[sander99]

"Whatever reality is, it's not what you see..." (Donald Hoffman)

damnit sander99!

Oops, now I really did it (scr*wed up big time), wait what happens when audiophiles get a scent of above video...

 

[gregorio]

More of a question than a statement but take for instance a single instrument, its unique sound is identified by the initial transient and harmonic overtones …

That statement is true as far as it goes but it doesn’t go far enough. It’s partially/largely invalidated by ignoring the question of “from where”? Using your example of an acoustic guitar (but pretty much any other instrument would be the same), the initial transient and harmonic overtones are significantly different a few inches away from the instrument than they will be say 15 feet away. From a more reasonable audience/listener position we have significant air absorption of high freqs, loss of level, details, sounds, overtones due to the inverse square law and the effects of room acoustics absorbing some freqs and reinforcing others. The obvious solution would be to record with a mic 15ft away from the guitar and this would indeed give us an accurate recording of reality (at that location) but in practice it doesn’t work well, for two reasons: Firstly the level will be very low and we’ll incur a lot of noise by raising it to a more reasonable level. Secondly, reality is not what a listener would actually experience! The act of listening to something, say an acoustic guitar, by definition focuses our concentration on hearing that guitar, our perception artificially enhances our perception of the sound of the guitar/reduces our perception of the sound of everything that isn’t the guitar (that we’re not focused on). The result is less reverb (and other sound we’re not focused on) and a clearer sounding guitar than was the actual reality at that location. I’m sure you’ve heard unprocessed recordings made by concert goers on their phones or by amateur recordists? They sound crappy, too much echo/reverb, too much noise and not enough clarity but in some respects these recordings are actually a more accurate recording of reality than professional recordings! Although the mics in mobiles are pretty poor, that was more or less the reality of the sound at that location but it’s significantly different from what we would perceive/experience. In the case of a recording of an unaccompanied acoustic guitar, reality would be a consideration but far from the primary goal, the goal is to create a sort of subjectively idealised perception/experience which is significantly different to the actual reality. In most cases we would mic the guitar both very closely and from a distance, mix the two mics together subjectively, apply some compression and EQ to the close mic to reduce the transients to a more normal (from a greater distance) level and rebalance some of the harmonic content, we’ll also likely reduce some of the sounds/noises we picked up from the close mic/s, finger slides, the guitarist’s breathing, clothes rustles or other extraneous instrument noises.

so with the sometimes overuse of peak limiting and/or compression to increase overall loudness would that change the relative levels of the harmonics and natural decay compared to the initial transient level as it’s the one more likely to be changed more than lower level harmonics,
And if that’s the case would it then subtlety change the individual sound or timbre ?

Yes it would but as described above that’s intentional, deliberately going further away from reality to get closer to what would be ideally perceived/experienced. However, this is only the case in your example of an unaccompanied acoustic guitar and other acoustic music genres. In most recordings (other genres) we’re not only going further away from reality but we’re not even concerned about creating an illusion of an idealised perception/experience, we’re typically creating a purely imagined sound/acoustic environment which not only couldn’t exist in reality but couldn’t be perceived/experienced in reality either. The goal is entertainment/enjoyment, reality or a perception of it is largely or entirely irrelevant.

Illusion and perception are two different things.

The process is entirely different but the end result isn’t, which of course is why illusions work, we can’t tell them apart from perception!

G

 

[71 dB]

@bigshot there is no need for any dunning kruger BS or "deciding what i hear" if i obviously hear the difference with my own ears, you guys are free to disregard my opinion tho just like i do with yours.

Yes there is, because this place has tons of Dunning-Kruger effect tasting posts. You are the only one who should decide what you hear, but the problem is you don't do it properly and you let the placebo effect dictate "what you hear." You don't need to do double blind listening tests. You can just listen and hear what you hear, but be aware that a lot of what you hear is probably affected by placebo. If you say that cable A sounds better than cable B to you, but it is probably due to placebo nobody hear has a problem with you, because in that case you are not declaring that cable A is objectively better than cable B. Someone new to audio without much knowledge or experience can't filter out falsehoods and in the worst scenario spends too much money on cables etc. instead of the stuff that matters the most in audio (acoustics, speaker+listener placement in the room, speakers and headphones). Ask yourself why there is so little talk about speaker placement online compared to cables? That's because there is no money to be made on speaker placement. You can't sell "speakers moved 4 inches apart from each other" to people, because they can do it for free. However, snakeoil cables are easy to sell (and transport for their small size/weight) and have massive profit margin because they are cheap to manufacture.

its nice that objectivists have for everything a explanation but reality speaks another truth

I don't have an explanation for everything, but I have an explanation for many things.

knowing the theory is one thing, but if reality shows (some of us, with good ears i guess) that there is more to it then this is all we need, a good pair of ears

You blame us objectivists for trusting "blindly" the theory while trusting your own ears "blindly." Yes, the reality shows that there is more to it and that's the placebo effect. Ironically it is objective science telling us this!

