[gregorio]

[1] That is a repeat of high-school debating tactic that was made earlier. [2] My answer remains the same: pink elephants don't exist even though there is no research on their existence.

1. Even a high-schooler should know what a fallacy is and what science is for!
2. And your answer remains WRONG! Dr. Mike Chase; "We have been studying elephants in the region for nearly 10 years now, and this is the first documented evidence of an albino [pink] calf that I have come across." (Article from BBC Science Dept.). Isn't just repeating incorrect statements of fact a grade school or even pre-grade school debating tactic?

You are doing exactly what the more extreme subjectivists do. You've made up your mind about something and then are ignoring, simply ignorant of, misrepresenting or deliberately lying about the evidence in order to defend your opinion! ... "Or else you don't know how egregious of an error it is to say those things.". "If we don't correct that, then this is a Kangaroo court designed to chase off the subjectivists regardless of merit.", ""Be careful about what you know and don't know." - These are your words, thrown at bigshot and/or those who dared question your unsubstantiated opinion, which brings us right back to what I said previously, you're being "hypocritical in the extreme"! Stop making nonsense/inapplicable analogies and answer the question, where is your "evidence of absence"? Without any, you are making absolute determinations and public statements of facts, even to the point of being insulting, apparently based entirely on a fallacy. That is pretty much the exact opposite of "science", a term which you are invoking in defence of your unsubstantiated opinion?!

I'm also thinking of something like that. or indeed an EQ spreading a little too far like Amirm suggested, although I'd like to think that an audio engineer doing such a demo would know his tools. but without much data, it's all conjecture anyway.

The handful of times I've observed the phenomena, I've been using different professional, industry standard EQ plugins; Sonnox EQ, DigiDesign/Avid EQ III, DMGAudio Equality and McDSP Filterbank. I'd be extremely surprised if all of them we're shown to have such a significantly different response than indicated by their settings. I can't absolutely rule this out as a possibility though and that's the problem we have here (again)! I agree that we lack data and "it's all conjecture anyway", which is why I take exception to amirm's absolute determinations and use of inflammatory/insulting language.

Perhaps, if we asked NICELY, someone might even come up with a sample recording to prove that it does.....

I do remember one specific instance from many years ago but I'm certain I could not get the copyright holder's permission to distribute/post it. I've observed it a few other times but can't remember exactly which tracks. This sort of thing is quite common, even after 25 years of doing this almost every working day, I still quite regularly encounter strange/surprising/unexpected phenomena. When necessary or when I have the time, I try to find a definitive explanation but often I don't have the time and I have to simply just accept the phenomena without explanation or change something to avoid the phenomena if I think it may cause an issue. Such is the case here. Furthermore, the instance I remember most clearly involved a splash cymbal, a snare drum and an electric guitar, a very common scenario but the phenomena I observed is very rare. This indicates a very specific set of variables are required. For example, a fairly exact balance between the instruments and a fairly exact frequency response/balance of harmonics of each of the instruments. Unless I'm just very lucky, it's likely to take an inordinate amount of time to discover and reproduce those variables. I might put it on my list of things to experiment with/investigate during studio downtime but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

G

 

[castleofargh]

well, amirm doesn't like empty claims and clearly considers direct masking which wouldn't go and impact massively a signal at frequencies far from the masker(the issue here is that we don't really know where the masker was, the amplitude, or how low the affected instrument was reaching). I can't disagree with expressed skepticism. I sure wish he would say it super nicely, but I put myself in his shoes. when someone comes talking about an anecdote where he heard night and day difference with the "added details" of highres, I often go crazy. and you're not exactly famous yourself for how you stay lovely and kind to people posting weird anecdotes.
at the end of the day we are who we are.
I think it's ok to reject bigshot's anecdote without any more information. it's the usual treatment of exceptional anecdotes in this sub section, and bigshot is a grown man, he'll survive having amirm doubt one of his stories. I have a few ideas in my head about how something like that might happen, but again without the exact circumstances, we're all shooting blanks anyway.

