What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?


Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev
One, really low bass is non-directional. We sense almost nothing but volume
. Another one, really high ultra-sonic frequencies. We cannot hear these at all! At least not on a hearing test playing only these frequencies, we hear nothing.
 I think in both circumstances what is happening is our brains assemble it all into an auditory model of the world around us.  

I think that pretty much sums it up. Something is happening that we can't yet  explain and maybe never will.  We may not hear it in the traditional use of the word but we sense it. Our brains react to it. 

Which brings me back to the idea that those who make all of their  audiophile decisions  based on measurements and refuse to believe anything that they can't explain with physics and our severely limited understanding of how the brain works  are barking up the proverbial wrong tree.

“If it sounds good, it IS good.”
Duke Ellington
“If it sounds good, it IS good.”
Or better ...

"If it sounds good and measures good, it IS good".

You at least want to make sure if it measures good.  But does not mean that if something measures good, it will sound good.  At the end you have to listen.


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Maximum frequency that I hear now is 12500 Hz, and my father, at 88, hears only up to 6500hz!! At the same time, he freely orients himself in musical subtleties, distinguishes the directions of wires, and opinions about what sounds better or worse coincide with us.

There are many examples that natural musical values and audio anomalies are situated in middle range. We may cut LF and HF off accustically or electrically and still feel magic in music.

In addition to hearing we almost certanly have some sensitive "cells", which Millercarbon told about. I only think that the cells detect not acoustic vibrations but something else.