What's More Accurate a Microphone or Human Hearing?

[Matthew J Poes]

We commonly debate on these forums objectivity vs subjectivity, measurements vs what we hear. The problem is complex and trying to understand the truth that underlies this question can be difficult. Is a mic more accurate than human hearing?

Most would say “Of Course!” and yet we need to pause and think, is this even the right question to be asking? A microphone and our ears are not the same thing and a room measurement cannot be interchanged with our hearing, which forces a needed pause as we think about this question. Accurate in what way? If our goal is a system that accurately reproduces the real event, and I would contend that is our goal, then we must look to psychoacoustics to understand the relationship between measurements and our hearing perception. Measurements are of no value without knowledge of how they correlate with what we actually hear, what we need to look for, what matters. In the end, I think the most important thing remains our enjoyment, but it is none the less fun to learn about how measurements do correlate with what we hear. What matters, what doesn’t, and the flaws with traditional measurement practices. This article focuses on how our hearing works, how sophisticated it is, and compares/contrasts that with how measurements in a room work. It then provides some nice examples of how well our hearing can pick up the sound of a room or acoustic flaws, that really can be difficult to detect in measurements.

If it can't be measured is it really there? I here this a lot. My response is, just because you can't measure it doesn't mean it can't be measured and doesn't mean it isn't there. Once you begin to understand how measurements taken in a room work, it's easy to see why they can't detect certain flaws that really are there. My favorite part of writing this article was getting feedback from Floyd Toole in which he stated that these types of in-room measurements are dumb (as in lacking sophistication). A bold statement I never would say on my own, but Toole, he has earned the right to say that, and he is right.

When Gene read the article he pulled out these two points:

• the only flutter echo that matters is one caused by your speakers in their final location that is audible at your listening position.
• measurement equipment is typically omnidirectional and monophonic, our ears are directional and binaural.

I think these are actually two of the more critical points made in the article because they address common misconceptions that are repeated over and over. Sometimes we simplify the situation so much we lose sight of what is really going on.

I hope you enjoy this article and that this sparks some thoughts and lively debate. We at Audioholics enjoyed writing the article as it gave us a chance to share some thoughts on this issue and elaborate in far greater detail than forums typically allow. Our hearing is complex and sophisticated. It is capable of miraculous things and yet is commonly dismissed as flawed and untrustworthy. Yes, our hearing can be tricked, we can be tricked, but then, the same is true of these measurements (as you will see in the article). Please read the article and come back here to share your thoughts. Do you agree? Disagree? Did this make you think differently? Let us know.

READ: What's More Accurate a Microphone or our Ears?

 

[everettT]

 

[Matthew J Poes]

View attachment 27530

You have to elaborate. You can't just post a picture.

 

[shadyJ]

View attachment 27530

You have to elaborate. You can't just post a picture.

Looks like he is saying that a dummy head binaural mic rig can emulate human hearing, but that, of course, is not the case. Even if you had a full torso binaural rig, mic capsules are still too different from inner ear mechanisms to replicate what they are doing. And even if they could, ears are attached to brains, and brain processing determines so much of what we hear beyond the physical stimulation of hair cells in the cochlea or signals going through the auditory nerve. even the most sophisticated torso mic systems are crude in comparison.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Looks like he is saying that a dummy head binaural mic rig can emulate human hearing, but that, of course, is not the case. Even if you had a full torso binaural rig, mic capsules are still too different from inner ear mechanisms to replicate what they are doing. And even if they could, ears are attached to brains, and brain processing determines so much of what we hear beyond the physical stimulation of hair cells in the cochlea or signals going through the auditory nerve. even the most sophisticated torso mic systems are crude in comparison.

Well I didn't want to put words in his mouth, but what you say is right. A dummy head isn't an equal stand in. The main issue I was getting at in the article talks a lot about the processing piece. As you know, I went down this road myself. I took an inexpensive Dummy head binaural setup I had and took dual channel sweeps of my speakers. Within REW you get nothing useful (and the inaccuracy of the response of that measurement makes it useless for EQ purposes). Then I scratched my head to figure out what to do with this new found data. Eventually, I was able to create binaural impulse responses, difference responses, and calculate some binaural room parameters. It still wasn't possible to use that data to calculate anything related to the speaker's recreation of an image, spaciousness, or envelopment.

I then engaged David Griesinger, and that took me down another rabbit hole. I eventually came up with more analysis of the data I had captured (all of it outside of REW, I had to use Matlab-OCtave). Most of it still told me only information about the room and not the speakers. I tried doing some analysis of panning, but going back to the psychoustics issue, it wasn't possible to make sense of the data. I could measure the movement of an object through a series of measurements across the azimuth, but I couldn't tell if it was good or bad.

