Don't aks me. My wife has given me the same card for three Valentine's Days in a row and each time I was surprised at how nice a card it was. Then she reminded me it was the exact same card from last year, and the year before.
A blessing? Or a curse?
We all know there’s people who seem to have no memory of or ability to recall anything they hear. We know because they tell us so. In no uncertain terms, either! They are quite certain the only way anything can be compared is to flip back and forth instantaneously, because no one can remember anything they have heard for more than like a microsecond.
So okay, they can’t hear, can’t remember, they are quite certain this is the case, what can we do but believe them?
We also know there are people who seem to be able to recall very well things they have heard, sometimes even quite a long time ago. We hear this one all the time too. They tell us how a certain speaker or whatever sounds, even though they heard it only maybe once at some show or whatever many months ago. Let’s not quibble was it the speakers or the amp or the room or whatever. Point is a definite acoustic memory formed and has stayed with them.
Which at long last brings us to what you already know its really all about: Me! I have this decades long ritual where whenever people are coming over I do something, and sometimes a lot of somethings, to make the system really shine. My favorite thing about this, if I’m totally honest, is at the end when its late at night and the system is truly peaking I get to relax back and take it all in.
So this last time with the guys from Portland coming up, and then on to Mike Lavigne’s, well guess what? Left the Herron and the table on from the night before, woke up early to get the Melody going, ran the XLO demagnetizing tracks about a zillion times, demagnetized, sprayed, and then played a few sides. What they heard when they got here was pretty good. Or as I am told the unanimous opinion was, "Fantastic!" Then off to Mike Lavigne’s. So by the time I get back and relax that night its all been running for like 24 hours.
Holy moly did that sound good! Did not even want to go to bed.
Okay so here’s the problem. Last night, system been off a week, usual 30 min warm up, nothing else, anyone wonder why I was kind of underwhelmed? Its that dang auditory memory. If only I could forget! But then, if I was one of those guys who can’t remember a ding dong thing, would I have the system I have?
So what say you? Is it a blessing? Or a curse?
So okay, they can’t hear, can’t remember, they are quite certain this is the case, what can we do but believe them?
We also know there are people who seem to be able to recall very well things they have heard, sometimes even quite a long time ago. We hear this one all the time too. They tell us how a certain speaker or whatever sounds, even though they heard it only maybe once at some show or whatever many months ago. Let’s not quibble was it the speakers or the amp or the room or whatever. Point is a definite acoustic memory formed and has stayed with them.
Which at long last brings us to what you already know its really all about: Me! I have this decades long ritual where whenever people are coming over I do something, and sometimes a lot of somethings, to make the system really shine. My favorite thing about this, if I’m totally honest, is at the end when its late at night and the system is truly peaking I get to relax back and take it all in.
So this last time with the guys from Portland coming up, and then on to Mike Lavigne’s, well guess what? Left the Herron and the table on from the night before, woke up early to get the Melody going, ran the XLO demagnetizing tracks about a zillion times, demagnetized, sprayed, and then played a few sides. What they heard when they got here was pretty good. Or as I am told the unanimous opinion was, "Fantastic!" Then off to Mike Lavigne’s. So by the time I get back and relax that night its all been running for like 24 hours.
Holy moly did that sound good! Did not even want to go to bed.
Okay so here’s the problem. Last night, system been off a week, usual 30 min warm up, nothing else, anyone wonder why I was kind of underwhelmed? Its that dang auditory memory. If only I could forget! But then, if I was one of those guys who can’t remember a ding dong thing, would I have the system I have?
So what say you? Is it a blessing? Or a curse?
