No! 20Hz----20kHz is NOT the range of human hearing!

[Ethan Winer]

acknowledged that he wasn't hearing a 50 kHz whistle, he was hearing distortion that he couldn't account for

 

I don't think I've ever seen the original quote, but I have seen dozens of web forum recounts where it is claimed repeatedly that Rupert Neve said he considered that anecdotal experience proof we can hear, or at least be affected by, the presence of 50 KHz. Which of course is silly. If RN never really said that, I find that encouraging.

 

--Ethan

[Ethan Winer]

Ethan stated somewhere that a frequency range of 16 kHz in the delivery is sufficient - that's a sampling rate of circa 32 kHz, which equal circa a quasi 13?-bit bit depth of a MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) 128/kbps lossy compression algorithm IISO/IEC 11172-3, ISO/IEC 13818-3, respectively a frame header value 3, subband 16 bis 31, intensity-stereo: on

 

That's just silly. If you're going to misquote me, at least misquote me saying something less reasonable.

 

I have stated publicly that a slammin' mix will still sound slammin' even on AM radio. Which is why people should focus more on making great mixes than obsessing about their gear. But that's not that same as saying we shouldn't aim for our delivery medium to be fully transparent. Now, you don't need 64 bits at 384 KHz for transparency, but you do need at least 16/44.1 IMO.

 

--Ethan

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

i start to like this bloke Ethan...


The Armenian Radio was asked: "Is it true that comrade audiologist Rupert Neve ears was stolen in Moscow during the celebrations?"


The Armenian Radio answers: "In principle yes, but it was not in Moscow, rather in Kiev, and it was not his ears, but his bike and it was not comrade audiologist Rupert Neve, but comrade highschool teacher Neve and his first name was not Rupert, but Leonid..."

[Ethan Winer]

So you have people wondering,

[drewfx1]

The other question is, even if we can hear (or somehow sense) higher frequencies under certain conditions, does it really matter? Is it practical?

If, as Craig mentioned some people believe, we sense higher frequencies through the hairs on our forearms, do I need to mix with my hands held above my head (to get the hairs in the sweet spot)? Kinda difficult.

Or can I substitute the hair on my legs? I'll just take my pants off when I mix...

drewfx

[Anderton]

If you put 20 random people in a room, played them music with a frequency response that goes up to 100kHz and the same music with a frequency response of 20kHz and they could tell the difference most of the time, then it's worth extending the frequency response.

 

But you'd also have to determine that frequency response was the determining factor. For example, at an AES show several years back, it was clear that people generally preferred the sound of DSD over 44/16, and could tell the difference. Granted, the DSD had higher frequency response, but I doubt that's the reason why people thought it sounded better. I think it may have been more due to imperfections in converters for PCM at the time that made the 44/16 sound less desirable rather than DSD sounding "better" per se.

 

And there's also something I call the "bottleneck effect" that many people seem to overlook. Suppose you have an amplification system that responds up to 100kHz. Do the speakers? No. Do the mics that recorded the sounds go up that high? Very unlikely. If there was just ONE part of the recording chain that cut off at 20kHz, then the extended high frequency response means nothing.

 

I do believe it's entirely possible that something with 100kHz frequency response can sound better than something with 20kHz response, but not because we can hear that high. Rather, the 100kHz device might have a much better slew rate that reproduces transients better, and that would be something we could hear in the audible range.

 

So does one conclude that therefore there's no harm in having response up to, say, 100kHz so we might as well do that anyway? Not necessarily. I recently mastered a cut that was done at 96kHz and the response tapered off to 20kHz, but then the amplitude rose rapidly past that point up to about 40kHz, then tapered off again. I saw no reason for those artifacts to take up bandwidth, so I clamped down on everything over 30kHz.

[Ethan Winer]

even if we can hear (or somehow sense) higher frequencies under certain conditions, does it really matter? Is it practical?

 

Give this man a ceegar.

 

I have a bunch of recorded music in my collection that I love to listen to. If I applied a low-pass filter at 15 KHz, or even 10 KHz, I would still love it and think it sounds great. I'm not suggesting that it's okay to roll off the highs at 10 KHz! But 15 KHz would not be a deal-killer for me.