There is also 3D impulse responses, another rabbit hole of in-room measurements, but again. Doing this requires an expensive microphone and either sophisticated software or an ability to code it yourself. This is getting far closer to what is needed to make sense of a system in-room, and it's also getting farther away from anything the average person can do.

 

[Verdinut]

Since there is a brain behind the functioning of our ears, in my opinion our ears have at least the advantage of having a brain to eliminate most of the surrounding noises in the listening space, but the microphone picks up all audible music and noises in the room.

I'm sure several of us have made recordings with voice(s) or instrument(s) as the source. When I played back a recording of a performance I made, where there were surrounding room noises, I was hearing those noises which I didn't recall having heard, my brain had eliminated, while the recording was being done.

Has anyone experienced such a phenomenon and what explains it?

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Since there is a brain behind the functioning of our ears, in my opinion our ears have at least the advantage of having a brain to eliminate most of the surrounding noises in the listening space, but the microphone picks up all audible music and noises in the room.

I'm sure several of us have made recordings with voice(s) or instrument(s) as the source. When I played back a recording of a performance I made, where there were surrounding room noises, I was hearing those noises which I didn't recall having heard, my brain had eliminated, while the recording was being done.

Has anyone experienced such a phenomenon and what explains it?

Absolutely, its a well-known phenomena. It's sometimes called the cocktail party effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_auditory_attention (This is a better article)

Basically, the brain is able to use various directional cues to figure out what it is you are trying to pay attention to and tune out everything else. It largely works with our binaural hearing and those who don't have good binaural hearing (such as severe hearing loss in one ear) don't really have this benefit. You can imagine that this is a very critical evolutionary trait in humans (and most animals) to allow us to selectively attend to certain things. We need the ability to tune out distractions.

Another part of the above mechanism is our brains ability to selectively tune out reflections. This also makes it easier for us to hear more clearly voices or sounds in a very reflective environment. Recordings of peoplen talking or music played in a very reflective space often sounds much worse than what you experienced in real life. If you perfectly recreated this using a multichannel system (or high order ambisonic system) you would actually find the clarity returns.

Another aspect is the directional hearing. Because many people take recordings using mics which have a polar response that does not match our hearing, the mic will pick up a lot of noise. If you record a large venue using omni mics, it tends to pick up the most unwanted noise.

 

[shadyJ]

I want to add that this is a terrific article, and hopefully it will get lots of reads. Lots of good science in this one that is written in an accessible way. We need a lot more like it.

I have argued in the past that people who are interested in high fidelity audio should try to gain knowledge in three different fields: audiology, acoustics, and audio engineering. Of course, these three fields can be broken apart into many different sub-fields too. In audiology, we have the physiology of the ear and aural processing of the brain. Acoustics is a sub-discipline of physics that draws upon different areas in physics, most prominently wave theory. Audio engineering is an umbrella that covers all kinds of different sub-fields, such as electronics, signal processing, electro-acoustic transducers (namely microphones and loudspeakers), so mostly the hardware and content production/ reproduction.

I am not saying audio enthusiasts have to be experts in all of these fields, but they should strive for a balanced level of knowledge between them. Most audio enthusiasts are too often caught up in the hardware side of audio; they are always looking at the latest shiny new piece of gear thinking that it will make their listening experience significantly better. To me, the most neglected of these areas is audiology. If they wanted a better listening experience, it would behoove them to understand how their 'listening experience' works in the first place. Once you understand how you hear, you know what matters more in building an audio system (What is astonishing to me is that many dumb audiophiles will spend many thousands on audio equipment for the slightest phantom of a possible improvement while badly abusing and neglecting the one piece of gear through which all of their audio system is channeled through that can never be upgraded, only degraded: their ears). Towards this end, this article is exactly the sort of thing that the audio world should be doing: educating people about the fundamentals of human hearing!

 

[PENG]

I understand even the best available REQ software/hardware are far from being perfect or effective in most cases. I do believe they are worth considering and hope R&D are still being done for more effective versions for the average users. I also understand the complexity and capability of the human hearing (ears, brains, whatever..), but the effects of REQ are at least highly (okay not perfectly or totally) measurable.

Once upon the time came across an article, a serious one too I think, so hilarious that I had to laugh when reading the part about how a concert grand piano still sounds like a concert grand piano even if put in a room, or any room (don't remember 100% now but something like that..) as one of the reasons why REQ is not need because our ears can tune thing out.... I thought, yeah you can almost say the same about hearing through a home phone handset too. Nay sayers can easily find "reasons" against any technological advance products regardless.

