How Important is the Ear?
- Thread starter fas42
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Electricity, we can live without it. ... Solar panels energy, windmills (wind turbines), rechargeable batteries, underwater current energy, waves energy, snow energy, potatoes generators, ...
Bob-Think about what you just said. You said you can live without electricity, but then you name a bunch of alternative sources for electricity. We aren't talking about where it comes from, just the fact we have it and need it to power our gear.
Mark, we are talking about the "quality" of, or the degree of interference with or enhancement by, whatever the question is about? I mean, what's the point of talking about "rooms", what sort of dumb question is that, how many people stick their hifi out in the back yard to listen to ...??
Frank
Mark, we are talking about the "quality" of, or the degree of interference with or enhancement by, whatever the question is about? I mean, what's the point of talking about "rooms", what sort of dumb question is that, how many people stick their hifi out in the back yard to listen to ...??
Frank
Huh
Bob,
You should stop this dangerous talk. Soon someone will start defending that his system sounds better when he is using non nuclear electricity
In the context of what Mark was saying: to listen to audio you "normally" need electricity to power the equipment, a room to play it back in, and one's ears to listen to it. Beyond the physical achievement therefore of achieving the sensation of sound in your head, you then can think about, discuss, debate how much the behaviour or characteristics of those aspects contribute to the quality of the sound you listen to ...Huh
Frank
Actually Frank, this was what I referring
Or are you still of the feeling that the room is the least important
Bob,
You should stop this dangerous talk. Soon someone will start defending that his system sounds better when he is using non nuclear electricity
Francisco, :b
There are few things that each one of us should talk more 'bout ...
And the other things, well, perhaps them too. :b
Mark, we are talking about the "quality" of, or the degree of interference with or enhancement by, whatever the question is about? I mean, what's the point of talking about "rooms", what sort of dumb question is that, how many people stick their hifi out in the back yard to listen to ...??
Frank
Frank, with all due respect, my good friend, in addition,
Steve was absolutely correct in previously quoting you and posting this: "Huh
" Just don't do it again. :b
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Yes, the qualities of the room are important, especially if you're trying to achieve the best accuracy in the lower octaves of bass reproduction. The comment was meant to be sarcastic, in the same vein as Mark's earlier quip.
However, for me, the sound that comes directly from the speaker drivers is key, if there are audible problems there I'm too aware of them, so the sources of those problems have to be cleaned up. The big side benefit of doing that, are that all the other replay characteristics I mention, that some people find so hard to digest, or accept, then occur automatically.
Frank
Bob-If you owned a battery powered preamp and power amp and it was time to recharge the batteries, you couldn’t take them outside and plop them on your driveway and let the sun beat down on them and recharge the batteries. Even if you did a dance to the sun god, your batteries won’t recharge. You would have to have some good old-fashioned electricity.
Mep (sorry, your real name just escaped me); first I don't have a battery operated amp, preamp and source.
And if I would; you don't have to take the components outside to recharge them, only the batteries, that you place in their determined spot from under the solar panels. Only them batteries need to be recharged, and they are easily removable from your audio components (electrosunnica). :b
Furthermore, just the daylight light is enough to recharge them batteries. And as a matter fact I do have five outside lights that are powered by the light (or sun) of the day. Each light (lamp) have a rechargeable battery in them, plus a small solar panel on top.
We're just talkin' here, but nonetheless everything is possible ...
Right, Mark? :b ... And not only having a good set of ears is of prime importance, but how to use them efficiently is even more important. And that, in our audio hobby, comes mainly from listening experience, the right musical selections, the right mediums, the right pair of loudspeakers, in their own respective right room, and with the properly matched set of electronic components (source, preamp & amp), and of course the proper connections. :b
Last but no least; some excellent acoustic room treatments with a top-notch Room Correction & EQ system. :b
Then you put this all together and it's how you are using your ears in the right context and with the greatest respect. All for the Better. :b
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Yeah, I very well know that Mark; I was simply inventing a newer and better technology. :b
And 'tres tres possible' as well.
