[gregorio]

I honestly wish I could tell the difference any more.
But, once you hit your 60's, and/or catch something like Meniere's disease, you just can't tell.

I’m not sure I completely agree with that. Certainly hearing deteriorates with age and of course a serious aural disease is going to drastically limit what can be heard. On the other hand, with age comes experience and more time to hone listening skills.

I spent a lot of time in my late 20’s and 30’s with numerous top and world class engineers, nearly all of whom were in their 50’s and 60’s. I had above average hearing (tested) for my age, certainly better than all those much older engineers but I was only “hearing” a fraction of what those engineers were hearing! They were noticing very fine details on the first play that I couldn’t discern, sometimes even after numerous passes and in my late 20’s I’d been actively training my listening skills for a decade and a half! Their listening experience/skills were simply far greater than mine.

G

 

[UmustBKidn]

Youth is wasted on the young; though, I have to say that good quality audio is for everyone with functioning ears, despite age-related degeneration of our hearing.

As a person that listens to music almost exclusively over speakers, I really don't have much interest in this Head-Fi site except to round-out my knowledge and keep up with this aspect of the industry.

What keeps me coming back to read more is @gregorio and a few other regulars that haunt this forum. There is so much knowledge and experience that is freely shared. All of these seemingly petty arguments and sometimes redundant back-and-forth exchanges have provided me with an invaluable layman's guide to a better understanding of a significant portion of digital audio from soup to nuts.

Agreed.
I appreciate everyone's opinions here, because listening is such an individual experience.

Personally, I spent my youth (3rd grade to first semester college) learning to sing or play something. I was also the drum major of my high school band,, and was in a garage band as lead singer in my mid-20's. My sister was seriously upset with me when I gave up music... I just couldn't see a way to make a living with it... and being in a bar band was not attractive to me. I also spent a year as a disc jockey of my high school radio station. Another career path I never explored. Recording engineering was also attractive, but I had limited experience with it.. bands were too temperamental back then lol...

Three years ago on my 60th birthday, I was stricken with Meniere's disease. For those unfamiliar, it's a really annoying combination of hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo (with the vertigo being of the disabling variety). I take meclizine and sleep on one particular side to keep the vertigo from making me a total invalid. The hearing loss/tinnitus can be sort of alleviated if I listen to music really loud... but that's kind of a self-defeating solution.

I discuss this part of my life both in hopes of helping others, and in case medical science finds a solution - and someone tells me about it! I also mention these things, because whether we like it or not, good hearing diminishes with age.

I still very much enjoy music, and can distinguish sound quality with my good ear (though I can only hear about 30% in my bad ear).

A happy new year to all.
-U..

 

[bigshot]

I think "listening" isn't the best word to use when talking about skills. Listening can mean just perceiving sound to some people. A better word to describe the process of learning to interpret sound is "discerning". But I get what people mean to say when they say "listening skills".

 

[Davesrose]

I’m not sure I completely agree with that. Certainly hearing deteriorates with age and of course a serious aural disease is going to drastically limit what can be heard. On the other hand, with age comes experience and more time to hone listening skills.

I spent a lot of time in my late 20’s and 30’s with numerous top and world class engineers, nearly all of whom were in their 50’s and 60’s. I had above average hearing (tested) for my age, certainly better than all those much older engineers but I was only “hearing” a fraction of what those engineers were hearing! They were noticing very fine details on the first play that I couldn’t discern, sometimes even after numerous passes and in my late 20’s I’d been actively training my listening skills for a decade and a half! Their listening experience/skills were simply far greater than mine.

G

Then again, you can have above average hearing for your age (or be in a younger age group) and get aggravated by high pitched buzzing in some sound sources. I'm in my 40's and test hearing at 17khz: I find I can be distracted by noise in some older movies or certain appliances (I have a set of track lights I don't turn on because I can't stand their buzzing).

But it seems you're describing discernment of content. I'd like to think I have at least better than passing analysis of music, but it certainly wouldn't approach commercial engineers. I do have a background in visual graphics, so I can try to equate the same thing about visual perception. While reproduction of content has surpassed audio perception, we still haven't exceeded a maximum range of human vision (as we can accommodate 21 stops of light: 21 bit). Vision will be an ongoing thing as our eyes are accustomed to scanning a scene (which increases resolution and dynamic range).

