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Measurements & Sound Quality


Ralf11

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Which aspects of or factors in sound quality have no measurements that correspond to them?

 

Either cases where the measurements have not yet been made, or cases where the measurements cannot be made...

 

counter example: frequency response

 

possible example: "sense of space" or "real instruments playing in real space"

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1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

Which aspects of or factors in sound quality have no measurements that correspond to them?

 

Either cases where the measurements have not yet been made, or cases where the measurements cannot be made...

 

counter example: frequency response

 

possible example: "sense of space" or "real instruments playing in real space"

 

I have always thought the sense of space, or "soundstage" if you like, is at least somewhat susceptible to measurement, else it wouldn't be so trivially subject to manipulation.  Phase, timing and loudness differences all play into this, as does the room response.

 

For what is currently difficult to measure, I'd go along with mansr and say our emotional response, and to a lesser extent our individual auditory response.

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Is the current line of AP measurement gear already as sensitive/accurate/precise as  our ear/brain system?

 

I know some will say yes but I guess my next question to them is how do you know?

 

Specifically the AP measurement gear commonly used for our gear - not NASA's or Intel's measurement gear.

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Good thread topic ... the obvious one for me is the transition into what I call competent sound - subjectively, this can be quite a dramatic difference, but objectively all that has happened is that the level of some distortion or noise anomaly is just a bit less than that prior to the transition. I believe any sort of conventional measurement, trying to pinpoint the key difference, would show very little of interest - specialist test signals most likely would need to be developed, to make it easier to register the change taking place.

 

"Sense of space" or "real instruments playing in real space" are part of the package of competent playback - I wouldn't see any point in trying to separate out those, as individually 'measurable'.

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11 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Which aspects of or factors in sound quality have no measurements that correspond to them?

 

I don't know such factors.

 

I suppose, measurement tool are more precise, than ears. Because, there we can see smallest parts of degree and dB.

 

We can measure all factors (sometimes in laboratory only) from mic to speaker.

 

All subjective characteristics, like "macro/microdinamics", "air", "sand", etc. are distortions, SNR, dynamic range, etc. (if perception difference is not imaginary).

 

 

 

However, when we capture real acoustical sources, we capture acoustic wave field. And there we have there enough low level of control currently, due very complex wave interferention.

Read details: https://samplerateconverter.com/content/where-limit-audio-quality

 

Also there is issues with psychoacoustics' knowledges: how to interprete measurement results.

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2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

So you are saying the ear/brain system can't detect these differences? 

 

 

 

There are opinion (from common experience), that 1-2 dB difference is detected by ear, as rule.

But, I doubt, that 0.0001 (1e-4) dB difference is exactly detected by ear.

However, such measurement presicion is not rare in my work.

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13 minutes ago, mansr said:

The brain can only interpret what the ear is able to detect.

 

True.

 

But I also feel this discussion needs an expert Physiologist here. It may be beyond Engineers ?

 

Again I'm not talking about NASA level measurement gear but the stuff commonly used to design our own gear (e.g. AP). Somebody will always chime in and say we can send gear to the moon, to Mars etc etc. Let's not talk about the measurement equipment that audio gear designers don't typically have access to.

 

Can the ear detect transients better than AP gear? If you say no - how do you know?

 

I'm asking because I'm interested to know - just in case it reads like I'm being a smart ass.

 

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17 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

But I also feel this discussion needs an expert Physiologist here. It may be beyond Engineers

 

I think, to be proper specialist, today is not enough  to be expert in single science or branch only.

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2 minutes ago, iaval said:

If I want to measure by ear, where should I connect the test probes? I tried various sockets and none seems to be compatible with any standard oscope 50Ohm probes. 

 

 

Hehe, not sure anyone has suggested resorting to measurement by ear alone?

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23 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

 

Hehe, not sure anyone has suggested resorting to measurement by ear alone?

Some did, they'd say "use your ears", but I can't even find the service manual for that to check for input parameters. I tried all sorts of plugs, all sorts of configurations, impedances, standards and Vrms but I'm still getting no sound, only microsonics from the unstable connection. So I figured the best way to enjoy music is with a scope. 

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