31 responses Add your response
Do you think it’s possible that your response to the first playback experience was altered by the emotions you were having that night? Clearly you wanted to impress your friends, whose opinion you value. Apparently you accomplished this, presumably had fun with them at whatever the next activity was, and feeling satisfied and accomplished you enjoyed further listening. Perhaps the relative let down the following week was because you were hoping to recreate the buzz of the week before but without the rest of the context, and the adrenaline and Seratonin and dopamine release that was brought on by the fellowship you felt a letdown. |
Why can most folks can remember someone's voice on the phone after 20 years. A lot of people can.. But can't tell when someone kicked a hole in a speaker...or could care less, maybe that's it. It's a blessing, you know when something changed. It's a curse because it takes 24 hours to get back there.. I suppose the question is are you gonna suffer?. Suck it up.. Listen to a walkman for 20-30 min under a highline wire.. That will make it better, as the hours go by...it will all get better. :-) We ain't sick.... Regards |
mahler123, Its a serious question. oldhvymec gets it. Assume, for the sake of the argument, that when you hear something really good you are able to remember and carry with you that memory. So that later on when you hear something else you are able to recall and compare. It sounds silly almost insultingly childish having to put it so starkly. How anyone could operate a keyboard without any ability to form long term memory I don't know. So clearly you have it. Just maybe not with sounds. So humor me. Try and imagine you can remember sounds. Got it? Okay. Good. Now imagine one night you listen and you remember how good your system sounds and the next night you realize it doesn't sound as good. Or it sounds better. Whatever. Point is you remember, and your memory is good enough to make the comparison. The question before you now is: Is this a blessing? Or a curse? Do you want this ability? Or would you rather forget everything the minute after you hear it? There is no right or wrong. The sword cuts both ways. If you can forget you can be happy every time. You will find it impossible to make your system any better, but on the other hand you won't care. If you can remember you can make serious progress, but only at the cost of always knowing when things aren't quite right. So you see, serious question: Blessing? Or curse? |
We know there are people here who have delusions of grandeur and of perceive they have superhuman capability, even though they are no different from anyone else. We know that, because they tell us, in every thread they possibly can, sometimes even creating threads for the sole purpose of telling us. We know there are some people who completely lack an ability to self reflect and self assess and consider that perhaps their perceptions, untested against a standard, are just that perceptions, but not reality. We know this because they illustrate it in multiple threads across multiple topics and areas of perceived knowledge. They says ignorance is bliss, so the outstanding question is, is their affliction a blessing or a curse? |
Problem being, anyone can read the OP, and then read everything since, and it is clear (to those who can read and comprehend the English language) that this is not at all about anyone's skill of hearing or lack thereof. The question is something different. Its been made so clear that to not understand has got to be a reading comprehension problem. Let me put it in third grade level. Remember. Forget. Which one is better? And why? What part of this do you still not understand? |
There is that lack of self reflection I was talking about. millercarbon OP6,606 posts11-19-2020 9:11pm... and it is clear (to those who can read and comprehend the English language) that this is not at all about anyone's skill of hearing or lack thereof ... We all know there’s people who seem to have no memory of or ability to recall anything they hear. We know because they tell us so. In no uncertain terms, either! They are quite certain the only way anything can be compared is to flip back and forth instantaneously, because no one can remember anything they have heard for more than like a microsecond. |
In 2020, the answer heavily leans towards... https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/07/08/brain-damage-and-hallucinations-associated-w... So, it has to be a curse. |
No two people see the same. I’ve had bad eyesight my entire life and after cataract surgery, I know see 20/20 in one eye and about 20/30 in the other (slight astigmatism). The blueprint in our DNA is not exact and varies greatly from person to person. I remember a father and son who could read the text on a magazine page affixed to a wall from about 10 feet away. It varies greatly. Same goes for our sense of smell. We each have between 20-25K genes and we all use an average of 390 to smell, and they’re not all the same genes used from person to person. Change one gene and pooof!, there goes your ability to discern violets. One is born with the proper genes to be a great sommelier and all the practice in the world can’t make up for a loss or deficit of the genes needed to be one. We can smell up to 10K different odors, but not all of us can. Why is hearing any different? Some of us do hear much better than others, and not as well as others. People have to stop insulting those who can hear better and just get used to it. It’s not the same from person to person and you’d be a jerk to think it is. All the best, Nonoise |
