15 Jul
2023
15 Jul
'23
9:10 p.m.
On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 06:36:06PM +0200, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
Reading the rest it seems this was actually
intentional and a 'screening'
procedure to see if people were using headphones.
I found that test quite easy with both earphones and speakers.
And then, if you have any level metering on your sound output
(zita-mu1 here) you don't even need to listen...
Then, because this is the Linux Audio Users mailing
list, they write "Beyond
requiring headphones, we also optimized our experiment for Google Chrome
(and tested it on multiple machines), and then required all subjects to use
Google Chrome as well. If any subject initiated the experiment using a
non-Chrome browser, they were required to switch to Chrome before being
allowed to participate."
Oh dear. I don't think you can do such a test today via the internet
and claim any validity.
Almost all modern laptops will have extensive processing on their
built-in sound card. Some primitive 'stereo widening' when using the
speakers and some simple 'binaural processing' when using headphones.
And $(DEITY) knows what else. Windows (which probably most users have)
may add its own on the 'system' audio stream.
The probability that what gets into the headphones is a true copy
of the original file approaches zero.
To do a valid listening test, all of that needs to by bypassed.
Which means using an external sound card that is not configured
to be the 'system' one, and software capable of using that card
without any additional processing. There is no reason to assume
that Chrome can do that.
Sorry to derail from the more philosophical subject
:-D
Not at all, you raised some very valid concerns.
Ciao,
--
FA