 

[amirm]

1. Even a high-schooler should know what a fallacy is and what science is for!
2. And your answer remains WRONG! Dr. Mike Chase; "We have been studying elephants in the region for nearly 10 years now, and this is the first documented evidence of an albino [pink] calf that I have come across." (Article from BBC Science Dept.). Isn't just repeating incorrect statements of fact a grade school or even pre-grade school debating tactic?

You are doing exactly what the more extreme subjectivists do. You've made up your mind about something and then are ignoring, simply ignorant of, misrepresenting or deliberately lying about the evidence in order to defend your opinion! ... "Or else you don't know how egregious of an error it is to say those things.". "If we don't correct that, then this is a Kangaroo court designed to chase off the subjectivists regardless of merit.", ""Be careful about what you know and don't know." - These are your words, thrown at bigshot and/or those who dared question your unsubstantiated opinion, which brings us right back to what I said previously, you're being "hypocritical in the extreme"! Stop making nonsense/inapplicable analogies and answer the question, where is your "evidence of absence"? Without any, you are making absolute determinations and public statements of facts, even to the point of being insulting, apparently based entirely on a fallacy. That is pretty much the exact opposite of "science", a term which you are invoking in defence of your unsubstantiated opinion?!

You are angry and protesting. I get it. Have to defend the camp at all costs. The fact of the matter is that a subjective experience was had by bigshot. A fantastical tale then created by him saying that changing mid-frequencies that are so small as to be barely audible, readily changed the upper part of cymbals. When asked to reproduce the effect, he refused. And rudely so. You could have had the same chance to reproduce it, yet you are feeding us word salad instead. He was also asked to provide scientific references and he had none. And later says he doesn't even understand the research that he did see:

I'm not exactly sure what bands he was adjusting, I just know they were remote from each other, and they sounded like they were a couple of octaves apart. I tried to google to find more specific info, but a lot of this stuff is over my head, and a lot of it is studies on guinea pigs and goldfish!

Notice that now the fish story has changed to him not even knowing what bands were being adjusted!

If a subjectivists told such tales, we would drive them out of town. We would demand proof, repeatability, blind testing, etc. But since Bigshot is one of us, hey, let's defend him with any nonsense we could put forward.

You are showing how nasty and miserable we can be when we are questioned. Yet expect the other side to listen to use when we talk of science.

 

[Strangelove424]

I won't get involved in discussion with Amirm anymore because his posts give me a headache instantly now, but I suggest people don't react to his snide, personally disparaging and emotionally infantile ranting, and only respond to the minimal amount of actual statements he puts forth. In the above post, for instance, he literally says nothing. Amirm's posts are like graffiti defacing this sub forum. I always have to go back pages and pages just to figure out what he is arguing about so viciously, and I can't do it anymore. There's not enough Advil in my house for that.

I gather this has something to do with EQing mids effecting treble. Every audio professional I have worked with accepts that as fact, and checks treble after EQing any other part of the band. I can't see how this has taken up so many pages, and led to such personally inflammatory statements.

 

[james444]

well, amirm doesn't like empty claims and clearly considers direct masking which wouldn't go and impact massively a signal at frequencies far from the masker(the issue here is that we don't really know where the masker was, the amplitude, or how low the affected instrument was reaching). I can't disagree with expressed skepticism. I sure wish he would say it super nicely, but I put myself in his shoes. when someone comes talking about an anecdote where he heard night and day difference with the "added details" of highres, I often go crazy. and you're not exactly famous yourself for how you stay lovely and kind to people posting weird anecdotes.
at the end of the day we are who we are.
I think it's ok to reject bigshot's anecdote without any more information. it's the usual treatment of exceptional anecdotes in this sub section, and bigshot is a grown man, he'll survive having amirm doubt one of his stories. I have a few ideas in my head about how something like that might happen, but again without the exact circumstances, we're all shooting blanks anyway.

I've been following the discussion and tend to agree with your stance. Still, I'd be super interested to know the test track and EQ band in question to try it for myself.

 

[bigshot]

I won't get involved in discussion with Amirm anymore because his posts give me a headache instantly now, but I suggest people don't react to his snide, personally disparaging and emotionally infantile ranting, and only respond to the minimal amount of actual statements he puts forth.