I’m cursed with a ridiculous aural memory. I pretty much remember every record session I play. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I do agree that long powerup sessions are the best. Sys2 has been on 10 hours and the soundstage is getting wider and the color is developing. Make sense? I believe our hearing gets better as the night comes on. A combination of tiredness and an increased sensitivity survival mech? |
I think you mean people who think they hear better, but never really put that to the test should stop insulting others. All these people who claim they have "superior" hearing, rarely do but they certainly feel the need to tell everyone else they do and that others are inferior. Look how often it happens here. In all my years, the best "ears" I knew were equipment engineers, support engineers, support technicians and not too far behind recording engineers, some of these people I see regularly made fun of on here. By best I mean people most able to notice when something was off and readily identify what it was. Good hearing is more than ears, it is about brain power and learning through experience, diverse experience, and many of these people pick up more experience in a year than audiophiles every will in a lifetime. I know several musicians who can hear a tune and play it back fairly accurately. Their brain has been trained, and some would argue wired for notes. If their instrument is out of tune they will know instantly. Strangely enough, most would be oblivious to frequency response anomalies. Those notes are still fundamentally right. Noisy microphone, not a clue. Greater visual acuity does not confer greater ability to quickly find detail in a scene, nor to better understand the image being presented. It's not like smells, or even taste, where the sensing is complex, but processing more simple. |
When something is not quite right in my audio system, it is not mainly my exact memory of his past sound quality that help me to be conscious of the problem and to correct it... It is not some replicate model of the past sound keep in my memory, it is a feeling that warn me, like an alarm bell, that something is not quite right.... Then being conscious of the fact that something is not quite right , my alerted awareness can now listen critically and look for the problem.... It is not a conscious memory of the sound that i can recall from my brain, it is the unconscious lack of something that begins to emerge to awareness by the FEELING of my sentient body, because in the past some musical experience was associated with a pleasure that is now lacking, but my body gives me a displeasure or an unsatisfaction that gives to my consciousness the essential hint that something is wrong... I dont recall or remember the sound in itself, i recall and remember the feeling associated to the musical sound.... It is not necessary to have " bat ears" but only to love music with his heart more than only with his brain.... All my listenings experiments, with which i created my homemade devices controls embeddings were experienced in this way: listening to my internal impression...And these embeddings controls gives me with a low cost systen a high end experience.... :) But without my listening experiments for many years no progress would have been possible at all....I never had the luxury money to buy what most call an high end "upgrade "....But i dont need any upgrade anymore thanks, not to my memory or to the "ears bat" i never had anyway, thanks rather to my heart listenings experiments and experience.... « All music are sounds, but all sounds are not music, the difference is sensed by the feeling organ»- Groucho Marx « We listen with the heart and the body, not with the ears only»- Harpo Marx impersonating Beethoven « Learning to hear is not pretending to hear something, it is learning from our emotions, and developing our feelings» -Anonymus « Only robot can have sensation without feeling»- my wife P.S. i am neither an engineer nor a musician, only an ordinary someone who dreamed to listen music with a very good sound..... Final note: to answer the OP, it was not for me a curse because it was not an innate hability, it was a learning ongoing experience that help me create my audio room for peanuts costs, then a blessing..... |
I believe our hearing gets better as the night comes on. A combination of tiredness and an increased sensitivity survival mech?No doubt. One can't erase 200K+ years of evolution since we've only been "civilized" for about the past 12K years when we began agricultural groupings. I guarantee it that if you're walking in the wilderness alone for awhile and that twig snaps, all of that 200k+ years of conditioning will race to the forefront and surprise you. Heck, on my morning and evening walks I see it all the time as I sometime startle people when I come up on them as I tend to over pronate which quietens ones approach. My SEAL friend said they taught them to walk that way so as to be quieter. All the best, Nonoise |
