The link you posted Wayne concerning violins has an interesting quote attached to it; "The ear is a supreme detection device and the brain is a far more sophisticated analyser of complex sounds than any system yet developed to asses musical quality." It goes on to explain other aspects of testing and hearing but I'll leave that to those who are interested enough to read it. Thanks; great link.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18791 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Our bodies are interesting machines. We can gather an incredible amount of information, see a huge amount of detail. But we cannot look at something and tell precisely how large it is or what frequency the light reflected from it is. We can build a machine that does this easily, but it cannot tell a beautiful woman from an ugly one. Well, some machines are getting close, by measuring the ratios between features, etc. But still, you see what I mean. We look at things holistically, and don't have the "hardware" to see them reductionistically. Machines are generally programmed to "see" things reductionistically, to analyze something specific. Next step is learning what of each of those things really matter to each of us.
I agree. It's like the old story about five guys describing an elephant to a blind man. Each guy describes one parameter and at the end it looks like a giant guppy. Thats the thing that seems so obvious to me ; that no device can tell what something really is by describing it's statistics. The fact that people cannot trust their senses if a machine tells them something different is odd to me. I mean if you want the molecular weight of a substance you use a scale; but that scale can't tell you if that substance smells good or bad. Yet guys will defy their own perception if a device disputes that sense. Science marches on and changes but people always believe that their era holds the truth. Yet there have always been music critics who can tell exactly what sounds correct and what doesn't. So which do you trust? Hold on; I have to go get my skull measured for my phrenology report.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18791 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
There are some things we can hear pretty well, other things we can't. Here's one of the hot-button topics I've noticed pops up every few years, usually when some marketer has a new widget they want to sell:
Let me ask you; if the phase is reversed somewhere in the signal chain does the motion of the cone change from the original signals compression to rarefaction? Does that happen?
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