 

[71 dB]

"Whatever reality is, it's not what you see..." (Donald Hoffman)

Donald Hoffman's theories and thoughts are very interesting and even appealing/intuitive, but I would still take them with a grain of salt. However, the leading minds in science are in consensus, that the reality we experience is an illusion. That said, the illusion is all we can experience and that's why its THE "reality" for us.

 

[GearMe]

Hmmm....

 

[castleofargh]

Hmmm....

From The man with 2 brains.

 

[Vamp898]

@bigshot there is no need for any dunning kruger BS or "deciding what i hear" if i obviously hear the difference with my own ears, you guys are free to disregard my opinion tho just like i do with yours

its nice that objectivists have for everything a explanation but reality speaks another truth

knowing the theory is one thing, but if reality shows (some of us, with good ears i guess) that there is more to it then this is all we need, a good pair of ears

Not in a blind test, no and that is what counts.

If you can no longer tell the difference as soon you are no longer able to see it, that means your brain is making up the difference and it never was there in the first place.

 

[The Jester]

That statement is true as far as it goes but it doesn’t go far enough. It’s partially/largely invalidated by ignoring the question of “from where”? Using your example of an acoustic guitar (but pretty much any other instrument would be the same), the initial transient and harmonic overtones are significantly different a few inches away from the instrument than they will be say 15 feet away. From a more reasonable audience/listener position we have significant air absorption of high freqs, loss of level, details, sounds, overtones due to the inverse square law and the effects of room acoustics absorbing some freqs and reinforcing others. The obvious solution would be to record with a mic 15ft away from the guitar and this would indeed give us an accurate recording of reality (at that location) but in practice it doesn’t work well, for two reasons: Firstly the level will be very low and we’ll incur a lot of noise by raising it to a more reasonable level. Secondly, reality is not what a listener would actually experience! The act of listening to something, say an acoustic guitar, by definition focuses our concentration on hearing that guitar, our perception artificially enhances our perception of the sound of the guitar/reduces our perception of the sound of everything that isn’t the guitar (that we’re not focused on). The result is less reverb (and other sound we’re not focused on) and a clearer sounding guitar than was the actual reality at that location. I’m sure you’ve heard unprocessed recordings made by concert goers on their phones or by amateur recordists? They sound crappy, too much echo/reverb, too much noise and not enough clarity but in some respects these recordings are actually a more accurate recording of reality than professional recordings! Although the mics in mobiles are pretty poor, that was more or less the reality of the sound at that location but it’s significantly different from what we would perceive/experience. In the case of a recording of an unaccompanied acoustic guitar, reality would be a consideration but far from the primary goal, the goal is to create a sort of subjectively idealised perception/experience which is significantly different to the actual reality. In most cases we would mic the guitar both very closely and from a distance, mix the two mics together subjectively, apply some compression and EQ to the close mic to reduce the transients to a more normal (from a greater distance) level and rebalance some of the harmonic content, we’ll also likely reduce some of the sounds/noises we picked up from the close mic/s, finger slides, the guitarist’s breathing, clothes rustles or other extraneous instrument noises.

Yes it would but as described above that’s intentional, deliberately going further away from reality to get closer to what would be ideally perceived/experienced. However, this is only the case in your example of an unaccompanied acoustic guitar and other acoustic music genres. In most recordings (other genres) we’re not only going further away from reality but we’re not even concerned about creating an illusion of an idealised perception/experience, we’re typically creating a purely imagined sound/acoustic environment which not only couldn’t exist in reality but couldn’t be perceived/experienced in reality either. The goal is entertainment/enjoyment, reality or a perception of it is largely or entirely irrelevant.

The process is entirely different but the end result isn’t, which of course is why illusions work, we can’t tell them apart from perception!

