Would you please read
carefully this document
and tell me if you think
it's serious ?
It was a shock when
I read it, can someone tell
me if it can be taken seriously or not ?
I'm really worried...
Thanks.
Here is the document :
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...r/MP3-risk.html (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/MP3-Gefahr/MP3-risk.html)
Remember they also say that cellphones cause cancer?
It is only natural (but silly an non-justified) to mistrust new technologies.
On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.
Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....indpost&p=51036 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=5014&view=findpost&p=51036)
Not at all. You don't have to be afraid.
Hearing can only damaged by loud noise, bad speakers (like bose...) or bad music (Modern Talking...).
Assuming that is at all true - it's just saying that, the part of your ear that gets used, when hearing uncompressed noise, doesn't get used as much when listening to lossy compressed audio.
Again, assuming that article is true, I think we hear enough noises a day so that we use that filtering mechanism in our ears, enough to keep it working.
This man is insanely paranoid.
Well, I didn't see that this subject had already been
discussed on another topic...more than one year ago .
I feel much better now ! I was almost ready to
throw away all my MP3 collection...
This document is wrong.
I am not sure if we should spent time explaining why. (perhaps you just want to know if it is true or no).
Even the conclusion is wrong and very incoherent. Recommending the use of analog radio and tv because they are not digital: every radio and tv station is using digital storage/transmission, and using lossy processes.
So even when watching analogic tv you are watching mpeg.
Maybe the only way to escape this evil digital technology and malicious lossy codecs is to
go back to 1970 ? Full analogue era !
Oh, by the way... when I watch Hertzian TV, do I really watch Mpeg stuff ?
There doesn't seem to ba any artefact... The material must be much less
compressed than on DVD or Satellite tv ?
I am not sure if we should spent time explaining why. (perhaps you just want to know if it is true or no).
Please do. If you (and the others) just say the document is wrong, you are making a undocumented claim.
The Internet consists mostly of undocumented claims, propaganda and socalled reviews. I personally don't believe anything I read on the Internes unless it has been thoughly documented and scientifically proven. True that no proof exists that lossy music is harmful, but no proof exists that is is harmless either.
Subliminal DRM messages.
Speaking of "subliminal", the author has a sense of humor he's not even aware of.
I've never claimed to be an expert in psychoacoustic audio compression, but if I had to choose between this person's "theories" and thousands of people's facts concerning the effects involved, I'd put my money on the latter.
(http://pessoal.onda.com.br/rjamorim/picture91.jpg)
I take it that by using some false logic we can conclude that viewing
lossy images will make us go blind? OMG, JPEG induced retinal degeneration!!!!!
On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.
Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.
Yes, but you've been sighted in the past sitting on a giant cabbage, so there is no telling whether you can be trusted
The link
is pretty funny, and the author appears to have incorporated many official looking pictures into his "explanation". I enjoyed this particular segment the most:
I personally own mainly cheap CDs and phono records, but almost no downloaded MP3 musics. I have however some computer games with MP3 music, but I don't play them excessively. Despite I generally listen to music only quietly, I have repeatedly tinitus; this happens particularly often when I fall asleep while watching TV, even when the sleep only lasts few minutes. I thus also suspect the data reduction in radio and TV broadcasts as a cause, not least because the hearing uses particularly the sleep for calibrating itself, during that the presence of neuroacoustically datareduced tones thus should be particularly harmful.
Blaming tinitus on data reduction is pretty novel I must say.
Folks, if you follow the link at the bottom of this page (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...r/MP3-risk.html) you'll find out, that the author of this article is Cyberyogi, the founder and teachmaster of Logologie - the first cyberage-religion!
From the authors other sites:
I (a 19 year old pupil of a in Germany "Gymnasium" called sort of low level high school) had got the cosmic mission to build a completely new kind of high tech multimedia superlearning school to teach this mankind in sovereignous holistical thinking to prevent it from self- destruction.
So I would take this warnings serious if I was you!
Don't miss to follow these links!!!:
Warning: Pink can be dangerous for health! (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/pink.txt)
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...ogologieFAQ.htm (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/LogologieFAQ.htm)
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...English%20texts (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/Aufkl.html#English%20texts)
By the way my microwave is channeling Elvis and his latest songs.
My problem is my microwave encodes all songs with Xing 96 cbr ....!
Has anyone experience to tune in lossless ?? - Help highly appreciated !
Oh, by the way... when I watch Hertzian TV, do I really watch Mpeg stuff ?
There doesn't seem to ba any artefact... The material must be much less
compressed than on DVD or Satellite tv ?
In Germany, many TV stations already use so-called "Tapeless Broadcasting", especially the news stations. The broadcast isn't stored on video tapes anymore, but instead on servers with a few Terabyte capacity. They are working with full resolution video streams of 50 MBit/sec. That's more than 10 times the datarate of an average DVD. During a broadcast, two servers play the same content parallel, frame-exact, in case one server has a malfunction. Often, they also have a conventional video tape running, in case both servers go down.
Tapeless digital broadcasting will soon become the standard. Many stations only still use analog equipment because of the big investment costs they had for it.
This actually reminds me of that thread where Spoon wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies
On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.
Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.
Yes, but you've been sighted in the past sitting on a giant cabbage, so there is no telling whether you can be trusted
That was my parents fault!
Seriously, that cabbage was real. We used to live in a small town about 50 kilometers from the one I currently live in. That town was in the late seventies kind of a "hotspot" for UFO activity (they have 7 non-active volcanoes that supposedly attracted UFOs) and there was this farmer that had learned and further developed vegetable-growing techniques from Asia, IIRC; but he said that the aliens told him how to do it, to get a publicity boost. The picture was taked in the Town's Fair where he was showing his super-sized vegetables. They needed something to show scale, and since I was the only baby around...
