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On Monday, January 7, 2013 9:28:14 AM UTC-5, Mark DeBellis wrote:


First, it seems to me that it's possible that there could be two
signals, say three minutes of music each, where I can't distinguish
one signal from the other when I compare them, switching back and
forth, but where, nonetheless, I get greater pleasure from listening
to the first one (in its entirety) than to the second. It might be
difficult to *compare* the pleasure of one to that of the other, but
nonetheless it seems possible to me that, in fact, I might derive
greater pleasure from one than from the other.

Not only is this possible, but it's quite common. I frequently listen to th=
e same piece of music twice, and derive greater (or lesser) pleasure the se=
cond time through.

Of course, both times I'm listening on exactly the same system, so we canno=
t ascribe the difference in pleasure to any difference in sound quality. Qu=
ite likely, I have focused on different things each time I listened, and he=
ard things the second time that I didn't notice the first.

By the same token, if I'd done that listening on two different systems, I c=
ould not ascribe any difference in pleasure to a difference between the sys=
tems, because there are other possible explanations.

Second, consider the following hypothetical example. Two recorded
excerpts, A and B, are identical, except that A has some added
ultrasonic component that, over short spans of time, causes a
temporary reduction in loudness sensitivity. Plausibly, the way A
sounds to the listener will not be the same as the way B sounds,
because the end of A will not have the same perceived loudness that
the end of B will have. However, it's not going to be easy to test
for this simply by comparing the two excerpts. If the listener
switches back and forth, the excerpts won't sound different, because
any reduction in sensitivity will affect the two equally. And if the
listener hears one excerpt in its entirety and then the other, he/she
has the problem of comparing stimuli that are distant in time, which
requires memory, which is not necessarily reliable.

So if you cannot hear it in a quick-switching blind test, and you cannot he=
ar it outside a quick-switching blind test, just when CAN you hear it? It s=
eems you have devised a hypothetical that is impossible in the real world. =
And that's leaving aside the fact that what you're suggesting is pure scien=
ce fiction to begin with. Don't bother suggesting anything similar; I won't=
respond.

bob


[quoted text deleted -- deb]