On 04/15/2010 06:06 AM, Arnold Krille wrote: > Hi, > > On Wednesday 14 April 2010 21:40:08 Kim Cascone wrote: > >>> It's all ones and zeroes. Given the same inputs, the same output should >>> be obtained. Acoustics is physics. And if I can't measure it, it doesn't >>> exist. >>> >> yeah well that quite nicely works for machines >> but with human sensory systems you'll find they are quite non-linear >> and hence the field of psycho-acoustics >> which can be interpreted as voodoo by some >> > You are mixing something up here. > > If machines can't measure it, it doesn't exist (at least to Ken)[*]. Does that > doesn't mean that if your 0.50€ mic can't record anything from mosquitos > making out, they don't exist? > No, it means that if no mic in the world can record the mosquitos, they don't > make any sound. > > The human reception is different then machines reception (not just the non- > linearity!). But it isn't able to detect anything machines can't. Your ears > are worse then any half-decent microphone regarding SNR and frequency-range. > Your eyes are worse then microscopes, telescopes and slower then fast cameras. > Your nose is a lot worse in detecting smells then any mass-spectrometer is. > What makes the human different (some call it superior) is combining this > sensory input not only into facts but also into feelings. And it can combine > thoughts to create new ideas much better then machines combine their input to > even foresee the future, let alone transfer knowledge of one thing onto > predicting behaviour of some other thing. > Of course there are legions of scientists and nerds working on making machines > better in these parts too. > > Going into psychoacoustics is not really contradicting the "machines can't > measure it, still it exists". Machines can measure the frequencies the human > ear can't hear but which still have an effect how we perceive the sound. Only > the effects aren't looked into as deep as the frequencies below 20kHz are. To > the result that most scientific research wasn't able to give reliable results. > Which in turn makes most audio people discard frequencies>22kHz light- > heartedly. And they are right as the scientific (thus neutral) proof of the > effect of the frequencies below 22kHz is _much_ greater then above. That > doesn't deny the psycho-acoustic effects, it only ignores them for the sake of > bandwidth, reliability and cost... > > Have fun, > > Arnold > > [*] Might also be that today's machines aren't good enough. Just compare the > knowledge about the atom of today with that of 250 years ago... > > Currently we only measure in upto 4 dimensions but if there are 12 as string theory suggests then we are most likely missing a lot of information from our scientific measurements. Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
