jkenny
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Post by jkenny on Aug 18, 2019 5:09:04 GMT 10
I'm going to bring over some posts I made on AudioScienceReview (ASR) in 2016 which delves into Auditory Scene Analysis (ASA) which I introduce here: Yes, this hobby & the goal of audio reproduction is the creation of an illusion - an illusion that gives us enough audible cues to satisfy our ever-vigilant auditory processing. Much like we watch television, videos or movies which offer us enough believability to allow us to forget their limitations & become engaged with the content - this is where the emotional connection then begins. If there isn't enough believability we are constantly aware of the medium & it's portrayal - when we are bored by the sound, it's a sure indication that this believability is missing or less convincing Let's forget about the psychophysical aspect of the ear mechanism & focus on Auditory Scene Analysis or ASA. This is the area of study, first started by Bregman in 1990 or so, which is concerned with how we make sense of the vibrations of the eardrums & create an auditory scene from these signals. Much like we create a visual scene from the impact of photons on the rods & cone cells in the eyes, we create an auditory scene from the two streams of electrical signals coming from both ears. Bregman's websiteNow, when you think about it, this is a highly complex & interesting problem that the brain has to try to solve - to continuously create a fully realistic, moving auditory scene that maps the auditory objects in that scene & follow their change through time. In other words close your eyes & listen - you will hear & be able to locate all the sonic objects around you, including the size of the room, etc. just from the electrical waves being generated in the ears. Think about it - this is the equivalent of sitting at a corner of a swimming pool & being able to use only the waves hitting this corner to sense how many people are in the pool, where they are & where they're moving to, what they're doing, how big the pool is, etc. The idea of ASA seems to have its genesis in trying to answer the question that the "Cocktail Party Effect" gives rise to - how do we follow one conversation among all the other conversations & noise at a party. The audio signals from all sources are hitting the ear at the same time as the audio signal from the conversation so how do we isolate & associate the signals that belong to just the followed conversation from among all the rest i.e how do we form an auditory object & follow it in the face of changing signals & changing surrounding auditory signals? How the brain does this is being teased out in ASA & other areas of sound research. The auditory processing happens whether we are listening to the real world or to the signals from our speakers which are attempting to create an illusion of an audio performance or audio event We perceptually ascertain audio objects in what we hear by the brain processing that we perform on the signal. The perception of these audio objects occurs because we seem to cross correlate particular signal markers which we associate with that particular audio object - spatial location, timbre, temporal coherence, & amplitude all seem to play a role - let's call these some of our perceptual factors for identifying this object. So, the interplay & relationship between these factors are the rules or schema or models that is the study of ASA. If these rules are adhered to in the audio playback system then we have a believable illusion - the more the rules are diverged from, the less believable the illusion. Now, one thing about digital audio - because it is based on mathematics & is almost infinitely adjustable, it has so many new ways to diverge from these rules & introduce new audio anomalies that we have never heard in the real world - things like digital filter ringing spring to mind. When we encounter a new audio anomaly that we haven't met before we tend to be subconsciously confused as we have no biological model to fit it to & we are not consciously aware of what is wrong, just that we want to turn off the playback or are bored by the sound & our attention drifts. I suspect that this occurs more often than we would like to admit & may well be where the disagreements arise from - between those that intuitively (Or explicitly know this) & those who believe that measurements tell us everything ? This part is something I wrote before which continues from the thoughts above (so forgive some of the repetition to what's above): Yes, it's already been stated here but is worth repeating - what we hear is a construct of our brain processing. Fundamentally, there is not enough data in the signals that are picked up by the two ears to fully construct the auditory scene - we need to use all sorts of pattern-matching, extrapolation, experience of the behaviour of sounds in the real world (biological models of sound), sight, etc. to generate the fairly robust auditory scene that we continuously do. One of the important points that comes from the research is that we are continually processing the auditory data & updating our best-guess auditory scene by decomposing, analysing & comparing the auditory signal stream & comparing it to already stored auditory models of the world People who interpret psychoacoustics as being the illusional part of hearing & what makes it untrustworthy are completely missing this fundamental point - psychoacoustics is what allows us to make sense of the jumble of pressure waves impinging on our eardrums. It's what allows us to pick out the auditory objects, such as the bassoon in the orchestra & be able to