 

I'll take CD quality rolled off at 15 KHz over any vinyl and any analog tape every day of the week. I find clicks and pops and tape hiss far more intrusive.

 

--Ethan

[Ethan Winer]

 

If there was just ONE part of the recording chain that cut off at 20kHz, then the extended high frequency response means nothing.

 

 

Exactly.

 

 

I do believe it's entirely possible that something with 100kHz frequency response can sound better than something with 20kHz response, but not because we can hear that high . Rather, the 100kHz device might have a much better slew rate that reproduces transients better, and that would be something we could hear in the audible range.

 

 

The rise time of transients directly correlates with frequency response. So if you can't hear past 20 KHz, then you can't perceive rise times faster than 1 / 20,000 = 50 microseconds.

 

--Ethan

[Jeff da Weasel]

I'll take CD quality rolled off at 15 KHz over any vinyl and any analog tape every day of the week.

Remind me not to hire Ethan to master my next record.

[Ethan Winer]

Here ya go Jeff:

 

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

 

[blue2blue]

Sort of like when the previous pope told Stephen Hawking some years back to stop his research, because it was conflicting with the pope's belief in god. --Ethan

 

Grammar note: proper punctuation does not imply belief system. Whether or not there is a god or gods, if one is talking about a specific entity, real or imaginary, by name (as would be the inference here since there was no article like a or the), then it is a proper noun and so should be capitalized. You wouldn't write santa claus, right? Of course, this presumes that the god referred to hasn't adopted an e. e. cummings style for his own name. Anyhow... I just figured I'd lighten up the tone a little.

 

More on grammar:

[Jeff da Weasel]

Here ya go Jeff: http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

I recently had to reluctantly choose not to do a vinyl run of my album. I'd have really loved to drop the needle just once and hear my own stuff come out of the speakers. But alas, the money to do a separate run of playback media (in addition to CDs) wasn't justifiable.

Someday.

[Beck]

Exactly, spoken as a true believer: "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts, and please for the love of god don't do anything that might force me to reconsider my beliefs! And if you do, I will denounce your efforts with all my might." Sort of like when the previous pope told Stephen Hawking some years back to stop his research, because it was conflicting with the pope's belief in god. --Ethan

 

 

Oh come now, Ethan, anyone say that about the opposing side. To me you

[blue2blue]

 

If you put 20 random people in a room, played them music with a frequency response that goes up to 100kHz and the same music with a frequency response of 20kHz and they could tell the difference most of the time, then it's worth extending the frequency response. But you'd also have to determine that frequency response was the determining factor. For example, at an AES show several years back, it was clear that people generally preferred the sound of DSD over 44/16, and could tell the difference. Granted, the DSD had higher frequency response, but I doubt that's the reason why people thought it sounded better. I think it may have been more due to imperfections in converters for PCM at the time that made the 44/16 sound less desirable rather than DSD sounding "better" per se. And there's also something I call the "bottleneck effect" that many people seem to overlook. Suppose you have an amplification system that responds up to 100kHz. Do the speakers? No. Do the mics that recorded the sounds go up that high? Very unlikely. If there was just ONE part of the recording chain that cut off at 20kHz, then the extended high frequency response means nothing. I do believe it's entirely possible that something with 100kHz frequency response can sound better than something with 20kHz response, but not because we can hear that high . Rather, the 100kHz device might have a much better slew rate that reproduces transients better, and that would be something we could hear in the audible range. So does one conclude that therefore there's no harm in having response up to, say, 100kHz so we might as well do that anyway? Not necessarily. I recently mastered a cut that was done at 96kHz and the response tapered off to 20kHz, but then the amplitude rose rapidly past that point up to about 40kHz, then tapered off again. I saw no reason for those artifacts to take up bandwidth, so I clamped down on everything over 30kHz.

Not so much a bottleneck, I should think, as the classic weak link in the chain.

 

A bottleneck, as we typically use the term, impedes. That said, a weak link breaks, so that's probably not ideal either... analogically speaking.

