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So you think our senses transcend what tools have the ability to measure? Maybe that was the case in 1970, but in 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely unde

So you think our senses transcend what tools have the ability to measure? Maybe that was the case in 1970, but in 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely understood scientifically and far surpassed by measuring apparatus at every frequency range. Saying otherwise is an appeal to what is called audio mysticism and is caused by placebo and confirmation bias, which was mentioned in the article.

PascLeRasc 8y ago
Yes, that's what I think. I don't believe that hearing is completely understood scientifically. You're welcome to disagree.
- vortico 8y ago
  Yeah, this is what I can't fathom. We can detect exoplanets with telescopes with 0.01 arcsecond accuracy, hear whale calls 100 miles away with an array of low frequency transducers, and model the shape of structures by forcing seismic vibration and measuring the response to 1 part in 100 million. We can image the HIV virus and detect DNA changes due to cancer. It's unlikely that we don't understand everything we need to know (or even 1000x more than we need to know regarding this debate) about cochlea, a macroscope object that undergraduates can study with a primitive microscope.
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    I don't mean to shift the goalposts, but neuroscience isn't completely understood, and that's what I mean by hearing and how music makes you feel.
    - vortico 8y ago
      Completely true, but the auditory nerve only "knows" what the mechanical part can respond to. If we don't understand how sound information is interpreted by the nervous system, we can still answer the question "is any neural/electrical/chemical signal whatsoever produced by a stimulation of a frequency or amplitude?"
sideshowb 8y ago
Actually that's a defensible position when you're mixing and mastering audio. A spectrogram won't tell you which settings sound better, but your ears will. Maybe not relevant in the context of GP's post though. In the context of digital tools telling you two signals are identical, then I suspect they are, and if you want to prove to me your ears hear better then you're going to need a blind A/B test.
- vortico 8y ago
  Right, this debate is not about determining whether two different audio clips A and B sound better. It's about determining whether two clips can be distinguished by our ears at all.
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  But I don't care about proving anything to you. I don't need you to believe me for me to enjoy my music. You can tell me you prefer coffee from Brazil to coffee from Honduras and we can talk about what characteristics you notice, not whether or not you've done a blind A/B test.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Certainly, enjoy what you want to enjoy. In response to your original statement here: >How does it affect your life that I listen to music encoded at 24/196? It doesn't, but Monty contributes to the Xiph project, which constantly has to deal with thousands of people saying "why doesn't Opus/Vorbis support 192 kHz??" This is his answer to that general question. There is actual money on the line for companies that use audio codec technology, and supporting useless formats that have no psychoacoustic effect is a waste of time, money, and effort.
IWeldMelons 8y ago
If it was true, the entirety of hi-fi industry would not exist. I myself built a number of amplifiers and, after a certain threshold, roughly .02% THD (total harmonic distortion) at 20khz, there is a very little correlation between the THD (what is usually measured)numbers and perceived quality of the sound. Which means, while it is true that is everything could be measured, no one measures the right thing (perhaps some weird subtle phase shifts or some almost immeasurable frequency response deficiencies)
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  Are you suggesting that things like healing crystals work, because the market for them exists?
  - IWeldMelons 8y ago
    You are putting words in my mouth. I am telling what I actually verified. Amplifiers with lower THD and IMD often sound worse than those with less impressive meausured parameters. Ergo, the measured parameters are not relevant. We need to find the actually important paramters and measure them.
    - ovao 8y ago
      But “sounds worse” in this case is relevant only to your preferences and to the preferences of some N of listeners, where N is totally unknown. The parameters you believe amp manufacturers should measure are therefore only relevant to your idea about them. THD, SNR, frequency response and many other metrics are easy: they define either accuracy or precision. If you want more than that, add external affects hardware or DSP. The purpose of the amplifier is to amplify.
      - IWeldMelons 8y ago
        It is relevant to a very large number of people, and that is why it is reflected in the price of the equipment. A very well known engineer, who has not ever peddle snake oil, Nelson Pass, sells his rather primitive audio equipment at high prices. Jusdging You seem to be highly inexperienced in the subject, THD, IMD etc are parameters that are measured on highly artificial signals - singke sine waves or mix of small numbers of sine waves. Real music signals more resemble white noise than clean sine waves, and there might be hundreds of different very subtle modes of distortion, that are very difficult to measure but which have very significant influence on the precepted quality of the sound.
wl 8y ago
> [I]n 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely understood scientifically and far surpassed by measuring apparatus at every frequency range Yes, we have instrumentation better than the meat-based transducers in the human body. That doesn't mean we completely understand said meat-based transducers or how that meat-computer in our skull interprets signals from those transducers. The auditory and visual systems are still subjects of active research with many outstanding problems. I mean, I'll be among the first to call bullshit on audiophile snake-oil like people pushing 192 kHz/24 bit music, but in your rush to discredit such things, you've gone too far in the other direction.

