From: someone@anywheret.net   
      
   "JimD"  wrote in message news:2017101023464021362-email@nowherecom...   
      
   > The Flecher Munson point was that at lower volume levels, there is room in   
   > your hearing for bass, and highs.  As the db's crank up, the hearing   
   > response curve flattens out, sensitivity to lows and highs drop and the   
   > ear's response looks more like a flat line.  In order to try and get the "   
   > sound " of bass and treble back, what's often done is the smilie curve on   
   > the graphics.   
      
   I don't remember any tests on other transducers, like microphones, and yes   
   the ear is an electroacoustic transducer, biologically of course, but still   
   electrical, doing something very similar to what a microphone does,   
   converting i.e. transducing mechanical energy in the form of acoustic   
   vibrations into electrical signals sent through the auditory nerve...which   
   makes me wonder if a microphone subjected to similar conditions wouldn't   
   exhibit a similar response.   
      
   > That doesn't sond right to me.  Looked up some F - M articles, they say as   
   > the volume goes up, the bass and treble get louder.  That would seem to   
   > make sense looking at the curves, but it doesn't match what I hear.   
      
   Everyone is different, one size canNOT fit all...so those curves are only   
   useful as a very general baseline.   
      
      
   > What seems to be misunderstood it that at some level, the ear isn't gonna   
   > register anything as louder, it all becomes a painful jumble. Maybe there   
   > is a perceived mid range dropout as it just starts to get loud, but at   
   > some point, it's all just a jumble. All the little nerve fibers are   
   > firing, all just as hard as they can, and that isn't gonna be heard as "   
   > oh, there isn't enough mids ". It's heard as a roar, at least in my head.   
   > All the frequencies are equally loud, as close to maxed out as can be.   
      
   Psychoacoustics involves psychology in addition to purely physical   
   phenomena, which means a lot of variables, and Individual variations.   
      
   > At low levels, bass can stand out and be heard as its own thing. As can   
   > nice highs.  Once it's all just a roar, it's just a roar.   
      
   That's why they used to (don't know if they still do) have a "loudness"   
   selection switch on stereos, Real stereos - remember those?  -  for   
   listening at low levels, which still worked at high levels except the effect   
   was no longer as dramatic.   
      
   > I remember being told, or reading, one time that a certain guitar amp   
   > company took their amps out and could fine tune the frequency response in   
   > real time as a band played.  The idea was to let the engineers see what   
   > various changes actually made in the real world. What they decided was   
   > that guitar amps didn't need much for lows or highs.  They determined that   
   > all the " loud " was in the mid range response.   
      
   They were right. I learned that as soon as I began working with   
   loudspeakers...but a major reason for it is that guitar players who over   
   crank their amps start losing their hearing around the 3 kHz range, and   
   therefore boost those frequencies to get the hearing aid effect, and it's   
   also why so many guitar speakers are designed with particularly high   
   response sensitivity in that range.   
      
   > In order to make amps that sounded as loud as possible at any given power   
   > point, they rolled off the lows and the highs and focused all the   
   > available power in the mid range. Do these amps sound good when listened   
   > to at moderate levels in a room. Nope. The sound all boxy and midrange.   
   > But onstage, they sure will impress with how loud they get.   
      
      
   Jim   
      
   They're made to be sold to partially deaf Idiots so that they can then make   
   their audiences deaf also.   
      
   Ouisie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)