Once upon a time on usenet Andrew wrote:
As per subject.

While browsing the HMV Worthing store I came across some classical
music (German) on Super AUdio CD.

There are still a couple of players that support this format
but am I right in thinking that everyone has moved on to
'Higher resolution' downloads (or back to vinyl :-) ) ?.

Or has the penny dropped and people gone back to standard
CD format with just a better pair of speakers ?.

I've seen this article btw :-

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Wow! Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to use the English language to
communicate clearly. I found myself reading sentences several times to grasp
what he (?) was trying to say.

Does anyone know of a similar explanatory site (mainly about the ear and how
it works - in detail)? Struggling with the phrasing at that one gave me a
headache.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Andrew wrote:
As per subject.

While browsing the HMV Worthing store I came across some classical
music (German) on Super AUdio CD.

There are still a couple of players that support this format
but am I right in thinking that everyone has moved on to
'Higher resolution' downloads (or back to vinyl :-) ) ?.

Or has the penny dropped and people gone back to standard
CD format with just a better pair of speakers ?.

I've seen this article btw :-

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Wow! Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to use the English language
to communicate clearly. I found myself reading sentences several
times to grasp what he (?) was trying to say.

Does anyone know of a similar explanatory site (mainly about the ear
and how it works - in detail)? Struggling with the phrasing at that
one gave me a headache.

Belay that, I found this site and it's much better;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works

Though it doesn't cover inter-'hair' distances etc. that were being used in
the first artcile to support the author's stand.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

On 29/04/2017 07:12, ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Andrew wrote:
As per subject.

While browsing the HMV Worthing store I came across some classical
music (German) on Super AUdio CD.

There are still a couple of players that support this format
but am I right in thinking that everyone has moved on to
'Higher resolution' downloads (or back to vinyl :-) ) ?.

Or has the penny dropped and people gone back to standard
CD format with just a better pair of speakers ?.

I've seen this article btw :-

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Wow! Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to use the English language
to communicate clearly. I found myself reading sentences several
times to grasp what he (?) was trying to say.

Does anyone know of a similar explanatory site (mainly about the ear
and how it works - in detail)? Struggling with the phrasing at that
one gave me a headache.

Belay that, I found this site and it's much better;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works

Though it doesn't cover inter-'hair' distances etc. that were being used in
the first artcile to support the author's stand.


I found them both OK on physiology and physics - for my lay purposes at
any rate.

What they don't cover is what I would call psycho or socio acoustics.

In this sense I think it'd be useful to understand a little more about
why I might always prefer an uncompressed music file to something lossy
of the exact same recording - even if, quantitatively at least, I can't
express any difference between the two. And technically, no difference

Then there's vinyl and other 'deep' analogue mediums - why some people
find it more natural, accurate and so on.

--
Cheers, Rob

In article , RJH wrote:

In this sense I think it'd be useful to understand a little more about
why I might always prefer an uncompressed music file to something lossy
of the exact same recording - even if, quantitatively at least, I can't
express any difference between the two. And technically, no difference

I'm not quite sure what you mean above. If you're listening to a version
that has been subject to 'lossy' encoding then, by definition, the result
will tend to be altered. e.g. If you look at

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/in...lacresults.png

you can see that the lower ('diff') plot for a recent R3 broadcast shows
that the aac (lossy) and flac (loss free) versions differ at a level
typically about 40dB below the flac version. For THD this would mean about
1% which would be audible. But if I listen to the 'diff' it sounds like an
odd kind of modulated noise. So in practice the aac and flac may sound
subtly different - but in a way you may not notice or be aware of.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 29-04-17 12:32, RJH wrote:

What they don't cover is what I would call psycho or socio acoustics.

Do you mean stuff like expectation bias?

Julf

In article , ~misfit~
wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Andrew wrote:
As per subject.

While browsing the HMV Worthing store I came across some classical
music (German) on Super AUdio CD.

There are still a couple of players that support this format but am I
right in thinking that everyone has moved on to 'Higher resolution'
downloads (or back to vinyl :-) ) ?.

Or has the penny dropped and people gone back to standard CD format
with just a better pair of speakers ?.

I've seen this article btw :-

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Wow! Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to use the English language
to communicate clearly. I found myself reading sentences several times
to grasp what he (?) was trying to say.

Interesting. I read the page and it seemed pretty clear to me. In general I
tend to think Xiph's work is recommendable.



Does anyone know of a similar explanatory site (mainly about the ear
and how it works - in detail)? Struggling with the phrasing at that
one gave me a headache.

Belay that, I found this site and it's much better;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works

Though it doesn't cover inter-'hair' distances etc. that were being used
in the first artcile to support the author's stand.

I'm not clear what precise question you have in mind. But as a general
point the ability to sense 'pitch' isn't simply a matter of how far apart
in 'resonant frequency' the peaks of the individual sensor hair bundles
response curves are. That, I think, is the reason for Xiph's analogy with a
a vision colour system using a finite set of colour sensor profiles.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Once upon a time on usenet Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , ~misfit~
wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Andrew wrote:
As per subject.