follow it's musical line through a performance or be able to switch to listening to the string section. Stereo reproduction is itself a trick - a trick that uses some learned knowledge about psychoacoustics to present an acceptable illusion of a real auditory scene. However, not knowing the full rules/techniques that our brains use in psychoacoustics somewhat hampers this goal of realistic audio reproduction. As a result, we can find that small discoveries are stumbled upon which audibly improve matters in a small way but we have no clear explanation yet for how they are working at the psychoacoustic level. Without this knowledge of psychoacoustic rules, we are stumbling around using unsophisticated measurements & I believe, incorrect concepts about the limits of audibility. A lot of the improvements that I hear reported in audio are about increased realism, increased clarity, etc. - in other words they are no longer about frequency/amplitude improvements - they are improvements in other factors which our psychoacoustic rules are picking up on & we are perceiving as more realistic. Or, maybe they are small changes in freq/amplitude that currently are dismissed as inaudible but further knowledge about psychoacoustic workings may well reveal them to be audible when part of the dynamics of music & not when tested in a lab with simple tones? Here's a good starting point which has on-line demos & videos auditoryneuroscience.com/scene-analysis |
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 18, 2019 17:47:55 GMT 10
Stereo reproduction is itself a trick - a trick that uses some learned knowledge about psychoacoustics to present an acceptable illusion of a real auditory scene. However, not knowing the full rules/techniques that our brains use in psychoacoustics somewhat hampers this goal of realistic audio reproduction. As a result, we can find that small discoveries are stumbled upon which audibly improve matters in a small way but we have no clear explanation yet for how they are working at the psychoacoustic level. Without this knowledge of psychoacoustic rules, we are stumbling around using unsophisticated measurements & I believe, incorrect concepts about the limits of audibility. A lot of the improvements that I hear reported in audio are about increased realism, increased clarity, etc. - in other words they are no longer about frequency/amplitude improvements - they are improvements in other factors which our psychoacoustic rules are picking up on & we are perceiving as more realistic. Or, maybe they are small changes in freq/amplitude that currently are dismissed as inaudible but further knowledge about psychoacoustic workings may well reveal them to be audible when part of the dynamics of music & not when tested in a lab with simple tones? Nice post John. A little more on ASA and maybe some slightly different perspective. ASA is basically sound source separation as part of the brains perceptual processing of lots of sound waves arriving from multiple sources at the same time. The tympanic membrane vibrates due to pressure variations that represent the sum of sounds from different sources in our environment all arriving at our ears simultaneously. The brain perceives and hears the separate sources or streams like a car, dog barking, drone of air conditioning, words, music etc. rather than a jumbled mess. To do this the arriving blended sound waves have to be de-scrambled by the brain into meaningful individual sounds for which the brain groups together as an "auditory object" or "stream" (terms not accepted by all researchers). At its heart ASA is about this so called segregation or alternatively grouping of these auditory "objects". Sounds sources all mixed together but heard/perceived separately by virtue of each source having distinct properties. It is no mean trick since the signals, as said, are mixed. Unlike vision, auditory "objects" are not layered in a way that the foreground object blocks the background object. Sounds are blended. The brain has the job of computing out potentially multiple discreet unknown waveforms from just two input waveforms, one from each ear. The brain uses various "cues" to sort the incoming simultaneously arriving signals. These cues would include things like pitch, harmonics and temporal relationships such as sounds sharing these cues starting and stopping at the same time. The brain expects these things to occur for natural sounds occurring in the real world. IMO It is not an illusion (not saying you were implying this?) but rather a normal perception (I have the Schnupp et al text and searched for illusion and none were in the ASA chapter). It paints a picture of the real event.Rather than create a distorted perception it takes a jumbled mess and un-jumbles it. I really totally agree that psycho-acoustics and shared illusions are normal perception not deception. You can be "tricked", sure, but more often its a useful adaptation, the brain working for you to sort things in a meaningful way. I am not sure or at least as convinced that ASA is the mechanism that distinguishes fake from real sound, hifi from live sound (which has been claimed elsewhere). However I would agree that it uses the same cues and must be at least part of the story. Cheers David ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song." - - Louis Armstrong |
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jkenny
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About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
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Post by jkenny on Aug 18, 2019 23:42:32 GMT 10