The whole giant vegetable thing fell apart because, my father tells me, it was actually more expensive to grow one giant cabbage than its weight's worth of regular cabbages, and it did not taste the same.
It is one cool story, IMHO.
On topic, it is kinda hard to actually explain why is this incorrect, but I might give it a try, if somebody is interested. But, really, I don't see a point.
Remember they also say that cellphones cause cancer?
No, no, no, it is not cell phones which cause cancer. It is liesure suits. A know fact. Yeah, right.
Folks, if you follow the link at the bottom of this page you'll find out, that the author of this article is Cyberyogi, the founder and teachmaster of Logologie - the first cyberage-religion!
I thought the author sounded like someone who believes in the 'incredible powers of attuned Quartz crystals'.
This actually reminds me of that thread where edit:Spase wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies
ROFLMAO!
So then there is selective pressure towards listening to compressed music which results in audio compression freaks having a much higher fecundity than the rest of the population?
"Greenwich, UK 1/1/05 - In a disturbing find, scientists have discovered that men who do not listen to digitally compressed music have dramatically reduced sperm counts. Researchers suggest men compressing CDs to Wavpack and listening at least twice a day can increase their fertility by several orders of magnitude.
Women of child bearing age wishing to concieve are recommended to do the same, with OptimFROG showing the greatest gains in fertility.
In an interesting exception, Xing (mp3) users are rendered sterile after only a few listens."
edit:
Seriously, that cabbage was real.
I don't doubt it, though it looks sort of like a green, mutant, miniature, dead elephant in the low res. avatar picture
"Greenwich, UK 1/1/05 - In a disturbing find, scientists have discovered that men who do not listen to digitally compressed music have dramatically reduced sperm counts. Researchers suggest men compressing CDs to Wavpack and listening at least twice a day can increase their fertility by several orders of magnitude.
Women of child bearing age wishing to concieve are recommended to do the same, with OptimFROG showing the greatest gains in fertility.
In an interesting exception, Xing (mp3) users are rendered sterile after only a few listens."
Fine with me.
I don't care for having children (yeah, I am kind of selfish)
So I am fine with my lossy codecs (which nowadays is pretty much all the music I listen to)
edit: Seriously, that cabbage was real.
I don't doubt it, though it looks sort of like a green, mutant, miniature, dead elephant in the low res. avatar picture
ROFLMAO!
What do you want for less than 8k?
I've actually had kind of the same teory as this guy, but without all the details... I have a mild case of tinnitus (only notice it when all is quiet). Also, when I'm exposed to louder music (for instance at a bar) it does not take long before my hearing gets bad; sometimes I can't even identify the song playing!
I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure?
This actually reminds me of that thread where Spoon wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies
ROFLMAO!
So then there is selective pressure towards listening to compressed music which results in audio compression freaks having a much higher fecundity than the rest of the population?
It was Spase. My bad.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2159 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2159)
And yes, I posted there (first reply) that his idea would (maybe) make sense if evolution was based on lamarckist concepts, not darwinist ones.
Also, when I'm exposed to louder music (for instance at a bar) it does not take long before my hearing gets bad; sometimes I can't even identify the song playing!
I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure?
Have you tried going to an ears-nose-and-throat doctor? Your tinnitus sounds like it might be bad.
I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure?
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
"Psychoaccustic" means just that: it sounds the same to your brain. It has the same "effect" as normal music. It does not have to cover any "full spectrum" or "calibrate itself" or anything. The added noise of lossy compression is not like subliminal messages, that you are unconsciously hearing, it is meant to be inaudible. That is, below the threshold of hearing. To your brain, it is not there.
Have you tried going to an ears-nose-and-throat doctor? Your tinnitus sounds like it might be bad.
No, I have never had my ears checked. Now you've got me a bit worried, hehe.
Try to avoid too loud music and noise!
This can irreversibly damage your hearing!
If you have tinitus that is a "signal" that you was exposed too long to loud music.
If you have problems to recognize the music you really should see a doctor as AtaqueEG recommended!
Sometimes the music in bars or discos is much louder than allowed by law in working areas.
There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Actually Im not sure that's correct.
If I listen to a 64kilobit/sec BLADE or Xing stereo encode it gives me the urge to stab an icepick into my ear, which would likely result in severe ear damage.
Admittedly the compressed music is not the direct cause of the damage, but the point stands
edit: yes I am being sarcastic
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
I can actually make the opposite undocumented claim: Lossy music have already caused world-wide brain and ear damage: 90%+ of people worldwide thinks 160 kb mp3 is perfect for listening, whereas I get a headache after listening for a few minutes.
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
No it's just worded a little strongly. There is no plausible theory as to why lossily compressed music would cause hearing loss, and there is no body of anecdotal evidence to suggest it might be happening. Until either exists there is nothing to investigate. Further current theory would suggest that since lossy codecs subject the ear to less real, as opposed to perceived, noise then listening to lossy codecs should be better for your hearing.
The link is pretty funny, and the author appears to have incorporated many official looking pictures into his "explanation". I enjoyed this particular segment the most:
I personally own mainly cheap CDs and phono records, but almost no downloaded MP3 musics. I have however some computer games with MP3 music, but I don't play them excessively. Despite I generally listen to music only quietly, I have repeatedly tinitus; this happens particularly often when I fall asleep while watching TV, even when the sleep only lasts few minutes. I thus also suspect the data reduction in radio and TV broadcasts as a cause, not least because the hearing uses particularly the sleep for calibrating itself, during that the presence of neuroacoustically datareduced tones thus should be particularly harmful.
Blaming tinitus on data reduction is pretty novel I must say.
reminds me of a pre-(this season) Niles Crane
I am not sure if we should spent time explaining why. (perhaps you just want to know if it is true or no).
Please do. If you (and the others) just say the document is wrong, you are making a undocumented claim.
