About some features of hearing, personal experiences and the limits of the range Hi-End
How sensitive is our hearing to the power of modern audio? How do headphones for a hundred dollars differ from those that cost a whole thousand? What is the role of the psychoacoustic factor in listening and what is “Hearing - 2.0”? Answers to these exciting questions gives an overview of the audiophile with the experience: "Heritage".
HERITAGE
')
For many years now, as favorite piece Senheisers gently caress my spoiled rumor. I love them, although, despite the rather high cost of these headphones, not everything is sounding smooth. For example, the headphone design does not allow achieving perfect sound for both sides at once: the signal in one ear gets noticeably weakened, and with a barely noticeable microscopic delay, a little, but still excessively widening the stereo. No wonder the world's most expensive luxury models are equipped with separate wires for each speaker, absolutely identical in length. Not as convenient as a dual cord with different lengths of ends - but the sound quality of both speakers will be close to identical, and the signal is delivered to both ears synchronously, without delays. Although it is possible and not worth exaggerating the errors of the equipment, barely noticeable even by audiophiles. It seems that the matter is not at all in some kind of wires. It is necessary to make a footnote on the structure of my ears: this is where complete asymmetry reigns. I remember that in childhood ridiculous and ridiculous “droplets” came into fashion, and one of them didn’t want to keep in the ear, which is why I remember all the songs of my youth only in mono mode. Later, models appeared that were inserted directly into the ear canal, but I still did not learn to trust the "hiking" headphones. My ideal is big, stationary “Cheburashka ears”, a professional instrument of sound engineers. "Big Uh."
It's not a secret at all that the correct headphones transmit the sound much better than the highest-quality stationary hi-end acoustics. Just a large system is not able to swing the speakers at the desired frequency, in the meantime, even simple hundred-dollar headphones give an impressive range of five to thirty thousand hertz. Naturally, the most intriguing and pleasant sounds are just in the frequencies “beyond hearing”. Recently, among amateurs and false professionals, there is a perception that there is a vacuum, a void, behind this magical threshold. In short, supposedly no ultra-low and ultra-high frequencies, these phones do not reproduce at all: they say, fiction, marketing move. Of course, these conversations are complete nonsense, which is easily refuted not only by scientific measurements. It is enough just to turn on the sound: an extended super-wide margin will instantly reflect on the depth of the bass, and instantly return from the top, with the crystal-brittle sharpness of the high frequencies, even if the output signal of your ipod is limited to the standard “20-20 000”.
The sound of high-quality speakers will not leave doubts in the existence of supernatural phenomena. Expanded and almost cosmic audio penetrates directly into the subconscious, and without interference attaches to the music of higher spheres.
But this is the lyrics. In prosaic conditions, students need more tangible evidence. I remember well how for the first time I clearly heard through the saxophone a thin cough of an old spectator in a concert hall, somewhere in the stalls. Twisting the old and well studied recording of a jazz concert, I could not believe my ears. Where does cough come from, what cough? But there is, it turns out. It was prescribed by a noise on a plate, and suddenly - by smuggling it was delivered directly to consciousness. And only cough is good ... in general, in order to have an expanded and excessively informative rumor - you need to constantly maintain composure. The first time after the “epiphany,” I was in a fever and conducted a complete revision of all my home records. The ear cushions seemed to stick to the ears.
A thorough investigation caused a sensation after a sensation: the singer Sade, it turns out, smokes. A sweet black woman barely audible wheezes in low batches, and on high ones - as if by force pushes notes out of the lungs. A clear sign of the vocalist is the smoker. Yes, and if only Sade had his own secret. The next day, I was waiting for a real discovery: I turned on Jackson. Oh god, Michael! Michael Jackson, it turns out something - black in the skin of a white man! His ingratiating falsetto cannot hide the singer's negro nature. It is even surprising, as I had not noticed before a secret feature: the characteristic language of restoring the tongue about the palate, peculiar only to the performers of the black race. Good Lord, Michael, your holy mystery is even more impressive than the notorious alien story from the movie “People in Black”!
Hard-to-find, but still audible evidence multiplied. James Brown, it turns out, sang in the studio without removing the wristwatch. From the tick of the chronograph of the master, you can simply deafen. This applies particularly to the late work of the musician: the old man James at the end of his career, it seems, is completely deafened. His watch on the last recordings went completely out of tune with funk.
In general, American recording studios turned out to be hotbeds of deceit and lies. And this concerns not only false notes. While Stevie Wander was singing his cheerful songs, the sound engineer, apparently taking advantage of the artist’s complete blindness, shamelessly pawed a young assistant. Savory moans of this shameless couple are clearly audible through the studio glass and soundproofing. The vocal poor fellow Wander, during the performance of his masterpieces, did not seem to guess what intrigues were weaving behind him: in one of the recordings, the blind musician’s entrepreneur for the whole album argues with the producer how best to cheat and cheat the rich old man. So that's why the rest of his years the wretched good-natured Stevie Wonder spent in terrible poverty
Auditory knowledge grew and expanded. In my studies, I was meticulous and tireless. Random squeaks and rustles in the records no longer pleased my sharpened perception. The desire to listen to hidden sounds grew, turning a passion into a dangerous mania. I began to fear in music stores. I went there with my own hefty headphones. I was wearing a helmet in them: armed and invincible. By that time, I had completely lost interest in music. In all the records, without exception, I appreciated only the background background.