IMO It is not an illusion (not saying you were implying this?) but rather a normal perception (I have the Schnupp et al text and searched for illusion and none were in the ASA chapter). It paints a picture of the real event.Rather than create a distorted perception it takes a jumbled mess and un-jumbles it. I really totally agree that psycho-acoustics and shared illusions are normal perception not deception. You can be "tricked", sure, but more often its a useful adaptation, the brain working for you to sort things in a meaningful way. I am not sure or at least as convinced that ASA is the mechanism that distinguishes fake from real sound, hifi from live sound (which has been claimed elsewhere). However I would agree that it uses the same cues and must be at least part of the story. Thanks David My reference to illusion was referring to what comes out of our two speakers creating the illusion of a 3D auditory scene. Yes, perhaps I put too much emphasis on ASA as the mechanism that judges, in our replay systems, what is realistic sounding from slightly off being realistic but I haven't yet found a better explanation for why we perceive some replay systems as more live-like than others? Mark (scumbag) in another thread quotes Nelson Pass as stating that a lot of users prefer some level of a particular distortion in their amplifiers. This brings up a number of issues that we are dealing with which complicates the discussion about ASA & its relevance to our replay systems. Our whole audio reproduction systems are limited in many ways from microphone through to speakers/room - so much so that they really should be considered an art form in itself (much like N Pass says he's in the entertainment business). Attempting to reproduced a good facsimile of a live audio event using microphone configurations & techniques, using somewhat linear electronics & using two point sound sources in our rooms, is fraught with all sorts of limitations. Perhaps, as N, Pass has found, some specific distortions actually compensate for the shortcomings inherent in the audio reproduction system - that these specific distortions make the sound more realistic, again as judged by the rules used by our ASA I haven't experienced what N. Pass is talking about so I don't personally know if this is the case, I'm just surmising but it wouldn't shock me to find that there are certain inherent shortcomings in our stereo reproduction chain - shortcomings that cannot be overcome even if we were able to eliminate all the non-linearity in the system? |
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jkenny
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About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Aug 18, 2019 23:58:56 GMT 10
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 19, 2019 11:27:22 GMT 10
Our whole audio reproduction systems are limited in many ways from microphone through to speakers/room - so much so that they really should be considered an art form in itself (much like N Pass says he's in the entertainment business). Attempting to reproduced a good facsimile of a live audio event using microphone configurations & techniques, using somewhat linear electronics & using two point sound sources in our rooms, is fraught with all sorts of limitations. Perhaps, as N, Pass has found, some specific distortions actually compensate for the shortcomings inherent in the audio reproduction system - that these specific distortions make the sound more realistic, again as judged by the rules used by our ASA I haven't experienced what N. Pass is talking about so I don't personally know if this is the case, I'm just surmising but it wouldn't shock me to find that there are certain inherent shortcomings in our stereo reproduction chain - shortcomings that cannot be overcome even if we were able to eliminate all the non-linearity in the system? Hi John, This kinda dovetails to another thread regarding encoding vertical height in recordings music-and-perception.boards.net/post/153/threadBest to discuss that at the thread but suffice to say it brings up the question of how perceptual cues may be encoded into an audio signal. I agree/guess that the cues that subserve ASA must somehow find their way into the recording or the engineer adds them in cases where ASA or other psycho-acoustical effects are known to exist. I also agree that understanding more about how we perceive things can only enhance the way engineers make recordings. As for added distortion increasing realism, well I haven't read the cited N Pass reference yet but I am wondering whether this is more a preference rather than realism per se. Tubes add whatever distortion that many value as sounding better and I suppose would argue more life like. perhaps you are right that certain distortions tweak hitherto untapped perceptual cues?? The link does not appear to work properly Cheers David ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song." - - Louis Armstrong |
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jkenny
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Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Aug 19, 2019 22:21:38 GMT 10
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 19, 2019 22:35:10 GMT 10
Thanks John, it looks interesting. I'll read it tomorrow. Cheers David |
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 20, 2019 11:31:18 GMT 10