The Internet consists mostly of undocumented claims, propaganda and socalled reviews. I personally don't believe anything I read on the Internes unless it has been thoughly documented and scientifically proven. True that no proof exists that lossy music is harmful, but no proof exists that is is harmless either.*
Oh, but it does.
There is nothing in human hearing's physiology ("the way it works") that could even begin to suggest such a thing. Documented scientific proof? Any book on local library on this subject. Read my lips: what you don't hear, cannot damage you.
Let me put a similar example: dog whistles. Even if I recorded one of those, handed you headphones and cranked up the volume while playing such sample, your hearing would not suffer in the slightest bit; why? because you can't hear it. It does not stimulate the "transducer" that we all have inside our ears.
This is widely documented, BTW.
*Emphasis is mine
There is no scientific backing (controlled experiment with statistically significant results) that quantization noise introduced by MP3 or any other lossy codec is different from any other natural sound for the human hearing system.
Quantization noise is just narrow-band noise - the fact that it is masked (if the psymodel is good) even helps - since it won't even get to the central nervous system through the hearing nerve, and most of the noise will be below ATH (absolute threshold of audibility) - which means that it even won't be transfered to the middle-ear.
These two facts would actually help the claim that quantization noise in perceptual audio codecs is actually less harmful than any other noise - because it is masked.
Great !
I like the idea that MP3 is good for my hearing because
it has some useless parts of the audio signal filtered out...
But, then, PCM audio CDs ... are they bad for my hearing ?
Just kiddin !
So glad I didn't throw away my MP3 collection after all !
i've been messin' around with mp3 since early 1999... my hearing hasn't changed one bit over the past 5 years
i've also been a club DJ since 1996... fortunately that hasn't affected my hearing much either
guess i consider myself lucky, blessed with good ears
And the compressed audio doesn't go directly to our ears as it is.. there is the noise introduced by speakers for example.
For damage the ear it should at least come directly into our ears without other audio interferences which could compensate the loss.
Try to avoid too loud music and noise!
This can irreversibly damage your hearing!
If you have tinitus that is a "signal" that you was exposed too long to loud music.
If you have problems to recognize the music you really should see a doctor as AtaqueEG recommended!
Sometimes the music in bars or discos is much louder than allowed by law in working areas.
My tinnitus started just about the time when lossy compression appeared and I must also say, that a Rolling Stones concert music temporarely raised my hearing threshold, such that I was deaf to quiet sounds for some hours.
Was not I just listening to too loud music? Since then, I have earplugs with me all the time, and I do apply them. Recently I had an audiogram and it shows, that I did stop further hearing loss.
There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Actually Im not sure that's correct.
If I listen to a 64kilobit/sec BLADE or Xing stereo encode it gives me the urge to stab an icepick into my ear, which would likely result in severe ear damage.
Admittedly the compressed music is not the direct cause of the damage, but the point stands
edit: yes I am being sarcastic
To me regular harmonic distortion also gives the urge to take off my headphones. That is how I became to love bass heavy music. 3x15dB boost at 30Hz is a 45dB cut at 1kHz. So I can have an SPL of 100dB@30Hz, yet no damaging sounds. The distortion is also reduced or pushed below the hearing threshold.
Q: Does Logologie treat man and women equally?
Yes.
The gender plays no important role in Logologie, respecting the fact that the oestrogen from the environmental pollution finally will wipe away all the differences between the genders - there will be no machismo anymore and no hysterical wives - because this hormone will come to us and the hormone will be everywhere - spreading ONE message - to make all men created equal.
(http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...ogologieFAQ.htm (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/LogologieFAQ.htm))
Does anybody need a doctorate degree to confirm that this man is absolutely insane?
White science is the term for that unholistical way of operating official scientific research which only respects the thinking in the Boolean logics of the either-or and which re-uses the old, foul, Zoroasterian priest- handicraft of devilization by rejecting anything not fitting into its worldview or the power interests of its operators by banning it with the simple term "unscientific", while claiming its own research methods would be the only "objective" ones (treated as "the only truth").
Well then, I guess he wouldn't take blind testing as proof of MP3's harmlessness.
I haven't read through everything you have written here nor the article posted in first post, but!
I have regular problems with ears... Physical problems. My hearing itself is fine, but in period of time my ears hurt much (I really don't know the medical term to this thing in English; that's why my text is so plain, but it has been diagnosed by doctor and I have cured it over and over again). That problem has been with me very long time (that is also long time before mp3 was even invented) and now - few years I have listened mp3 format sounds a lot. And - result is that if the file has bad quality, my ears begin to hurt after 10 minutes of listening mp3 128 kbps (Xing, for example) with my earphones; mp3-s with larger bitrate I can tolerate up to 1 hour, but no more!
Funny thing is, that I personally can't make the diffrence between - let's say 128 kbps LAME or Xing, because I don't have very good equipment and also - my hearing is not so precise, but - I have tested a lot and used files that I encode myself and files from others (with EncSpot program) and - results are the sam all the time. I also can not tolerate if computer is working in the room where I sleep - at the mornings I have a headache and also I can not listen even WAV format music (directly from original CD) for a long time. BUT - if I use my Sony Hi-Fi system with earphones, I have listened music for hours (while taking a nap;)) without any futher problems...
So I don't know what to blame... bad sound card? (Earphones quite good), compressed music files?
Anyhow, I don't want to say, that mp3 can cause something, because as said - I have other problems with ears also, so... Make up your own mind.
P.S. Sorry for the hard-to-understand-text; it's quite late here and I haven't checked text for eny errors, so it might be confusing...
Spy - have you tried this?
Create two copies of a CD:
1. Copy 1:1, i.e. Extract from CD -> wav -> Burning program -> audio CD-R
2. Copy with lossy step: EAC -> e.g. 128kbps mp3 -> decode/burn -> audio CD-R
Ask someone else to put the CDs in your hifi in a random order and listen to them in CD repeat mode (without knowing which one is played) until your ears start to hurt. Repeat this several times - and document the results (time it takes until ears hurt, which CD was played and maybe some details about the pain in case there's a difference).
