[Muzeick]

He's right, of course.

Try drawing Exile On Main Street on a graph.

 

[Theta Alpha 1]

Quote:

I lol'd hard at the pseudoscience in this thread. Most profound and neurally active experience? LOL
Determining what IEM hits the ear in the most pleasant manner is subjective by nature

 
Higher information content = higher sensory input = more profound experience.
 
Yes you can perceive a TV with low contrast ratio, weak red levels and soft anti-aliasing as "most pleasant", however this fact is completely separate from the previous fact.

 

[tigon_ridge]

Quote:

 
Higher information content = higher sensory input = more profound experience.

I've heard pop pseudo-spiritual woo woo babble that is more intelligible than this. Nothing personal, sorry, but maybe you should start writing in English. Mixing and mashing words that sound "sciency" doesn't make them scientific nor even intelligent. Just makes you seem like you think you're on another tier of knowledge above everyone else. Not saying that that is you.

 

[quartertone]

Quote:

I've heard pop pseudo-spiritual woo woo babble that is more intelligible than this. Nothing personal, sorry, but maybe you should start writing in English. Mixing and mashing words that sound "sciency" doesn't make them scientific nor even intelligent. Just makes you seem like you think you're on another tier of knowledge above everyone else. Not saying that that is you.

Huh? It's a perfectly straightforward statement, he's just saying that the more sensory information you get through your headphones, the more profound your experience will be. I don't see what's unintelligible here.

 

[Muzeick]

That's not necessarily true. Define sensory information - how do you measure it? Can I get 3 buckets of sensory information?

 

[quartertone]

I'm not saying it's true, I'm just saying it's not semantically opaque.

 

[laon]

I honestly don't understand why you guys bother (with) the guy. He's clearly far above us after acquiring the extrasensory skill of graph listening.

Anyway, awaiting those RE-600 loan tour impression, hopefully it's being passed to someone who listen with their ears, not exclusively test equipment, doesn't matter if the result is good or bad.

 

[tigon_ridge]

Quote:

Huh? It's a perfectly straightforward statement, he's just saying that the more sensory information you get through your headphones, the more profound your experience will be. I don't see what's unintelligible here.

He used the word "higher," a subjective adjective that has no universal meaning, at least in the world of audio (except maybe audiophoolery). How does one even begin to concretely elaborate on what "higher information content" or "higher sensory input" means in the context of audio. It's just something complete made up, as if to try to sound erudite. Finally, a profound human experience doesn't come from what is perceived from the 5 senses, it comes from one's own attitude or point of view about a (perceived) thing. For example, I've been moved to tears listening to music through dirt cheap, almost disposable, audio gear at least once before.

 

[higbvuyb]

Quote:

 
??? unintelligible
 
"Sound-stage is in the frequency response." Only partially true. You can bring certain frequencies more forward or farther back by changing FR, indeed. However, you can't give an IEM the soundstage of a headphone (at least not currently). This, of course, is only with respect with stereo recording. I don't have enough experience with binaural recordings to say much about it in terms of FR. One only has to listen to the SM3 and look at its graph and understand that decay does make a big difference. No documentation or "scientific evidence" required for something so obvious.

Sound localization is fairly well studied and as you already know there are three main mechanisms. ITD is irrelevant unless your IEMs are defective. IID is hard-coded into the music. These two are most relevant for azimuthal location.
The HRTF is most important for vertical location but is bypassed because IEMs directly radiate sound into the ear canal. Sadly the HRTF has a minimal time domain component and is mostly represented by frequency.
It may be that the RE400's frequency response is more suited to your hearing than the ER4 is, and you are simply not equalizing correctly. Naturally, this would be the case if you are equalizing by ear rather than using an in-ear probe microphone.
It is probably uncontroversial that headphones are better for soundstage because the sound is still filtered by your own pinnae. Interestingly, Hofman, Van Riswick and Van Opstal 1998 showed that HRTFs can be learned within weeks (of continuous normal hearing) while retaining the use of the previous transfer function. 
 
Where else do you suggest this difference in soundstage suddenly arises from?

 

[Magick Man]

So where can I find the measurements of thin / dry, flat sound-stage, less resolution, body, height, contrast, color accuracy and realism.

Is it in some kind of telepathic channel or is it air.

Waterfall plots, they show decay along the FR range. Square waves and impulse response help too, as do THD numbers. You can get a pretty good idea how different headphones sound if you look at them together. A standard FR chart doesn't say very much, really.

How convenient.

Let me know when Buddha awakens.

That's uncalled for and disappointing, you don't know as much as you think.

 

[higbvuyb]

Quote:

How come nobody has ever managed to invent an interesting graph?

Revelling in illiteracy isn't doing you any favours.
 

He used the word "higher," a subjective adjective that has no universal meaning, at least in the world of audio (except maybe audiophoolery). How does one even begin to concrete elaborate on what "higher information content" or "higher sensory input" means in the context of audio.

It's quite simple. Information enters a system and the output consists of some of that information plus noise. Quantifying information in terms of sound is trivial, where else does digital audio come from?
 

The problem in his statement comes from equating information accuracy to enjoyment. We only have some evidence that accuracy correlates with enjoyment (and this is on average, you can't discount the individual crazy people)..

 

[Muzeick]

I am not illiterate in the slightest. I just hate graphs. Does that make me a pariah in this parish? So be it - I see nothing wrong with relying solely on how stuff sounds when it goes in my ears.

 

[Theta Alpha 1]

That's not necessarily true. Define sensory information - how do you measure it? Can I get 3 buckets of sensory information?

If you poured three buckets of 30 Celsius water or 100 degree oil on yourself which one had the most sensory information?

 

[nehcrow]

LOL
Congrats on being the most pretentious user on Head-fi

 

[higbvuyb]

Quote:

I am not illiterate in the slightest. I just hate graphs. Does that make me a pariah in this parish? So be it - I see nothing wrong with relying solely on how stuff sounds when it goes in my ears.

Now if only you were capable of relying solely on how stuff actually sounds.