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Listening Vs Hearing


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2 hours ago, Schu said:

ability to hear and/or listen is independent of knowledge... one without technical knowledge may actually have much more capability to hear and to discern.

 

that may manifest itself in a manner where the individual might not be able to technically verbalize what hes hearing.

 

I can't say that I agree with this. How a person perceives any sensual stimulus is a product of many things, one of the most important of which is the extent of that person's knowledge about the particular stimulus they're receiving. How many of you could always immediately detect that a pair of speakers is connected in reverse polarity to each other before the first time that someone pointed out the condition to you (perhaps teaching you what to listen for) and explained the electrical cause? Many non-audiophile types live happily for years with their speakers connected in reverse polarity to each other. On the other hand, my friend Ken can detect the condition after only a couple of seconds of listening.

 

It's more than putting a name on an experience, it's learning to recognize and appreciate all the different things that experience is made up of. Listening to music reproduction is an extremely complex activity; the more we know about and understand the nature of what we're hearing the more our enjoyment of it is substantially improved.  

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PWK may have prove an important point to MJ and the others.  Critical listening is an acquired  skill.  I am sure PWK listen to many things with a flat FR.  Doing this allows one to develop what certain instruments and distortion sound like without coloration.  This may be the reason he could pick an abnormality that younger listeners could not.  This skill can be learned to some degree by all of us.  No special cables, power cords, etc are needed.  I am not debunking the wire and cable guys.

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I might be one of those cable guys now derrickdj1. I'd rather think of myself as a low THD .000x subscriber. I read a report / sales pitch before I got my new speaker cables. Of course I did consider the source, and you have to get past the sales pitch to get to the meat of the matter. The whole idea is to not change the signal between the source and the next step.. the speakers or the preamp to the receiver. Found it here: http://www.audioquest.com/theory-education/ under "Do No Harm"

This might add to the idea here that hearing is an acquired ability.

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On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 8:02 PM, hsosdrummer said:

you believe that amplifiers with blue faceplates sound better than amplifiers with any other color faceplates, then every time you listen to an amp that you know has a blue faceplate it will sound better to you. After a while, you will hear those differences just as if they are being caused solely by auditory stimulation.

 

This is related to other auditory phenomena such as the McGurk Effect. Sight can affect hearing by influencing the perception of auditory input. It is, however, an illusion.

 

 

 

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23 hours ago, Don Richard said:

 

This is related to other auditory phenomena such as the McGurk Effect. Sight can affect hearing by influencing the perception of auditory input. It is, however, an illusion.

 

BULLYA!

A pair of bucks in my back yard this morn at 6:30 was NOT 4 &ucks in my back yard. Leave it to a left coast professor to say that the letter b and the letter f are the same damn thing. They can't perceive the difference between right and wrong.

Now I believe the unkempt folks in the tie-dyed shirts and the bell-bottoms near Tanners Hot-Dogs downtown around 1970.

They weren't singing Sugar Magnolia. The end IS near!

beauty.jpg

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24 minutes ago, JohnJ said:

Leave it to a left coast professor to say that the letter b and the letter f are the same damn thing. They can't perceive the difference between right and wrong.

 

 

You completely missed it. The video does not contend that the letters b and f are the same thing. The video demonstrates that even though the sound we're hearing (which is the same in both instances: the video is being mimed over the audio), the input from our eyes influences how our brains perceive it. When the guy mimes "ba" we hear the letter "b"; when he mimes "fa" we hear the letter "f", even though the sound is the same in both instances.

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On 6/14/2017 at 0:58 PM, Don Richard said:

 

This is related to other auditory phenomena such as the McGurk Effect. Sight can affect hearing by influencing the perception of auditory input. It is, however, an illusion.

 

 

 

@Don Richard Wild! Thanks for sharing this.

I thought the McGurk effect was just something on FoxNews.

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1 hour ago, hsosdrummer said:

 

You completely missed it. The video does not contend that the letters b and f are the same thing. The video demonstrates that even though the sound we're hearing (which is the same in both instances: the video is being mimed over the audio), the input from our eyes influences how our brains perceive it. When the guy mimes "ba" we hear the letter "b"; when he mimes "fa" we hear the letter "f", even though the sound is the same in both instances.