Thanks very much to that link to the Bregman article. I have to declare here, and I don't want to sound contrarian, but my honest opinion is that ASA has been a bit overplayed in the context of audio reproduction and perception. Bregman a psychologist coined the phrase and championed the idea but in essence it still remains a model based on theory rather than a discipline (and other researchers in the field such as Schnupp et al tend to emphasise this. Don't get me wrong, the brain does sort out the mixture of sounds arriving at the ears and obviously it must rely on cues in the incoming signal, separated in time and space or other characteristics etc to do this. Cross modal sensory integration also occurs and so everyone talks about the McGuirk effect etc. From my perspective the article had some very interesting ideas, at once exciting but in some ways (for me) also a bit frightening. The article is less about utilizing perceptual cues in recording as it is about manipulation in the mixing and mastering process. This is nit-picking but for me this is where some of the frightening aspects come into play. I am generally wary of DSP and Eq and I guess the key for me is that they are applied judiciously and sparingly. That's just my opinion or preference. I think it is an art form and sometimes I really like the effect, sometimes not. The basic premise of the article in a nutshell appears to be that we have a mixture of sounds arriving at the ear that the brain has to sort in some way. In a recording there is also a mixture of sounds, literally in "the mix" that need to be sorted by the audio engineer. If you are mindful about how the perceptual process works you can strengthen ASA cues in a way that will either isolate or alternatively blend the sounds we are hearing in the recording. For better or worse. Things will stand out or blend in depending on how you manipulate various characteristics of the sound. I might be off base here but I started to see parallels with my rudimentary understanding of group intonation in an orchestra as explained by ROWUK . Once you start blending sounds in an orchestra, as you do with everyone playing together, depending on their temperament et cetera they either play nicely together or not (I need to explore more regarding intonation and temperament). Bregman states that the onset of instrumental sounds is crucial to their aural recognition and when edited out, a cornet for example can be mistaken for violin, cello or bassoon. He postulates that this may be due to transients being free of their own reverberation. He falls short of offering further advice here but does talk about reverberation later. He then offers descriptions of brightness, sharpness and roughness of sound quality and I think ROWUK may be interested here regarding an alternative to the usual audiophile vocabulary. In essence he talks about the harmonics of the sound in relation to the fundamental frequency and some timing aspects. This dovetails into how these things can be manipulated by the application of filters and Eq. He also talks about microphones as being filters and each microphone by virtue of their placement capturing a different spectrum of the source that will shape the character and identity of that source. Further equalisation and filtering in post refining the process as to which sound should be fused together or blended. I have no idea whether this is valid per se but it did give me pause to think about how filters in software, including media players/pc like Peter Stordiau's XXHighEnd might influence SQ ( as was subject in the "reb pill blue pill" thread over at AS. Bregman goes on to explain the idea of slightly timeshifting instruments to make them stand out and other concepts like group modulation of gain, frequency/pitch, time delay, adding reverberation, and spatial position and even transposing pitch. I think for me this is where it starts to get more scary. |
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Post by ROWUK on Aug 23, 2019 7:23:44 GMT 10
Very interesting. Maybe we need to treat Audio Scene Analysis as an "aquired" taste - like a sommelier learning about wines or a cigar smoker inside of a Cohiba. Many "artsy" things require a developed taste - why not here too?
A musician on stage learns to balance their play - even although at their chair, the other instruments vary dramatically in intensity and proximity. By "rehearsing", the musician develops a feeling for something much bigger than their own playing - intonation, timing, moving in and out of the orchestral fabric (also a form of ASA if you will).
For musicians, there are established methods for rehearsing and practicing. Maybe some of these would also apply to audio playback. Perhaps with routines, we can develop common responses to triggers found in audio.
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 24, 2019 9:12:30 GMT 10
Very interesting. Maybe we need to treat Audio Scene Analysis as an "aquired" taste - like a sommelier learning about wines or a cigar smoker inside of a Cohiba. Many "artsy" things require a developed taste - why not here too? Hi Robin I was thinking more along the lines of an acquired skill, as in a learnt skill. I suppose you are right though, taste may well come into it as one prefers a certain perception or a certain presentation. Aug 23, 2019 7:23:44 GMT 10 ROWUK said: A musician on stage learns to balance their play - even although at their chair, the other instruments vary dramatically in intensity and proximity. By "rehearsing", the musician develops a feeling for something much bigger than their own playing - intonation, timing, moving in and out of the orchestral fabric (also a form of ASA if you will). This is what really intrigues me and so good to get a musicians perspective here. Moving in and out of the orchestral fabric is exactly the parallel I had in mind. Exactly my thoughts.I wonder what are some of these rehearsal techniques that might be adapted to audio recording techniques and/or playback?