Great thread!

 

[Matthew J Poes]

I want to add that this is a terrific article, and hopefully it will get lots of reads. Lots of good science in this one that is written in an accessible way. We need a lot more like it.

I have argued in the past that people who are interested in high fidelity audio should try to gain knowledge in three different fields: audiology, acoustics, and audio engineering. Of course, these three fields can be broken apart into many different sub-fields too. In audiology, we have the physiology of the ear and aural processing of the brain. Acoustics is a sub-discipline of physics that draws upon different areas in physics, most prominently wave theory. Audio engineering is an umbrella that covers all kinds of different sub-fields, such as electronics, signal processing, electro-acoustic transducers (namely microphones and loudspeakers), so mostly the hardware and content production/ reproduction.

I am not saying audio enthusiasts have to be experts in all of these fields, but they should strive for a balanced level of knowledge between them. Most audio enthusiasts are too often caught up in the hardware side of audio; they are always looking at the latest shiny new piece of gear thinking that it will make their listening experience significantly better. To me, the most neglected of these areas is audiology. If they wanted a better listening experience, it would behoove them to understand how their 'listening experience' works in the first place. Once you understand how you hear, you know what matters more in building an audio system (What is astonishing to me is that many dumb audiophiles will spend many thousands on audio equipment for the slightest phantom of a possible improvement while badly abusing and neglecting the one piece of gear through which all of their audio system is channeled through that can never be upgraded, only degraded: their ears). Towards this end, this article is exactly the sort of thing that the audio world should be doing: educating people about the fundamentals of human hearing!

Thanks James!

Now are you saying I need to turn it down? My real event is a monkey playing guitar while smoking a cigarette, and my monkey likes his jams loud.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

I understand even the best available REQ software/hardware are far from being perfect or effective in most cases. I do believe they are worth considering and hope R&D are still being done for more effective versions for the average users. I also understand the complexity and capability of the human hearing (ears, brains, whatever..), but the effects of REQ are at least highly (okay not perfectly or totally) measurable.

Once upon the time came across an article, a serious one too I think, so hilarious that I had to laugh when reading the part about how a concert grand piano still sounds like a concert grand piano even if put in a room, or any room (don't remember 100% now but something like that..) as one of the reasons why REQ is not need because our ears can tune thing out.... I thought, yeah you can almost say the same about hearing through a home phone handset too. Nay sayers can easily find "reasons" against any technological advance products regardless.

Great thread!

Thanks Peng for joining.

I think the reasons for and against room equalization are complex and nuanced. It’s one of those topics that gets so simplified by so many that the reality is hard to grasp. There is so much BS on both sides of the argument that doesn’t help anyone understand.

I have contacts with most of the major room eq developers and have access to most of the available systems. In my house right now I have Audyssey, DIRAC, YPAO, and ARC. I’ve also had this debate with some of the luminaries (for and against room eq) for over a decade.

My conclusion to date is that both sides are right in a sense. Properly processing the sound and sending it to the right speakers and applying some small amount of eq to the bass is always a good thing to me. I have no problem with that. If the room shows modal effects, smooth them out a little. Across the rest of the range is more debatable. My own experience is that plenty of these systems have made things worse, not better. Some make a measurable difference but any sonic benefit was so subtle nobody could reliably tell.

One thing to remember based on what I discussed in the article, just because it measures better doesn’t mean it is better. Those measurements taken in room have issues. It should make perfect sense that a correction system designed to correct the in room measured response will look better. But if you remember that I mentioned the problems inherent in those measurements, it should also follow that it might not have improved things.

I had to limit how much psychoacoustics I discussed, but there is another issue to consider. Our hearing is capable of discerning very small tonal shifts. However that is only true if the tones played sequentially. If two tones that are very close together are played simultaneously we don’t tend to discern those differences. What that means is that a relatively smooth response is good, but a perfectly smooth response is not necessarily better. That added smoothness may not be audible. Compounded by the fact that some of that roughness is caused by uncorrectable artifacts such as diffraction (again not baffle diffraction).

As for what kinds of future developments are coming. Don’t worry in the slightest. DSP is not going away and I know of nobody in the industry rooting for that. It’s advancing in big ways and what’s coming is a big shift. As I noted in other threads, modern room correction is starting to become real room correction. That is, it’s actually capable of modifying the rooms innate acoustics. Such a system is known as a multi-in multi-out or MIMO correction system. DIRAC will probably be the first to market with such a system, though I understand others are working in similar concepts.

