# Are (analog) records actually considered to sound better than (digital) CD's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977 "2009-01-05T19:03:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/61 "2009-01-07T16:46:24Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > A problem with these sorts of tests, though, is that they don’t take the [hypersonic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_effect) effect in account. This is a phenomenon that is not quite well understood, but people appear to the _unconsciously_ sensitive to frequencies above the hearing threshold. Oohashi and al., who conducted the hypersound experiments, noted that usual AB tests are flawed because the samples, and the pause between them, are too short. If you are to do tests, you should listen to a whole piece (theirs was 200 seconds long) and allow a few minutes for your brain to rest between listenings. Even then, the difference will be in rather subjective terms, like “rich”, “smooth” or “warm”. However, EEGs show there is a real response to sounds that are too high for you to consciously perceive. Several minutes between listening to samples? The problem with that is that auditory memory is actually very short. With an A/B/X comparator, the listener can switch as often or as rarely as they please. But any wait time between the samples dramatically reduces the validity of the comparison. If that was an important part of their protocol, it increased, rather than decreased, the subjectivity of their tests. The brain shouldn’t “rest” when comparing two things. Imagine how poorly a text subject would do on one of those “find the difference between two pictures” tests if they looked at one picture for 200 seconds, then had it taken away, allowed their brain to “rest” for a few minutes, then was allowed to look at the second picture. Seriously, how do you think they’d do? Why should the less reliable auditory memory do better than visual memory? ---
**Author:** ![ponsonby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@ponsonby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ponsonby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/62 "2009-01-07T18:15:24Z")
FWIW, I read in a newspaper that audiophiles were spending a lot of money buying the original Playstaion console because it apparently could play CDs with better sound reproduction than a high end stereo system. It had some sort of special processor that produced a very clear sound signal or something. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/63 "2009-01-07T19:31:34Z")
> [@ponsonby](#): > > FWIW, I read in a newspaper that audiophiles were spending a lot of money buying the original Playstaion console because it apparently could play CDs with better sound reproduction than a high end stereo system. It had some sort of special processor that produced a very clear sound signal or something. It’s the kryptonite. All of the original playstations were made from kryptonite. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/64 "2009-01-08T02:12:51Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > The brain shouldn’t “rest” when comparing two things. Imagine how poorly a text subject would do on one of those “find the difference between two pictures” tests if they looked at one picture for 200 seconds, then had it taken away, allowed their brain to “rest” for a few minutes, then was allowed to look at the second picture. Seriously, how do you think they’d do? Why should the less reliable auditory memory do better than visual memory? From “Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity: Hypersonic Effect” by Oohashi and al., Journal of Neurophysiology 83:3548-3558, 2000. > [@](#): > > In the previous studies, sound materials were never longer than 20 s and the interval between two successive sound materials was 2–3 s or less. Therefore if neuronal response to sound stimuli is characterized by delay and persistence for longer than 20 s, it is difficult to exclude the possibilitythat those studies might have introduced a subjective evaluation that might not precisely correspond to each sound condition. They did three series of tests: one where they looked at EEG response, one where they took a PET scan and another where participants wrote down their subjective assessment of the sound. All three showed significant response to full-spectrum signals. The ABX test will tell you if you can _consciously_ perceive a difference between two sources. The hypersound research shows that even though you cannot tell two sources apart in such a setting, people will nevertheless tend to subjectively prefer the source with high frequency components. Specifically, they rated these sounds as “softer”, more “reverberant”, more “balanced”, more “comfortable” and “richer” than they audible-frequency-only signal. I think this may in part explain why some people can claim to prefer high-quality recordings while at the same time being unable to identify them in ABX testing. It’s likely not all self-deception, as is often claimed. As a matter of fact, this was part of Oohashi’s motivation: > [@](#): > > As a premise for determining these formats, several psychological experiments were performed to evaluate sound quality subjectively by means of questionnaires, according to the recommendation of the Comité Consultatif International Radiophonique (CCIR 1978) or its modified versions. Studies by Muraoka et al. (1978) and Plenge et al. (1979), as well as other studies, concluded that listeners did not consciously recognize the inclusion of sounds with a frequency range above 15 kHz as making a difference in sound quality. Nevertheless, and interestingly enough, artists and engineers working to produce acoustically perfect music for commercial purposes are convinced that the intentional manipulation of HFC above the audible range can positively affect the perception of sound quality (Neve 1992). ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/65 "2009-01-08T04:33:26Z")
Do you have a link to the article? Because I cannot tell from the portion you quoted if their experiments were double-blind. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/66 "2009-01-08T04:50:42Z")
