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Help with my University Research Project

If you are interested in helping to shape a formal research project (Miami University/Oxford) concerning the effects of wire and electronics on the reproduction of music, then please read further. If anything, you might find my research proposal interesting.

I was a Chemist for a major oil company for a few years and have since quit my job to return to school. I am an Audiophile/Jazz Guitarist and a scientist so much of the HiFi industry goes against my better judgment. However sometimes I cannot argue with my perceptions (they are all we have after all).

I have a friend who is a professor of Physics. His current area of research could be summed up with this statement:

"I am concerned with the mathematics describing the differences in human perception of sound"

While 99% of his work is done with paper and pencil, he does have some very excellent equipment. He is also a music lover (though not really into HiFi) so I have described the "state of the union" with respect to the HiFi industry (he was very intrigued). We have discussed conducting research into this topic:

1. If person (A) sings middle-C, and then person (B) sings the same exact note they will sound different. The pitch is correct but the "tone" distinguishes the two. The reason is that when someone sings middle-C for instant, they are not singing only at the middle-C frequency. Instead what we hear is a combination of many different waves. All of them partially cancelling, partially amplifying one another. In essence there is a distortion around the note. (1st,2nd,3rd harmonics blah blah, lots of math) When a machine records these voices it does not perfectly reproduce the original subtle combination of waves. This is the reason that recordings do not compete with live performances.

Some cables and electronics (tube amps in particular) are inserting a distortion (some more than others) that alters the signal (this is not debatable). Sometimes, as is the case with good tube amps/really goo SS amps, there seems to be a more "real" presence to the music. This could also explain the reasoning behind the theory of "system synergy". By that I mean the matching of components/cables so as to present a more balanced musical presentation. We are postulating that the distortion, with certain component/cable combinations, results in the,(excuse this word), recovery of lost waves. This does not mean that the resulting signal is exactly the same, or that there is not some unwanted stuff in there. We merely suggest that it is the missing waves(distortion) that give music its "real" quality.

Keep in mind that the first step into any research project is to determine what has already been done. So the next several weeks will be devoted toward the reading of countless science journals.

I would like to hear you thoughts about my project, but more specifically, I would like to get a consensus on the attributes of certain component/cable or component/component combinations. For instance, Krell model *?* and XLO model *?* cables produce a *?* sound. I hope to determine a few generally accepted extremes with which to base my experiments on.

Thanks
trthomp
gregm
3,405 posts
 
Trthomp, there is certainly no lack of interest in your project! Thank you for sharing your findings with us as you go along (your time permitting).
Cheers!
rayhall
393 posts
 
I reread carefully your last post as well as the original. I am not a physicist or an engineer, but what I gleaned from your more recent post is that you will attempt to show objectively that there are differences in cables along the lines of whatever you intend to measure or observe with your computer methodology. Then you intend to observe and compile the statements of a panel of listeners regarding what the cables under test "sound" like. I am sure your listening panel will say that the cables sound different and you seem fairly sure that you will be able to show that the cables impart some changes in spectral balance or timing or harmonics which can be measured using your computers. In your original post you say:

We are postulating that the distortion, with certain component/cable combinations, results in the,(excuse this word), recovery of lost waves. This does not mean that the resulting signal is exactly the same, or that there is not some unwanted stuff in there. We merely suggest that it is the missing waves(distortion) that give music its "real" quality.

Let me assume that your computer analysis, if it demonstrates a difference between the two signals (prior to the cable and after the cable), can attribute this difference to "lost waves".

If the listeners identify any differences in cables, as I think they will since I hear them, I don't think there is anything in the way this experiment is designed that will allow you to attribute the differences which the listeners describe to the "lost waves".

