The Intricate Dance: Loudspeakers, Human Hearing, and Room Acoustics

Our ears are relative quite accurate, the problem is that they are connected to a brain which at times actually likes distortion, just listen to any Hendrix tune.

Our ears are not "accurate" as an electrical tool is, which tool own a fixated accuracy range determined once for all , our ears do not and this different accuracy range for each of us vary also in time ...Our ears/brain is not a Fourier engine ... the ears is a living organism not a tool ...

Our ears coupled with a brain created their own soundfield for each of us which is slightly different in each of us with his own variable "accuracy" ... Our ears/brain is not designed for "accuracy" as in details mathematically fixated but for the perception and interpretation of integral qualities as a whole ...Qualia not numbers ...

Then comparing the ears to an electrical tool is meaningless ...The ears is not a tool no more than any other organs of the body are an internal or external tool ... the heart is not a mere tool pump ... The brain dont work as a computer as demonstrated clearly by J.J. Gibson the genius who revolutionize the field of visual perception ,...The thought dont come from a neural network but emerge from the microtubules level and the quantum level as demonstrated by Penrose/Hameroff/ Bandyopadhyay ... But here it is another story i can explain here ......

https://twitter.com/StuartHameroff/status/1727440517867385290

Then saying that the Brain like distortion Alas! is supposing that our ears /brain is alas! a bad Fourier engine and explicitly regretting it as you seems to do 😁... is preposterous, ridiculous reaction totally ... laughable if this confusion was not the symptom of a sad fact...

We must not confuse music with sine waves and think hearing sine waves that hearing an image of the music we then understand how the brain create/perceive music as QUALIA ...We must understand the non linear working of the brain in his own time domain which make it irreducible to the linear Fourier maps; then if we do not understand this we confuse linear and non linear, then confuse the complete territory with a partial set of abstract maps glued linearly together ... ...So useful technologically maps could be they are in no way the territory... And in spite of the advances with our digital technology we dont understand hearing yet...

Technology is not science and science is not knowledge ...

Read this mijostyn it is short article you NEVER READ it seems :

https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html

I am perhaps "romantic" as you described me but i read science too ...😁😊😊😉

An EQ user manual is not an introduction to acoustics nor an introduction to a hearing theory ..😊 Sorry for the bad news ...

@johnread57 

 You have an emotional connection to the music not the system. I will tap my feet listening to a telephone. 

The speaker and room have to be considered as one component. Together, they are certainly the weak link in our systems by a HUGE margin. As long as the amplifier is appropriately matched to the speakers, distortion in electronics is relatively very minor. 

As for our ears yes, you can focus on a group in a crowd until the crowd reaches a certain volume. Then the crowd masks the group. We are also linear listeners. We can only focus on one thing at a time. As an example try listening critically to two instruments at once. You can't do it. You can switch back and forth quickly, but you can not do both at the same time, three people looking at each other in the eye at the same time. Our ears are relative quite accurate, the problem is that they are connected to a brain which at times actually likes distortion, just listen to any Hendrix tune. 

So, what do we do? Most of us buy the equipment we can afford and put it in the rooms we have available and make it work to our preferences as best we can. You just have to be aware of the snake oil problem.

What do I do? I try to go about it in a scientifically sound manor using what is available, designing the room specifically for sound reproduction, choosing a speaker type with inherently lower distortion that has controlled directivity, so that the room has even less of an affect, use acoustic treatment where required, select an amp that matches the loudspeaker well and use the best sources I can afford.  

There is no magic here, but there are a lot of theories floating around that are fun to discuss, but in most cases are not applicable to our situations. 

@mahgister share some of those papers you think are worth while 👍

Foley is a seller but he know about acoustics too ...

Dont buy all he said about his products  but make search around his propositions ...

This is the way ...

The best source is universities research papers ...

I know Foley is selling a product, and his views are not shared by all.  Having said that, I've always enjoyed his short presentations and feel there are lots of good take aways in his presentations.  Would I build an entire room based on quadratic diffusers?  Probably not, but I could see them as part of the final treatment.  As for the mood/emotional component to how our systems sound, I am in total agreement there.  Spark up a fatty and tell me you don't connect on a different level.  IMHO

Thanks for the reference to Foley ...

Any audiophiles must be interested to this if not  more at least  BEFORE reading  the user manual of any upgrade ...😁