 

[gregorio]

I think "listening" isn't the best word to use when talking about skills. Listening can mean just perceiving sound to some people. A better word to describe the process of learning to interpret sound is "discerning". But I get what people mean to say when they say "listening skills".

I’m not sure about that. For starters, “Listening Skills” is an official term, it’s mandated in government curricula and while it’s up to each individual university to certify the modules in a degree course, I don’t recall seeing a sound engineering related degree that did not include 1 or more “Listening Skills” modules. Now that’s just in England but universities in other English speaking countries certainly understand and use the term.

Secondly, yes “listening” can include perception, a fair amount of what we analyse is effectively a perception rather than an actual audio/sound property. Loudness being just one example but there are countless others, especially when analysing music rather than sound properties. If we want to differentiate perception from sound properties, we have terms to do so.

Then again, you can have above average hearing for your age (or be in a younger age group) and get aggravated by high pitched buzzing in some sound sources. I'm in my 40's and test hearing at 17khz:

I’m rather skeptical about such claims. I’m not suggesting you’re lying, just that your testing methodology is probably faulty. It would be at least extremely rare for a 40+ year old to be able to hear 17kHz and whenever I’ve tested someone making that claim, it’s turned out not to be the case. Certainly quite a few 40+ years olds could hear a pure 17kHz tone at very high levels but testing should be done at a reasonable level. It should start with a 3kHz tone at a moderate level, sounding somewhat loud but nowhere near uncomfortable, about 75dBSPL if you’re sitting a couple of meters from your speakers. You should then increase the freq of the tone without touching the level. Many fail to do this and instead increase the level with the frequency as it gets subjectively quieter.

[1] But it seems you're describing discernment of content. [2] I'd like to think I have at least better than passing analysis of music, but it certainly wouldn't approach commercial engineers.

1. Yes and no, see my response to bigshot above. With music analysis we’re certainly discerning content, relative levels of instruments etc., but we’re also analysing perceptual effects, the human responses (EG. Expectations and emotions) to chords, chord sequences, implied harmonies or to the stylistic performance for example.
2. Not necessarily. Some/Many commercial engineers only have a passing analysis of music, that’s why the roll of Producer exists. However, they almost certainly have far better discernment of audio/sound properties. One of numerous examples, can you tell the basic type/s of reverb being used? Possibly to a limited extent if you’ve had some practice but a commercial engineer would be expected to discern many of the numerous parameters which define reverb.

I do have a background in visual graphics, so I can try to equate the same thing about visual perception.

We have to be very careful when equating visual perception with aural perception. While there are many similarities and therefore valid analogies, there are also many differences. Even at a very simplistic level, the limits of our visual resolution requires a greater bit-depth equivalent than our aural resolution but is far less sensitive to timing.

G

 

[bigshot]

I don't find plain old perception to be particularly important for judging sound mixes, as long as your hearing isn't totally shot. Discernment is vitally important. The amount of hearing loss from being 50 years old is negligible. It's mostly in upper frequencies where music doesn't generally reside. When people hit 80, it might be low down enough to make an impact, but I think in general, hearing loss due to age is overstated in audiophile forums. We get jokers who claim that they can train themselves to hear frequencies and volume levels humans just can't hear. You can't train plain old perception. You can only learn to sort out what you can actually hear.

 

[UmustBKidn]

I’m rather skeptical about such claims. I’m not suggesting you’re lying, just that your testing methodology is probably faulty. It would be at least extremely rare for a 40+ year old to be able to hear 17kHz and whenever I’ve tested someone making that claim, it’s turned out not to be the case. Certainly quite a few 40+ years olds could hear a pure 17kHz tone at very high levels but testing should be done at a reasonable level. It should start with a 3kHz tone at a moderate level, sounding somewhat loud but nowhere near uncomfortable, about 75dBSPL if you’re sitting a couple of meters from your speakers. You should then increase the freq of the tone without touching the level. Many fail to do this and instead increase the level with the frequency as it gets subjectively quieter.

