[LAU] digital voodoo: master fader should be set at 0db

[Arnold Krille]

Hi,

On Wednesday 14 April 2010 21:40:08 Kim Cascone wrote:
> > It's all ones and zeroes. Given the same inputs, the same output should
> > be obtained. Acoustics is physics. And if I can't measure it, it doesn't
> > exist.
> 
> yeah well that quite nicely works for machines
> but with human sensory systems you'll find they are quite non-linear
> and hence the field of psycho-acoustics
> which can be interpreted as voodoo by some

You are mixing something up here.

If machines can't measure it, it doesn't exist (at least to Ken)[*]. Does that 
doesn't mean that if your 0.50€ mic can't record anything from mosquitos 
making out, they don't exist?
No, it means that if no mic in the world can record the mosquitos, they don't 
make any sound.

The human reception is different then machines reception (not just the non-
linearity!). But it isn't able to detect anything machines can't. Your ears 
are worse then any half-decent microphone regarding SNR and frequency-range. 
Your eyes are worse then microscopes, telescopes and slower then fast cameras. 
Your nose is a lot worse in detecting smells then any mass-spectrometer is.
What makes the human different (some call it superior) is combining this 
sensory input not only into facts but also into feelings. And it can combine 
thoughts to create new ideas much better then machines combine their input to 
even foresee the future, let alone transfer knowledge of one thing onto 
predicting behaviour of some other thing.
Of course there are legions of scientists and nerds working on making machines 
better in these parts too.

Going into psychoacoustics is not really contradicting the "machines can't 
measure it, still it exists". Machines can measure the frequencies the human 
ear can't hear but which still have an effect how we perceive the sound. Only 
the effects aren't looked into as deep as the frequencies below 20kHz are. To 
the result that most scientific research wasn't able to give reliable results.
Which in turn makes most audio people discard frequencies >22kHz light-
heartedly. And they are right as the scientific (thus neutral) proof of the 
effect of the frequencies below 22kHz is _much_ greater then above. That 
doesn't deny the psycho-acoustic effects, it only ignores them for the sake of 
bandwidth, reliability and cost...

Have fun,

Arnold

[*] Might also be that today's machines aren't good enough. Just compare the 
knowledge about the atom of today with that of 250 years ago...
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