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What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?

Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev
herman
2,267 posts
 
In a broad sense, the topic is devoted to audio anomalies that cannot be explained from the point of view of ordinary physics.
got it

  There is a lot to audio that you can not measure at all,

I don't disagree with the overall idea of that, just with the finality of it. I think it would be more accurate to say that there are many aspects of how we hear that we haven't figured out how to correlate to measurements. Not that we can't, just that we haven't figured how to do it. Maybe never will.

That's what amazes me about the camp here and elsewhere that say basically "if you can't explain it I can't hear it." In effect, "if I don't understand it then it doesn't exist," Even though we've barely scratched the surface of how our brains work and how it interprets what we call our senses, these guys have managed to precisely quantify how we hear.  The insane idea that everything they need to know can be explained by an expensive audio analyzer. The insane idea that they are capable of looking at electronic measurements and predicting with 100% certainty whether or not a given change is audible with the assumption they are measuring everything that  matters, which is highly doubtful

On the one hand we have snake oil salesman with devices like magic digital clocks that will transform the sound of a symphony hall even when the battery is dead (yes, he made that claim) and the "scientists" who refuse to believe anything they can't explain with measurements. I'm sure the answer is somewhere in the middle. Well, more toward the measurement side, but not at either extreme. I'm going to go listen to a record now even though the measurements tell me it can't possibly sound as good as the digital copy.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Two aspects of human hearing that may or may not shed light on this.  

One, really low bass is non-directional. We sense almost nothing but volume. It is for all intents and purposes mono. Yet mono always sounds like it is coming from right between the speakers. Low bass is not mono like that. It is more like what out of phase mono sounds like, coming from nowhere and everywhere. Yet when playing music it never sounds like this either. It always sounds like it is coming from some definite location.  

Another one, really high ultra-sonic frequencies. We cannot hear these at all! At least not on a hearing test playing only these frequencies, we hear nothing. But all instruments have higher harmonic overtones extending well up into the ultra-sonic range. When these are reproduced it lends a wealth of detail including depth of image that improves not only treble but midrange and bass as well.  

These might seem to be very different, the extreme low bass on the one hand and the beyond treble on the other. But I think they are very much the same. I think in both circumstances what is happening is our brains assemble it all into an auditory model of the world around us.   

How this all happens is anyone's guess. It sure does seem pretty obvious though that it does indeed happen. 

The cells in the ear that detect these ultra-sonic frequencies, by the way, are three times as many in number as detect the sounds we can hear. So good luck figuring out how to measure for that. 

herman
2,267 posts
 
One, really low bass is non-directional. We sense almost nothing but volume
. Another one, really high ultra-sonic frequencies. We cannot hear these at all! At least not on a hearing test playing only these frequencies, we hear nothing.
 I think in both circumstances what is happening is our brains assemble it all into an auditory model of the world around us.  

I think that pretty much sums it up. Something is happening that we can't yet  explain and maybe never will.  We may not hear it in the traditional use of the word but we sense it. Our brains react to it. 

Which brings me back to the idea that those who make all of their  audiophile decisions  based on measurements and refuse to believe anything that they can't explain with physics and our severely limited understanding of how the brain works  are barking up the proverbial wrong tree.

“If it sounds good, it IS good.”
― Duke Ellington
antigrunge2
1,451 posts
 
@herman ,

that quote is priceless! The Duke was definitely onto something…
andy2
1,555 posts
 
“If it sounds good, it IS good.”
Or better ...

"If it sounds good and measures good, it IS good".

You at least want to make sure if it measures good.  But does not mean that if something measures good, it will sound good.  At the end you have to listen.


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