Do we hear differently?

FrantzM · Apr 27, 2012

Hi

I hope this doesn't devolve into a food fight. It is to me a serious question. I do have my take on it. Although this has become a truism in High End Audio circles, it needs to be be debated if needs be debunked.

It seems to be a reaction to the notion of Preferences becoming the norm in High End to the detriment of Audio Fidelity. Taken to the extreme the Preferences argument seems to not be able to explain why no Audiophile worth his badge claim Bose systems as the Best...If it is only preference thus by definition all valid then there should be an argument for Bose ..I am yet to see that .. I have seen a lot not that..... yet ..
Thus the new (maybe not that new). "We all hear differently" .. Do we?

Phelonious Ponk · Apr 27, 2012

I think this might be just as much of a misunderstanding as the notion that objectivists pick their equipment by the numbers and don't listen during evaluation. Do we hear differently? Sure. Especially by the time most of us get to the point in life at which we can afford to be audiophiles. But not much differently. We hear, see, even perceive thing very much the same, or communication would be a mess, and survival in the primitive world would have been difficult at best. We evidently hear differently enough for audiophiles to prefer vintage Tannoys over Revels, but not enough for any of them to like anything as mass market as Bose. I don't personally think the vintage Tannoys are better than the Bose overall. Perhaps there are other perceptions involved in the latter judgement.

Tim

treitz3 · Apr 27, 2012

Hello, Frantz. I can say with complete certainty that yes, we do all hear differently. This is based just on my observations of audiophiles, learning what they listen for as well as how they listen. I have encountered some folks that have been highly regarded and well respected with what they hear but it has been the case to where I was surprised that I was explaining to them what it was I was hearing during an A/B test. Even then, when I tried to point out specific examples of what it was I was hearing? In one case, only a handful of those listeners could hear what it was I heard. How people listen can have a major influence on this as well, along with the type of gear.

Keith_W · Apr 27, 2012

Whether we hear differently can be proven quite easily with an audiogram. It is a frequency response curve that demonstrates your hearing ability. It should be quite clear that hearing ability follows a normal distribution curve (looks like a bell) - some of us may have enhanced high frequency perception, and some of us have frequency specific hearing loss.

However, I suspect that your question is more on the weighting each of us gives to different aspects of sound reproduction. Some of us go for coherence, some go for tone, some go for imaging, some go for dynamics, some go for frequency response. And as well all know, no speaker does it all. I myself go for tone, detail, and dynamics - which is why I have a horn system. I have to give up on a few things - e.g. the soundstage always sounds thrown forward and the imaging can hardly be described as "pinpoint" or "accurate". However, it does produce dynamics that have to be heard to be believed.

Phelonious Ponk · Apr 27, 2012

However, I suspect that your question is more on the weighting each of us gives to different aspects of sound reproduction. Some of us go for coherence, some go for tone, some go for imaging, some go for dynamics, some go for frequency response.

I think this is a huge factor, and often not a very conscious one, in how our preferences are formed. I also think how we perceive what we hear is big. And I think both are bigger than what we actually hear differently, which is not insignificant, but well compensated for by our brains until it gets pretty extreme.

Tim

treitz3 · Apr 27, 2012

Keith_W said:
Some of us go for coherence, some go for tone, some go for imaging, some go for dynamics, some go for frequency response. And as well all know, no speaker does it all. I myself go for tone, detail, and dynamics....

Hey, Keith. I can agree with this. I had a thread that didn't seem to go over so well that touches on this. http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...nd-of-listener-would-you-classify-yourself-as

That said, how one listens and what it is they actually listen for can make a rather big difference on why some folks hear things differently. IME, where they are at along their respective audio journey, their experience with different gear and exposure to live music are just some of the things that can have an impact on what it is they actually hear.....or listen for.

Mike Lavigne · Apr 27, 2012

i think that we adapt to our listening environment.....so we get comfortable with non-linearities in our normal situation and change to something different is hard and being objective difficult. part of our listening environment is possibly a particular type of music too. it can be the noise polution in that environment, it can even be a soft floor that blurs definition. it can be the format we listen to that has characterisitcs, and finally it can be our own personal hearing challenges that cause us to like a certain presentation.

any and all of these things can alter our view of what is correct.

the process of hearing is essentially the same, but it is normal that many have different references.

i would say that if you commonly listen with a particular group of listeners, and listen with that group in various environments to various types of music and systems, then some of those differences will be minimized as biases are exposed. over the years i've had that expereince a number of times.