G

interesting,
The balancing act between perception and illusion is down to the end result perceived by the individual responsible, that goes some way to explain why some who enjoy a particular musical genre prefer certain well renowned engineers, studios and labels, one who listens and records regularly in say Jazz clubs will be better able to recreate the illusion than another who’s experience is listening to and recording live orchestras and vice versa,
Likely doesn’t matter for the vast majority of casual listeners though …
Edit:
Then again, the vast majority of casual listeners aren’t likely to be on forums about improving their listening experience / enjoyment …

 

[bigshot]

I think this thread is an illusion of a discussion.

 

[71 dB]

I think this thread is an illusion of a discussion.

Of course it is an illusion. People are not capable of real discussion.

If we got $20.000 to share between us if we come to a mutual agreement of things then we would discuss about things, but since that's not the case, the reason why we write here is to deal with our mental problems by calling each other ignorant morons.

 

[gregorio]

The balancing act between perception and illusion is down to the end result perceived by the individual responsible, that goes some way to explain why some who enjoy a particular musical genre prefer certain well renowned engineers, studios and labels, one who listens and records regularly in say Jazz clubs will be better able to recreate the illusion than another who’s experience is listening to and recording live orchestras and vice versa …

Yes! Although I would add three points:

Firstly, there are typically “checks and balances” with commercial music recordings. An engineer may question the perception/choices of the producer and vice versa, the musicians will often have a say, the opinion of the mastering engineer is usually taken very seriously and certain execs of the label. So it’s not commonly only “the individual responsible”, usually more of a collective responsibility.

Secondly, and directly related to what I stated in my last post, your examples of Jazz and orchestral recordings are *somewhat* closely related from a music engineering/production perspective. They are both fundamentally acoustic music genres and both would typically have serious consideration of recreating an illusion/perception that would/could have actually been (ideally) experienced. It’s therefore likely that highly experienced/skilled orchestral engineers/producers would do a good or excellent job with a jazz recording and vice versa, although the typically different (acoustic) venues and somewhat different musical priorities might be a challenge. Such a good result would be far less likely with engineers/producers renown in other genres, say rap or EDM for example. Although we should be careful of “pigeonholing”, different engineers/producers have had different experiences and career paths and although not commonly the case, some are highly skilled/talented across a quite wide range of genres.

Lastly, particularly with the non-acoustic genres, it’s largely a “two way street”. It’s not just that an engineer/producer develops or naturally has the perception (and technical knowledge/skills) appropriate for a particular genre/s but also the other way around, the genre is affected by the perception (and knowledge/skills) of the engineers/producers. Genres constantly evolve, sometimes only subtly, sometimes by so much they become entirely new genres or subgenres. With non-acoustic genres, this evolution is pretty much always at least partially due to engineers/producers and sometimes almost entirely due to them, this goes back to the earliest days of modern popular music genres in the late 1950’s.

An interesting example of how it’s not necessarily so clear cut are some of the recordings by Amy Winehouse. Fundamentally she was a jazz/soul/R&B singer but deliberately chose a Hip-Hop producer, which is significantly different from a recording, mixing and mastering point of view. This can be clearly identified, if you know what to listen for.

G

 

[Sam Spade]

Looks like the consensus is 24 bit and 16 bit aren't audibly different

 

[Vamp898]

Looks like the consensus is 24 bit and 16 bit aren't audibly different

16bit have an dynamic range of 96db

If your ears are good enough to hear 0db sounds while 96db sounds are playing, then you need more then 16bit.

But wait, you don't. Because when you listen at 96db, you will be deaf soon anyway

 

[Corti]

"Whatever reality is, it's not what you see..." (Donald Hoffman)




Oops, now I really did it (scr*wed up big time), wait what happens when audiophiles get a scent of above video...

Lol, I was just happily posting in one of the headphone threads until they started talking about cables again and how it improves the sound (and how the stock cable holds back details from the headphone, and how a silver cable bla bla).



Now I remember why I ended up in the sound science subforum last time.
Finally, some reasonable people again.

Anyways, yea I think audiophiles will not be very impressed with your new video. They will probably just know that their senses are superior and that they see the reality they live in as it truly is, because they see it clearly with their own eyes.

 

[bigshot]

Of course it is an illusion. People are not capable of real discussion.

All it would take is a modicum of respect for others.

I do agree that Internet forums do attract people with mental issues. There's more anti-social behavior online than in real life. I guess it's due to the fact that a virtual punch in the nose doesn't hurt as much as a real one.