What does this do differently? Well, let’s start with the bass. As the bass travels through the room it begins to bounce off barriers. Normally these are walls, ceiling, and floor. What if every wall had speakers capable of a response down to 50hz covering a portion of its surface at strategic locations. What if the bass signal was split and processed and then sent to each of those speakers such that it mitigates the reflections that cause interference. Depending on the delay and level, you can control modes effectively. So with an ATMOS type system, you already have speakers on most walls. Make sure those surrounds have high output down to 50hz and plenty of power and this is feasible.

What about the mids and highs? Well if you largely dampen the room it becomes possible to change the rooms perceived reverberation characteristics through dsp and the surround speakers. The concept is not new but traditional approaches were pretty bad. By adding special measurements to the equation you can better tailor the effect. The trick remains the need to deaden the room, but it’s actually possible now to actively cancel some of the reverberation in a room.

So basically what is coming is a lot better than what exists now, but also a lot more complex. It puts greater demand on the individual speakers as well. The installer will need to know the speakers dynamic capabilities. Something that is not widely known now. I don’t see this as a diy user installed setup and Dirac has confirmed that this is true. This will be a custom installed packaged system initially.

What remains true with even the most sophisticated dsp correction is that it can’t fix a bad speaker. More attention on the smoothness of the polar response is needed. These correction systems can work more effectively when the polar response is smooth and follows the shape of the listening axis response. The other thing that would help is setup. It’s really important that full bandwidth room correction not be used with systems that have speakers placed such that there are a lot of early reflections and diffraction (and I don’t mean first reflections, which are fine to be left in place). Placing speakers with a table between them, tv within inches of the front of the speaker, etc all cause a lot of reflections and diffraction that ultimately combines with the steady state. Room correction tries to fix this but it’s not fixable.

 

[PENG]

Thanks Peng for joining.

I think the reasons for and against room equalization are complex and nuanced. It’s one of those topics that gets so simplified by so many that the reality is hard to grasp. There is so much BS on both sides of the argument that doesn’t help anyone understand.

Agreed, and I have no issue with BS on both sides as that is unavoidable on forums, but blanket statements do need to be called out to minimize the chance that such statements might be taken by some as facts, that's just my opinion.

I have contacts with most of the major room eq developers and have access to most of the available systems. In my house right now I have Audyssey, DIRAC, YPAO, and ARC. I’ve also had this debate with some of the luminaries (for and against room eq) for over a decade.

Good to know someone on this forum has a link to some of those "experts".

My conclusion to date is that both sides are right in a sense. Properly processing the sound and sending it to the right speakers and applying some small amount of eq to the bass is always a good thing to me. I have no problem with that. If the room shows modal effects, smooth them out a little. Across the rest of the range is more debatable. My own experience is that plenty of these systems have made things worse, not better. Some make a measurable difference but any sonic benefit was so subtle nobody could reliably tell.

I think I am not on either side as I do believe in theory REQ should work but not unconditionally as there are caveats and exceptions. I am skeptical about the claim that EQ should not be applied above the room transition frequency for reasons cited by various experts as I believe if the reasons are known, it is a matter of finding a way to deal with the issues. Until then, I am happy with the Audyssey Editor App that allows me to set the cutoff frequency and that puts it in par with Anthem ARC in that regard.

I am still skeptical your claim that "plenty of these systems have made things worse........." Is it really made worse by the "systems", or in those cases there were other factors in play? I read about even Dirac Live had made things worse for some user(s),yet some claimed excellent results, it seems hard to reconcile. Again, I can agree with you that better measured performance do not equal better audible performance, but to me, psychoacoustics is important but not as good a reference as quantitative measurements. A mastered recording could sound more pleasing than live performances, all else being equal, but that's highly variable and subjective thing. I still see value in targeting for as much room effects free sound from my speakers as possible, and then I may or may not tweak things to my taste (never see the need though so far). Again, that's just my opinion, not saying that it is the right way at all.

One thing to remember based on what I discussed in the article, just because it measures better doesn’t mean it is better. Those measurements taken in room have issues. It should make perfect sense that a correction system designed to correct the in room measured response will look better. But if you remember that I mentioned the problems inherent in those measurements, it should also follow that it might not have improved things.

I had to limit how much psychoacoustics I discussed, but there is another issue to consider. Our hearing is capable of discerning very small tonal shifts. However that is only true if the tones played sequentially. If two tones that are very close together are played simultaneously we don’t tend to discern those differences. What that means is that a relatively smooth response is good, but a perfectly smooth response is not necessarily better. That added smoothness may not be audible. Compounded by the fact that some of that roughness is caused by uncorrectable artifacts such as diffraction (again not baffle diffraction).

Understandable, and agreed but my comments above apply.