I think you mean people who think they hear better, but never really put that to the test should stop insulting others. All these people who claim they have "superior" hearing, rarely do but they certainly feel the need to tell everyone else they do and that others are inferior. Look how often it happens here.Jealousy, thy name is audio2design. I’ve never claimed to have "superior" hearing. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be able to buy you a hearing aid. Why is it that that old saw is brought up as representative of everyone who’s ever made the claim that they could hear the difference? For a fallback position after all else fails is sad. And why the appeal to authority with all the engineers and pros who, mostly, are just churning out stuff? Yes, they’re trained to hear better but so does the lowly audiophile that you look down your nose at. It goes both ways. John Atkinson wrote a great article on how sound and recording engineers fall victim to their craft by being limited by it. I can’t find the article but it’s out there for the inquisitive. Greater visual acuity does not confer greater ability to quickly find detail in a scene, nor to better understand the image being presented. It’s not like smells, or even taste, where the sensing is complex, but processing more simple.And stop with the strawman arguments. No one stated that and it makes for a poor analogy. Better visual acuity would make it so much easier to train to see better, if that were one’s chosen path, compared to one who had poorer vision. No contest. As for tasting and smelling we seem to agree that it is complex but where we diverge is that you feel no one hears better if not professionally engaged in it and I feel that hearing acuity varies greatly from person to person due to its complexity, just like any other sense, which you’re dancing around on, avoiding the topic, as one would have to admit that hearing acuity is strengthened through years of hearing. All the best, Nonoise |
audio2design229 posts11-19-2020 5:43pm We know there are people here who have delusions of grandeur and of perceive they have superhuman capability. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some maybe, others maybe not. There are folks that are blessed with the ability do something better than others. Some accept it, some don’t. To what end? That you can say they can’t and they know they can. Who cares. I already had this conversation before. WITH YOU. Do you alway tell others what they can and cannot hear, because you have such a trained ear. Is the benchmark YOUR learning, your way, what a person like me would be at odds with? OR the fact that when others bring up the facts of THEIR good fortune, your ability has to TRUMP, that simple fact. I’m sure of myself, because of my training. For some reason, others think I or ANYONE need their approval, for their abilities. I don’t. I’m pretty sure that YOU are good at what you do. BUT I would never tell you, you had delusion, of grandeur, or that you were NOT superhuman. You might be! The delusions, I hope they are NOT... Va VOOM!! I mean has the bar been raised? Not by me. I just want to learn a little something. Who wants to learn from a smart guy who keeps telling you, "your not good at, what you know you are". Polished no, haughty, oh yea, downright RUDE, gives as good as he gets. MC just like you me and everyone here, wants to share and not be insulted, even though you don’t put a name to the dispersions. Everyone will do just fine... Word Up!! (from the neighbor kid "Corry the Thief") He was talkin’ bout memberin’ shi# dowg!!!... He lovin his shi$, b lovin wit’, BUT NO NEED fo Hatin’, mofo Shinny shoes on the top still got shi$ on the bottom, dude.. My buddy Corry’s.. thoughts... He figured you out with one read.. Corry is into BASS comp.. Good kid. Come to see Ol Man Bass WE go to church together.. I had to edit a bit. The language! I think YOU, ME and MC would get along just fine. But Corry, Duno It has been proven to me over and over, there are people that have some pretty special talents. Thank the good good Lord for it. Time to DANCE.... HAT on the floor... I slowly walk around the hat to the beat of the musicka’. The dog follows me.......Olay...She keeps wanting to polka.. Irish dog... What is wrong with dancing, with the ONLY star in the room, ME.. Tap Tap!!! Samba It’s a blessing, A BLESSING..... maybe... Regards |