Having spent more than 25 years as a professional test engineer, I can totally agree with his point.
Test methods are key.
I generally find a program that let's me generate sine wave tones on the device being tested, then create a bunch of tones in the upper/lower ranges.
Personally, last time I checked, at my age (63+), my high frequency limit is 10,000 to 11,000 Hz. My low frequency limit is around 30 Hz. My son is with me in the same room, and can verify the high tones do exist, and for him anyway, are painfully loud. And totally inaudible to me.
Of course, the source equipment must be taken into consideration. This isn't a lab quality test, it's just what I can determine on my equipment, that's also with the aforementioned hearing issues.
Frankly, I'm just grateful I can hear what I hear.

 

[gregorio]

Personally, last time I checked, at my age (63+), my high frequency limit is 10,000 to 11,000 Hz. My low frequency limit is around 30 Hz. My son is with me in the same room, and can verify the high tones do exist, and for him anyway, are painfully loud. And totally inaudible to me.

Yes, that is an example of a very poor test!

If a 10-11kHz tone sounds painfully loud to your son, then a reference 3kHz tone would be roughly 15-20dB higher than “painfully loud”! But the test conditions should be for moderate to loud (at 3kHz). Therefore, your high frequency limit is significantly lower than your stated 10-11kHz.

Incidentally, “painfully loud” indicates hearing damage is occurring, although permanent damage usually requires a certain amount of exposure time. On the other hand, hearing damage can occur even just at loud levels (85dB or so), well before “painfully” loud. My strong advice is to run your tests at a far lower level and not have your son in the room with anything anywhere near painful levels!

G

 

[gregorio]

I don't find plain old perception to be particularly important for judging sound mixes, as long as your hearing isn't totally shot. Discernment is vitally important.

Actually, I would say the exact opposite! “Judging” is by definition a subjective process and even more so when judging an abstract art form (music) that depends almost entirely on perception to start with and therefore perception is vitally important. Discernment would just give us the ability to discern different sounds, by itself it wouldn’t even give us the ability to discern music from sound, let alone judge the music (mix).

G

 

[Davesrose]

I’m rather skeptical about such claims. I’m not suggesting you’re lying, just that your testing methodology is probably faulty. It would be at least extremely rare for a 40+ year old to be able to hear 17kHz and whenever I’ve tested someone making that claim, it’s turned out not to be the case. Certainly quite a few 40+ years olds could hear a pure 17kHz tone at very high levels but testing should be done at a reasonable level. It should start with a 3kHz tone at a moderate level, sounding somewhat loud but nowhere near uncomfortable, about 75dBSPL if you’re sitting a couple of meters from your speakers. You should then increase the freq of the tone without touching the level. Many fail to do this and instead increase the level with the frequency as it gets subjectively quieter.

Granted it was a couple years ago, but the test was 65dB and went from 22kHz on down. Anyway, I don't have to defend myself...I was only indicating that my hearing limit is above the median for my age group (probably because I have limited my exposure to loud sounds). Overall, I was confirming that for discerning audio, there's more importance with cognition vs perceptual ability.

We have to be very careful when equating visual perception with aural perception. While there are many similarities and therefore valid analogies, there are also many differences. Even at a very simplistic level, the limits of our visual resolution requires a greater bit-depth equivalent than our aural resolution but is far less sensitive to timing.

Sure, it's not a direct comparison...but there are similarities with visual professionals being able to better descern visual quality (such as what white balance the photo was taken at, was it properly exposed, guessing what the dynamic range is). Also, when it comes to timing, like audio, it depends on your environment. If you have music on in the background, you're not going to analyze it. Gamers are extremely sensitive to frame rates and motion artifacts like ghosting.

 

[bigshot]

Actually, I would say the exact opposite! “Judging” is by definition a subjective process and even more so when judging an abstract art form (music) that depends almost entirely on perception to start with and therefore perception is vitally important. Discernment would just give us the ability to discern different sounds, by itself it wouldn’t even give us the ability to discern music from sound, let alone judge the music (mix).

