Than what?
Well, more than, say, photographic paper, which has much less dynamic range than the eye. Possibly more than photographic film. Not sure about the sorts of sensors used in digital cameras. But scientific equipment exists that has far more dynamic range than the human eye. In fact, we cheat. The eye has relatively little dynamic range, but adjusts that range to suit the light level. For instance, if you look into a dark room from outside a building in bright sunlight, you may not be able to see anything in there. Go into the room, and you may be able to see fairly well. The eye adjusts - as, of course, does a digital camera, though it can adjust much better to a wider range of light levels. So it is a little difficult to discuss dynamic range meaningfully. But one thing is sure - equipment exists that can detect single photons of light. The eye cannot.
Well said. This is exactly how I see things.
When you read what speaker designers have to say you read time and time again that ears can tell you much more about a speaker than measurements. Sure they are an essential tool in developing a loudspeaker but the ears are what tells us if something sounds right.
We need to be careful here not to conflate two things; the ability of our ears as sensors, and the role of our brain in interpreting the signal from our ears.
Ears are simply not as a good as other equipment at detecting sound. Hell, human ears are not even the best ears in the animal kingdom, let alone the best detectors full stop.
Nail on head. The brain is able to present, use the the data differently to a machine in order to create a better image. So, why when we know the brain uses different methods to translate visual and audible information, do we insist on using machines to measure what the brain hears when it can’t see or hear the same way?
What I’m saying is, in order to measure the differnce between two cables, surely the machine must have to hear the same way we do?
The same way we can only measure the difference between two landscape scenes… the machine is incapable as it cannot see how we see… does your microphone hear how we hear? Perception and neurologically speaking
That relates to using microphones and software, and certainly my own view is that the ear/brain may be able to discern differences that instruments may struggle to detect - though of course there are instruments and instruments, and it depends on what technology (and cost) is thrown at the problem.
However the talk of measurements in this thread has mostly been about either electrical characteristics of the cable, or detection of physical change in structure, to identify what is causing an audible change if there is a real audible change.
Our hearing and sight distort incoming data for evolutionary reasons, to increase our survival odds. So we hear certain frequencies better than others, and we see certain colors better than others, in specific circumstances (day/night etc).
But if we want to determine wat actually, objectively happens, then we cannot rely on those subjective interpretations, and we need more calibrated means of measuring changes. Machines can help us do that, since they don’t have the biases that our senses have.
I understand that… I just thought it was amusing that we know we hear and see things differently to machines but to prove/disprove what people perceive as cable burn in (what they hear) we use machines to prove it one or the other.
To truly know, we would need to develop a machine that hears the same way as we do first… cue the interesting read on AI machine hearing & hearing perception
Of course we could always prove it by bling comparative testing with humans! Or maybe train dogs or cats!
That’s not the half of it though. The brain is perfectly capable of making stuff up that contradicts whatever it gets from our senses.
Filling in the blind spot is a simple example.
Machines can help us determine whether what we are perceiving as a difference actually is one.
100% in agreement. The trick is to measure the right indicator.
If we measure the purity of the metal in the wires, we may fail (it may even don’t change because of burn in).
But I think there is something we can measure that will produce a noticeable difference, and that relates to sound pressures of 0,5 dB or above.
I think it is worth saying at this point that what we are talking about is relatively simple, very well understood physics. Sound is pretty simple. Electricity in a wire is pretty simple. It is easy to measure. There is simply no reasons to think that there is something we don’t understand going on.
Sorry to be so boring.
Very true… and if we understand why the brain makes bits up and how… could that be used to improve HiFi hardware or even cable design… who knows. I think there is a lot more to learn about the way we hear… more than we already know!
The ears measure musicality. I think there is no instrument to measure that.
But ‘musicality’ is a collection of audible frequencies, and these can be measured. Easily in fact. And routinely are.
Brain and ears are part of the same instrument.
And no, you do not need to measure the same parameters with your ears and with an instrument to demonstrate a change in sound.
In an anechoic chamber, you may see (see, not hear) a change in sound pressure because a led lights in an instrument, but your ears will fell nothing.
There are also technics of indirect measurement to detect changes by measuring an apparently unrelated indicator. For example, in our Bridge imagine two bottles containing a conductive gas. In one you put a clean test paper, in the other you put an identical (sorry, carefully matched) test paper after collecting traces of explosive. The difference of conductivity will demonstrate the presence of explosive. Many of you have seen and have been tested with such machines at the airport.
I am going in this direction, sorry if it may disappoint some.
At the risk of going somewhat off topic, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could figure out how the brain receives and interprets audio signals, such that we could enable people with compromised hearing to listen to music.
Not necessarily. There may be absolutely no difference between two cables, but the ear/brain may think there is a difference. I would bet (were I a betting man) that you could take two lengths of the same cable, describe one as very expensive, special boutique cable and the other as bog-standard cable, and some people would swear that they hear a difference between them. This sort of effect has been demonstrated many times in many arenas (wine tasting, loudspeakers, food etc.).
And removing our noses from our vision is another. In fact, if you were able to keep your eyes absolutely perfectly still, what you see will gradually disappear - and you would see nothing. Don’t bother trying it - we cannot keep our eyes still enough - unless you anaesthetise your eye muscles.
Slightly related - there is a muscle in the ear attached between the skull and one of the three bones used to transmit and amplify the sound between the two diaphragms which tightens if the sound gets too loud. This reduces the apparent volume of the sound. This is why if you turn the volume up quite loud gradually, then leave the room with the music still playing, then later come back into the room it can sound overwhelmingly loud for a bit.
This of course happens, but it cannot negate burn in.
I didn’t suggest that it did. It could, of course, be part of the explanation of it.