If you post the results here, I'm sure our statistics experts will help to evaluate the results.
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
I can actually make the opposite undocumented claim: Lossy music have already caused world-wide brain and ear damage: 90%+ of people worldwide thinks 160 kb mp3 is perfect for listening, whereas I get a headache after listening for a few minutes.
I'm a little late, but anyway...
Well, in the absence of any evidence either way people should choose the simpler of two theories. For medicine though people often choose the "rather safe than sorry" and assume anything is dangerous until it's proven harmless. That's why it's so easy to upset people with alarms of cancer from this, tinnitus from mp3, etc. This stance makes sense sometimes, but nowadays I think the stress all these "health alarms" cause is worse than the actual healthrisks they warn for...
Let me put a similar example: dog whistles. Even if I recorded one of those, handed you headphones and cranked up the volume while playing such sample, your hearing would not suffer in the slightest bit; why? because you can't hear it. It does not stimulate the "transducer" that we all have inside our ears.
This is widely documented, BTW.
*Emphasis is mine
I'd debate that. There are even legal limits on the allowed exposure to ultra sonic sounds. They're ridiculously high, but they exist.
Depending on the frequency of your "dog whistle" you might start to hear it at ~ 100dB, or even lower. Hearing 24kHz at 100dB is quite common, according to published research. I don't have the references on me, but I've posted them here before.
As for wrecking your hearing with psychoacoustic coded sounds - in the short term, that's nonesense. And the fact that all "real life" sounds aren't coded means it won't happen - ever.
But if
everything you ever heard came via a cheap 3" speaker, I'm sure your ears would adapt to this in some way. But I'm not sure sure whether they'd boost the unused frequency extremes, or lose them.
Similarly, if
everything you ever heard had noise added tightly around the limits of spectral masking (either just within, or just outside - i.e. good codec, or bad codec!) it's not inconceivable that the ear would adapt in some way. The existing human sharp spectral masking curves are due to an active neural feedback process - the basic "dead ear" curves are much wider. Would the neural tuning curves become sharper to filter out the noise, or wider to stop us from actually hearing it?
I think it's likely that nothing would change. For one thing, the existing shape doesn't match anything specific in our environment, but can behave as a useful time/frequency compromise for some tasks. Why change?
However, to say with 100% certainty that one of our senses wouldn't adapt to a continuous change in stimulus over time (or even generations) is a very brave statement indeed!
Still, the guy crank, and I enjoy mpc without worries!
Cheers,
David.
EDIT: The quality of digital TV and (especially) radio broadcasts in the UK is enough to give anyone a headache! DAB digital radio often sounds worse than FM (80kbps mp2!!!!), never mind CD! The bitrates are higher on FreeView, but most commercial stations are a transcoded mess.
There are so many potential and unknown triggers of tinnitus. Personally when I quit smoking and taking psychotherapeutic medicines it reduced in frequency a lot. This is the same time period I was getting into mp3s so if they were an issue I doubt I would have noticed such an improvement. And don't you dare ask me to ABX by smoking again!
However, to say with 100% certainty that one of our senses wouldn't adapt to a continuous change in stimulus over time (or even generations) is a very brave statement indeed!
If this was understood from what I posted, I am sorry, I did not meant to disqualify evolution
Obviously some changes --and I am not talking about damage here-- have and will occur to our senses and to other organs/systems in our body triggered by external stimuli, but don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
I think that is pretty safe, with current hearing physiology knowledge, that you can spend you life listening to your MPCs and me to my MP3 (although that won't happen, most likely in 5 years or so we'll all be listening to lossless encoding of somekind, and don't forget about the new media that will appear/become popular in the inmediate future) without the slightest worry, besides volume, that is.
24kHz hearing? I would be very much interested in taking a look at such paper. I have never heard --no pun intended-- something like that.
Did anyone looked at the history of equal loudness curves? I am wondering about the peak at approx 16kHz. Does TV's horizontal deflection has anything to do with it?
Similarly, if everything you ever heard had noise added tightly around the limits of spectral masking (either just within, or just outside - i.e. good codec, or bad codec!) it's not inconceivable that the ear would adapt in some way. The existing human sharp spectral masking curves are due to an active neural feedback process - the basic "dead ear" curves are much wider. Would the neural tuning curves become sharper to filter out the noise, or wider to stop us from actually hearing it?
I think it's likely that nothing would change. For one thing, the existing shape doesn't match anything specific in our environment, but can behave as a useful time/frequency compromise for some tasks. Why change?
However, to say with 100% certainty that one of our senses wouldn't adapt to a continuous change in stimulus over time (or even generations) is a very brave statement indeed!
The first part of your response is completely about organ "adaptation" (in the colloquial sense) and I have no argument with it, however your parenthesized statement "(or even generations)" leads me to believe you feel this acquired "adaptation" (to a 3" speaker or to good or bad codecs) could concievably be passed on to offspring.
I wish to stress that acquired characteristics are
not heritable.
An individual whose senses have "adapted" to the "continuous change in stimulus over time"
cannot transfer this ability to their offspring so that the offspring do not require a similar period of "adaptation". Without an unbelievably complex modification of the genome of the gametes which would allow for a predisposition to not require an acclimatization period to the hypothetical 3" speaker or codec processed sounds (so indescribably improbable as to be easily called "impossible"), the offspring themselves would have to go through the same acclimatization period, without question.
The sensory stimulus has no ability to physically modify the genome of the gametes. Without this ability, no amount of exposure to the stimulus will impact the offsprings ability to hear one thing or another. The genome followed by the experience in the womb dictates the physical characteristics of the ear of the newborn child,
not the parents exposure to limited frequency or compressed sounds.
