[Mark DeBellis[_2_]]

[quoted text deleted -- deb] On Jan 7, 7:24 pm,
wrote:
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 =
the same piece of music twice, and derive greater (or lesser) pleasure the =
second time through.

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


I mean consistently, so that the two signals have different causal
properties. It seems to me that that's possible.


By the same token, if I'd done that listening on two different systems, I=
could not ascribe any difference in pleasure to a difference between the s=
ystems, 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 =
hear it outside a quick-switching blind test, just when CAN you hear it?

I didn't say you could.

It seems you have devised a hypothetical that is impossible in the real wo=
rld.

Why impossible? There could not be sounds that affect loudness
sensitivity that are not directly audible?

And that's leaving aside the fact that what you're suggesting is pure scie=
nce fiction to begin with.

Think of it as a thought experiment. It's a logical point. "A and B
sound different" is ambiguous. It can mean

(1) The way A sounds is X, and the way B sounds is Y, and X is not
identical to Y,

or

(2) It sounds like A and B are different.

It's a scope ambiguity. In (2), "different" is within the scope of
"sounds." In (1), it lies outside.


Don't bother suggesting anything similar; I won't respond.

bob

[quoted text deleted -- deb]

Thank you for your response.

Mark