What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?


Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev

Showing 4 responses by kevn

“Finally this article about polynesian "primitive" navigators about to "see" their routes around islands very afar in the pacific is astounding about the INTERNAL GPS of human and say a lot about underestimating the perception of humans ” - mahgister

Thank you so much for this mahgister - it was a fantastic read : )
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/research-helping-scientists-understand-humans-recognize-voices-computers/story%3fid=60699647

And so, I wondered - if human beings are not only able to recognise human voices quicker and better than computers, but also the nuance of mood in each voice heard, is this a reasonable step to believing that there are indeed some things in sound that computers are not able to measure? Keeping in mind, of course, that the subtlest timbral differences the human ear is capable of registering to know when the music they are hearing has a little more ‘air’ or realism, or a touch more focus of separation to each instrument or voice, is even less obvious (and measurable?) than the nuance of mood in a voice?
“Cables do not transmit sound. The transmit electrical energy, or voltage potentials depending on whether a load is connected or not.” - dletch2

The point here is not whether cables transmit sound, but rather, if what we measure of them in reverse fully describes what we hear after the signal finds its way into waves from the loudspeaker. If computers are not yet quite as good as humans beings in recognising timbre, obviously though soundwaves that find their way by wires and cables back into the computing system for interpretation, it is quite possible that science and technology hasn’t yet understood what needs to be measured for a computer to identify timbre better than human beings. Or, heaven forbid, there could be the smallest possibility that there will remain some things that might never be able to be measured ; )

In friendship - kevin
djones51/ dletch2 - I think I have finally figured out where the dogma lies, and it is silly for us to go on about it. You both believe that all the complexities of timbre can be measured definitively in their passage as signals through a cable, and simultaneously believe that the recorded complexities of timbre for voice recognition cannot be fully deciphered in a cable through measurements  (obviously) for more accurate analysis by computer as compared to the human ear.  

You follow logic that is not possible to engage rationally : ) Perhaps best to leave it as that.

In friendship - kevin