This is extremely well-known, and there are no known exceptions (bacterial transferance of plasmids coding for novel characteristics are not acquired characteristics since the characteristics are an outgrowth of the transferred DNA of the plasmid and only begin to be expressed subesquent to the transfer). Nor is there a mechanism known or suspected that would allow for such exceptions.
So assuming I have interpreted your meaning with the "(or even generations)" statement correctly (which I probably have not), I'm certain it's quite safe to say that such a statement regarding the ability of those whose sensory organs become adapted to specific types of sounds (in our case, those from a hypothetical 3" speaker or from all sounds being processed with a codec) to pass the ability on to their offspring is not a brave one at all.
If I have completely misinterpreted your parenthesized comment, I apologize, but there is far too much absurd nonsense and disinformation about the action of selection and Evolution on the internet as it is (the thread rjamorim linked to earlier illustrates this perfectly). This is in part due to the relative subtlety of the subject material, and also due to proscriptions (especially here in the US: see Kansas school board) against learning empirical facts that might indirectly contradict religious dogma.
TVs are a fine example actually... i'm sure after years upon years of watching teev for several hours a day could concievably place a kind of "notch filter" on one's hearing. certainly i don't know anybody over ~25 years who can hear this annoying sound. perhaps this could be tested by switching the TV to NTSC mode (instead of PAL) to slightly change the pilot tone and watch people's reactions.
however, the above is a special case. a feature of lossy coding that has been neglected in that "report" (sorry, but i just HAD to use quotes) is the fact that the masked frequencies are different frame per frame. the higher precision in the same bands in different frames would surely cancel out over a fairly short term, producing an average that is even harder to distinguish from analog noise.
the only way lossy coding could concievably alter hearing (even in an "adaptation" sense) is if one were to listen to a constant tone with a noise background coded at a low bitrate. one could imagine the ear would slowly become aware of the noise lacking in the bands adjacent to the constant tone... and in this case i'd say the most "damaging" effect would be the opposite of the above - the fact that you would be less sensitive to the frequency of the main tone.
oh, and as far as analog TV broadcasting goes... ew. nowadays i can tell a live sports event from a delayed event simply from the artefacts present. and my reception isn't even particularly good... (would this be a case of natural noise being perceptually different from quantization noise? ).
Did anyone looked at the history of equal loudness curves? I am wondering about the peak at approx 16kHz. Does TV's horizontal deflection has anything to do with it?
There is no peak at 16 kHz as far as I know. The curve is continuously increasing from about 13 kHz, where the second dip has it's minimum. If this dip is what you're referring to, it has nothing to do with TV. It's because of the length of your ear canal - it works like a 3/4 wave pipe resonator around this frequency.
I leave it as an exercise to calculate the length of your ear canal and check if it's correct. The speed of sound in air is 340 m/s.
Rotfl....
so do we have to be worried that after listening to to much mp3 files our brains will go lazy and unable to fillter out background sounds in the real world ? (listening to a conversation in a noisy environment would get hard)
im sure we are in no danger...
allmost all the time while listing to compressed audio there are plenty of background sound not originating from the compressed source to keep your mind calibrated.....
for example the whirring of fans on your pc.... wind blowing... a clock ticking ... your own breath ... everytime you move your clothes make noises.... cars driving by ... your neigbours making love... an airplane ... birds, street dogs, cows , sheep... trains... rain on the window. your fridge.... TL lights humming... your aquarium or other pet ... the DVD turning in your drive.... eating crisps while watching a dvd ... kids playing in the street...
well you get the picture by now ..if you start paying attention to them... the list is ENDLESS......
just try to find a silent spot somewhere a be amazed at how much "background noises" you yourself create ... more then enough to keep your mind calibrated ...
maybe there would be some truth in that story if you only listened at only 1 simultanious compressed audio source for the rest of your life, you probably would have to do this as soon as you are born, (your brain would get lazy and unable to filter out backgroundsounds, you possible would have a lot of trouble with following a conversation in a noisy environment) but that would only be possible in a theoretical world. from the moment you start mixing in other background sounds (even other compressed ones) your mind has to start working to filter them back out ....
and it could easely be fixed with a "MP3 hearing aid" (patent pending)
be happy you can get an hour or two to listen to only the DVD you want without to many distractions... and enjoy....your mind will not unlearn that quick , otherwise we would be in real trouble when we wake up in the morning....
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
I can actually make the opposite undocumented claim: Lossy music have already caused world-wide brain and ear damage: 90%+ of people worldwide thinks 160 kb mp3 is perfect for listening, whereas I get a headache after listening for a few minutes.
Hi, sshd. I respect what you're trying to say, but I think you've got it around the wrong way. I think that it should be proven that it IS harmful, rather than the opposite. There is no need to prove that it isn't harmful...and besides, proving that it IS harmful (which is a far easier goal to make) will necessarily negate proving that it isn't .
Did anyone looked at the history of equal loudness curves? I am wondering about the peak at approx 16kHz. Does TV's horizontal deflection has anything to do with it?
There is no peak at 16 kHz as far as I know. The curve is continuously increasing from about 13 kHz, where the second dip has it's minimum. If this dip is what you're referring to, it has nothing to do with TV. It's because of the length of your ear canal - it works like a 3/4 wave pipe resonator around this frequency.
I leave it as an exercise to calculate the length of your ear canal and check if it's correct. The speed of sound in air is 340 m/s.
Thanks noting it, PAL or NTSC standard, it is the same 15625Hz, to which the ear is more sensitive (dip) than to frequencies a little bit below. I see no reason why evolution would have selected humans, who can locate TVs better just by ear.
I hate that tone very much. It nearly makes me gag.
That's the only reason I use a TV tuner card.
I see no reason why evolution would have selected humans, who can locate TVs better just by ear.
Well, it may soon happen... who knows.