The whole question revolves around utilizing knowledge of how we make sense of a mixture of incoming sound waves (ASA or whatever) and harness that to strengthen those cues in recording and playback. The problem is that microphones are not ears and there is I guess only certain options: type of microphone, number of microphones, and where you stick them
Cheers
David |
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Post by ROWUK on Aug 28, 2019 5:06:31 GMT 10
David,
rehearsal techniques are unique to each group that I play with but there are many common denominators. Some things that we can use as triggers for thought and discussion:
1) repetition. If we take any pattern of motion (that can be audio, music or learning to wield a scalpel), establishing a speed at which we can perform the motion and repeating it at that (slow) speed until it is repeatable, then speed up. This also applies to learning to be mindful or concentrated. If we learn to concentrate, we get better at it and can move in and out more freely
When a friend wants to show me their playback, I see immediately if the pattern of motions can lead to a special experience.
2) First things first: Before we tackle something hard, we need a warm up, a stretch. Then we build skills to make the activity possible. In the case of making music, simple harmonies get the juices going and give a foundation for what follows. From a bigger framework, my students learn to produce a nice tone first. We do this by me playing first and the student playing back. I need no words to describe nice tone, the student just heard one and emulates. After the tone becomes reliable, we learn to articulate - cut the tone up into pieces with a specific consonant. At the same time we develop holistically breathing and playing skills. How could this apply to audio? Well, in the beginning perhaps some simple acoustical music to develop appreciation for the playing. In time the geometry and space is easily perceived in these simple recordings. We learn about voicing and interaction between the playback and the room. Then we graduate to slightly more complex music. New challenges present themselves and can be mastered. We can move on to even bigger events.
3) Approach: many of the finest musicians say "Never waste a note". We are what we repeatedly do. Respectful and mindful behavior gives us additional processing power for any audible activity.
4) develop a sense of who we are and what our place is. There is nothing worse than a musician that thinks that they are better than the conductor, second guessing every comment and effort. We have these people also in audio
5) Learn to listen. Waiting for our turn to speak is not listening. Even when playing music, are we zapping through because we are on transmit (TX) and not receive (RX)?
Naturally, performing with a group is different than listening alone - or is it? If we are familiar with the score or even read the music while listening, can we become "part" of the event - I would say yes if we are to the point that we breathe naturally with the musical line.
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Post by Audiophile Neuroscience on Aug 28, 2019 12:37:49 GMT 10
David, rehearsal techniques are unique to each group that I play with but there are many common denominators. Some things that we can use as triggers for thought and discussion: 1) repetition. If we take any pattern of motion (that can be audio, music or learning to wield a scalpel), establishing a speed at which we can perform the motion and repeating it at that (slow) speed until it is repeatable, then speed up. This also applies to learning to be mindful or concentrated. If we learn to concentrate, we get better at it and can move in and out more freely When a friend wants to show me their playback, I see immediately if the pattern of motions can lead to a special experience. 2) First things first: Before we tackle something hard, we need a warm up, a stretch. Then we build skills to make the activity possible. In the case of making music, simple harmonies get the juices going and give a foundation for what follows. From a bigger framework, my students learn to produce a nice tone first. We do this by me playing first and the student playing back. I need no words to describe nice tone, the student just heard one and emulates. After the tone becomes reliable, we learn to articulate - cut the tone up into pieces with a specific consonant. At the same time we develop holistically breathing and playing skills. How could this apply to audio? Well, in the beginning perhaps some simple acoustical music to develop appreciation for the playing. In time the geometry and space is easily perceived in these simple recordings. We learn about voicing and interaction between the playback and the room. Then we graduate to slightly more complex music. New challenges present themselves and can be mastered. We can move on to even bigger events. 3) Approach: many of the finest musicians say "Never waste a note". We are what we repeatedly do. Respectful and mindful behavior gives us additional processing power for any audible activity. 4) develop a sense of who we are and what our place is. There is nothing worse than a musician that thinks that they are better than the conductor, second guessing every comment and effort. We have these people also in audio 5) Learn to listen. Waiting for our turn to speak is not listening. Even when playing music, are we zapping through because we are on transmit (TX) and not receive (RX)? Naturally, performing with a group is different than listening alone - or is it? If we are familiar with the score or even read the music while listening, can we become "part" of the event - I would say yes if we are to the point that we breathe naturally with the musical line. Wise words Robin.
I hadn't heard the expression "never waste a note" before. I like that. It also made me think of the Movie Mozart, when Salieri said of Mozart, "too many notes" but I guess not one was wasted.
When "we are zapping through" I guess we are wasting the silences between the notes. I find this so important to phrasing and being drawn into the music.
