Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Noticeability Of Lowpassing? (Read 1990 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Noticeability Of Lowpassing?

I know that at a certain point, human ears are unable to pick up a sufficiently high frequency and that this differs from person to person. In most cases, it seems a lowpass above 20khz is almost impossible to notice. Most audio encoders lowpass even in high quality modes ("high quality" is relative, I know).

What I am wondering is if lowpassing is possibly still noticeable subconsciously? A tone, no matter how high, still affects the area around it, correct? So wouldn't it be possible to notice if a sample has had frequencies cut from it, in some utterly subtle way? Maybe not by ABXing, but by listening to lowpassed music for longer periods of time. Maybe it something to do with this "listening fatigue" phenomenon I heard of in the Ogg Vorbis forums?

Noticeability Of Lowpassing?

Reply #1 –
Quote
Maybe it something to do with this "listening fatigue" phenomenon I heard of in the Ogg Vorbis forums?

I find vorbis encodings (at least below -q6) not really tiring, but stressing. I tried to lowpass vorbis encodings with « --advanced-encode-option lowpass_frequency=17 », and I heard the same phenomenon : a noisy or snowy, or rough sound.

If "listening fatigue" problem came from this strange bug, the amount of high frequencies are not in cause.

It's logical : people who complaint about vorbis fatigue are not affected by audio-CDs. High frequencies are at the same level.
Wavpack Hybrid: one encoder for all scenarios
WavPack -c4.5hx6 (44100Hz & 48000Hz) ≈ 390 kbps + correction file
WavPack -c4hx6 (96000Hz) ≈ 768 kbps + correction file
WavPack -h (SACD & DSD) ≈ 2400 kbps at 2.8224 MHz

Noticeability Of Lowpassing?

Reply #2 –
Quote
What I am wondering is if lowpassing is possibly still noticeable subconsciously? A tone, no matter how high, still affects the area around it, correct? So wouldn't it be possible to notice if a sample has had frequencies cut from it, in some utterly subtle way? Maybe not by ABXing, but by listening to lowpassed music for longer periods of time.

It's really hard to say for sure about this.  You should read the thread started by 2BDecided about "All your psychoacoustic models are wrong!".  It kind of talks about this some.  I'd say that right now, we just don't have enough data to conclusively say one way or another whether there is a subconscious factor being overlooked by ideas of masking and exploitation of other psychoacoustic phenomena or not.  Even if we had more data on all of this, there's not even a 100% agreement in the field of psychology as to whether theories of subconscious are valid or not, and if they are, how far ranging the implications are and to what extent they hold true and can be applied practically, etc.

I think that, at least for now, you're asking a question which is impossible to answer.

Quote
Maybe it something to do with this "listening fatigue" phenomenon I heard of in the Ogg Vorbis forums?


Maybe, but I think the problem as guruboolez describes it is the more likely cause.  I've almost never heard of lowpassing itself being singled out as the sole cause for "listening fatigue" in any of these codecs..