Psycho-acoustic memory and the Audio Illusionist.

DaveyF

Well-Known Member
Jul 31, 2010
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At the Newport show, I listened to Ted Denney's (Synergistic Research) exhibit of his Acoustic Art room tuning system.
I consider myself a reasonably trained listener, with more than 30 years playing string instruments; upon hearing this set-up, I realized that we were getting a very good example of the human brain's inability to remember exact sounds for any length of time. In the show, Ted would demo the very nice Magico based system with and without the various Acoustic Art pieces. The problem was that it took a few minutes to place/remove these gadgets--- resulting in the audience having to remember the sound prior.
Almost everyone seemed to believe that they heard a difference.....usually upon Ted's suggestion that the sound receded without his tweeks:rolleyes:

I am probably going to get some heat here for saying this, but I felt that the only difference that could be heard was solely due to the aural memory of the audience being faulty. :eek:

I wander how many reviewer's who compare a piece of gear that they may have heard months or years back can truly remember the exact sound that they are now reporting compares to the piece that they are currently reviewing.

I am also wandering if many tweeks, and in fact gear changes, are percieved as superior only due to the 'Psycho-acoustic memory effect' and how many manufacturers are banking on this effect to sell product:confused:

Are we as a'philes perhaps too gulible for our own good:confused::confused:


How accurate do you think the typical a'philes psycho-acoustic memory is?:confused:
 
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Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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How accurate do you think the typical a'philes psycho-acoustic memory is?

No better than any other human's, which is notoriously bad. Thus my signature motto.

Tim
 

audioguy

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I got caught in that trap a number of years ago at a CES. The product being demonstrated was a disk (with some random holes in it) that you place upon your CD and it would "improve the sound".

I bought one on the spot and it didn't do squat for the sound when I actually got it home and used it. I didn't need that $100 anywaY!!

I like Tim's signature !!
 

FrantzM

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Apr 20, 2010
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Davey

Very honest post .. Very interesting .. I could try to answer some of your questions.. For now let answer to the following
Are we as a'philes perhaps too gulible for our own good
\
The answer is a resounding YES!! When grown for the most part educated people believe tha the Harmonix Kombat will correct the sound of their room and spend serious amount of money for these ....A case is made for utter gullibility
 

microstrip

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May 30, 2010
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DaveF,

If you go to the circus you should be prepared to see illusionists.

The same comment should be applied to any opinion about the sound quality of equipment based upon a few minutes listening session in a show, and we go on going there. :eek:

BTW, all current demonstrators seem amateurs compared with Mark Levinson - I once assisted to a Cello full session and he was really a master of marketing and communication.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I had a session with the Synergistic bowls. In all honesty whatever differences I thought I heard could very well be within the realm of the imagined. They were that insignificant to me.
 

KlausR.

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Dec 13, 2010
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DaveyF said:
How accurate do you think the typical a'philes psycho-acoustic memory is?

I had a quick look in JASA and found some research relating to auditory memory in pitch discrimination. There the task is to match a tone with a reference tone, with the time gap between the two tones being varied. In general, the longer the delay, the greater the error.

See also: http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v117/i4/p2599_s5

I for one would not bet my house of the accuracy of auditory memory.

Klaus
 

KlausR.

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Dec 13, 2010
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There is a nice post by C.R.Helmrich, a guy working at Fraunhofer.
Looks like a value of approximately 2 seconds is what we can remember accurately.

This isn't exactly what could be considered as hard scientific evidence, and I would think that it also depends on the signal used.

Klaus
 

FrantzM

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Apr 20, 2010
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As I can’t read small print today without using glasses the answer must be yes…
:D

Well whether it is 2 or 6 seconds it is still very short ... It took me more than 6 secs to type this ...
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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I think the answer is variable. The smaller the difference, the smaller the time must be. When I am looking for small differences say, in DACs, I want it way under on a second. I want to go back and forth instantly and keep doing it to confirm what I am hearing as I zoom on a single transient that might sound different. Same is true when I am testing compressed audio at very small compression ratios.

On the other extreme, I was at harman taking their speaker test. There, the switch-over was around 4 seconds and it was still fine although I wished it was shorter. The latter was in the case of the two speakers which sounded closer together than others.
 

rblnr

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May 3, 2010
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Because of this issue, I'm very much a fan of setting comparisons up to allow instant switching whenever possible. I think Amir is 100% right and I don't understand how reviewers or anyone else compares component X to something they heard last week/month/year.

I have to also say that if you can't hear what a peice of equipment is doing in an hour or so, you are not going to somehow hear "more" once you get used to listening to it over weeks or whatever

Also 100% correct IMO. The hearing more after an hour or a month is about the listener and his brain adapting to the component and making it into their own one way or another.
 
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DonH50

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Jun 22, 2010
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Quasi-on-topic: At a Chicago CES (do they still have those) a long, long time ago (early-80's) a reviewer-type was describing how he heard vocals he'd never heard before under the music on a CD remake using a new Accuphase CD player (wicked expensive at the time and considered the new standard). One of the audio icons (I think it was Paul Klipsch but I could well be wrong) walked out and came back in a few minutes later with a boombox from some display (cassette, don't think CD boxes were really available yet), tweaked the bass/treble knobs, and let it blast. The vocals were clearly audible. It is a very good thing firearms are not allowed at those shows, as the reviewer would surely have shot Paul down...

I miss that guy! - Don
 

KlausR.

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Dec 13, 2010
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Vincent Kars said:
KlausR. said:
This isn't exactly what could be considered as hard scientific evidence, and I would think that it also depends on the signal used.

Feel free to improve on it

Where exactly did I say that Helmrich’s performance is poor and that I could do better?

The issue is not me being better (or worse) than Helmrich, the issue is that a message in a forum does not play in the same league as a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal. With all respect to Helmrich, this message is anecdotal evidence at best ("For me, personally..."). Was the test he is referring to designed to investigate the accuracy of auditory memory? It probably was not. If it was, and if there is a publication, then why did Helmrich not include a pointer? I searched Compendex, INSPEC, JASA and IEEE, Fraunhofer publications en masse, but none authored by C.R. Helmrich.

Klaus
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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Whatever the real threshold of auditory memory is, no matter how variable it may be, one thing seems pretty clear; it's seconds, minutes at most. Not hours. Certainly not the days or weeks we often imagine.

Tim
 

DonH50

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Jun 22, 2010
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We should be careful what we call "auditory memory" and how we use the term... Seconds for an AB test, sure. However, if I put away my Magnepans for a week, then replaced them with a pair of midrange Klipsch horns, I am pretty sure I could hear the difference and accurately describe it. (Months, maybe depends on how old you are... :) ) And, decades after he passed away, I can still "hear" my grandfather's voice. I do not interject this to argue definitions of terms, just to highlight that the definition and context are important...
 

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