As for what kinds of future developments are coming. Don’t worry in the slightest. DSP is not going away and I know of nobody in the industry rooting for that. It’s advancing in big ways and what’s coming is a big shift. As I noted in other threads, modern room correction is starting to become real room correction.

That's my point too, that DSP power is becoming a lesser issue/limitation, compare to the situation several years ago, so as long as we have enough scientist and engineers to work on those things, they should all improve, too bad Audyssey seems to have given up on REQ, but hopefully YPAO. AccuEQ and others will pick up the slack.

What does this do differently? Well, let’s start with the bass. As the bass travels through the room it begins to bounce off barriers. Normally these are walls, ceiling, and floor. What if every wall had speakers capable of a response down to 50hz covering a portion of its surface at strategic locations. What if the bass signal was split and processed and then sent to each of those speakers such that it mitigates the reflections that cause interference. Depending on the delay and level, you can control modes effectively. So with an ATMOS type system, you already have speakers on most walls. Make sure those surrounds have high output down to 50hz and plenty of power and this is feasible.

One thing my REW plots show is that XT32 could do very well smoothing 20-200 Hz for the L, R, only, and L+Sub, R+Sub, L+R+Sub, but hard to get it as smooth with 7.1 (5 subs total) but in any case much smoother than REQ off. If I let it EQ full range, I could see little change to the high frequency other than a slightly elevated trend, but the curve shape does not change.

What remains true with even the most sophisticated dsp correction is that it can’t fix a bad speaker.

Sure, but I don't know any of the REQ providers claim that anyway.

By the way, I now have time to try Dirac Live, should I use my Umik-1 mic? If not, what would you recommend?

 

[killdozzer]

I usually enjoy discussing just about any complex subject and am always ready to push it even beyond the point of usable, deep into purely theoretical, simply to test the arguments breaking point.

This, however, I find to be a very poor article if it actually set out to discuss anything. I lack the exact word... If there’s such a thing as “push-poll” – a poll designed to create rather than investigate an opinion - then this would be a “push article” presenting the subject in this; “here’s all the reasons why you should stop thinking whatever you’re thinking and adopt my position because I think it’s better” way.

This has been written by someone who decided long time ago that he would opt for ears rather than measurements. This should surprise no one who read even a single post by this op as it has been his clear standpoint from the get go. In this article hearing is simply being exempt from almost all the rigour that measurements have to go through and this is precisely why I would never label this article scientific.

A lot of time and effort clearly went into writing this and if the author merely presented it as “I opt for ears and here’s why” type of article; I’d have far fewer objections, but I would still ask who is “we here at Audioholics” who enjoyed writing this article, because I see only Mathew Poes as the author. This is regarded as being a poor habit in scientific discourse and is usually seen as trying to hide behind some sort of authority.

I did give it enough time (too much if you ask me) and can’t find the use for it anywhere. Same topic has been treated better in the referenced literature which makes one ask why the article? What does it bring to the table?

Trying to see where the presented string of thought would lead, I find only one inevitability; something I would dub EEQ – ear equalisation rather than room equalisation – REQ. One might jump at it and say well why not?! Shouldn’t this be exactly the goal? In theory, yes, but for now completely impossible. Remember, we’re not dealing with what enters our outer ears, but what the brain makes of it. What our brain makes of it is an interpretation and when we get a chance to measure it precisely (measurements again, I know...) we could tune the audio system according to brains’ interpretation.

This is a “one way valve” so to speak. I cannot hear with your ears and what enters your brain is yours and yours alone. Human being is given but one weapon to convey his perceived sensation and this is the language. As soon as it comes to language, it is fiction, a narration. No two are alike. Trouble here is that ego sits heavily on top of all stories we tell about ourselves and surely, I have yet to come across one single person who glorifies his hearing above all measurements and who is not, at the same time, at least slightly over the average in love with himself. So I usually have to discard all these “testimonies” as wishful thinking.

When I was a kid we use to beat upon this same topic endlessly, but we took colours for example; what I see as blue, what I learned to call blue, what I recognize in different iterations, might as well be the green for you and you just adopted the convention of calling it blue. Maybe, just maybe, what I see as green, you actually call blue.



The point of this silly exercise was merely to determine that the insurmountable barrier on the way of exploring other people’s experiences is our inability to enter one’s mind and experience his sensation. Until that is possible, all we have at our disposal is for you to try and describe what and how you hear. But what you’re describing might as well just be your individual ears and all the wear’n’tear on them and completely different from mine. Same as with blue and green; you say there’s enough highs in one’s listening room and I say there’s not. So whose ear I ask? Take this community for example. Here we have people being discerning listeners for the better part of their lives having numerous good and bad systems behind them and even with their trained ears I have one older and knowledgeable member saying for the exact same make of a speaker that it has bloated and exaggerated lows, while the other says it has no lows whatsoever and is completely lacking.