Years went by. Sometimes, forgetting to remove the bulky headphones, I walked right into them along the street. Over time, I got a fairly compact amplifier with decent parameters, which worked on batteries - so that my equipment no longer needed to carry a separate backpack. Of course I didn't forget about a good microphone. From now on, I myself became the sound engineer of my life. All personal belongings cost me a lot of money: my job was not enough to pay the loan - I had to put up rare books for sale from my own library. My hand carefully compiled a file cabinet indicated every secret peculiarities of a particular record: with nearly per-second decoding. I left Michael to myself - I didn’t want the main idol to fall prey to gossip and dirty gossip. All the annotations to his disks had to be wiped out from the cards: I will take this common secret with us to my grave, Michael.
In the last years of my life I became unusually focused. Constant wearing of headphones has ceased to cause discomfort: I got used to the device, like an astronaut with a spacesuit. Every day I had to gradually add volume: my natural ear was wearing out under the pressure of modern technology. I could no longer talk without a microphone, an amplifier and personal acoustics: without headphones, it was as if the earth was leaving from under my feet. In conversation, I strove to aim my ultra-sensitive directional microphone at unusual places: instead of listening to the speaker’s breathing and diction, I analyzed the subtle sound vibrations during blinking with poorly disguised interest, and for example in windy weather I liked to listen like hair stir on the heads of interlocutors. The technique took possession of me. At first it was difficult to explain to friends why I needed this portable amusement park. Although my offspring were notorious tomboy, they never called me to parent meetings. The teachers thought I was taping them. In time, I even ceased to object: it was true. Indeed, I wrote down everyone and everything: buddies and foes. Once I even tried to write down my own snoring in a dream. The next morning, reinforced by powerful headphones, my roar sounded very impressive. True, there was no time to particularly listen. After all, there was life ahead full of completely unknown sounds. I'm thirty-three now, and I feel like a sage. My richest auditory experience allows me to see the nature of things, to comprehend the essence of phenomena. I am a genius, and for a long time.
Not intending to go unnoticed, I have now collected more than one hundred thousand hours of continuous recordings on a variety of media. In fact, this is a complete picture of twelve years of my life, without pauses and rewinds. This grand record library is the only treasure that will be indicated in my will. I am ready to pass on all these priceless recordings with headphones, an amplifier and a microphone to my descendants. I'm serious.
Johnny Walker, Esq.
HERITAGE
')
For many years now, as favorite piece Senheisers gently caress my spoiled rumor. I love them, although, despite the rather high cost of these headphones, not everything is sounding smooth. For example, the headphone design does not allow achieving perfect sound for both sides at once: the signal in one ear gets noticeably weakened, and with a barely noticeable microscopic delay, a little, but still excessively widening the stereo. No wonder the world's most expensive luxury models are equipped with separate wires for each speaker, absolutely identical in length. Not as convenient as a dual cord with different lengths of ends - but the sound quality of both speakers will be close to identical, and the signal is delivered to both ears synchronously, without delays. Although it is possible and not worth exaggerating the errors of the equipment, barely noticeable even by audiophiles. It seems that the matter is not at all in some kind of wires. It is necessary to make a footnote on the structure of my ears: this is where complete asymmetry reigns. I remember that in childhood ridiculous and ridiculous “droplets” came into fashion, and one of them didn’t want to keep in the ear, which is why I remember all the songs of my youth only in mono mode. Later, models appeared that were inserted directly into the ear canal, but I still did not learn to trust the "hiking" headphones. My ideal is big, stationary “Cheburashka ears”, a professional instrument of sound engineers. "Big Uh."
It's not a secret at all that the correct headphones transmit the sound much better than the highest-quality stationary hi-end acoustics. Just a large system is not able to swing the speakers at the desired frequency, in the meantime, even simple hundred-dollar headphones give an impressive range of five to thirty thousand hertz. Naturally, the most intriguing and pleasant sounds are just in the frequencies “beyond hearing”. Recently, among amateurs and false professionals, there is a perception that there is a vacuum, a void, behind this magical threshold. In short, supposedly no ultra-low and ultra-high frequencies, these phones do not reproduce at all: they say, fiction, marketing move. Of course, these conversations are complete nonsense, which is easily refuted not only by scientific measurements. It is enough just to turn on the sound: an extended super-wide margin will instantly reflect on the depth of the bass, and instantly return from the top, with the crystal-brittle sharpness of the high frequencies, even if the output signal of your ipod is limited to the standard “20-20 000”.
The sound of high-quality speakers will not leave doubts in the existence of supernatural phenomena. Expanded and almost cosmic audio penetrates directly into the subconscious, and without interference attaches to the music of higher spheres.
