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Why Isn't The Research Being Done?

Posted by thetubeguy1954 (A) on April 10, 2007 at 09:14:29

I know that many people here disagreed with my assessment that today's audio measurements and the specifications they provide don't correlate with what I/we hear. What I mean is when I read an amplifier's specifications they don't reveal to me which amplifier will produce the more realistic replication of music.

I'm not talking about my subjective opinion of which amp I'll prefer, I'm talking about translating the specifications I read into information that will inform me which amplifier (preamp, CDP etc) will make a violin, guitar, piano, trumpet etc, sound the closest to the actual instrument in question.

As I personally have NEVER mistaken recorded music for live or visa versa, nor do I know anyone who has mistaken live music for recorded music. I believe this illustrates that the measurements being taken and the specifications they provide, may be of use to a manufacturer, but they're of little use to most of us as consumers. Except perhaps in selecting which type of speaker might work best with a particular amp, because of sensitivity, load type (highly reactive or mostly resistive) etc.

I'm not attempting to rehash which of us agree or disagree with my assessment, but rather would like to raise the question of: Why isn't more research being done on how the human ear/brain so easily (almost instantly) recognizes when the traits it uses to recognize live music is present and when those traits are missing? Furthermore why isn't more research being done into deteremining what those traits are and which of them are the most critical?

Obviously dynamic range must be one of these traits, as well as ambient cues, but IMHO there must be more involved. Otherwise we would simply need to increase a speakers sensitivity and perhaps via DSP remove or add as needed ambient cues and then live and recorded music would become indistinguishable from each other.

So my question is 1) What do you think are the reasons the human ear/brain so easily recognizes live music and recorded music as such? and 2) With today's advanced DSP capabilities and all that understood about psychoacoustics, why isn't more research being invested into making recorded music sound more like live music?

Thetubeguy1954

"If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.” Richard Feynman theoretical physicist, 1918-1988

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