* In the future, our amps, preamps, sources will be smaller than our iPads, and they will provide all the true power we need. And there won't be any electrical wires!
And the Music will be played and sang by the angels from heaven on Earth ... :b
Okay, might be worthwhile trying to get this thread moving again: I was just reminded a moment ago of something that's occurred to me from time to time, but I had never had the thought so clearly defined before.
When listening to a sound you may do so at several levels of concentration: the analogy is with the eye, you may notice something which is a bit blurred, perhaps because of the time of day, movement of yourself or the object, or your eyes aren't what they used to be ... hah!! Now, if you apply yourself to the situation -- and I believe this would apply to most people -- you can "force" your eyes to work momentarily better, so that you can satisfactorily resolve what you're trying to see. The classic example is of someone squinting, or otherwise "working" on reading something in the paper. Now if you were to do this continually you would end up feeling very unpleasant, out of sorts ...
My thought is that the same approach is used with your ears: when the sound is not quite right, say in normal circumstances, for real sound a situation of the sound being soft, but in hifi if the far more common situation of the distortion levels being too high, then you effectively squint with your ears. That is, you actually apply concentration to the process of listening so that you hear "better", clearer. I just now noted myself doing that while listening to Adele, I was "squinting" with my ears to hear the sound more clearly, to make it resolve as being correct: when I deliberately relaxed, immediately the sound became harsher, more unpleasant.
So if this is the case, then there are some obvious consequences. It makes it very obvious why listener fatigue occurs, your body is "working" constantly to decipher the sound, to separate the good stuff from the bad, and eventually exhaustion wins the battle. But there is one other very serious consequence, which is to throw DBT and such like into grave danger: if the person doing the test is hyped up to do his best, then that's exactly what he'll do -- he'll extract the extra information out of the poorer sound to match the better sound, because his whole physiology is revved up to accomplish the goal. If he were to relax, or was so from the beginning, his performance, and results, would, could be very, very different.
Of course, I could be completely off the track with this thought. Hopefully someone like Gary might know if research has been done in this area; if it has a name for what I'm talking about, I am not aware of such ...
Frank
When listening to a sound you may do so at several levels of concentration: the analogy is with the eye, you may notice something which is a bit blurred, perhaps because of the time of day, movement of yourself or the object, or your eyes aren't what they used to be ... hah!! Now, if you apply yourself to the situation -- and I believe this would apply to most people -- you can "force" your eyes to work momentarily better, so that you can satisfactorily resolve what you're trying to see. The classic example is of someone squinting, or otherwise "working" on reading something in the paper. Now if you were to do this continually you would end up feeling very unpleasant, out of sorts ...
My thought is that the same approach is used with your ears: when the sound is not quite right, say in normal circumstances, for real sound a situation of the sound being soft, but in hifi if the far more common situation of the distortion levels being too high, then you effectively squint with your ears. That is, you actually apply concentration to the process of listening so that you hear "better", clearer. I just now noted myself doing that while listening to Adele, I was "squinting" with my ears to hear the sound more clearly, to make it resolve as being correct: when I deliberately relaxed, immediately the sound became harsher, more unpleasant.
So if this is the case, then there are some obvious consequences. It makes it very obvious why listener fatigue occurs, your body is "working" constantly to decipher the sound, to separate the good stuff from the bad, and eventually exhaustion wins the battle. But there is one other very serious consequence, which is to throw DBT and such like into grave danger: if the person doing the test is hyped up to do his best, then that's exactly what he'll do -- he'll extract the extra information out of the poorer sound to match the better sound, because his whole physiology is revved up to accomplish the goal. If he were to relax, or was so from the beginning, his performance, and results, would, could be very, very different.
Of course, I could be completely off the track with this thought. Hopefully someone like Gary might know if research has been done in this area; if it has a name for what I'm talking about, I am not aware of such ...
Frank
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