@randy-11 thanks for your reply. I think you are talking about this: http://www.analog.com/media/en/analog-dialogue/volume-41/number-1/articles/hgh-speed-time-domain-mea...
I am talking about the speed of audio signal rise and decay as experienced by our ears in our listening rooms. Perhaps better termed "attack", more like is described here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/timbre.html
While you could conceivably use sensitive instruments to measure this in your listening room, it would be interesting to see if such devices can be parameterized to show subtle differences in attack, decay and timbre across a full spectrum of instruments and sounds presented by a jazz or classical orchestra simultaneously. Taken to the extreme, can an automated system be set up to evaluate gear more productively for auditioning and decision making on a possible purchase than humans with trained and acute hearing?
And assuming you could measure some of these characteristics with electronics more effectively than our ears, most of us (except one of my in-laws) don't currently have highly portable acoustic measuring systems we can take to the brick and mortar or set up in the sweet spot on the couch at home to tell us what sounds best and what we should buy or pass up, and therefore most of us must rely on our ears to make these decisions. I know that sounds like heresy to some, but there you have it, stuck with our ears to sort out all this controversy about what sounds good to us and what doesn't.
And speaking of bad ears, the link from @willemj is a hoot. Did most of the participants have crappy hearing. Had they all been in the artilary division in the military? Were there synergy problems with the higher end gear chosen, with the higher end amp-speaker-cable combination compared with the budget amp? Did all the participants run out to dump their multi-thousand dollar rigs for a Beringer amp and an old Sony DVD player based on the results? A hifi dealer's worst nightmare!
Instead of fancy measuring devices or old men's clubs, How about a double blind cable test where only one parameter is changed and done with all adolescent female acoustic musicians who have yet to attend a rock concert? I might believe those results...
I am talking about the speed of audio signal rise and decay as experienced by our ears in our listening rooms. Perhaps better termed "attack", more like is described here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/timbre.html
While you could conceivably use sensitive instruments to measure this in your listening room, it would be interesting to see if such devices can be parameterized to show subtle differences in attack, decay and timbre across a full spectrum of instruments and sounds presented by a jazz or classical orchestra simultaneously. Taken to the extreme, can an automated system be set up to evaluate gear more productively for auditioning and decision making on a possible purchase than humans with trained and acute hearing?
And assuming you could measure some of these characteristics with electronics more effectively than our ears, most of us (except one of my in-laws) don't currently have highly portable acoustic measuring systems we can take to the brick and mortar or set up in the sweet spot on the couch at home to tell us what sounds best and what we should buy or pass up, and therefore most of us must rely on our ears to make these decisions. I know that sounds like heresy to some, but there you have it, stuck with our ears to sort out all this controversy about what sounds good to us and what doesn't.
And speaking of bad ears, the link from @willemj is a hoot. Did most of the participants have crappy hearing. Had they all been in the artilary division in the military? Were there synergy problems with the higher end gear chosen, with the higher end amp-speaker-cable combination compared with the budget amp? Did all the participants run out to dump their multi-thousand dollar rigs for a Beringer amp and an old Sony DVD player based on the results? A hifi dealer's worst nightmare!
Instead of fancy measuring devices or old men's clubs, How about a double blind cable test where only one parameter is changed and done with all adolescent female acoustic musicians who have yet to attend a rock concert? I might believe those results...