A simple question for you; which one should set a system in my house if, for example, I knew nothing about audio? And then again should it be me? Maybe I think there’s enough lows because of my lack of experience?

A huge advantage to Toole’s writing is that he goes the other way around. By finding a common denominator to as much as possible systems that people describe as desirable, he is trying to lay out a set of features that would guarantee at least to a certain degree that all future systems might sound desirable. So the way he uses measurements, and most of this community for that matter, is actually far superior and more moderate to your quest of finding that one last argument to finally win the battle for the “ears team”.

 

[shadyJ]

I usually enjoy discussing just about any complex subject and am always ready to push it even beyond the point of usable, deep into purely theoretical, simply to test the arguments breaking point.

This, however, I find to be a very poor article if it actually set out to discuss anything. I lack the exact word... If there’s such a thing as “push-poll” – a poll designed to create rather than investigate an opinion - then this would be a “push article” presenting the subject in this; “here’s all the reasons why you should stop thinking whatever you’re thinking and adopt my position because I think it’s better” way.

This has been written by someone who decided long time ago that he would opt for ears rather than measurements. This should surprise no one who read even a single post by this op as it has been his clear standpoint from the get go. In this article hearing is simply being exempt from almost all the rigour that measurements have to go through and this is precisely why I would never label this article scientific.

A lot of time and effort clearly went into writing this and if the author merely presented it as “I opt for ears and here’s why” type of article; I’d have far fewer objections, but I would still ask who is “we here at Audioholics” who enjoyed writing this article, because I see only Mathew Poes as the author. This is regarded as being a poor habit in scientific discourse and is usually seen as trying to hide behind some sort of authority.

I did give it enough time (too much if you ask me) and can’t find the use for it anywhere. Same topic has been treated better in the referenced literature which makes one ask why the article? What does it bring to the table?

I don't want to speak for the author too much, but it looks to me like you have badly misread the article. The title might be a bit 'click-baity' but the science that is discussed is real. The article essentially just contrasts the way microphones work to the way human hearing works, and it does a fine job at that. None of your criticisms are even about anything specifically except for the writer identifying as Audioholics. Regarding the article's identification with Audioholics specifically- it was written for Audioholics. Furthermore, Audioholics gets all articles like this vetted and peered by experts before it gets published, so this isn't just some guy writing his own manifesto about audio. Another thing, if the same topic has been treated better in referenced literature, please cite those pieces, because I have not read them. I'm not an audiologist, but all of the audiology described in this article is correct so far that I can see.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Is this the same Matthew?
https://www.jbassoc.com/people/matthew-poes/

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Agreed, and I have no issue with BS on both sides as that is unavoidable on forums, but blanket statements do need to be called out to minimize the chance that such statements might be taken by some as facts, that's just my opinion.



Good to know someone on this forum has a link to some of those "experts".



I think I am not on either side as I do believe in theory REQ should work but not unconditionally as there are caveats and exceptions. I am skeptical about the claim that EQ should not be applied above the room transition frequency for reasons cited by various experts as I believe if the reasons are known, it is a matter of finding a way to deal with the issues. Until then, I am happy with the Audyssey Editor App that allows me to set the cutoff frequency and that puts it in par with Anthem ARC in that regard.

I am still skeptical your claim that "plenty of these systems have made things worse........." Is it really made worse by the "systems", or in those cases there were other factors in play? I read about even Dirac Live had made things worse for some user(s),yet some claimed excellent results, it seems hard to reconcile. Again, I can agree with you that better measured performance do not equal better audible performance, but to me, psychoacoustics is important but not as good a reference as quantitative measurements. A mastered recording could sound more pleasing than live performances, all else being equal, but that's highly variable and subjective thing. I still see value in targeting for as much room effects free sound from my speakers as possible, and then I may or may not tweak things to my taste (never see the need though so far). Again, that's just my opinion, not saying that it is the right way at all.



Understandable, and agreed but my comments above apply.



That's my point too, that DSP power is becoming a lesser issue/limitation, compare to the situation several years ago, so as long as we have enough scientist and engineers to work on those things, they should all improve, too bad Audyssey seems to have given up on REQ, but hopefully YPAO. AccuEQ and others will pick up the slack.



One thing my REW plots show is that XT32 could do very well smoothing 20-200 Hz for the L, R, only, and L+Sub, R+Sub, L+R+Sub, but hard to get it as smooth with 7.1 (5 subs total) but in any case much smoother than REQ off. If I let it EQ full range, I could see little change to the high frequency other than a slightly elevated trend, but the curve shape does not change.