PascLeRasc 8y ago

Yes, that's what I think. I don't believe that hearing is completely understood scientifically. You're welcome to disagree.

vortico 8y ago
Yeah, this is what I can't fathom. We can detect exoplanets with telescopes with 0.01 arcsecond accuracy, hear whale calls 100 miles away with an array of low frequency transducers, and model the shape of structures by forcing seismic vibration and measuring the response to 1 part in 100 million. We can image the HIV virus and detect DNA changes due to cancer. It's unlikely that we don't understand everything we need to know (or even 1000x more than we need to know regarding this debate) about cochlea, a macroscope object that undergraduates can study with a primitive microscope.
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  I don't mean to shift the goalposts, but neuroscience isn't completely understood, and that's what I mean by hearing and how music makes you feel.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Completely true, but the auditory nerve only "knows" what the mechanical part can respond to. If we don't understand how sound information is interpreted by the nervous system, we can still answer the question "is any neural/electrical/chemical signal whatsoever produced by a stimulation of a frequency or amplitude?"

sideshowb 8y ago

Actually that's a defensible position when you're mixing and mastering audio. A spectrogram won't tell you which settings sound better, but your ears will. Maybe not relevant in the context of GP's post though. In the context of digital tools telling you two signals are identical, then I suspect they are, and if you want to prove to me your ears hear better then you're going to need a blind A/B test.

vortico 8y ago
Right, this debate is not about determining whether two different audio clips A and B sound better. It's about determining whether two clips can be distinguished by our ears at all.
PascLeRasc 8y ago
But I don't care about proving anything to you. I don't need you to believe me for me to enjoy my music. You can tell me you prefer coffee from Brazil to coffee from Honduras and we can talk about what characteristics you notice, not whether or not you've done a blind A/B test.
- vortico 8y ago
  Certainly, enjoy what you want to enjoy. In response to your original statement here: >How does it affect your life that I listen to music encoded at 24/196? It doesn't, but Monty contributes to the Xiph project, which constantly has to deal with thousands of people saying "why doesn't Opus/Vorbis support 192 kHz??" This is his answer to that general question. There is actual money on the line for companies that use audio codec technology, and supporting useless formats that have no psychoacoustic effect is a waste of time, money, and effort.

IWeldMelons 8y ago

If it was true, the entirety of hi-fi industry would not exist. I myself built a number of amplifiers and, after a certain threshold, roughly .02% THD (total harmonic distortion) at 20khz, there is a very little correlation between the THD (what is usually measured)numbers and perceived quality of the sound. Which means, while it is true that is everything could be measured, no one measures the right thing (perhaps some weird subtle phase shifts or some almost immeasurable frequency response deficiencies)

mrguyorama 8y ago
Are you suggesting that things like healing crystals work, because the market for them exists?
- IWeldMelons 8y ago
  You are putting words in my mouth. I am telling what I actually verified. Amplifiers with lower THD and IMD often sound worse than those with less impressive meausured parameters. Ergo, the measured parameters are not relevant. We need to find the actually important paramters and measure them.
  - ovao 8y ago
    But “sounds worse” in this case is relevant only to your preferences and to the preferences of some N of listeners, where N is totally unknown. The parameters you believe amp manufacturers should measure are therefore only relevant to your idea about them. THD, SNR, frequency response and many other metrics are easy: they define either accuracy or precision. If you want more than that, add external affects hardware or DSP. The purpose of the amplifier is to amplify.
    - IWeldMelons 8y ago
      It is relevant to a very large number of people, and that is why it is reflected in the price of the equipment. A very well known engineer, who has not ever peddle snake oil, Nelson Pass, sells his rather primitive audio equipment at high prices. Jusdging You seem to be highly inexperienced in the subject, THD, IMD etc are parameters that are measured on highly artificial signals - singke sine waves or mix of small numbers of sine waves. Real music signals more resemble white noise than clean sine waves, and there might be hundreds of different very subtle modes of distortion, that are very difficult to measure but which have very significant influence on the precepted quality of the sound.

wl 8y ago

> [I]n 2000+, hearing (and vision) is completely understood scientifically and far surpassed by measuring apparatus at every frequency range Yes, we have instrumentation better than the meat-based transducers in the human body. That doesn't mean we completely understand said meat-based transducers or how that meat-computer in our skull interprets signals from those transducers. The auditory and visual systems are still subjects of active research with many outstanding problems. I mean, I'll be among the first to call bullshit on audiophile snake-oil like people pushing 192 kHz/24 bit music, but in your rush to discredit such things, you've gone too far in the other direction.