[drewfx1]

Exactly. The rise time of transients directly correlates with frequency response. So if you can't hear past 20 KHz, then you can't perceive rise times faster than 1 / 20,000 = 50 microseconds. --Ethan

 

 

Yes and limiting frequency response effectively limits the slew rate as well.

 

And in the acoustic world, "slew rate" is limited too. You can't have a square wave with a perfectly vertical leading (or trailing) edge. Acoustically, that would mean the air molecules were jumping from here to there without passing through the space in between. Even air has limited high frequency response!

 

drewfx

[rasputin1963]

 

My American "family" thanks "God" for all the "troops" who are doing their "best" to bring "peace" to "troubled" Middle Eastern "governments".

[nat whilk II]

Sort of like when the previous pope told Stephen Hawking some years back to stop his research, because it was conflicting with the pope's belief in god. --Ethan

 

 

 

Ethan, I'm all with your pro-science stances on most all things audio related, so no critiques there.

 

But I just hate to see the Pope (in this case JPII) used yet again as a whipping boy for the straw-man of the Pope as a leader enforcing ignorance on the public in the interests of protecting an outdated creed.

 

Hawking jokingly and inaccurately quoted JPII, and then Hawking's joke-quote has been passed around and massaged in the media into something unrecognizable as anything JPII actually believed.

 

Here's a direct quote of the sort of thing JPII actually believed:

 

Every scientific hypothesis about the origin of the world, such as the one that says that there is a basic atom from which the whole of the physical universe is derived, leaves unanswered the problem concerning the beginning of the universe. By itself science cannot resolve such a question

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

To all of you christ democrats, pedestrians and believers in the creator and the pope; we just finished the development of a portfolio of DSP based software, all processing at 80-bit floating:

- Christinizer
- Pedophiler
- Backwardanizer
- Appalachianizer
- Swisscheezanizer
- Bibleanizer
- Gayanizer
- Antigayanizer
- Vornicatanetor
- Lesbianizer
- {censored}yourselfpussyanizer
- Karajanizer
- Bernsteinizer
- Beatlenezer
- Popper

This DSP applied to your music during the mastering process, will instanteous add the certain something which makes, your otherwise total boring music, attractive to a wider audience.

[Ethan Winer]

 

and limiting frequency response effectively limits the slew rate as well.

 

 

Yes, though there's a difference between slew rate limiting and HF roll-off. A normal roll-off is linear (no added distortion), but slew-rate limiting is non-linear and adds new harmonically related content.

 

--Ethan

[Ethan Winer]

[DevilRaysFan]

Too bad I cant hear this thread........Its registering ~24khz................. and Im running an Equametric Paralyzer and an Anal Exciter.....................

[blue2blue]

 

 

 

I claim prior art. I invented that in the 70s.

[Beck]

More correct in this case is Ethan's corollary: "For every opinion on a given issue there will always be proponents for the opposite viewpoint - no matter how preposterous."

Again, right back at ya...

As for holding off on revealing your "proof" to increase its impact, I'd say holding off for another 30 to 40 years would be about perfect. :poke:

That's not really all that long when you think about it. And by the way, it has nothing to do with anything we've talked about before. Iza supwize!

[philbo]

Are you talking about perception or hearing?

I've felt infra-sonic vibrations before (at about 6 Hz my lungs were moving inside my chest).

I've also noticed when I play my rodent repeller audio track thru a dome tweeter (27 KHz, with 1st 2 harmonics added, swept in freq by a peak deviation of 14 KHz at a 10 Hz rate, with some added phase shifting happening at 27 Hz, the whole thing sampled at 88.2KHz), I get a hell of a headache after 10 minutes or so... my dog doesn't seem too happy about it either.

So I play it when I leave, it drives the mice out of the house.

There are many other acoustic phenomena you can feel, such as the shock wave from an explosion, that you can't necessarily hear...

Where do you draw the line? Are you limiting it to sitting in a booth with headphones on while the audiologist plays beeps for you? Or is any acoustic event you can detect via the body included?

[Jimbroni]