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Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif
When I say "generalized unfocused listening" i mean listening without making sure that you've eliminated as many variables that might skew your impression as possible... Specifically, putting two sound samples side by side with balanced levels and switching back and forth to allow you to identify the difference and its size. Just sitting in a chair with a glass of wine listening to Mozart isn't specific focused listening.
First, I would never question your love of music--I'm sure there are very meaningful experiences that you get from it. (I would be interested in how you describe these.) Because we love music and use reproduction systems, we have a lot in common. What I
will say is that different people take away different experiences from music, so it is entirely likely that you and I listen for different things, or we are moved in different ways. In fact every person in this thread has a unique way of hearing and processing music.
What I want to explain is the idea that sensory experiences can be abstracted. In the domain of visual facial recognition, we probably all agree that people's brains are very good at recognizing the face of a familiar person. The face may appear at different angles, different lighting, different emotions on the face... even photographs of the same person at different ages. All of these images are
concrete images that are very different, yet there is an
abstraction that unites them all -- "this is my brother" -- or whoever. Scientists have explored the problem of facial recognition algorithms and have successfully imitated a lot of the brain's processing.
Musicians spend thousands of hours listening to and performing music. The concept of microdynamic resolution is one that many musicians are interested in. (They might call it something else-- the term is more common in audio-- but it's the same thing.) The concept applies both to an evaluation of a live performance (where it is about the hall acoustics, the skill of the player, and so on) and an evaluation of a reproduction. To a musician, this concept is as obvious as facial recognition is to most people. It's something that they practice perceiving (as well as controlling in their own performance).
I only know you through your words here, so I would not presume to know for a fact what is going in on. But your words sound like you are someone who was, metaphorically, born without the part of the brain that recognizes faces, and now claiming that facial recognition under varied conditions is nonsense. It gives the impression you haven't studied and practiced music intensively. I get the same impression from someone like Ethan Winer who claims that Pace, Rhythm and Timing (PRaT) is nonsense. All I can say is that he hasn't learned to perceive it yet.
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If you want your recorded music to sound exactly like a live performance, you should move into a night club or concert hall. The acoustics of a live venue and PA system is something that recorded music can't duplicate. Recorded music has its own properties that can be exploited, but expecting two speakers to replicate the complex reflections and directionality in sound one experiences in a jazz club or arena rock concert just isn't going to happen. Those differences are to "microdynamics" as the planet Jupiter is to a grain of sand.
No, I think that live acoustics vs. reproduction are equivalent to lighting a face differently. It's the same face. Scientists find this equivalent problem interesting and have worked on it. Also recognition of emotion as an abstraction across many faces. It's a problem you can sink your teeth into, not "nonsense" at all. Your general paradigm -- shared by many engineers on this forum -- is bizarre, in a way, to a musician.
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When you plug in the speakers or headphones, *that's* where the trouble starts. I focus on the big things i can clearly hear, not the details that I have to convince myself that *maybe* I can hear if I do the right kind of double blind test
Everything I'm saying applies to all stages in the audio system. Okay, I'll concede for now that CD players are essentially alike. Speakers and microphones and microphone positions, etc., affect things like microdynamics.
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I know *exactly* what my equipment sounds like and what I can expect from it
I know that also, but I learn that through listening to a variety of music at varied volume levels.