Miller my answer was totally serious. I doubt that there was any significant difference in the sounds that your system was emitting on two different occasions. What differed was your reaction to what you were hearing, which can be influenced by many factors, which are specific to you. Unless you can produce some measurements showing that your system is doing different things at different times, this discussion doesn’t go anywhere. I eventually wound up buying some gear that I hated when I first heard it at Axpona. At the show it was hot, crowded, I had a tiff with my spouse over spending the whole day there, the friend that I had chosen to go with had recently joined a Fundamentalist Church and spent the day proselytizing, the room for the demo was definitely suboptimal...I could kind of get an idea of the sound of the piece, but was so out of sorts that I put off pursuing it. Some time later in the friendly confines of my now sadly out of business dealer I heard the same piece. I recognized the basic sonic signature as I heard at the show but now I was strongly tempted to buy on the spot. I actually had to check myself by wondering if I was being irrationally exuberant due to the completely different circumstances. My dealer let me borrow it for the weekend and listen in my own system, and of course I bought it. So is it a curse or a blessing that I could recognize that sonic signature over a stretch of time? I suppose a blessing, and it helped drive home that there is a strong element of subjectivity to this hobby that influences perceptions on a given day. Ymmv |
audio2design We know there are people here who have delusions of grandeur and of perceive they have superhuman capability ..."We" know no such thing. Please tell us one whose behalf you are pretending to speak. We know that, because they tell us, in every thread they possibly can ...Please provide examples. We know there are some people who completely lack an ability to self reflect and self assess ...Again, who is the "we" you pretend to represent? We know this because ...Again, who is the "we" you pretend to represent? It's revealing that you accuse some here of suffering from delusions, then reserve for yourself the right to address us using the royal "we." |
Again, who is the "we" you pretend to represent?At least in this thread audio2design can generally represent my thoughts on the subject. We know there are people here who have delusions of grandeur and of perceive they have superhuman capability ...Respectfully submitted, I don’t doubt the accuracy of this statement. But with the caveat that it only pertains to a few persons who are persistent posters regarding their abilities.. |
jetter ... audio2design can generally represent my thoughts on the subject ...Thanks for your candor. Frankly, I think it odd that anyone would characterize those with whom they disagree - yet never even met - as suffering from "delusions of grandeur," which is a mental disorder. What’s next? Are you going to argue those folks should be shipped to re-education camps? Perhaps they should have their parental rights terminated? |
cleeds I actually like that you have a way of ramping up the discussion a couple of notches to make your points. However, in this case I don’t interpreted the comment regarding persons who have delusions of grandeur, etc., as being meant in the clinical sense, but rather implying an unchecked need for upmanship. |
jetter2 ... I don’t interpreted the comment regarding persons who have delusions of grandeur, etc., as being meant in the clinical sense, but rather implying an unchecked need for upmanship ...So these people with whom you disagree are not actually clinically insane, but just need to be put in their place somehow? Is that what you’re saying? That's a sincere question. I'm trying to understand the underlying anger and indignation that's being targeted at some here. |
I have a very good memory for facts, details, things I've read or heard though that ability (recall of page numbers where particular passages appeared in text) has declined with age. I do not trust my auditory memory, though, and need to do direct A/B comparisons of pressings, for example, within the same time frame, for me to make a meaningful assessment. I have also found that at a certain point, I go into what I'd call sensory overload, and simply can't do the comparisons effectively-- it is mentally exhausting. That doesn't directly address your question. You claim that you can accurately remember what you heard from weeks before. I also think there are a lot of variables- you mentioned some-- state of power feeding your system, mood (which is in my estimation a huge variable- I don't do any sort of analytical listening unless I'm in the proper frame of mind to concentrate). I am amazed that you can recall with any reliability exactly what you heard in a prior listening session. Perhaps that ability varies by person-- I can usually conclude that a particular dish of food is better than the same dish prepared weeks or months before- that's certainly a sense impression and in that, I trust my memory of the experience. Odd. |
Right, nonoise we are far more alike than different. I don't think we could mistake you for a dog. Sure, our traits vary to a degree mostly with regard to race. There is also some variability intra race in physical and physiological traits less so for the most important ones like seeing and hearing. Eye site is number one and it is deteriorating fast. Back in the old days say 120,000 years ago, people with bad eyesight got killed before they could breed and bad eyesight was minimized in the population. Today we give these young people eyeglasses and given that the environment is not near as dangerous in most parts of the world, they survive, prosper and breed fine, spreading their bad eyesight genes making more bad eyes. This was addressed in The Planet of the Apes. It has now been proven that loss of eye site at a young age greatly improves your hearing. The visual cortex cells in the back of your brain are rewired to