Thanks Audible! I think that's answered the issue I was hinting at in my paranthetical* remark. I make no claim to understand the biology that is or is not involved in evolutionary change. This ignorance is not due to Kansas state educators**, but due to dropping biology at the age of 13, and not really paying attention before that.
Cheers,
David.
* if that's not a real word, then I've just invented it.
** there are, of course, plenty of scientists (even biologists) who are Christians, and thankfully the Kansas experience is unlikely to be repeated in the UK.
SERIOUS ADVICE:
In the UK we have Health and Safety laws that regulate the maximum volume that films can be played at cinemas. The limits DO NOT APPLY TO ADVERTS. This is why the Adverts in some cinemas sound so deafening. They are frequently well in excess of the safe limits and doing harm to your hearing.
SERIOUS ADVICE:
In the UK we have Health and Safety laws that regulate the maximum volume that films can be played at cinemas.
Utterly typical UK killjoy type attitude.
The notch filter thingy is interesting though... Although all the under 35's I know can tell a tv's whistle.... but strangely only people with an active interest in 'electronics' (broad broad definition)
I'm planning to patent an even better hearing aid: from the outside it looks like an ordinary hearing aid, but it's actually a hollow piece of plastic. I bet people will swear it works great.
HOLLOW?
OMG - the audiophiles will scream bloody murder about the cabinet resonance!
SERIOUS ADVICE:
In the UK we have Health and Safety laws that regulate the maximum volume that films can be played at cinemas. The limits DO NOT APPLY TO ADVERTS. This is why the Adverts in some cinemas sound so deafening. They are frequently well in excess of the safe limits and doing harm to your hearing.
?!?!
A link would be useful. What you're saying makes does not match my experience at all, and as far as I know there is no such law.
There may be a law regulating sounds above 120 or 125 or 127dB, and there are certainly laws regulating industrial noise (as with many health risks at work), but there's nothing "sensible" regulating recreational noise exposure - or is there?
FWIW there's nothing "kill joy" about prohibiting 127dB+ (if that regulation exists - I'm guessing) - that's the point at which near instant, irreversable hearing damage starts.
Though I'm sure I've been in quite a few clubs where it's louder than this next to the PA.
Here's a more sensible law:
any venue where sound levels exceed those allowed in industry should provide free, discrete, and readily available ear defenders.
Cheers,
David.
SERIOUS ADVICE:
In the UK we have Health and Safety laws that regulate the maximum volume that films can be played at cinemas. The limits DO NOT APPLY TO ADVERTS. This is why the Adverts in some cinemas sound so deafening. They are frequently well in excess of the safe limits and doing harm to your hearing.
Well, the adverts don't have more sound pressure than the actual movie, it's more likely that it is compressed to have just that effect - to be percieved louder. Same goes for any broacast such as radio and TV where you lessen headroom and average out on peak levels.
You know, if you found the experience unpleasing wathing the movie, all you have to do is complain and you should get your money back. Tell them you felt pain in your ears to give them a scare. I've done that a few times and I've always been compensated.
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
I can actually make the opposite undocumented claim: Lossy music have already caused world-wide brain and ear damage: 90%+ of people worldwide thinks 160 kb mp3 is perfect for listening, whereas I get a headache after listening for a few minutes.
I love this forums sense of humor. You guys are too much.
What about when amplified heavilly? It makes sense that under normal listening conditions there should be no ill-effect. HOWEVER. When you add uniform layers of compression, eq, and amplification to a compressed lossy file, would that not accentuate the middle to upper range that seems to be more present in some lossy files? The most sensitive part of human hearing?
I can tell you from direct personal experience and concurring experience from many other dj's and club sound techs that there is such a "sound" to heavilly amplified mp3s. We play in some of the biggest night clubs in the world, often 3-4 times a week for the past 10 years. So its safe to say there has been plenty of listening done.
What would amplification,uniform eq and heavy compression add to the scientific picture?
There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at )
Undocumented claim. Please provide proof.
I can actually make the opposite undocumented claim: Lossy music have already caused world-wide brain and ear damage: 90%+ of people worldwide thinks 160 kb mp3 is perfect for listening, whereas I get a headache after listening for a few minutes.
I love this forums sense of humor. You guys are too much.
What about when amplified heavilly? It makes sense that under normal listening conditions there should be no ill-effect. HOWEVER. When you add uniform layers of compression, eq, and amplification to a compressed lossy file, would that not accentuate the middle to upper range that seems to be more present in some lossy files? The most sensitive part of human hearing?
I can tell you from direct personal experience and concurring experience from many other dj's and club sound techs that there is such a "sound" to heavilly amplified mp3s. We play in some of the biggest night clubs in the world, often 3-4 times a week for the past 10 years. So its safe to say there has been plenty of listening done.
What would amplification,uniform eq and heavy compression add to the scientific picture?
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Since the goal of lossy encoders like lame, vorbis and musepack is that the encoded files should sound good in normal listening conditions, atleast at moderate bitrates, you can't expect that it should work as well in the conditions you describe. Probably the first thing that would harm you would be the loud volume. Annoying artefacts caused by a low quality encoder or a transcoded encode would simply make artefacts more obvious. And EQing that makes masking less effective creates more artefacts.
EDIT: I have some mp3s that sound horrible in normal listening conditions, and I don't even wan't know how bad it could sound in a night club. So the best thing you can do is use a good encoder. But I highly doubt it could cause any physical harm, except mental stress.
When you add uniform layers of compression, eq, and amplification to a compressed lossy file, would that not accentuate the middle to upper range that seems to be more present in some lossy files? [a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=320421"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
This range is no more present in lossy files than in lossless ones. What does make you think so ?
He may be referring to clipping resulting from the >0dbFS peak values resulting from compression. I guess that could result in a particular "sound", although I find it unlikely. It is also more of a bug in playback than anything else, and any good player is going to do the right thing and attenuate or limit/compress.