I once took saxophone lessons from a saxophonist in the Daly Wilson Big band. He started rehearsal with singing which I thought at first was a little strange. he then would get me to "sing" into the sax IOW make similar vocalizations, not just blow.
David ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song." - - Louis Armstrong |
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jkenny
Full Member
Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Aug 29, 2019 2:11:06 GMT 10
Interesting discussion guys - thanks for the input
I think treating ASA as an "acquired taste" or preference is, in my understanding of it, missing the point of what ASA is all about.
I believe, ASA is the name given to the research of how we make sense of the vibrations of our eardrums & so it is fundamental to making sense of all sounds both live & sounds from our replay systems.
How I think "acquired taste" is a misleading description is that it suggests firstly that it's not fundamental to the working of our auditory perception (it is the study of how the auditory perception system works at a certain level of detail) & secondly it suggests that we have individual preferences or that ASA works somewhat differently between us (just as preferences are different between people)
We talked about children & sound over on the "music & pleasure" thread (which overlaps with this thread) & how we are all born with the same auditory mechanism & like learning speech by learning the patterns in speech & what objects, actions etc. the sounds of speech refer to - this is, IMO, the way we understand the spoken word.
IMO, it's also the way we learn the sound characteristics & behaviour of objects in the world. Constant exposure to these sounds develops the internal ASA models that we reference in our listening - whether to sounds from the real world or sounds from our replay systems. We possibly suspend some of our criteria when listening to reproduced audio because it is not a 100% capture of the original soundfield so it's a different use case when listening to our replay systems.
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Post by ROWUK on Aug 29, 2019 5:19:50 GMT 10
Interesting discussion guys - thanks for the input I think treating ASA as an "acquired taste" or preference is, in my understanding of it, missing the point of what ASA is all about. I believe, ASA is the name given to the research of how we make sense of the vibrations of our eardrums & so it is fundamental to making sense of all sounds both live & sounds from our replay systems. How I think "acquired taste" is a misleading description is that it suggests firstly that it's not fundamental to the working of our auditory perception (it is the study of how the auditory perception system works at a certain level of detail) & secondly it suggests that we have individual preferences or that ASA works somewhat differently between us (just as preferences are different between people) We talked about children & sound over on the "music & pleasure" thread (which overlaps with this thread) & how we are all born with the same auditory mechanism & like learning speech by learning the patterns in speech & what objects, actions etc. the sounds of speech refer to - this is, IMO, the way we understand the spoken word. IMO, it's also the way we learn the sound characteristics & behaviour of objects in the world. Constant exposure to these sounds develops the internal ASA models that we reference in our listening - whether to sounds from the real world or sounds from our replay systems. We possibly suspend some of our criteria when listening to reproduced audio because it is not a 100% capture of the original soundfield so it's a different use case when listening to our replay systems. Interesting take. I need to think about this for a couple days. More later. |
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jkenny
Full Member
Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Aug 29, 2019 9:17:18 GMT 10
Interesting take. I need to think about this for a couple days. More later. I'm not so sure that it's my take on ASA or really what ASA is about but I could be wrong? To me, ASA was a kind of breakthrough in understanding many issues that seem to bedevil audio perception - once I understood that ASA is fundamentally trying to explain the processing/analysis mechanism underlying our auditory perception some things became clear - we basically are born with a organic learning mechanism (brain) which contacts the outside world through our senses - all our senses do is send electrical nerve signals to the brain & it is these nerve signals that have to be made sense of with relation to the real world objects - our development entails learning the relationship between these signals & the objects from which they originate - this is a complex task which requires a lot of processing made even more by the fact that in the auditory field the signals are not sufficient for the processing to come up with one unique solution - in other words, given a complex mix of pressure waves hitting the ear drums from many different sound objects happening at once (the usual situation encountered in the world), it is not often NOT possible to know exactly how many sound producing objects there are, what individual signals belong to what object, where the objects are in space, etc - if just analysing these signals alone, we would often find that there is just not enough information to solve the problem of mapping the auditory scene - hence we use all sorts of other techniques as part of this analysis - cross correlation with visual information, knowledge of how sound objects behave in the real world, predictions about (ASA using a best guess of the auditory scene but we So, to my way of thinking, ASA is an investigation into the mechanisms that we use to analyse & resolve the electrical nerve impulse signals that arrive from our hearing structures. |
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