While browsing the HMV Worthing store I came across some classical
music (German) on Super AUdio CD.

There are still a couple of players that support this format but
am I right in thinking that everyone has moved on to 'Higher
resolution' downloads (or back to vinyl :-) ) ?.

Or has the penny dropped and people gone back to standard CD format
with just a better pair of speakers ?.

I've seen this article btw :-

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Wow! Whoever wrote that doesn't know how to use the English language
to communicate clearly. I found myself reading sentences several
times to grasp what he (?) was trying to say.

Interesting. I read the page and it seemed pretty clear to me. In
general I tend to think Xiph's work is recommendable.


Yeah, I just gave it another go and once I got past the tricky bits and
strange grammar[*] it was understandable and fairly insightful.
[*] "The membrane is tuned to resonate at different frequencies..." (About
basilar membrane). If you say something 'is tuned' then you imply a tuner at
work. Maybe he's religious and is implying a god tuned it but that's at odds
with what is mostly a scientific 'paper'. Simply saying 'The membrane
resonates at different frequencies....' saves words and is far more accurate
scientifically. That ths is but one example of the things that jarred with
me. (I have a background in hard science and as such have difficulty with
quasi-scientific articles.)

Does anyone know of a similar explanatory site (mainly about the ear
and how it works - in detail)? Struggling with the phrasing at that
one gave me a headache.

Belay that, I found this site and it's much better;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works

Though it doesn't cover inter-'hair' distances etc. that were being
used in the first artcile to support the author's stand.

I'm not clear what precise question you have in mind. But as a general
point the ability to sense 'pitch' isn't simply a matter of how far
apart in 'resonant frequency' the peaks of the individual sensor hair
bundles response curves are. That, I think, is the reason for Xiph's
analogy with a a vision colour system using a finite set of colour
sensor profiles.

Yep. Now I've actually read that far I don't disagree.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

In article , "~misfit~"
writes:

[*] "The membrane is tuned to resonate at different frequencies..." (About
basilar membrane). If you say something 'is tuned' then you imply a tuner at
work. Maybe he's religious and is implying a god tuned it but that's at odds
with what is mostly a scientific 'paper'. Simply saying 'The membrane
resonates at different frequencies....' saves words and is far more accurate
scientifically. That ths is but one example of the things that jarred with
me. (I have a background in hard science and as such have difficulty with
quasi-scientific articles.)

It's poorly expressed. Sounds create standing waves in the basilar
membrane, the location of the standing wave corresponding to the
frequency. The hair cells at the location of the standing wave are
stimulated by the basilar membrane. (Those of us with tinnitus have
hair cells at specific locations continuously transmitting, which
slightly messes things up.)

--
Mike Fleming

Once upon a time on usenet Mike Fleming wrote:
In article , "~misfit~"
writes:

[*] "The membrane is tuned to resonate at different frequencies..."
(About basilar membrane). If you say something 'is tuned' then you
imply a tuner at work. Maybe he's religious and is implying a god
tuned it but that's at odds with what is mostly a scientific
'paper'. Simply saying 'The membrane resonates at different
frequencies....' saves words and is far more accurate
scientifically. That ths is but one example of the things that
jarred with me. (I have a background in hard science and as such
have difficulty with quasi-scientific articles.)

It's poorly expressed. Sounds create standing waves in the basilar
membrane, the location of the standing wave corresponding to the
frequency. The hair cells at the location of the standing wave are
stimulated by the basilar membrane. (Those of us with tinnitus have
hair cells at specific locations continuously transmitting, which
slightly messes things up.)

Yep that sounds a lot better. My condolences on the tinnitus.

I used to do soundmixing / stagelighting for live gigs a few deacades ago
and the band I worked with didn't have very long cables so I was never far
from a PA speaker stack. I'd get temporary tinnitus that would last for
days. I'd hate to have it permanently.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

In article , "~misfit~"
writes:

Once upon a time on usenet Mike Fleming wrote:

It's poorly expressed. Sounds create standing waves in the basilar
membrane, the location of the standing wave corresponding to the
frequency. The hair cells at the location of the standing wave are
stimulated by the basilar membrane. (Those of us with tinnitus have
hair cells at specific locations continuously transmitting, which
slightly messes things up.)

Yep that sounds a lot better. My condolences on the tinnitus.

I used to do soundmixing / stagelighting for live gigs a few deacades ago
and the band I worked with didn't have very long cables so I was never far
from a PA speaker stack. I'd get temporary tinnitus that would last for
days. I'd hate to have it permanently.

If you remember old CRT tellies which had a high-pitched whistle -
what I have is the same as that. Although it's there all the time, I'm
not normally conscious of it. And I think it was from riding
motorcycles with no ear protection (not exhaust noise, the noise of
wind rushing past a helmet).

--
Mike Fleming