Fra: http://www.ampzilla2000.com/

Human Hearing: How Do We Really Hear?

First of all, we hear in stereo but only because we have two ears and there is a time/phase difference between our ears.

Hører vi i stereo? Det kan man vel ikke sige at vi gør. Vi hører binauralt - altså med to ører adskilt af et mellemliggende hovede og tragte (ydre øre) der giver en klar forskel på lyde for- og bagfra samt oppe og nede. Stereo er  lyd fra 2 kanaler og lyden selv er samlet fra én kilde- altså mono.

 This time difference is first used to perceive DIRECTION. It is absolutely mandatory for us to know WHERE a sound comes from. Next in the chain is amplitude or perceived loudness.

Det er vist ikke helt så enkelt. Lydens retning og dens forkanter er det der tegner lyden før amplitude og loudness efterfølgende fortæller noget om lydgiverens størrelse og basale karakter af "fylde".

This tells us basically how close or how far away a sound originates from.

Her undlades den indflydelse som luften selv har på lydens forkanter. 

 This is also aided by secondary reflections. Unfortunately, when we are beyond the zone of parallax, our directionality sense can be lost.

Jeg er ikke helt sikker på at jeg er med her. Er det refleksionen han tænker på? For så er det helt forkert. Vi skelner så udmærket direkte lyd fra reflekteret lyd. Det ville være en katastrofe om vi flygtede fra den reflekterede lyd lige i armene på lydgiveren.

Finally, after the direction and the distance comes RECOGNITION. These are the three basic elements in human hearing. The third one, recognition, is however, a paradox. For example, if one were born and raised in a cave for the first 20 years of life with absolutely zero exposure to the outside world, then all sounds no matter what would be totally foreign and unrecognizable. Another example of this would be if one of your high school pals, whom you haven't spoken to in over 30 years were to suddenly call you on the phone and play the guess who this is game, you probably wouldn't know who it is. But as you keep talking, little tinges of recognition start creeping into your brain although you still can't place the person. Finally, the person tells you who it is and all of a sudden total memories take over and flood your brain. Three days later, this same person again calls you and you instantaneously recognize the voice.
What this all boils down to is memory retention. And the same relative phenomenon goes for sight as well. From the day you are born, your brain automatically stores all sound and sight in its memory banks. This is what recognition is all about. This is probably why everyone's perception of things is slightly different than the next person.

Det er da ikke rigtigt. På det basale plan erkender vi ens. Vi taler et lokalt fælles sprog og etiketterer ting ens. Det er først på det højere plan ved brugen af ord, at foreskelle kan opstå. Ikke ved perceptionen selv.

 We may receive quite similar stimuli however, our perceptions and interpretations may be totally different.

The "interpretations" enig, men det er jo netop tolkningen af perceptionen, altså et højere plan.

 Also, due to the physical differences and character of our eyes and ear canals, our perceptions can be of a different nature for the same set of events.

Det ville være korrekt, hvis vores hørelse fungerede ved de signaler vi undersøger vores hørelse ved. Men alene mere end 10 års fejlslåede forsøg på at forstå vores sproglige evner, ved hjælp af et hav af computere og forskellige tranformationer, viser klart at det ikke kan være tilfældet. Vi kan tolke det forskelligt men perceptionen selv er vi fælles om.

 This is why some people claim to hear certain things while others can't.

Det er et spørgsmål om øvelse og gøren opmærksom på. Intet andet. Tolkning af det hørte - igen et højere plan.

 This is especially bad when we are dealing with a sound system where we DON'T have our vision working for us.

Ganske korrekt. Det er meningen at hørelse og syn skal arbejde sammen. Stumfilm er en fattigere oplevelse end ren høring. Sjovt nok så kan vi "se" med ørerne - altså danne et lydbillede.

 Imagine yourself in a club or at a concert, etc. where the extraneous noises consist of clinking glasses, rustling clothing, air conditioners, sneezing, talking, coughing, etc. Basically, due to the human cocktail party effect we can tune out most of this interference and hone in on exactly what we want to concentrate on.

Velkendt og uforklaret - så vidt jeg ved.

Can you picture yourself trying to do this at home where your wife or mother, etc. is doing the dishes with all of the clinking and you practically go nuts because of the noise interference? This is because your ears are working MUCH harder than normal because you don't have your vision. This is probably why blind people are accredited with having much more sensitive hearing than normal people. What does this tell you? Pure and simple by default, you are way too over-critical because of the lack of other senses. Plain and simple: you are not in the real world. You have created a fantasy world of sound, and any imperfections are going to be magnified all out of proportion to reality. It's bad enough that the entire concept of sound as we know it is monumentally flawed, yet our senses actually make things worse. It is absolutely astonishing that we can get any enjoyment at all out of our stereo systems.

Nu må han s'Gu holde op. Hele vores hjernes brug af input er da netop at danne en mening/forståelse af øjeblikket, som ved det videre forløb af disse input vil give en tidsrelateret sammenhæng, så det enkelte øjebliks muligheder bliver konkretiseret til noget værende eller ikke værende - meningsfuldt eller ikke meningsfuldt.

One last little tidbit, if I may. It's Super Bowl Sunday. Sometime before game time, you turn on your great big super projection screen TV and instantly, a huge puff of smoke arises and the whole thing goes dead. Do you think that you're going to find a repairman under these circumstances on this day? Not a chance. So, you grab maybe your wife's little 9 inch or so black and white TV that she lugs around the house while doing housework. This TV has this puny little screen and a puny little 2 inch speaker that sounds absolutely terrible. But, when it comes game time, your ACCEPTANCE LEVEL goes to 100% because it's live and it's happening right now. The awful quality factor is totally disregarded under the circumstances. Nice to have both eyes and ears going for us. Enough Said.

Og hvor vil han hen med det. Selv en karikatur kan være ret præcis tegnet med få streger. Vi behøver ikke helheden, men kan nøjes med en række delheder. Er de sammenhængende i tid, så skal helheden nok blive dannet.

The problem with sound systems is very simple. There is no scientific way that true holographic presentation is ever going to happen.

Det har han måske ret i. Det kræver dog lige en definition af hvad menes med en holografisk præsentation.

 It just can't be for a lot of reasons of which I will delve into as we get on with this series. Can we get closer to the real thing? Absolutely! Do I have some of these answers? You bet. But to be truthful and honest, I don't think we will ever get past about 50% acceptance level. At least not in our lifetime. Besides, as long as the wife claims the living room as her habitat, we will always be in a dilemma.

Ak ja! kvinder får skyld for meget, men lavede vi mænd en ordentlig og fuld forståelig lydgengivelse, så hoppede de kære med på vognen. De hører blot bedre en vi hankønsvæsener.