Sure, but I don't know any of the REQ providers claim that anyway.

By the way, I now have time to try Dirac Live, should I use my Umik-1 mic? If not, what would you recommend?

I don’t think you can argue psychoacoustics as less than objective when the end is still sound quality. That isn’t objective. That is based on human perception. We can measure lots of things that have little correlation with what we hear. I’m not suggesting that objective measurements are not a superior way of reliably measuring a system. They absolutely are. I’m saying that all measurements are not created equal and that the measurements have to be associated with our perception. That is the field of psychoacoustics. It’s absolutely necessary.

I think some blanket statements were made that lead to confusion however. I am not against DIRAC or Audyssey method of correction. I don’t personally have great results without a Audyssey and don’t like it, but technically the approach is sound. It’s application of minimum phase filters (PEQ) based on a persons in room measurements that I am against. As I said a bunch of times before, Dirac uses a specific approach in processing the measurements to address the problems and applies mixed phase filters which are not minimum phase. These two things fix the problem. However average joe can’t recreate that. That isn’t what REW does.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Is this the same Matthew?
https://www.jbassoc.com/people/matthew-poes/

Yeah, Audio isn’t how I make my living. I’m a social researcher. I study people. I originally went to school for engineering but changed fields after falling in love with psychology and child development. I didn’t like the math in my physics courses and preferred statistics.

I operate a small side business called Poes Acoustics doing small acoustical consulting and soundproofing design. Mostly hotels and conference spaces, but recently took on some home theaters and 2-channel.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Yeah, Audio isn’t how I make my living. I’m a social researcher. I study people. I originally went to school for engineering but changed fields after falling in love with psychology and child development. I didn’t like the math in my physics courses and preferred statistics.

I operate a small side business called Poes Acoustics doing small acoustical consulting and soundproofing design. Mostly hotels and conference spaces, but recently took on some home theaters and 2-channel.

Thanks.

 

[killdozzer]

I don't want to speak for the author too much, but it looks to me like you have badly misread the article. The title might be a bit 'click-baity' but the science that is discussed is real. The article essentially just contrasts the way microphones work to the way human hearing works, and it does a fine job at that. None of your criticisms are even about anything specifically except for the writer identifying as Audioholics. Regarding the article's identification with Audioholics specifically- it was written for Audioholics. Furthermore, Audioholics gets all articles like this vetted and peered by experts before it gets published, so this isn't just some guy writing his own manifesto about audio. Another thing, if the same topic has been treated better in referenced literature, please cite those pieces, because I have not read them. I'm not an audiologist, but all of the audiology described in this article is correct so far that I can see.

You're right about one thing; I never read only the content of an article. Any article. The way an author uses language is, in my opinion, just as important. Also, as Louis Althusser said many years before and much better than I could, you have to read what is not written as well, as long as it is pertinent to the subject. This is how you read out the author’s intent.

I know it sounds absurd to read something that is not there, but it’s really not that absurd when you understand what exactly is expected from you. It is quite simple. Writing a “this-or-that” article would imply writing about the good and the bad in “this” and about the good and bad in “that”. When you read this article you will notice that the good about the mics is not written. We get a lot of author’s fascination with human ears and that’s it. If a bad thing about human ears is even mentioned it gets justified immediately. You have to ask yourself why are good things about mics being left out? So it’s just rooting for ears and this is all it does.

This article is pushing one specific agenda while posing as an analysis.

So, in answer to your post, I don’t think I misread one single bit about this article and would argue that your reading is superficial, that you let “number-dropping” game affect your opinion on this article and that critical analysis of written language is perhaps not your strongest suit.

The fact that the data mentioned is correct gets overshadowed by the misuse of that same data. Perhaps you think that the most important aspect of an article is whether the data is correct, but I would disagree since I saw numerous correct data being used to push one side of the story. Data has to be correct, that has to be a given, but then you have to ask what is it being used for?

Same goes for your posts. After reading them I see that you agree with the author’s opinion and you’re defending it. I’ll tell you how I came to this conclusion.

You’re not a new member, you’ve been writing here for a long time and I’ve read many of your posts. By what you’ve written I saw that you’re not dumb. For sure you know what vetting means. For sure you know that writing and vetting is not the same thing. When chief editor reads and vets your article he DOES NOT become an author of the article. So when this author says “we, here, at Audioholics enjoyed writing it” he is referring to himself in plural pronoun. Referring to yourself in first person, plural, is as bad when an author you like does it as it is when anyone else does it. So, even when you knew that writing and vetting is not the same thing and that vetting does not make one an author of an article, you still used that remark to try and defend the article.