FrantzM · Apr 27, 2012

Mike Lavigne said:
i think that we adapt to our listening environment.....so we get comfortable with lon-linearities in our normal situation and change to something different is hard and being objective difficult. part of our listening environment is possibly a particular type of music too. it can be the noise polution in that environment, it can even be a soft floor that blurs definition. it can be the format we listen to that has characterisitcs, and finally it can be our own personal hearing challenges that cause us to like a certain presentation.

any and all of these things can alter our view of what is correct.

the process of hearing is essentially the same, but it is normal that many have different references.

i would say that if you commonly listen with a particular group of listeners, and listen with that group in various environments to various types of music and systems, then some of those differences will be minimized as biases are exposed. over the years i've had that expereince a number of times.

Great Post Mike!
Excellent !!!

amirm · Apr 27, 2012

I think the clarification needs is "what" do we hear the same and not the same. I suspect we all agree that we are talking about distortions in our reproduction system when we talk about whether we do or do not hear them. This falls in two categories:

1. Linear distortion. If I change the volume, I think most people will hear the change more or less. If I roll down 2 Khz by 5 db, we all hear that too.

2. Non-linear distortion. This gets harder. Best example is lossy compression. Most people are not able to hear distortion at moderate levels simply because we are not trained to hear them. The distortion comes and goes too rapidly and we simply don't evaluate distortion readily that way. Such a distortion though can be learned and once you do, then you will have superior ability to hear it then general population. Linear distortion in small amount falls in the same category. Who can hear a 0.5db drop at some frequency vs others. I have seen people who naturally hear such distortion without training.

I used to be completely blind to #2. I still remember I was shocked when my 128kbps compressed song sounded the same as the CD. Fast forward 6 months later after training and I could not stand listening to the same files!

Similar thing exists in food. There was a time that I hated sushi and if you forced me to eat it, it all tasted the same. Years later and many trips to Japan, and now I can easily tell the difference between good and bad sushi, frozen and not frozen fish, etc. The trick is ability to compare and contrast and eventually becoming tuned to the difference.

I think some elements of this were said earlier

.

amirm · Apr 27, 2012

Mike's adaptation point is also very important. A great example is when you hear your family members talk in different rooms of your house. If you think about it, each room is acoustically very different so the voice if measured, would show to be very different. But I bet you hear them exactly the same! The brain is bombarded with such distortions all the time and learns to tune out what is not important.

treitz3 · Apr 27, 2012

You can't tune out what is not important when listening to a reproduction of your own voice, though. You'll never sound like you.

i would say that if you commonly listen with a particular group of listeners, and listen with that group in various environments to various types of music and systems, then some of those differences will be minimized as biases are exposed. over the years i've had that expereince a number of times.

I can most certainly echo this.

amirm · Apr 27, 2012

treitz3 said:
You can't tune out what is not important when listening to a reproduction of your own voice, though. You'll never sound like you.

That's because when you hear your own voice talking, you are hearing a different version than what comes out of the speakers. The latter is what others hear.

JasonI · Apr 27, 2012

Sean Olive wrote an interesting blog post and started a thread here on perception and preference in a cultural context. I think this applies to the question of whether or not we hear differently with a larger perspective and scope than the potential differences between individuals. There isn't enough data to say with certainty, but the preliminary results indicate that there is very little difference in preference with a bias towards accuracy. So even if we use different adjectives to describe what we hear, we tend to prefer accuracy. Individuals may describe accuracy differently, but on the whole it appears we all want the same thing: honest reproduction.

Accurate sound reproduction seems to be the common link across the preferences of the different cultures.

Mike Lavigne · Apr 27, 2012

i have many visitors, and it is normal for some to go thru a period of time of trying to get their bearings as it is so different. it's best if they bring their own reference software to be able to identify what is different and process that to get comfortable. if i only play unfamiliar music it might take awhile.

typically after awhile they adapt to what my system is doing and forget about the differences and enjoy the music.

another interesting thing is how the visual input effects comfort. my speakers are large and tall, and my sweet spot chair is slightly behind the equalateral triangle point....so it's slightly farfield. yet many like to sit further back beacause of the apparent size of the speakers. it's all about how you feel in the environment.

MylesBAstor · Apr 27, 2012

FrantzM said:
Hi

I hope this doesn't devolve into a food fight. It is to me a serious question. I do have my take on it. Although this has become a truism in High End Audio circles, it needs to be be debated if needs be debunked.

