Clarifying Perspectives: Skeptics & Believers

ProSoundWeb Dave Rat

Jumping To Conclusions
This train of thought was inspired by a video I recently watched of an “Audio Myths” workshop held at the AES Convention in New York City in 2009.

The presentation featured several audio industry luminaries shedding light on various myths found in both the consumer and professional audio fields.

I enjoyed the clarifications on human perceptions, yet as the video progressed to a discussion of “what we can and cannot hear,” I found myself feeling swindled a bit, and also was tempted to jump to conclusions.

For example, if the power of suggestion can inspire us to hear things that are not there, would not the opposite also be true? As the various sounds are played, are we convincing ourselves we can’t hear them?

What about the cumulative effects of several independently inaudible aspects combining?

Just as it is important not to jump to the assumption that I can hear something, it is equally important not to write off something as inaudible (or irrelevant) without doing due diligence. In the end though, and in defense of the presentation, a clear point was repetitively made: “this is just to help keep things in perspective.” With that, I concur.

Now let’s take a big step back and ask ourselves: what would accurate audio reproduction sound like if perfected? How can we determine what is – or is not – important for audio accuracy, if we have yet to create audio accuracy?

Whether we use $10,000 audio cables or 192K converters or razor-flat microphones, the real question remains: has anyone truly ever heard a recording played back where they were compelled to search around the room to find where the live band was hiding?

In other words, how come we can know there is a garage band rehearsing a block away yet when we sit dead center in front of the finest sound system money can buy, the best we can come up with is a descriptive range of similarities to live?

Proving It
What if one side or the other was truly able to prove their position? What if we could tape colored rocks to cables with the result that when we heard a system, we would all swear up and down that there were actual musicians in the room? Would that not be a game changer?

Then we could actually prove things, such as vinyl albums sound more realistic, or that ever-faster D to A converters sound more realistic, and so on.

The room would not matter, just as the room does not matter with the garage band. (“Oh, you were playing live in a lousy room so I thought you were a recording.” Yeah, right.)

The old Memorex advertising claims aside, has anyone ever actually heard sound reproduction so clear that they were unable to tell it was not in real time?

I haven’t, but when and if I ever do, it will probably be a good place to start testing whether some of the other more “scientifically dubious” products and concepts actually function and make any sort of difference.