the auditory and frontal pathways. Not only do you hear better but you think in hearing better, music. Stevie Wonder is a great example. Anyway, hearing on the other hand is not as important as eye sight and severe deficiencies usually do not appear until old age and we don't even notice the problem until it is far advanced. Most will tell you that it does not affect their appreciation of music and they can certainly identify superior recordings even when their hearing is rolled off steeply at 8000 Hz. The point is, it is not what what you hear but, how you interpret what you hear. You are not born with superior listening capabilities, you are trained to have superior listening. Being superior at it requires a lot of continued practice. Sounds sort of like an audiophile. If you stop practicing your performance will decline. You get rusty. Another important addition is there is an emotional component to interpretation that can not be avoided. They you interpret sounds depends on your emotional state at the time. You interpret stuff differently when you are sad or happy. So, as trained audiophiles we are excellent listeners. We hear things that others do not because we know what to listen for. I think that if there is any significant difference in the ability to listen it is based more on intellect than anything else. Imagine what earth would be like if all of us had IQs of 135. What you think sounds "right" is plastic and very much depends on what you have been listening to. If your system is on the bright side a system that is neutral will sound dull. If your system is dull the neutral system sounds bright.....at first. Listen long enough and it will be the new normal. I find it interesting that in spite of all the tech we have the vast majority have no idea what they are listening to. They have never seen a frequency response graph their system and it will be anything but flat. You can see such a graph on my system page. This is typical of every system I have ever tested, all three of them. You never know. Seeing is believing. You can see that your bass is falling away at 50 Hz. Time for a subwoofer. Maybe your treble is down a bit farther than it should be. Repositioning the speakers might help. When you want to make improvements it always helps to know where you are going. Some people (raulirugas) think they can solve all their problems by listening. For gross infractions listening might be all that is needed but for the minor ones forget it. What you think you might hear is just as likely to be wrong as right and this is the best listeners! Then there is what you did about it. Did it work? How could you know if you had not heard the problem in the first place. But after all it is just music ;-) |
If your system is on the bright side a system that is neutral will sound dull. If your system is dull the neutral system sounds bright.....at first. Listen long enough and it will be the new normal. I find it interesting that in spite of all the tech we have "the vast majority have no idea what they are listening to". They have never seen a frequency response graph their system and it will be anything but flat. You can see such a graph on my system page.I dont think that what define S.Q. in audio system can be understandable and perceived by an experienced listener ONLY in term of frequencies graph first and last.... What i listen to to create my own audio system with my listenings experiments were the real " instrumental timbre" and " imaging" ongoing experience for a long time experiments and for a pair of ears(mine) and not some frequencies graphs first and foremost ....I dont have any tech. apparatus anyway.... And "instrumental timbre" for example cannot be reduce to frequency attributes only, and same for the imaging experience....For example there exist 5 attributes at least for the definition of instrumental timbre:
Then i dont think that what constitute an " ideal" audiophile experience must be linked necessarily to a flat or so called absolutely total neutral graph.... For sure all the homemade devices i created in my audio embeddings experiments comes from my biased hearing experience only and are suited to my likings.... But i prove for myself that we dont need money at all to live hi-fi experience, but we need our biased ears for sure...( all ears are biased by virtue of their own specific structure different for each one of us) the vast majority have no idea what they are listening to And by the way i know very much what i listen to without any technical apparatus help....Timbre and imaging can be perceived and recreated by the help of real ears only, especially in a small room with unique acoustical properties complex content and a particular topology of his own and a specific geometry....Small room acoustic is not reducible to some simple programmed linear algorythm... Ears are more than necessary here....Especially the specific ears that will live and listen music in this specific complex room.... :) «Listening to pure frequencies only is like listening to an abstract soul without body»-Anonymus «Like my wife, my biased ears are nevermind perfect, they are all that i need and all that i have anyway»- Groucho Marx « What do you do for a living? i devise audio system for half deaf people»-Groucho Marx :) |
