For years I thought of myself as an honorary resident of Missouri - the "show me" state. I trusted my eyes without question - if I could/couldn't see it, I would/wouldn't believe it. My mindset was so rigid that seeing magic tricks made me uncomfortable - I didn't want to admit that my eyes could be fooled so easily. At one time (maybe some of you remember), the screens of TV sets were a dark green. Looking at a blank screen, I sometimes wondered how (when the TV was on) the screen could be made to appear black, when the darkest the screen could possibly be (when all of the phosphors were off) was green. One memorable day I was adjusting the brightness on my color TV. The way I did this was to turn it all the way down, then turn it up, gradually revealing darker areas until I felt the level was satisfactory. As serendipity would have it, a fast food commercial was on, and it consisted of a hamburger floating in space. With the brightness all the way off, the screen was green. As I turned it up, the burger started coming into view. Suddenly, the rest of the screen snapped to black. I was stunned. It was the first time that I had seen something change color like that. And, I also knew that it was an illusion. There was an interesting experiment done regarding vision perception. The researchers took a multicolored mosaic type print and masked it so that only one small gray piece in the middle was visible. Then they illuminated everything with red light. Subjects were asked to identify the color of the piece with the mask in place and with the mask removed (same lighting). EVERY SINGLE person saw the piece as red with the mask in place, and gray when the mask was removed. The explanation given was that our brain assigns colors to objects based upon all the visual cues available. With the mask in place, not enough visual cues are present to see it as gray, so we see it as red. The question is, what is the true color of the piece? Is the answer "gray", or "it depends", or even "who knows"? For those of you into color photography, you know that if you shoot (without correction) under fluorescent light, everything will have a greenish cast. Is fluorescent light REALLY green? The camera says yes, but our eyes (brains) say no. Which is right? Maybe neither? It's weird to think that, for our entire lives, we may be seeing nothing as it "really" is (color wise). What does this have to do with audio? I suspect that the same sort of things are going on with our sound perception as well. For example, there is a passionate fellow in L.A. that claims I will hear what he hears if I just listen, and especially if I listen to his setup. And he very well may be right, as our brains are all similarly wired. But what does that prove? Are we all hearing "reality", or (using a sight analogy) are we all seeing that gray piece as being red? Does it even matter? I guess it does if we don't like red! On the one hand, it seems silly to tinker with equipment when the "problem" could very well be within our brains. On the other hand, by tinkering we may stumble upon the undiscovered audio cues that will trick our brains into thinking we are hearing the elusive holy grail, the live performance. What say you all?
Dob, you or dead on. The mind has a fantastic ability to filter what our senses percieve and present us with that interpretation. I have heard some talk about the difference between live music and recorded music. As a former performer (say that three times fast), I can tell you that from night to night, venue to venue - sound quality varied from excellent to horrendous. Sound quality also had nearly zero impact on how the performance was percieved by the audience. Some nights - the band played great, the audience was responsive, the hall sounded terrible. Some nights - the acoustics were great - the band played "dead on", but nothing happened. What we hear is related to what our mind's interpret. I don't know why some days the same recordings played on the same system sound worse than on other days - but I cannot believe that it has anything to do with a reduction in the electricity during peak periods. (BTW - since major industry is generally shut down on weekends, shouldn't that be considered a "low usage" time - especially in the winter in the North East or Mid West? Home air conditioning would NOT be a factor in this case, and heating is generally oil or natural gas...)
Eh, I was gonna relate this topic to the LP vs. CD debate but I won't go there for the sake of peace on this forum!
Hi, Robert Hunter wrote: "Sometimes you can get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right" Thanks Mr. Hunter, Jeffrey
Interesting thought piece, but I prefer to avoid drawing analogies between visual perception and acuity and aural perception and acuity. IME, such comparisons simply don't hold up, mostly due to biology, I suppose!
Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! Time to chime in! I notice that no one on this thread actually seems very interested in doing this very simple experiment, of actually listening for these effects in the sound of their stereo late at night (good) and on Saturday afternoons (bad). One thing I do see is a lot of theorizing and speculating. You know what those are good for? Rationalizing inertia. What you decide you don't need to know or do takes a big load off your shoulders. Really frees up your day. Whew! More things I don't have to learn about. Goodness. More things I don't have to do to make my stereo sound better because I've told myself they won't work. Golly. What a busy day I've had telling myself what I can and can't hear. I even know what other people can't hear! I'm exhausted. Look at all I've accomplished. I've talked myself into liking my stereo just the way it is. Saved myself a lot of money and a lot of time in the bargain. Cool. I must share this information with the world. They will be so interested to learn of all the things they won't have to do either. Think of the time this will save. The world will be a better place. It will look and sound identical, because nothing will have changed, but it will in actuality be better, because we will know that nothing makes a difference, so why bother? Awesome. TP
Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! Tom your statement about systems sounding good and bad at certain times, is 100% correct. I think that only a few people got involved with that discussion because most agree. My friends and myself often would say "couldn't listen last night it sound like S**T". I would not necessarily say that Sat. afternoon is bad but the sound does change wildly depending on the quality of the electric. Sometimes evenings are fine and sometimes bad, same goes for Saturdays. Also it doesn't matter what kind of Electrical filters etc. use use nothing can help it when the power is bad.
Another factor appears to be blood pressure. When my blood pressure skyrockets, everything sounds bad to me. Maybe that is why Tom posts on this board. He likes to get everyone's blood pressure up, so that our equipment and lps sound bad. Then he sells us on upgrades, or perhaps just a new lp. We get the new "stuff"... we are pleased to have new stuff... our blood pressure finally drops back to normal...we are relaxed and smiling... and what do you know! Everything sounds better. Just a thought. Tony
Tony, you have found me out! The jig is up. Quick, I better nuke that post. I mean Steve, not me, Steve better nuke that post. He's not me, I mean, I'm not him, he's somebody else completely, a different person, not me... TP
Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! Are you under the impression that, in 25 years of listening to my hifi(s), I've never done any critical listening on Saturday afternoon? I do admit I've never listened to it while suggesting to myself, over and over "I think it sounds bad, I think it sounds bad". Maybe that's your secret. On top of that, you've already told me that my mediocre system is obscuring the effect anyway, so it's a futile exercise, no? No matter what I do, if I don't hear what you hear, I will still be wrong and you will still be right. Because you work so much harder than me, because your system is so much better than mine. Or am I getting the wrong impression? All I am asking for is a logical explanation. Why? Because, although I think I'm right, I'm not 100% sure, and maybe a logical explanation may give me a clue as to what, precisely, to listen for. You, on the other hand, are absolutely positive you're right, so you don't bother (or refuse?) to look for an explanation. That's not rationalizing inertia? Tell me what you heard on Santana S/T, and I'll see if I can hear it on my system. If I can hear it, I'll try to hear it again on Saturday afternoon. Would this be an appropriate start? One thing I WON'T do, though, is to go on a new equipment buying spree. Tom, I love you man, but that is asking too much. As far as late night (good) sound goes, I have already posted elsewhere that I think this is true, but for purely psychological reasons (quiet environment, darkness, a state of mind that lends itself to the mood altering qualities of music), most of which can be duplicated during the day.
My system sounds great on Saturdays and great at nights but terrible on Monday mornings in general. Why does it sound bad on Monday? Who knows! It's probably, more than likely, me. So am I, knowing it seems to sound worse on Monday mornings, going to do all my critical listening on Monday mornings? Heck no! Many people seem to be upset at the fact that their perception can be altered by various factors so easily. That never bothered me much though, it's just part of being human. Hmm, my system sounded really bad tonight...I think I have one more beer in the fridge...
Ok - Ok - Ok I admit that sometimes my system sounds worse than at other times - I just have never noticed any correlation between a specific day, time or condition related to electrical output. On Long Island, in the summer, during heavy electrical usage periods, they have what they call "brown outs". If you listen to news radio - they TELL you they are doing it, and when. While I have no SPECIFIC rememberance of how my system sounded during a "known" brown out - I also have no specific memory that it consistently sounds worse during these periods. The fall and winter months in the North East are generally NOT high electrical usage periods. Heating is overwhelmingly supplied by natural gas or oil , excessively cold days do not generate any electrical crisis. Most folks that have REAL winter weather will tell you that electrical heat is not efficient and too expensive. Quite frankly, during the winter months - high electrical usage that may require a "brown out" is most likely to occur during weekday working hours when heavy industry is cranking up thousands of 600 amp machines. Tom - I am not doubting your theory, but I highly doubt that listening on a Saturday (or several) will proove it to me (especially since early Saturday afternoons - from September thru May are my BEST listening hours - that is when my system sounds BEST). Did you ever think that other factors (room humidity, high or low weather pressure systems, your blood presure or blood sugar, a generally pissed off mood) could be factors in the reproduction or perception of the sound? I do. The Saturday thing just sounds too general, and not applicable to electrical usage in my area from September through May.