It seems to be a reaction to the notion of Preferences becoming the norm in High End to the detriment of Audio Fidelity. Taken to the extreme the Preferences argument seems to not be able to explain why no Audiophile worth his badge claim Bose systems as the Best...If it is only preference thus by definition all valid then there should be an argument for Bose ..I am yet to see that .. I have seen a lot not that..... yet ..
Thus the new (maybe not that new). "We all hear differently" .. Do we?

Yes. I unfortunately can't put my hands on the issue but about 2-3 years ago, there was an article in Scientific American Mind by a professor at the Univ. of Arizona about how much hearing varies from person to person (we're not talking some audiology test here!). His conclusion that it was that interaural differences were so great so as to swamp out any statistical study.

Phelonious Ponk · Apr 27, 2012

I used to be completely blind to #2. I still remember I was shocked when my 128kbps compressed song sounded the same as the CD. Fast forward 6 months later after training and I could not stand listening to the same files!

Is the nature of the distortion the same as you go up in sample rate? Because I can hear 128. 256? Not unless I'm really trying and then, most of the time, I'm not really sure. 320? May as well be lossless.

Tim

JackD201 · Apr 27, 2012

Excellent thread, excellent.

I like it so much I'm posting only so I can get the e-mail notification.

Ron Party · Apr 27, 2012

JackD201 said:
I like it so much I'm posting only so I can get the e-mail notification.

Hi Jack.

amirm · Apr 27, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
Is the nature of the distortion the same as you go up in sample rate? Because I can hear 128. 256? Not unless I'm really trying and then, most of the time, I'm not really sure. 320? May as well be lossless.

Tim

Well, the sample rate stays the same at 44.1 Khz. I think you mean bit rate

. The distortion level drops exponentially as the bit rates increase above 128k. By 384kbps it becomes very hard to hear it. You almost need to hear it first at lower rates to then find it at that rate.

The distortion is caused by smearing the transient over a window of time. Unfortunately the spikes appear before the transient and hence the name, "pre-echo." In that sense, they don't get masked/covered by the sound itself as easily. As you increase the bit rate, the distortion spike amplitude goes lower and eventually becomes inaudible.

A better encoding mode is to not pick the rate but the quality. This is called variable rate encoding. When I use it for my portable device, I set the quality to "100." This is the highest it would go. Then the encoder examines these distortion levels and attempts to keep them at a minimum level. If something is hard to encode, like that transient, then it allocates a ton of bits to it. But if something is harmonic and easy to encode, it gives it lower. As a result, your average file size drops relative to say, fixed 320 kbps. I get about 50% file size reduction this way relative to true lossless and the quality is exceptionally good.

Also, AAC is much better than MP3 in this regard so if your device supports both, always use AAC. It has no negatives. AAC (as with WMA developed in my team) uses adaptive windows where the amount of smearing is limited to a smaller time frame. In addition, it has more efficient encoding. MP3 in its stock mode also rolls off some of the highest frequencies which AAC does not (at 128kbps).

Phelonious Ponk · Apr 27, 2012

amirm said:
Well, the sample rate stays the same at 44.1 Khz. I think you mean bit rate . The distortion level drops exponentially as the bit rates increase above 128k. By 384kbps it becomes very hard to hear it. You almost need to hear it first at lower rates to then find it at that rate.

The distortion is caused by smearing the transient over a window of time. Unfortunately the spikes appear before the transient and hence the name, "pre-echo." In that sense, they don't get masked/covered by the sound itself as easily. As you increase the bit rate, the distortion spike amplitude goes lower and eventually becomes inaudible.

A better encoding mode is to not pick the rate but the quality. This is called variable rate encoding. When I use it for my portable device, I set the quality to "100." This is the highest it would go. Then the encoder examines these distortion levels and attempts to keep them at a minimum level. If something is hard to encode, like that transient, then it allocates a ton of bits to it. But if something is harmonic and easy to encode, it gives it lower. As a result, your average file size drops relative to say, fixed 320 kbps. I get about 50% file size reduction this way relative to true lossless and the quality is exceptionally good.

Also, AAC is much better than MP3 in this regard so if your device supports both, always use AAC. It has no negatives. AAC (as with WMA developed in my team) uses adaptive windows where the amount of smearing is limited to a smaller time frame. In addition, it has more efficient encoding. MP3 in its stock mode also rolls off some of the highest frequencies which AAC does not (at 128kbps).

Yes, bit rate. Sorry. I always use AACs, because I've heard they're better quality. I don't know much about VBR. I need to look into it. I rip everything lossless, but occasionally buy from iTunes, which is at 256kbps. Do you know if they're us fixed or variable rate?

Tim

Do we hear differently?

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