Didn't miss a thing.     OT: remember the Hagar Schon Arronson & Schrieve combination band? HSAS (probably spelled the names wrong)

 

When you change the shape of the mouth, configuration of the tongue sounds come out DIFFERENTLY. 

mime BULLYA

Two completely different sounds, taught to most of us before kindergarten.

No need to thank me.

God Knows.

I'll forget about this now if I can.

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  • 1 month later...

Great post. I started playing piano when I was five and picked up the sax in sixth grade. Was in the band at school until I graduated. I would often try to pick out and listen to the other sections/instruments arrangements while playing. I carry that desire to this day to listen to the undertones and subtle nuances that support the melody. It's an intregal part of my listening pleasure and it's what drove me to purchase my first set of Klipsch speakers. 

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I heard PWK remark several times that he couldn't hear above 5kHz.  Of course, he was in his 80' and 90's at the time.  He would say it was due to "shooting too many 45"s without hearing protection".  But he was an experienced listener.  I recall one time Hunter had purchased a vintage (& working) RCA theater speaker and amplifier for the museum.  Before the speaker and electronics were moved to the museum he wanted to get an anechoic chamber measurement. We had positioned the speaker on the chamber door and decided to listen to it first.  The loudspeaker when positioned on the door actually faces into the main part of the lab, so it actually makes it possible to perform a listening test from this perspective. Then you simply swing the chamber door to position the speaker inside the chamber to take your measurements. Anyway, PWK walks into the lab about this time, and as usual, takes an interest in what we are doing. He listens to the speaker along side us...and then walks over and grabs a piece of plotting paper (this was in the days when frequency response measurements were still made using X-Y plotters).  He takes out a pencil and draws the frequency response of the loudspeaker we were listening to (and hadn't been measured yet). After a few more minutes of listening we placed that piece of plotting paper on the plotter and take the measurement.  PWK's hand drawn curve was exactly right.  I was a young guy then and I remember wondering how he had done that.

 

Although I probably haven't seen that curve in almost 30 years, I'm sure that piece of plotting paper is still in the archive somewhere. 

 

dbspl

 

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Lately I have been intensely listening for what is not supposed to be there and avoiding the music. I am having great success. Growly reversed air voices mixed with confused cymbal hits. It's now very difficult to just listen to music.

JJK

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Audio forums seem to have a lot of tin eared anal retentives trying to convince people they aren't hearing what they hear. Thankfully, not so much here. Maybe it's the nagging fear that they are missing out on what the rest of us enjoy that drives them? Klipsch speakers are very resolving and starkly exhibit the changes in a system, good or bad.

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Unclefred, with the iron-clad reasoning you've presented, I'm sold!  What fuses and AC cords do you recommend to me so I can hear (or listen to?) what you've been hearing (listening to?)?  I'm dying to hear all that I've been missing out on, so help a brother out. 

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On 7/26/2017 at 11:13 AM, Ski Bum said:

Unclefred, with the iron-clad reasoning you've presented, I'm sold!  What fuses and AC cords do you recommend to me so I can hear (or listen to?) what you've been hearing (listening to?)?  I'm dying to hear all that I've been missing out on, so help a brother out. 

While you may need help, It's probably a type of help I'm not licensed to provide. :D

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My apologies for the snark, unclefred.  I thought you were employing the standard audiophool "golden ear" canard about not being able to hear magic fuses, but you were clearly referring to Klipsch speakers, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

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2 hours ago, Ski Bum said:

My apologies for the snark, unclefred.  I thought you were employing the standard audiophool "golden ear" canard about not being able to hear magic fuses, but you were clearly referring to Klipsch speakers, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

No problem, I'm not really one of those guys, but I did put some 16 ga. Belden 9497 wire on my Quartets and it really sounds better than the 12 ga. stranded copper wire I was using. I didn't expect that much difference. I'm never going away from Klipsch.

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