QUOTE(eangolden @ Aug 16 2005, 10:48 AM)
When you add uniform layers of compression, eq, and amplification to a compressed lossy file, would that not accentuate the middle to upper range that seems to be more present in some lossy files?
This range is no more present in lossy files than in lossless ones. What does make you think so ?
I don't want to break rule #8 this soon upon joining the forum (my 2nd post!) however, I can tell you from years of subjective listening in clubs and confirming with others with the same experience. I would love to perform a objective double blind but I don't really know how this could be performed as it is not a listening test but an endurance test.
I have 2 hypothesis that might support this "experiential data" however. These are really a shot in the dark. I am not trying to sound like I know it all.
1. Most club sound systems are still tuned and calibrated with vinyl play back in mind. Sudden drop offs at 19khz or 19hz are not taken into account. often large amounts of uniform (all frequencies equally boosted) compression and eq are applied. Not too mention a large amount of natural distortion from amps and circuitry on all freq.
this would sound fine if applied to a sound source with all frequencies present. the frequency perception response would be uniform across the spectrum. However if you take away, say everything from 19hz bellow and remove other "indiscernible frequencies" their overtones
would be missing as well. if overtones are a real, perceivable reality the remaining frequencies would have an abnormally increased presence.
2. not all mp3's are created equal, we can all agree there are really terrible ones most likely being played in clubs right now. Although a perfectly encoded LAME mp3 may have no discernable difference when amplified. Poorly encoded mp3s with artifacts will. So in theory, a lot of bad mp3's played over really loud sound systems COULD over time damage hearing more than the same piece of music played from a piece of vinyl.
Why do we even care, everything damages our hearing and health anyway? Because a lot of djs are playing terrible mp3s, and a lot more will over the coming years. its just too easy. This is an exploding market in an industry with absolutely no regulation on how much the club owners are allowed to destroy the patrons hearing. Sure, all the drunk people may not notice. but they also wont notice if I slip GHB in their drink until the next day either.
Why do we even care, everything damages our hearing and health anyway? Because a lot of djs are playing terrible mp3s, and a lot more will over the coming years. its just too easy. This is an exploding market in an industry with absolutely no regulation on how much the club owners are allowed to destroy the patrons hearing. Sure, all the drunk people may not notice. but they also wont notice if I slip GHB in their drink until the next day either.
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Forgive my ignorance and slightly off-topic note, but i think even *if* what you describe is a real problem, it will not be a longterm-issue:
1. Lossy codecs are unprobable to become worse - instead, they will become better and better. This in turn means that over the course of time, lossy encoded files in clubs will also improve, even though they would never be at the "current state-of-the-art".
2. Even though it is a slow process, i have noticed something scary: People are learning how to encode better. It is a very slow process. However, from my observations, the overall quality of MP3s on the net is slowly improving.
3. There are countless other aspects which may be a reason for health-concerns in clubs. The ever increasing amount of clipping and distortion in digital recordings(caused by overzealous limiting and compression in the production-stage) is probably much more noticable than the issue you are describing. So, shall we start a new topic "does clipping damage your ears?".
So, i think even if what you describe is real, then it would not be a longterm-problem.
Would you please read
carefully this document
and tell me if you think
it's serious ?
It was a shock when
I read it, can someone tell
me if it can be taken seriously or not ?
I'm really worried...
Thanks.
Here is the document :
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...r/MP3-risk.html (http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/MP3-Gefahr/MP3-risk.html)
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This article is full of holes in its arguments. If nothing else, you'd have to listen to compressed music files and *never* hear any other sound for the "training" concept, even if were to be true. Not a situation many people would find themselves in, I suspect.
I can't agree with the arguments offered...on the other hand does anyone know of any proper scientific research having been done?
I've actually had kind of the same teory as this guy, but without all the details... I have a mild case of tinnitus (only notice it when all is quiet). Also, when I'm exposed to louder music (for instance at a bar) it does not take long before my hearing gets bad; sometimes I can't even identify the song playing!
I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure?
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Music compression might be plausible as *the* main culprit for tinnitus if you've never ever
1) listened to recorded loud music that wasn't in a compressed format
2) listened to live loud music
either of those can lead to tinnitus too, *for sure*.
Music compression might be plausible as *the* main culprit for tinnitus if you've never ever
1) listened to recorded loud music that wasn't in a compressed format
2) listened to live loud music
either of those can lead to tinnitus too, *for sure*.
Nothing has ever been proven to cause tinnitus *for sure*.
I have tinnitus, caused by going to metal concerts and jamming with my band with no hearing protection. I didnt get it from listening to my music at home or otherwise as i've never used the volume to high on anything. You know when you buy an mp3 or Cd player, when you turn it on for the first time, it has a preset volume, like 10 or whatever, i usually leave it at that, or maybe raise a couple of notches if its too low.
Why do we even care, everything damages our hearing and health anyway? Because a lot of djs are playing terrible mp3s, and a lot more will over the coming years. its just too easy. This is an exploding market in an industry with absolutely no regulation on how much the club owners are allowed to destroy the patrons hearing. Sure, all the drunk people may not notice. but they also wont notice if I slip GHB in their drink until the next day either.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=320572")
3. There are countless other aspects which may be a reason for health-concerns in clubs. The ever increasing amount of clipping and distortion in digital recordings(caused by overzealous limiting and compression in the production-stage) is probably much more noticable than the issue you are describing. So, shall we start a new topic "does clipping damage your ears?".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=320645"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Sounds like a good Idea. Although this is a slightly different problem they are related and its still very real.
i created a topic [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36430]HERE[/url]
Does anyone have any thoughts on the following text? Here a guys explains why digital audio broadcasting sounds terrible when a heavilly compressed signal is encoded at 128kbs. Would the same principle apply is compression was applied after encoding?
