Test Equipment vs The Ear

Here is kind of what I am getting at.

I used to work in food service. We had a certain amount of meat / sandwich. 2 oz or something like that.

We had to weigh each portion. After the first week, my eye/brain mechanism had learned exactly what 2 oz was. I think most of us can do this.

I have learned the same with frequency response curves. Once I knew what I liked, I incorporated that into my crossover simulations. Now I can pretty much tell speakers that are brighter or more dull than what I make, and I"m usually spot on, but this has been integrative, not separate.

I'm sure we can learn to listen for, or completely ignore, other things as well.

Best,

E

Everything that is audible is measurable, but not everything that is measurable is audible.

Often what people think they hear is really just what they see.  I'll bet anyone a nice polished block of Mpingo wood if they truly hear some things in a valid test.

Sure you can learn to listen. Research has shown that with humans the threshold for hearing level differences (and deviations from the flat frequency response) is about 0.2 dB. If it less than that, you cannot hear it so it does not matter (but you can measure it). On the electronics side, it is relatively easy to stay below this threshold of 0.2 dB, and if e.g an amplifier fails this requirement it is not what Peter Walker called a straight wire with gain (and hence it is not good enough). But with speakers this 0.2 dB is unfortunately an impossible target for now. So speakers will sound quite different from each other, unfortunately. Hence also, it is worth spending relatively a lot on speakers.

@willemj

While frequency response is the single most detectable aspect of a speaker's performance, it is not the only one.

My ears are particularly sensitive to room acoustics and driver compression.  A measure not included in that. :)

Best,

E

It was Harman Kardon back in the 70's who was touting the audible effects of inaudible frequencies. They claimed that their ultra wide-band receivers, preamps, and amps (4Hz to 140kHz) would outperform the competitor products (typically 20Hz to 20,000kHz) even though they were outside the range of human hearing. They didn't compare a competitor's product against their unit, rather they built (2) identical units and limited the bandwidth on one to the 20-20 range. Supposedly over 80% of the professionals they played them for identified the wider bandwidth as more musical.  Harman Kardon's explanation was that inaudible frequencies produce harmonics in the audible range.