4 ms·

> electronic bandwidth these days is of necessity set up for music, and so should be ample for higher voices. (I have noticed that VOIP is much easier for me t

by acqq 7y ago

> electronic bandwidth these days is of necessity set up for music, and so should be ample for higher voices. (I have noticed that VOIP is much easier for me to understand than POTS Then you give exactly an example where it is not ample (and matches the topic of the article): POTS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service "Restricted to a narrow frequency range of 300–3,300 Hz, called the voiceband, which is much less than the human hearing range of 20–20,000 Hz"

WalterBright 7y ago
True, but POTS isn't used for mass media. Politicians have never phoned me to campaign for my vote.
- acqq 7y ago
  > but POTS isn't used for mass media. Yes. Still, also if one would measure the response curves of the sound reproductions of most of mass media available to most of the listeners, one would again find that the curves are never flat. And there are indeed a lot of devices that behave worse in the range related to female voices than to some bass voice ranges. Even the so called Hi-Fi equipment is never "flat" (i.e. it never passes different frequencies the same). A lot of people claim to prefer stronger basses, a lot of products are made to amplify them more, and even relative expensive speakers can sound worse for female voice frequency ranges. Not to mention that most of the conditions where the sound is eventually heard are extremely far from the conditions under which the products are evaluated by the reviewers.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    I listen to a lot of music on my stereo, including many female singers with lovely voices, and do not notice any bias or shrillness in them, nor with any of the higher pitched instruments.
    - acqq 7y ago
      I have a counterexample which I think is more telling: never when I listen to music I recognize the relevant bias in sound equipment or sound engineering, it is when I listen movies that I do, and I observe it especially when I listen to non-English female voices (which I indeed happen to listen a lot, living where I live). But I'm sure that I'm not only one who notice that, as well as I am sure that not everybody's going to experience it, as there are multiple factors that allow me to be able to claim that. Human hearing has a complex response curves itself, and age and different other conditions result in specific curves among some people, which makes me unfortunate enough to be one of those who are more aware of the limitations of the sound equipment and of the ways the sound is processed by the professionals. Once one is affected, one can more easily recognize that even professionals are aware of many aspects the sound is not "how it should be" but that the resulting sound is not the same as the "real thing" and also not "optimally adjusted" for the final listening conditions. Sound engineering, to those who aren't doing it, appears to be "simple", and it's true that today we have much more good processing capabilities than in the days of only analog devices, but even now there are many issues that greatly influence the end result. And as I mentioned, not all languages and all fashions affecting how people speak are the same, resulting in different aspects affecting different people differently. Did you know, for example, that women and men, on average, but even more significantly in the "tails" of distribution not only have different voice characteristics (how they produce the sound) but also different response curves, that is, that they hear the sounds differently?
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        I don't dispute any of that. What I don't buy, however, is that there's some electronic conspiracy among sound engineers to make women's voices sound bad. I don't buy that powerful female artists (like Madonna) would put up with that. I don't buy that the record companies, who want to sell those records by female artists, would put up with that. Lastly, if it takes a highly trained ear to pick up differences, then the difference is not material to the public and it's an ineffective conspiracy (assuming there is one).
        7y ago

by acqq 7y ago

WalterBright 7y ago

True, but POTS isn't used for mass media. Politicians have never phoned me to campaign for my vote.

acqq 7y ago
> but POTS isn't used for mass media. Yes. Still, also if one would measure the response curves of the sound reproductions of most of mass media available to most of the listeners, one would again find that the curves are never flat. And there are indeed a lot of devices that behave worse in the range related to female voices than to some bass voice ranges. Even the so called Hi-Fi equipment is never "flat" (i.e. it never passes different frequencies the same). A lot of people claim to prefer stronger basses, a lot of products are made to amplify them more, and even relative expensive speakers can sound worse for female voice frequency ranges. Not to mention that most of the conditions where the sound is eventually heard are extremely far from the conditions under which the products are evaluated by the reviewers.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  I listen to a lot of music on my stereo, including many female singers with lovely voices, and do not notice any bias or shrillness in them, nor with any of the higher pitched instruments.
  - acqq 7y ago
    I have a counterexample which I think is more telling: never when I listen to music I recognize the relevant bias in sound equipment or sound engineering, it is when I listen movies that I do, and I observe it especially when I listen to non-English female voices (which I indeed happen to listen a lot, living where I live). But I'm sure that I'm not only one who notice that, as well as I am sure that not everybody's going to experience it, as there are multiple factors that allow me to be able to claim that. Human hearing has a complex response curves itself, and age and different other conditions result in specific curves among some people, which makes me unfortunate enough to be one of those who are more aware of the limitations of the sound equipment and of the ways the sound is processed by the professionals. Once one is affected, one can more easily recognize that even professionals are aware of many aspects the sound is not "how it should be" but that the resulting sound is not the same as the "real thing" and also not "optimally adjusted" for the final listening conditions. Sound engineering, to those who aren't doing it, appears to be "simple", and it's true that today we have much more good processing capabilities than in the days of only analog devices, but even now there are many issues that greatly influence the end result. And as I mentioned, not all languages and all fashions affecting how people speak are the same, resulting in different aspects affecting different people differently. Did you know, for example, that women and men, on average, but even more significantly in the "tails" of distribution not only have different voice characteristics (how they produce the sound) but also different response curves, that is, that they hear the sounds differently?
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      I don't dispute any of that. What I don't buy, however, is that there's some electronic conspiracy among sound engineers to make women's voices sound bad. I don't buy that powerful female artists (like Madonna) would put up with that. I don't buy that the record companies, who want to sell those records by female artists, would put up with that. Lastly, if it takes a highly trained ear to pick up differences, then the difference is not material to the public and it's an ineffective conspiracy (assuming there is one).
      - 7y ago