It's pretty obvious what is going on here. Amirim's behavior has gotten him banned from most of the science based sound forums out there. It's a pattern. He marches into a forum and announces that he's an expert, then he proceeds to challenge the "regulars" in the forum to a "duel" so he can puff himself up and cause chaos in the forum. I'm the obvious choice to focus on because of my post count and tenure here. I'm sure Gregorio and Pinnahertz will be next in line. We'll see the end game of all this soon... that will be him shilling to direct traffic away from this forum to his own forum where everything is "calm and rational and scientific". I refuse to play this game. I'll sit this dance out until he gets banned from Head-Fi (again). Then we can go back to normal around here again.

 

[gregorio]

[1] You are angry and protesting. [1a] I get it.
[2] Have to defend the camp at all costs.
[3] The fact of the matter is that a subjective experience was had by bigshot. A fantastical tale then created by him saying that changing mid-frequencies that are so small as to be barely audible, readily changed the upper part of cymbals.

1. I'm angry and protesting because you're not only doing what you accuse others of, jumping to conclusions with no evidence, but even worse, you're falsely stating that science is on your side. [1a] All the evidence from your posts is in fact that you don't "get it" at all!
2. Another classic tactic of yours, misrepresenting information and what has been stated! I have not defended "the camp at all costs", in fact quite the opposite, I've disputed parts of bigshot's statements. Namely, those parts for which reliable evidence exists to rationally refute his explanation of the phenomena.
3. Yes, it is a subjective experience bigshot had, it's also a subjective experience I've had BUT being a "subjective experience" is NOT ENOUGH BY ITSELF to call it a "myth" and an "egregious error", you need some reliable supporting evidence, which despite numerous requests you've FAILED to supply!!

[1] when someone comes talking about an anecdote where he heard night and day difference with the "added details" of highres, I often go crazy. and you're not exactly famous yourself for how you stay lovely and kind to people posting weird anecdotes.
[2] I think it's ok to reject bigshot's anecdote without any more information.

1. True but then I can't recall ever having been so vicious, rude or insulting about audiophiles' experiences, just about their continued arguing for an explanation of those experiences which flies in the face of the science and/or known facts. That's not the case here, there is no science or known facts which contradicts Bigshot's subjective experience! And, there is no evidence that the basic explanation for that experience is incorrect (a phenomena caused by masking), just evidence against his exact choice of words. So, what is bigshot's experience/explanation "flying in the face of" which could justify such vitriol?
2. I'm of a somewhat different opinion. I don't think it's OK to outright reject bigshot's anecdote, for exactly the same reason as I don't think it's OK to accept his anecdote either! (lack of data/information). It's good to be sceptical and I am (!) but I'm just as sceptical of an absolute argument against an assertion as I am of an absolute argument for that assertion, unless that argument is supported by some reliable evidence. Furthermore, I find it highly objectionable to push such a completely unsupported, absolute argument so viciously.

I gather this has something to do with EQing mids effecting treble. Every audio professional I have worked with accepts that as fact, and checks treble after EQing any other part of the band.

True but that's generally an issue of tonal balance. For example, boosting bass below a certain frequency is perceptually pretty much the same as cutting treble above that frequency provided the loudness is maintained. So boosting or cutting frequencies outside the treble freqs is likely to affect the perception of the treble and any pro sound engineer would know this. However, we're talking about a somewhat different phenomena, not tonal balance per se but clarity and masking, although it's entirely possible that tonal balance maybe a contributory factor.

G

 

[james444]

2. I'm of a somewhat different opinion. I don't think it's OK to outright reject bigshot's anecdote, for exactly the same reason as I don't think it's OK to accept his anecdote either! (lack of data/information).

I'm just an interested bystander trying to learn from these discussions, so I have no skin in the game. But to me, it seemed that @amirm's first post was asking for more data/information:

Huh? You have any kind of reference you can provide for this?

How about duplicating this effect for us on a snippet of music?

To which @bigshot replied:

I'd be more motivated to go to the trouble of making examples to prove things to you if you had honestly answered our questions about whether you kept the volume at normal listening level at all times when you "heard" the noise floor of 16 bit... So I'll just suggest that you take a solo violin recording, figure out where the important upper sheen is, calculate one and two octaves below that, and try applying some notch filters.