Hi, Anybody read Aldous Huxley's "The Doors of Perception"? AWESOME read! And yea, I do think there is lotsa material in this book that relates to this convo. Jeffrey
Well, it's definitely not anything other than electricity because the next day, Sunday, everything is fine. And it's not just me. It's everybody who hears my system, and it's everybody who hears everybody else's system that I know. Everybody cancelled their Saturday listening sessions after this phenomenon was noticed. Did I tell them to? Or did they notice the same things I did? Do you think I have the kind of power over other people in this world to make them do something that positively hinders their happiness? I wish! Don't you think I would use that power to make them buy more better records and get rich? I have a big head but it ain't big enough to think that other people believe me when their own experience contradicts mine. But you bring up a good point. I can only speak for the LA area. From the Valley to Agoura Hills is all I know. So other places will have different good and bad days than those I frequent. My point was and is listen and see for yourself. You tell me you like those hours and I believe you. You listened and liked what you heard. That's more like it! That I can respect. Telling yourself why things can't be one way or another, well, to be charitable, one, it's unproductive, and two, it doesn't work that way, in my experience. So do your own thing. It's the american way. And, pun fully intended, more power to ya! TP
Re: Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! I love you too man! Don't go changin' (your stereo), just to please me... Santana is not a good test for this effect, although everybody, if you want to, tell me about the four guys (at least) who vocalize at the beginning of Santana, side one track one, where they are and what they say. Just for fun! I think it's fun to hear those guys! They make you think live people are playing this music. I like to hear the cellist's chair squeak and the pages turning and the footfalls of the conductor on the podium and all that stuff because it's capturing the reality of the musical event. Take a hard to reproduce piece of music. One with massed strings that are hard to get right. Shostakovich. Prokofiev. An old Mercury recording with lots of presence. Now play that recording on what you might think would be good times and bad, good days and bad. Take a yellow pad, note the time and date, and ask yourself the same series of questions. Such as: How warm? How sweet? How transparent? How's the tonality? How much do I like this music at this moment? If your answer doesn't correlate very well with your moods over a period of time, but much better with some times of the day and not others, (Wednesday afternoon bad, Sunday afternoon good) then I would say you are hearing differences in electricity. And if there's a consistent pattern to the better sound, you may want to find out what causes it. Me, I don't care about causes that can never be proven. Answers that are not falsifiable elucidate nothing. I'm just interested in following my ears down the road to better listening. They tell me not to bother on Saturday afternoons in LA. And I believe 'em! Santana, anyone? And no cheating with headphones! TP
Re: Re: Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! If these things are more apparent using headphones, shouldn't we be listening through headphones all the time, in order to retrieve all the information? Does it mean you are also "cheating" by using too good a stereo?
Re: Re: Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! Ah, I feel a moment of inspiration...with apologies to Billy Joel Just The Way They Are (Tom's Ode to his hifi) Whisper woofers, and magic pillows You never let me down before Don't imagine you're too revealing And I won't want you anymore If I don't listen, don't think it's trouble The power gremlins went too far I took the good sounds, I'll take the bad sounds I hear them just the way they are Won't go trying, SACD I'll move my speakers just a hair My vinyl has my oft spoken passion I never hear things that aren't there I don't want clever explanations I never want to think that hard I just want records, hot stampers baby I hear them just the way they are My friends will know that I will always be The Galileo that they knew Oh, what will it take till you believe in me And say, "Hey Tom, I hear it too!" I love my hifi, and that's forever And this I promise from the heart If you just listen, a little better You'll hear things just the way they are
Dob, you are a man of many talents! I don't know what to say. How about "I love you just the way you are". Now do a nice long one to "She's Got A Way". I'll start it off: He's got a way... with hi-fi. Don't know what it is... but he says that all the rest is "my-fi". No, don't do it. I may get all soft and gooey inside and they'll have to throw me away. That's my favorite Billy Joel song. He paid homage to Paul McCartney's style of writing with that one, I read somewhere. I hear Paul's voice very clearly in it. In my mind of course. That's where all this stuff is! Thanks for the homage. I can die peacefully now. TP
Re: Re: Re: Re: Inertia: it's a force to be reckoned with! Headphones are no fun unless you're stoned. They make it easy to hear all this stuff though. I don't own any, so I can't cheat. TP
It means "high on music" of course! Play her that Dylan Rainy Day Women song: They'll stone you when you're riding in your car. They'll stone you when you're playing your guitar. Well, they'll stone you when you walk all alone. They'll stone you when you are walking home. They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave. Everybody must get stoned... TP