But this is the lyrics. In prosaic conditions, students need more tangible evidence. I remember well how for the first time I clearly heard through the saxophone a thin cough of an old spectator in a concert hall, somewhere in the stalls. Twisting the old and well studied recording of a jazz concert, I could not believe my ears. Where does cough come from, what cough? But there is, it turns out. It was prescribed by a noise on a plate, and suddenly - by smuggling it was delivered directly to consciousness. And only cough is good ... in general, in order to have an expanded and excessively informative rumor - you need to constantly maintain composure. The first time after the “epiphany,” I was in a fever and conducted a complete revision of all my home records. The ear cushions seemed to stick to the ears.
A thorough investigation caused a sensation after a sensation: the singer Sade, it turns out, smokes. A sweet black woman barely audible wheezes in low batches, and on high ones - as if by force pushes notes out of the lungs. A clear sign of the vocalist is the smoker. Yes, and if only Sade had his own secret. The next day, I was waiting for a real discovery: I turned on Jackson. Oh god, Michael! Michael Jackson, it turns out something - black in the skin of a white man! His ingratiating falsetto cannot hide the singer's negro nature. It is even surprising, as I had not noticed before a secret feature: the characteristic language of restoring the tongue about the palate, peculiar only to the performers of the black race. Good Lord, Michael, your holy mystery is even more impressive than the notorious alien story from the movie “People in Black”!
Hard-to-find, but still audible evidence multiplied. James Brown, it turns out, sang in the studio without removing the wristwatch. From the tick of the chronograph of the master, you can simply deafen. This applies particularly to the late work of the musician: the old man James at the end of his career, it seems, is completely deafened. His watch on the last recordings went completely out of tune with funk.
In general, American recording studios turned out to be hotbeds of deceit and lies. And this concerns not only false notes. While Stevie Wander was singing his cheerful songs, the sound engineer, apparently taking advantage of the artist’s complete blindness, shamelessly pawed a young assistant. Savory moans of this shameless couple are clearly audible through the studio glass and soundproofing. The vocal poor fellow Wander, during the performance of his masterpieces, did not seem to guess what intrigues were weaving behind him: in one of the recordings, the blind musician’s entrepreneur for the whole album argues with the producer how best to cheat and cheat the rich old man. So that's why the rest of his years the wretched good-natured Stevie Wonder spent in terrible poverty
Auditory knowledge grew and expanded. In my studies, I was meticulous and tireless. Random squeaks and rustles in the records no longer pleased my sharpened perception. The desire to listen to hidden sounds grew, turning a passion into a dangerous mania. I began to fear in music stores. I went there with my own hefty headphones. I was wearing a helmet in them: armed and invincible. By that time, I had completely lost interest in music. In all the records, without exception, I appreciated only the background background.
Years went by. Sometimes, forgetting to remove the bulky headphones, I walked right into them along the street. Over time, I got a fairly compact amplifier with decent parameters, which worked on batteries - so that my equipment no longer needed to carry a separate backpack. Of course I didn't forget about a good microphone. From now on, I myself became the sound engineer of my life. All personal belongings cost me a lot of money: my job was not enough to pay the loan - I had to put up rare books for sale from my own library. My hand carefully compiled a file cabinet indicated every secret peculiarities of a particular record: with nearly per-second decoding. I left Michael to myself - I didn’t want the main idol to fall prey to gossip and dirty gossip. All the annotations to his disks had to be wiped out from the cards: I will take this common secret with us to my grave, Michael.
In the last years of my life I became unusually focused. Constant wearing of headphones has ceased to cause discomfort: I got used to the device, like an astronaut with a spacesuit. Every day I had to gradually add volume: my natural ear was wearing out under the pressure of modern technology. I could no longer talk without a microphone, an amplifier and personal acoustics: without headphones, it was as if the earth was leaving from under my feet. In conversation, I strove to aim my ultra-sensitive directional microphone at unusual places: instead of listening to the speaker’s breathing and diction, I analyzed the subtle sound vibrations during blinking with poorly disguised interest, and for example in windy weather I liked to listen like hair stir on the heads of interlocutors. The technique took possession of me. At first it was difficult to explain to friends why I needed this portable amusement park. Although my offspring were notorious tomboy, they never called me to parent meetings. The teachers thought I was taping them. In time, I even ceased to object: it was true. Indeed, I wrote down everyone and everything: buddies and foes. Once I even tried to write down my own snoring in a dream. The next morning, reinforced by powerful headphones, my roar sounded very impressive. True, there was no time to particularly listen. After all, there was life ahead full of completely unknown sounds. I'm thirty-three now, and I feel like a sage. My richest auditory experience allows me to see the nature of things, to comprehend the essence of phenomena. I am a genius, and for a long time.
Not intending to go unnoticed, I have now collected more than one hundred thousand hours of continuous recordings on a variety of media. In fact, this is a complete picture of twelve years of my life, without pauses and rewinds. This grand record library is the only treasure that will be indicated in my will. I am ready to pass on all these priceless recordings with headphones, an amplifier and a microphone to my descendants. I'm serious.
Johnny Walker, Esq.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/3859/
All Articles