So then, if - as the research has been pointing towards for some time - the brain has been hard-wired to uniquely distinguish between music and other sounds (speech, pitch and frequency for instance) via discrete neural populations, this suggests that perhaps the assumption in according objectively-better measuring systems as therefore being superior at playing back music is potentially erroneous: Given the brain’s dedicated mechanisms for distinguishing one from another, objectively-better measuring systems may indeed be superior at playing back sound but not necessarily at playing back music.
Extrapolating this a little further, rather than postulating that if one expresses a preference for say, vinyl, tape, valves, etc (mechanisms that objectively measure less-well to their better-measuring counterparts), could this be not because of a preference for a sound that is inherently less-linear, but because the listener is distinguishing between more/less-linear sound (aesthetics) and music (artistry), and expressing a preference for the latter, in spite of the former?
At least, that’s a possibility worth thinking about, is it not?
http://news.mit.edu/2015/neural-population-music-brain-1216
No, the research is not related to fidelity. It is distinguishing music from noise. Pretty sure they did not use high-end audio for the research either. A clock radio likely does the same thing or we would not get enjoyment out of hearing a favorite tune through it.At least, that’s a possibility worth thinking about, is it not?
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