My last statement, I think, is the point of your last post. But it seems to me that all scientific experimentation starts with a hypothesis or, as you described it in the paragraph which I excerpted from you, a postulation. Yours is contained in the last sentence of that which I excerpted. Hopefully you will get there, perhaps with follow-on experiments, but what we really need in audio is not simply more standardized testing as you state in your last post, but more proof that the characteristics being measured, varied or "improved" do contribute significantly to our perception of the quality of the sound. If you can demonstrate that, your contribution to audio will be quite significant and the industry will likely adopt your standards for measuring cables as well as other audio equipment.

I do wish you luck, not because I am tired of listening to cables in order to determine which I think is best. That is, after all, my hobby. I am tired however, of the pseudoscience and advertising "rhetoric" which exists in the audio industry and anyone who is seeking to establish any objective measure of what we agree sounds correct, no matter how difficult this is to accomplish, has my support.

trthomp OP
6 posts
 
Rayhall -

When I made the statement regarding lost waves I did not mean that literally. That was extremely simplified and ultimately a bad phrase. I wish I had a picture of what our software looks like graphically...

Try to imagine the (x) axis being the frequency band from 0 to 20,000 and the (y) axis being the amplitude. If I were to record myself saying the phrase "social science is an oxymoron" it would register my voice throughout the spectrum. The average of say the first syllable "so" would be the tone of my voice which a guitar tuner might register as "C#". However the reality of that syllable is the vibration of the air at many different frequencies. Different cables, because they have different physical properties can alter some of those frequencies. The audible result might not be a change of my voice from (C#) to (D) but it will change something.

The physics behind what makes a person perceive a "soundstage" as being wide or deep as opposed to shallow are actually known. It is a kind of mathematical physics that is best done on computers. As you probably know reverberation and or perceived reverberation is a major factor. When a signal gets altered one of things that can be lost is that sense of space or perhaps the exact placement of instruments. It is this kind of stuff that all those cheap DSP programs on A/V Receivers try to accomplish (the addition of space). The only good implementation of this technology that I have EVER heard is the LOGIC 7 stuff in Lexicon gear. In a way this is what a lot of people seek from upsampling technology. Some components do this very poorly (they add a sense of space but they alter the signal too much, obscuring other things). The really good components manage to add a sense of space without making a detrimental impact on the original signal. Of course this is ultimately a matter of taste but I think there is a general consensus that some components do accomplish it better than others.

All those references to "lifting a veil" are actually great analogies IMHO. Our goal is to find out what that veil looks like, does it have characteristic look (mathematically)? Is it merely a decrease in certain frequencies whose effects could be countered by a cable that amplifies those frequencies?

Again, all of this is really speculation since we do not have nearly enough data to say statistically whether or not our model is valid. Not to mention the fact that we have not done any listening evaluations.

I hope this was helpful and/or that I explained my project in more detail
goyescas's avatar
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goyescas
31 posts
 
I have read this entire thread and find the experiment most intriguing. I was pleased to learn you are using your own recording as a reference, but wonder if - and here I am assuming the postulate as absolute - the actual cable used to make that recording might in itself limit the scope of your results, in so much as it too must exert its own characteristic or signature into the final control. Just a thought.

Please continue to post here when you get a moment; I imagine there a number of individuals whose interest in the results is high. Thanks and ATB,

Goyescas
pbb
1,140 posts
 
At last some science! Well I hope that's what you are talking about. Interesting, maybe ultimately useless, but interesting. I recall years ago Peter Walker of QUAD explaining why reproduced music can never sound like the real thing. Maybe you could start your research by checking out what he had to say. QUAD's equipment may look quaint to American audiophiles used to considerable avoirdupoids and girth in their equipment,(sort of like muscle cars, I guess; nothing wrong with cubes right? So what if I don't use the 550 bhp, it's on tap, right?) but it certainly sounds like music to me. I recall some mention of "Eigentones", I'm not even sure if this word is a figment of my imagination or some blurry flashback. No, not related to drug use... At any rate, anybody who is willing to put some science behind this madhouse of high-end audio has my vote.
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