At least I tell you how it's done.

After which the argument quickly escalated...

I've tried to reproduce the described effect with near flat measuring IEMs and Neutron's parametric equalizer, but so far without success. Personally, I'd really appreciate if the test track and EQ band in question were disclosed.

 

[Whazzzup]

I have long given up on sound science

 

[bigshot]

I only give up on individuals. I don't like to feed problems.

 

[amirm]

3. Yes, it is a subjective experience bigshot had, it's also a subjective experience I've had BUT being a "subjective experience" is NOT ENOUGH BY ITSELF to call it a "myth" and an "egregious error", you need some reliable supporting evidence, which despite numerous requests you've FAILED to supply!!

It wasn't just a subjective experience. It was the claim that it was a solid example of auditory masking:

It is a myth and egregious error in the making that due to "auditory masking" you can barely change the mid-range frequencies and have the upper range of cymbals change. Yes he heard what he heard. But he is jumping to a conclusion that is absolutely not supported by any science or we would have the references by now. The reference to masking went on and on when I was not even part of the conversation and it was clear that it was an attempt to make it a fact.

It was this reference to auditory masking that prompted me to post and ask him to produce the experiment for us which has has refused to do so. Neither have you or the others who have protested my asking of him.

This is no different than saying someone changed USB cables and due to reduction of EMI, it sounded better. There are much more obvious and correct answers to why someone would perceive a USB cable to sound better than another which has nothing to do with reduction of EMI. Indeed EMI may not have been reduced at all without measurements of such. Same thing I asked bigshot, i.e. demonstrate that it was indeed the mid-frequencies and only mid-frequencies that were changed.

 

[b0ck3n]

Ok i cant sit by anymore i want a piece of the action. Im gonna word this simply cause that is the way of the future, and your fancy words have accomplished little so far. BigShot had an experience (Ive already stated that Ive had similar as a recording artist, working on mixes with engineers) but may have termed said experience wrong, and he didnt provide proof of his experience (not that he in fact did not state that he saw Jesus). amirm thinks BigShot is mistaken and demands proof, not because he’s willing to accept BigShots experience as fact if given proof, but to be a pain in the ass because that is required of every poster in sound science.

Now Ive a suggestion for amirm: prove BigShot wrong or let go. Your opinion, and it is an opinion, is known to all at this point.

I love lurking here and soaking up the knowledge but I feel like this is totally killing the flow of the thread.

 

[amirm]

Ok i cant sit by anymore i want a piece of the action. Im gonna word this easy cause that is the future, and your fancy words have accomplished little so far. BigShot had an experience (Ive already stated that Ive had similar as a recording artist, working on mixes with engineers) but may have termed said experience wrong, and he didnt provide proof of his experience (not that he in fact not state that he saw Jesus). amirm thinks BigShot is mistaken and demands proof, not because he’s willing to accept BigShots experience as fact if given proof, but to be a pain in the ass because that is required of every poster in sound science.

Oh I fully accept that he heard what he is saying. I am objecting to him saying it is a manifestation of auditory masking as opposed to much simpler explanation of an EQ which has bleeding from its EQ bands (i.e. you change one range but it also impacts another).

You rather I let it go and have people think a) they can eq the midrange and hear changes in high frequencies and b) think that is what auditory masking is?

 

[bigshot]

just hush

 

[b0ck3n]

Oh I fully accept that he heard what he is saying. I am objecting to him saying it is a manifestation of auditory masking as opposed to much simpler explanation of an EQ which has bleeding from its EQ bands (i.e. you change one range but it also impacts another).

You rather I let it go and have people think a) they can eq the midrange and hear changes in high frequencies and b) think that is what auditory masking is?

I wouldnt hold it against you if you do let go. Youve given your explanation of what you think happened and everyone is allowed to believe either theory, or come up with their own, until someone comes along and proves whatever (which isnt happening).

Im not picking sides, im just saying that for the good of further discussion and sharing we let this dead horse lie.