I think you're just drifting into semantics here. Discernment makes it possible to make choices. That is what a mix is all about- discernment and judging. As long as someone has relatively normal human hearing, the creative judgements are much more important to supervising a mix than your ability to hear. Babies can hear. But babies can't supervise mixes. Whenever I've run into engineers who make mistakes, it's because of their discernment, not their hearing ability. I remember one case where my director heard a bump in a mix and told the engineer exactly where it was. The engineer leaned over the board, peering at the meters and played the section over and over. "Nope. No bump," he said. The director said, "Sit down and close your eyes and listen to the part where this particular sound effect happens..." The engineer sat back and closed his eyes and listened... "OOOOHHH! I see what you mean!" One quick tweak and it was fixed. He wasn't deaf. He just wasn't discerning properly.

 

[gregorio]

I think you're just drifting into semantics here.

We both are but it’s still important to make the distinction.

Discernment makes it possible to make choices.

Sometimes but not always and even when it does, it’s still perception that actually defines which choice is made.

An obvious example of not needing discernment is that we can make choices before any discernment is possible, when imagining, conceptualising or planning a composition, recording or mix. An example of the latter is your own example: Yes, it was discernment that allowed the Producer to notice the “bump” and initial lack of discernment that caused the engineer to miss it but it was a subjective opinion/perception which dictated that the “bump” was a unwanted thing that needed to be fixed.

G

 

[gregorio]

Granted it was a couple years ago, but the test was 65dB and went from 22kHz on down.

In my experience of testing about 1,800 students over the course of several years, between the ages of 16-21 at a level of 80dB, the average limit was between 17.5-18kHz. Hence my skepticism of your claim. However …

Anyway, I don't have to defend myself...I was only indicating that my hearing limit is above the median for my age group (probably because I have limited my exposure to loud sounds).

Again, I’m not calling you a liar. What you’ve claimed is unusual but certainly not impossible. Due to my experience I will stick to the null hypothesis; that it was probably due to some testing error, but I would easily reject it with some supporting evidence. Although I realise that wasn’t your point and is off-topic.

Also, when it comes to timing, like audio, it depends on your environment. If you have music on in the background, you're not going to analyze it. Gamers are extremely sensitive to frame rates and motion artifacts like ghosting.

If a game is “on in the background” a gamer might not notice either. But we’re still talking about a significant difference in timing resolution. A frame at 24fps lasts about 40 millisecs but timing differences of 1 millisec can be easy to aurally recognise and under strict test conditions using test signals, timing differences around a million times smaller (around a nanosec or two) have been discerned. AFAIK, that’s considerably more aural timing acuity than with our sense of vision.

G

 

[Davesrose]

If a game is “on in the background” a gamer might not notice either. But we’re still talking about a significant difference in timing resolution. A frame at 24fps lasts about 40 millisecs but timing differences of 1 millisec can be easy to aurally recognise and under strict test conditions using test signals, timing differences around a million times smaller (around a nanosec or two) have been discerned. AFAIK, that’s considerably more aural timing acuity than with our sense of vision.

24fps is considered slow. It may be a standard set by cinemas, but gamers seek response times of under 5ms (and over 144hz screens). As for why 24fps is a norm for cinemas, it's said it was both expense and limitations of film cameras at the onset (for exposure time of film, and speed of shutter)....and now we've just become accustomed to that motion. Cinematographers also don't do fast pans on account of this (which could show stuttering at this frame rate).

So maybe not a direct 1 to 1 comparison, but there could also be other similarities when it comes to recording. Both systems are different than our perceptions, and need their own standards. Our eyes can accommodate dynamic range, and fill in extra resolution by moving the eyes. Cameras being a different system, have to have greater resolution then a fixed eye (and I won't get into environmental lighting changing our visual perception). Simulated 3D environments have dynamic ranges exceeding human vision in order to simulate all light conditions. While a sound format should have a FR exceeding the "best" of human range, it also has its own dynamic range for rendering a realistic environment. These limits far exceed the requirements for recording human speech.

 

[inseconds99]

I’m currently trying to decide between the Modius and Bifrost or pair with my Jot 2. Using it with my HD800S and Z1R and the forum swears that there is a large difference between the 2.

I am willing to spend the extra if there is a noticeably better difference but I’m not sure if it’s snake oil.