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What harm has low-fidelity done to mankind?

post #1 of 32
6/7/09 at 7:51pm
Thread Starter 
It just occurred to me, low-fidelity should've been around since Thomas Edison made the phonograph, and considering people learn by imitation, how much could bad sound reproduction have altered human language in the past 140ish years? Typical sound reproduction (ie, television) is pretty far from what is actual, and I should think after all these decades and all the hours people have watched and learned from television that they've incorporated this low fidelity into their languages. I'm sure most of you have noticed that after watching some movies, later on during the day or next few days you find yourself imitating what actors have done. The freaky part is, we're not imitating what the actors say, we're imitating the television's portrayal of what they've said which is probably far far away from what was actually said. If there's any truth to what I'm saying, humanity is going to pay dearly for giving children ibuds. Comments?
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post #2 of 32
6/7/09 at 8:17pm
WHAT?
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post #3 of 32
6/7/09 at 8:22pm
Thread Starter 
I thought it was pretty simple. Some kid watches tv 8 hours a day, talks like the tv actors (with the tv altering what is said) and the kid imitates it. And maybe the kid even becomes an actor himself speaking the low-fidelity inflection of the television speakers which gets recorded and replayed again in low-fidelity television speakers and now you have doubly compounded low-fidelity language! Linguists should be burned at the stake for not warning us of the dangers of low-fidelity (jk).
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post #4 of 32
6/7/09 at 8:31pm
No. That's absolutely rediculous. It doesn't matter if the dialogue is of low quality. You can still recognise it. When you repeat it back, you're not literally copying it, you're interpreting it. For instance when Brad Pitt says a line in Fight Club and you repeat it, does it sound like Brad Pitt? No it sounds like you reading back a line from Fight Club.
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post #5 of 32
6/10/09 at 2:20am
None.
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post #6 of 32
6/10/09 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
Try listening to a language learning cd in a good setup and then try listening to it with an mp3 player or portable cd player with stock headphones or buds and 128kb files and see if you can learn better with the good setup.
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post #7 of 32
6/10/09 at 9:35am
Even for kids today there is something called real life, in glorious, uncompressed error-free analogue hi-end surround. So this seems no cause for alarm to me.
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post #8 of 32
6/10/09 at 10:36am
I dunno, i picked up a bit of crossover distortion in my youth.
I blame it on exposure to early transistor amps.
Maybe if i was older i would have a nice warm valve sound..


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post #9 of 32
6/10/09 at 10:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by setmenu View Post
I dunno, i picked up a bit of crossover distortion in my youth.
I blame it on exposure to early transistor amps.
Maybe if i was older i would have a nice warm valve sound..
What we really need to worry about is the people who even now days listen to a lot of vinyl (myself included soon). They need to stop randomly crackling/popping/skipping when they talk, especially if they are listening to scratched or otherwise worn vinyl.

On a more serious note, this is ridiculous.

-Nkk
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post #10 of 32
6/10/09 at 12:42pm
It seems that equalization is always to the lowest common denominator.
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post #11 of 32
6/10/09 at 3:00pm
What about those of us who don't watch TV, but instead rely on NPR (through an audiophile rig, no less) and the Internets for news, information and entertainment?

Or how about those who channel their TV through decent speakers?

I don't think lo-fi has hurt human speech. We pick that up from each other.

But lo-fi has turned a lot of music into crap, not to mention audio equipment. People are conditioned to exaggerated bass and the sloppy subwoofer sound - especially the sound a subwoofer makes on its own independent from the music.

That's why most new members show up wanting closed headphones with a lot of bass.
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post #12 of 32
6/10/09 at 4:27pm
Thread Starter 
Uncle Erik, I just used tv as an example, it applies to anything utilizing artificial sound reproduction. My theory is that limitations of recording and reproduction can have a cumulative effect (I don't pretend to know in what degree) on not just the development of language, but also culture, behavior, and, as you well illustrated, music.
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post #13 of 32
6/14/09 at 2:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by haloxt View Post
Uncle Erik, I just used tv as an example, it applies to anything utilizing artificial sound reproduction. My theory is that limitations of recording and reproduction can have a cumulative effect (I don't pretend to know in what degree) on not just the development of language, but also culture, behavior, and, as you well illustrated, music.
I'd be a lot more worried about the effect of illiteracy or starvation have than audio reproduction. Ideas are quite resilient, they can be transmitted through compressed audio as well as through text on a page.

Also, shouldn't it be humankind?
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post #14 of 32
6/14/09 at 3:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by haloxt View Post
Try listening to a language learning cd in a good setup and then try listening to it with an mp3 player or portable cd player with stock headphones or buds and 128kb files and see if you can learn better with the good setup.
Well, this is different from what you originally inferred. Repeating words from a new language you are learning is much different than repeating something said in a language you already know. And I'm not so sure you would learn a language any better from listening to a good set up. If someone learned to play the piano from a tutorial using an MP3 player instead of a good CD set up, would their actual playing sound like an MP3 player?
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post #15 of 32
6/14/09 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 
If the piano keys are his vocal chords.
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