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In Reply to: RE: Well One Month In and DSD is a Total Bust for Me posted by Thorsten on October 15, 2016 at 21:12:18
Just how loudly can a healthy young man shout?I would guess somewhere between 85 and 90 decibels.
The loudest stadiums in the NFL have been measured at about 130 to 135 decibels.
Opposing teams playing in these stadiums use a so called "silent count." That is because they fully expect the healthy young players on their team to be unable to hear their quarterback shouting at the top of his lungs when his voice is -45 to -50dB down in the noise.
As a practical matter, that means professional football teams fully expect that their players cannot hear -45dB into a sound signal.
You can try this out yourself by using the test tracks in Audio Diffmaker. From my experience, it is difficult to hear which of the tracks has the brass band mixed into the boys' choir. (But not always!) However, once you use the software to extract the difference, the brass band becomes obvious.
Strangely enough, no one in this asylum seems to be willing to simply listen to these tracks and report back on what they hear. Indeed, there seems to be a correlation between those who claim that nothing or next to nothing results in a huge change in audio enjoyment and those who reject the audio diffmaker challenge.
I'll leave the reader to their own conclusion.
I will also leave it to the reader to wonder why we should worry about differences -90dB or more down while no one in this asylum is willing to come on board to show us they can hear differences -50 or -60dB down by taking the Audio Diffmaker challenge.
They will always fling up some sort of flimsy excuse when all we are asking is to listen to two tracks of a choir singing Brahm's lullaby. One track has had added to it a brass band playing a John Sousa march. Can you tell which is which? I'll bet you can not. I'll also bet the "golden ears" here can not either. That's why they won't even listen to the tracks.
Remember this when the golden ears tell you that you should worry about differences that are more the -70dB down.
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Edits: 10/15/16Follow Ups:
human hearing has a dynamic range of up to 130 dB.
Football players and diff maker have no basis in determining the Physics of Acoustics.
Could you elaborate on your position?
I am asserting that when NFL teams go into a stadium that can have sound levels of 130dB or more (in fact probably less than that, but I am thinking of the Seahawks and their "twelfth man"), those teams need to use a "silent count" because their players cannot hear their quarterback shouting at the top of his voice from more than a few feet away.
This is a fact. Can you tell me how my claim is incorrect?
I am also claiming that the Audio Diffmaker site, linked below, offers "challenge" tracks that have "noise," that is brass bands playing Sousa marches, at more than -50dB down when compared to the original tracks of a chorus singing Brahm's lulaby. I assert that a reasonable listener, playing back the tracks at a reasonable level, will not be able to tell the difference between the two tracks.
Can you tell me how my claim is incorrect?
I am also saying that an inability to hear -50dB into one acoustic environment is comparable to an inability to hear -50dB into a different acoustic environment. Could you please explain why this assertion is wrong?
While we are at it, how about you take the challenge and tell us which tracks have the brass band mixed into them. Or do you want to join the list of the blowhards who claim supernatural hearing while being unable to demonstrate it?
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Noise masking is altogether something else and complex.
Earlier you said:"human hearing has a dynamic range of up to 130 dB.
Football players and diff maker have no basis in determining the Physics of Acoustics."
I am not saying that my examples "determine the Physics of Acoustics." I am saying that they demonstrate practical, real, every day limitations of the human ear.
In the presence of a continuous 130dB signal, it is demonstrably impossible for even young, healthy, twenty somethings to distinguish shouted human voices from more than 3 meters away. In the absence of that background noise, those same ears could likely hear the same shouted voice more than 50 meters away.
Likewise, in the presence of a continuous musical signal, it will be difficult for individuals with normal hearing to perceive even a brass band playing a Sousa march, so long as it is far enough down in the mix. If you don't believe me, try the audio diffmaker listener challenge. In my opinion, this tends to undercut claims that random noises even farther down in the mix than the brass band will be audible to individuals with normal hearing.
Could there be exceptions to my claims? Quite possibly. Every bell-curve has freaks out at the extreme edges. However, for the vast majority of listeners, they are going to be constrained by normal human limitations and for them I think I am right. To bolster this claim, may I observe that I've yet to find a single inmate who is able to show that they can beat the Audio diffmaker challenge.
Even if one inmate does demonstrate this ability, it does not mean that any other inmates, or other non-inmates can. Again, my claims are not about theoretical limits which only apply to theoretical inmates, but are about practical claims which apply to average inmates.
Are you an inmate interested in saving money? Take the Audio Diffmaker listeners' challenge linked below. You don't need to report back to this board or to anyone else. However, if you find it difficult to tell which track has the brass band mixed in, you may want to wonder why you should fling kilo bux at components simply based on the claims of people you've never met, and who have never actually demonstrated that they have better hearing than yours. And no, anecdotal claims about hearing imaginary differences are not a demonstration of anything other than self-delusion.
It may be a wrench to realize that you only have normally hearing instead of putative bat like hearing, but it will save you a small fortune other wise wasted on needless component upgrades that will be better spent on actual music.
Follow this link to get the Audio Diffmaker software:
http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm
Below, scroll down to find the challenge files.
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
Edits: 10/16/16
In the presence of a continuous 130dB signal, it is demonstrably impossible for even young, healthy, twenty somethings to distinguish shouted human voices from more than 3 meters away. In the absence of that background noise, those same ears could likely hear the same shouted voice more than 50 meters away.
One factor in this is that you're pushing the ears to the pain threshold. In my case, my ears "clip" before even getting to the point of pain. Clipping is the best word I can think of to describe it, sound becomes extremely distorted like I've hit a hard limit. In very loud stadium crowd environments, and at some loud concerts, I have to wear earplugs to hear anything because otherwise my ears are being driven to the limit.
I'm guessing that even with hearing protection, NFL players are routinely exposed to ear damaging sound levels.
I'll also assert that you need not set your playback levels to 130dB to experience audio masking. Simply take the Audio Diffmaker listening challenge I linked to before in this thread and see if you can discern the brass band hidden behind the boys' choir. So far I'm unaware of any inmate in this asylum who has even tried the challenge, much less beat it.
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
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