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Measurements & perception & reproduced sound

That which is easy to measure often is not what really matters, and vice versa. The way the human hearing mechanism reacts to distortion is often very different from what our intuition would lead us to believe.

It's not that measurements are in and of themselves unreliable; it's that what really matters is in some cases still being discovered, and much of what has already been discovered in this area has not gained widespread acceptance because it's much more complicated to communicate than a simple THD measurement or frequency response specification. And let's not forget that often it's not in the best interest from a marketing standpoint to communicate clearly.

An understanding of what to measure (and how to analyze it) based not on how our measuring devices work, but on how our ear/brain system perceives, is what we are looking for. If we know how the ears perceive, we can better work towards recreating a convincing perception. To quote the researcher whose work you linked to:

"If there is a signal that I want to reproduce, regardless of the source or type, then the ideal is to exactly reproduce the waveform of that signal at the ears of the listener or failing that TO REPRODUCE THE SAME PERCEPTION OF THAT SIGNAL AS WOULD HAVE OCCURRED AT THE ORIGINAL EVENT. If this is done, then the goal of reproduction has been fulfilled..." - Earl Geddes, emphasis Duke's.

Duke


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