This, however, is not nearly as important as the fact that this article is not what it claims to be and that it is imposing an opinion while pretending to debate something.

On the other hand, my post had many other remarks you chose to skip. Of course, now I’m asking myself why would one skip all those?

 

[Matthew J Poes]

You're right about one thing; I never read only the content of an article. Any article. The way an author uses language is, in my opinion, just as important. Also, as Louis Althusser said many years before and much better than I could, you have to read what is not written as well, as long as it is pertinent to the subject. This is how you read out the author’s intent.

I know it sounds absurd to read something that is not there, but it’s really not that absurd when you understand what exactly is expected from you. It is quite simple. Writing a “this-or-that” article would imply writing about the good and the bad in “this” and about the good and bad in “that”. When you read this article you will notice that the good about the mics is not written. We get a lot of author’s fascination with human ears and that’s it. If a bad thing about human ears is even mentioned it gets justified immediately. You have to ask yourself why are good things about mics being left out? So it’s just rooting for ears and this is all it does.

This article is pushing one specific agenda while posing as an analysis.

So, in answer to your post, I don’t think I misread one single bit about this article and would argue that your reading is superficial, that you let “number-dropping” game affect your opinion on this article and that critical analysis of written language is perhaps not your strongest suit.

The fact that the data mentioned is correct gets overshadowed by the misuse of that same data. Perhaps you think that the most important aspect of an article is whether the data is correct, but I would disagree since I saw numerous correct data being used to push one side of the story. Data has to be correct, that has to be a given, but then you have to ask what is it being used for?

Same goes for your posts. After reading them I see that you agree with the author’s opinion and you’re defending it. I’ll tell you how I came to this conclusion.

You’re not a new member, you’ve been writing here for a long time and I’ve read many of your posts. By what you’ve written I saw that you’re not dumb. For sure you know what vetting means. For sure you know that writing and vetting is not the same thing. When chief editor reads and vets your article he DOES NOT become an author of the article. So when this author says “we, here, at Audioholics enjoyed writing it” he is referring to himself in plural pronoun. Referring to yourself in first person, plural, is as bad when an author you like does it as it is when anyone else does it. So, even when you knew that writing and vetting is not the same thing and that vetting does not make one an author of an article, you still used that remark to try and defend the article.

This, however, is not nearly as important as the fact that this article is not what it claims to be and that it is imposing an opinion while pretending to debate something.

On the other hand, my post had many other remarks you chose to skip. Of course, now I’m asking myself why would one skip all those?

I'm sorry you didn't like the article or how it was written, and I'm sorry that it seems to have made you so angry.
You're right, this article was not intended to be a debate itself. It had a thesis at the outset and it was intended to explain that view. I was providing one side of the debate, it is up to you and others to provide the other side.

You seem to feel that a) this is my unique opinion and is not supported by anyone else, and b) I misstate the science and that this was missed by Audioholics.

The premise for the article did not come from me, I was commissioned to write this article and its title was given to me. While I obviously agree with the premise (because the science supports it),to suggest this is my loan view is inaccurate. In writing this article, I developed an outline with some points that I knew I needed to research. I sent this to a number of experts in the field (academic researchers who I had a prior relationship) and received feedback on those ideas and the accuracy of those points. I revised my outline based on that feedback, meaning that the points I made were vetted right from the outset. Following that, I spent months reading or re-reading scientific journal articles, books, and of course, much of Floyd Toole's work (as I knew up front that he would be peer reviewing this article). I wrote the article and sent that draft to Gene. Gene sent that draft to Toole. Toole provided feedback, none of which disagreed with the article fundamentally. The final version of this article fully represents what I wrote with corrections provided by Toole. Most of Toole's comments were affirmations of my points, meaning he appeared to agree with the article. Gene then read that article, and before publishing it, indicated to me that he enjoyed the article and its points. Never did I hear anything that implied scientific misunderstandings or errors. Over the course of the writing of this article, numerous academic peers and well-versed writers read this article and nobody ever expressed concern that the science was wrong or being misstated.

I don't intend to get into an angry forum debate with anyone over this article. I see no point, nor have I read anything that merits a specific refute. If you disagree with specifics in the article, feel free to write your own counterpoint, document your sources, have it peer reviewed, and publish it. As for Audioholics supporting this, I leave that to @gene to note. He's read everything I wrote. I used the "we" statement because the idea behind this article was not mine and incorporated ideas of more than one Audioholic writer and many points came from ideas the three of us had stated.

Again, Sorry you didn't like the article or my writting. You are always welcome to actually refute it. It is good to have well articulated discenting opinions.