"On DAB, high levels of audio processing such as those used by Radio 1 cause problems with the encoding of the sound at low bit rates such as 128 kbps. The reason for this is that the aim of perceptual encoding is to use the psychoacoustic model’s masking curves to eliminate frequencies that cannot be perceived by the listener but because the aim of the dynamic range compression is to make the frequency components larger, less of these frequency components will fall below the masking curves. Therefore, the result is that a far larger number of frequency components need to be encoded so more bits are required in order to do this. Different songs are easier for the signal to encode because the signal doesn’t contain many strong frequencies before compression so after amplification there still are few frequencies to be encoded. Other songs however contain a larger number of frequency components after dynamic range compression and at low bit rates such as 128 kbps, the encoder simply runs out of bits. The result for these songs is that the definition and clarity of the music is enormously reduced sometimes to the point where the song sounds worse than if it had been played back from an old cassette tape."
Here is the original text (http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/audio_processing.htm)
Does anyone have any thoughts on the following text? Here a guys explains why digital audio broadcasting sounds terrible when a heavilly compressed signal is encoded at 128kbs. Would the same principle apply is compression was applied after encoding?
No, it sounds like a one way process to me. It might be that DRC would be less effective if done to a lossy compressed source because the frequencies that it wants to amplify have been erased. Bad effects might happen if the filter is too aggressive and starts amplifying stuff like quantization noise or other undesired signals in preference to the main signal. But you'd have to try it to find out. I'd think it wouldn't be a big deal anyways since few people use that kind of extreme radio compression on their mp3 playback.
But why do you think this has anything to do with hearing damage?
Does anyone have any thoughts on the following text? Here a guys explains why digital audio broadcasting sounds terrible when a heavilly compressed signal is encoded at 128kbs. Would the same principle apply is compression was applied after encoding?
I'd think it wouldn't be a big deal anyways since few people use that kind of extreme radio compression on their mp3 playback.
But why do you think this has anything to do with hearing damage?
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Clubs use that kind of extreme compression. so mp3s could get recompressed in that form via the dj.
so, if its possible. artifacts and digital clipping would become even more severe when amplified and should be particualrly harsh on the ears.
so, if its possible. artifacts and digital clipping would become even more severe when amplified and should be particualrly harsh on the ears.
Maybe harsh on the ears as in "sounds ugly". But that is not the same as in "potential for damage".
Listen, if you've read through this thread you know that everyone that has a clue is saying that the only important thing for hearing damage is the decibels of the sound. Standing next to a 110 db diesel engine is exactly as damaging as standing next to a 110 db speaker. People who come out of a club with ringing ears have been exposed to too loud of sound. It doesn't matter whether the club was playing music from CD, live, or 64kbps Xing passed through a FM compressor. It's just the loudness.
Listen, if you've read through this thread you know that everyone that has a clue is saying that the only important thing for hearing damage is the decibels of the sound. Standing next to a 110 db diesel engine is exactly as damaging as standing next to a 110 db speaker.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=321431"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thats really not correct. If a 110db speaker was to play a 100hz tone, then the diesel engine would be significantly louder(as percieved by the ear, not a meter) and more damaging to the human ear. The diesel engine would contain more frequencies in the range that is particuarly sensitive to the human ear; 1 kHz to 4 kHz. Any sounds that contain more energy in this region are going to be more damaging to the ear.
Well i've researched this too some times ago by asking to all UK audiologists.
Almost all sayd me that the mentioned article is probably a crap and, of course, loud music can damange your hearing.
Anyway there's no official research about lossy audio hearing-related problems.
I'm pretty sure that an extended exposure to compressed audio can't cause physiological problems, anyway my point of view is the audiophile one, which means that i don't have medical backgrounds to claim anything.
I'm just trying to investigate if compressed audio can cause loses of hearing QUALITY, inducting a sort of 'hearing habit' due to the applied audio simplifications. It's not just a physical problem, but psychoacoustical (or neuroacustical in the article).
The 'temporal masking' technique, used in the audio compression, is based on the concept that if we hear a loud sound, then it stops, it takes a little while until we can hear a soft tone nearby.
So, if compressed audio is made of louder sounds only, can we argue that is more 'alterative' than uncompressed ?
Many audiophiles can tell the difference between compressed an uncompressed sounds, so I think that some kind of 'hearing alteration' could happen to compressed audio-only listeners.
Well i've researched this too some times ago by asking to all UK audiologists.
Almost all sayd me that the mentioned article is probably a crap and, of course, loud music can damange your hearing.
Anyway there's no official research about lossy audio hearing-related problems.
I'm pretty sure that an extended exposure to compressed audio can't cause physiological problems, anyway my point of view is the audiophile one, which means that i don't have medical backgrounds to claim anything.
I'm just trying to investigate if compressed audio can cause loses of hearing QUALITY, inducting a sort of 'hearing habit' due to the applied audio simplifications. It's not just a physical problem, but psychoacoustical (or neuroacustical in the article).
The 'temporal masking' technique, used in the audio compression, is based on the concept that if we hear a loud sound, then it stops, it takes a little while until we can hear a soft tone nearby.
So, if compressed audio is made of louder sounds only, can we argue that is more 'alterative' than uncompressed ?
Many audiophiles can tell the difference between compressed an uncompressed sounds, so I think that some kind of 'hearing alteration' could happen to compressed audio-only listeners.
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1) Compressed audio (data-compressed) doesn't contain only louder sounds. The algorithm isn't that simple.
2) Self-proclaimed audiophiles *claim* to be able to hear the difference, that's not the same thing as saying they can do so. We can *all* tell the difference in low bitrate encoded material, if the rate is below our individual "transparency level". Do audiophiles have some mystic abilites that enable them to perceive the difference? I think not, they have the same design of ears as the rest of us and have no special abilities physiologically.