our brains as easily as we can measure - and determine the audibility of - the distortion of signals in electro-mechanical systems.

 

[Xulonn]

You might like this research

We hear what we expect to hear
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210108120110.htm

Good article - thanks. I subscribed to the thin little 22-issue per year USA "Science News" magazine for many years, and it was a favorite of many scientists for keeping up with general news from other disciplines. In fact it was our best advertising pathway when I worked for Jandel Scientific in the 1980's selling and doing tech support for pioneering PC-based (MS DOS and Windows) scientific software. Along with the Science Daily website that you linked to, these two online science news sites are my go-to resources for my general scientific news needs.

 

[JSmith]

We feel sound waves as well as hear them...



JSmith

 

[mansr]

"During the last 20 years, neuroscience research has revealed that the cerebral cortex constantly generates predictions on what will happen next, and that neurons in charge of sensory processing only encode the difference between our predictions and the actual reality."

That is, incidentally, how FLAC works.

 

[Xulonn]

"Most people can't deal with that abstraction -- or don't want to. They say: "Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it.

That is exactly why I was not taken in by the early internet presence of Pandora and similar "music-matching" services like some of my friends. I have always preferred to explore music on my own and seek surprises and hidden gems - and occasionally completely new styles within the greater scope of the general genres. Even with internet radio stations, I look for stations with playlists of at least five hundred or more songs, or I get bored quickly.

I discovered Latin jazz in the early 1950s while scanning stations on the shortwave bands of my parents old 3-band Stromberg-Carlson console radio/record player (similar to the one below, but in mint condition) in Chicago, and stumbling across a music station from Havana, Cuba. This started a life-long love of a lot of Latin music, and to purchase George Shearing's Latin Escapade as my first LP (monaural, of course - and I still have a copy of the record) in 1958. That was the year stereo went commercial, but most consumers still had mono audio systems or console radio/record players.

 

[scott wurcer]

That is, incidentally, how FLAC works.

Lossless FLAC?

 

[wwenze]

That is, incidentally, how FLAC works.

Isn't FLAC lossless

Or did you mean lossy FLAC

 

[blestin]

I don’t know if this counts, and I may be making this kind of statement in the wrong forum.

I think it is quite difficult to quantify why a person prefers the sound of one speaker over another with a single number. In my opinion measurements, PIR, impedance graphs, and especially preference scores should mainly be used to to weed out terribly performing speakers.

After that point your room and preferences will play a larger role and this is hard to quantify. Of course you still have a greater chance of of liking a speaker that preforms objectively better, but it is not guaranteed. (comparing two well engineered speakers)
I would personally recommend you take the preferance score with a big grain of salt and focus on the measurements instead. I really think it is quite difficult to quantify a speaker’s performance with one number.

 

[raistlin65]

Isn't FLAC lossless

Or did you mean lossy FLAC

That would be Bizzaro World FLAC.