JohnSwenson;688895 Wrote: > I hope everybody will bear with me, this is going to be a bit long, I > have a lot to say on this subject. > > As the regulars should know by now I am one who can hear differences in > equipment, and I'm also a technical person who builds his own stuff and > tries hard to come up with correlations to measurable aspects of > systems. > > I've noticed many ways in which the brain influences what I hear, so > I'm definitely in the what you perceive can change camp, BUT that does > not lead me to believe that all listening is therefore worthless, just > that I need to have some understanding of what is happening so I can > make somewhat meaningful interpretations of what I perceive. > > At this point I'm going to share some experiences in perception in > another hobby of mine, hopefully this will illuminate the subject. I'm > also heavily into amateur astronomy including building my own > telescopes. Visual astronomy is another field in which human perception > is key. We frequently are looking at objects which are right on the edge > of perception, the brain also does all kinds of interesting things to > modify what you perceive. The experienced observers have learned to > manipulate the brain to get it to let them see whats really there. > Astronomy has a big advantage over audio, you can look at the same spot > in space with a big telescope and camera and determine if what the > trained observers are seeing is really there or not. > > The upshot is that the trained observers can see things that untrained > people can't, its not because they have "better vision", or better > telescopes, but they have learned to manipulate how the brain filters > what they perceive. "objective" measurements (pictures from the Hubble > etc) verify that what they observe really is there. > > When I was new to the hobby I experienced this in a (at least to me) > dramatic way. I had bought a fairly inexpensive yet quite decent > telescope and was trying to see a famous nebula, which all the books > said I should be able to see with this telescope. I spent a month and > could not find it. From the star charts I knew just where it should be, > but when I looked there, I couldn't see anything. I went to a star party > with a bunch of experienced observers, and asked one of them if he could > find the nebula with my telescope, he looked through it and said its > right there, I looked and looked and could not see it. He chuckled and > said "you are looking too hard, don't concentrate on seeing it, just > relax and "look" at the whole field of view". I did that, and presto it > popped into view, I concentrated hard at looking at the nebula and it > vanished. I hadn't changed the scope, I hadn't changed where I was > looking, the nebula was on the same spot on the retina, it wasn't the > difference between rods and cones etc, it was what I was concentrating > on! > > My theory at this point is that the brain is performing a form of AGC > (automatic gain control) on what I'm looking at it tries to "normalize" > what I see. When I concentrate on one specific part of the field, it > throws out the rest and normalizes what I'm concentrating on to dark > gray. When I don't concentrate on any one specific thing, it can only > normalize on the whole image so the subtle differences in brightness > are preserved and the nebula pops into view. > > My assertion is that the same thing happens in audio. When you are > deliberately performing a test, and concentrating hard at "critical > listening", you concentrate on a specific aspect of the sound, your > brain throws out the rest and normalizes that aspect. When you do the > same with a different piece of equipment, it normalizes that aspect, > and low and behold they sound the same or or only slightly different. > BUT if you forget about critical listening and just experience the > whole totality of the music you start to be able to perceive subtle > contrasts and how the different equipment renders them. But the moment > you "focus in on them" they float away. > > So are DBTs useless? No, you just have to learn how to do them. The > "listen to the same few seconds and switch back and forth" is going to > guarantee you are in the critical listening mode. You have to listen > for at least several tracks so you can get into the "experience the > totality of the music" mode and ignore the fact you are taking part in > a test. This is not easy to do, but can be done if you just relax and > don't try so hard. At least for me when I get into this mode I can > start hearing all kinds of subtle nuances in the performance and the > space the performance was performed in. The "contrasts" in the sound > field are increased. Different gear does this "showing the contrasts" > differently. The brain is still normalizing, but its normalizing the > whole thing. You still don't get an "absolute" view into the sound, but > it is possible to determine how different equipment shows the > contrasts. > > I know there will be some who will say, "but how do you know this > "contrast" is real and not something the brain made up?" My take is > this: we know the brain filters what we perceive, what is more likely, > the lack of contrast is reality and the more contrast is made up, OR > the lack of contrast is the brain filtering out information and the > higher contrast is closer to reality? My experience has been that the > brain does far more filtering than it does creating out of nothing. So > I'm going to go for assuming the greater contrast I hear when listening > to the totality of the music is closer to reality and the lack of > contrast when critically listening is the brain filtering information, > thus I'm going to make judgements about what makes a difference based > on what I hear when in the "totality" mode rather than in the critical > listening mode. > > I hope all this makes some sort of sense. > > John S.
John, imagine we picked two pieces of sky, one with a nebula and one without and we we repeatedly and randomly showed you each and asked if it was the nebula or non-nebula sky you were seeing. If you got it right 50% of the time, what should we conclude? DBTs do not necessarily entail "snippets" - that is a misconception. You can take as long as you like! There is no excuse for rejecting blind listening as a concept. Darren -- darrenyeats http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A3H57URKQB8AQO/ref=cm_pdp_content_listmania/203-7606506-5721503. SB Touch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=93380 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