I searched and found it. Their methodology is a mess. If I read this correctly, there were two different sets of speakers! LFCs and HFCs were separately amplified with P-800 and P-300L power amplifiers (Accuphase, Yokohama, Japan), respectively, and presented through a speaker system consisting of twin cone-type woofers and a horn-type tweeter for the LFCs and a dome-type super tweeter with a diamond diaphragm for the HFCs. As two devices can’t occupy the same space, they had a different position relative to the listener. And any possibility of a double-blind test is eliminated when you hear two different sounds sources. And the methodology is pretty haphazard: The level of the presented sound pressure was individually adjusted so that each subject felt comfortable; thus the maximum level was approximately 80-90 dB sound pressure level (SPL) at the listening position. There’s not a word mentioned about matching the two sound sources within .1 dB like the study of audibility of high-bitrate improvements by David Moran and Brad Meyer [linked to by Mix magazine.](http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/audio_emperors_new_sampling/) Tragically, the original paper is only available for download if you pay $20 ($5 for AES members). But here is the abstract: Claims both published and anecdotal are regularly made for audibly superior sound quality for two-channel audio encoded with longer word lengths and/or at higher sampling rates than the 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD standard. The authors report on a series of double-blind tests comparing the analog output of high-resolution players playing high-resolution recordings with the same signal passed through a 16-bit/44.1-kHz “bottleneck.” The tests were conducted for over a year using different systems and a variety of subjects. The systems included expensive professional monitors and one high-end system with electrostatic loudspeakers and expensive components and cables. The subjects included professional recording engineers, students in a university recording program, and dedicated audiophiles. The test results show that the CD-quality A/D/A loop was undetectable at normal-to-loud listening levels, by any of the subjects, on any of the playback systems. The noise of the CD-quality loop was audible only at very elevated levels. ---
**Author:** ![totoismomo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@totoismomo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/totoismomo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/67 "2009-01-08T05:19:14Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > As two devices can’t occupy the same space, they had a different position relative to the listener. And any possibility of a double-blind test is eliminated when you hear two different sounds sources. Why? Presumably the subjects couldn’t consciously hear the high frequency content. The experimenters played the music with and without the inaudible content, and both times they heard the same audible sounds through the same speakers. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/68 "2009-01-08T05:22:15Z")
Even if hypersonic frequencies really did make a difference in the sound quality (and this is still a pretty big if), it makes no difference since next to nobody owns speakers that can play back those frequencies. As **gaffa** points out, in the study they had to use different tweeters to play back the higher frequency part. It would also require that all the recording equipment preserved those frequencies as well (I wonder if the Moran & Meyer study accounted for this). It has essentially no bearing on the LP/CD issue. I’m also not sure why my post was quoted, since I was referring to material that couldn’t possibly have higher frequency components in the song data, and mentioning my ability to distinguish them anyway (in response to the claim about how high a bitrate was needed). ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/69 "2009-01-08T06:40:39Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > I searched and found it. Their methodology is a mess. If I read this correctly, there were two different sets of speakers! The way I read it, it’s a four-way speaker with a crossover. Although a custom job, it’s not an unusual listening setup. Two woofers, two tweeters, with one tweeter only getting HFC. I think you will find it very difficult to get a 100kHz flat response with a single driver. I don’t get your objection to the double-blindedness of the study. The piece was played in full-spectrum and audible-spectrum in random order. Since the HFC cannot be consciously perceived, there was no way for either tester or subject to known which was being played at any given time. There was either sound coming out of all four drivers, or only the three drivers assigned to the LFC. I’ll grant you that I would have liked to see a bit more discussion of measured sound levels between the samples. However, in their setup, the audible-frequency signal _is the same_ in both LFC and LFC+HFC samples. Since HFC are imperceptible, the apparent sound level between the two samples ought to be the same. The claims of hypersound research don’t contradict those of Moran and Meyer, because they deal with _conscious_ discrimination. Oohashi were interested in _unconscious_ effects. > [@panamajack](#): > > Even if hypersonic frequencies really did make a difference in the sound quality (and this is still a pretty big if), it makes no difference since next to nobody owns speakers that can play back those frequencies. As gaffa points out, in the study they had to use different tweeters to play back the higher frequency part. > > It would also require that all the recording equipment preserved those frequencies as well (I wonder if the Moran & Meyer study accounted for this). It has essentially no bearing on the LP/CD issue. I’m also not sure why my post was quoted, since I was referring to material that couldn’t possibly have higher frequency components in the song data, and mentioning my ability to distinguish them anyway (in response to the claim about how high a bitrate was needed). I simply quoted you because you mentioned ABX. They used a special system to get a _flat response_ to 100kHz. “Regular” speakers do indeed reproduce sounds above 20kHz, it’s just that the frequency response isn’t likely flat in that range anymore. LPs cannot reproduce high frequency signals. Like I wrote, the size of the needle’s tip, for one, limits the frequencies that can be accurately reproduced. However, a turntable will likely produce _some_ high frequency content, nevertheless, in the form of noise and distortion. I am wondering (not claiming) if, considering the hypersonic effect, could this high-frequency energy account for the so-called “warmth” of analog sound? I would be interested in seeing the results of an experiment where the hypersonic component wasn’t taken from the recording, but consisted entirely of noise. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/70 "2009-01-08T08:41:28Z")
But can inaudible, subconscious hypersonic sound that seems to be at best discriminated by presence really be counted towards sound quality? Wouldn’t that be like saying that it’s more pleasant to listen to music in a somewhat warm room than at sub-zero temperatures, and then claim that therefore temperature affects sound quality? Perhaps one should do a double-blind study where one group gets the ‘full spectrum’ signal with the hypersonic part, another only gets the audible part, and a third group that gets the audible part plus random hypersonic noise/a constant/modulated hypersonic signal; if there’s no difference between groups one and three, I’d say that the hypersonic is more an environmental effect than part of sound quality. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/71 "2009-01-08T09:33:01Z")
I feel bad knowing that I won’t live to see the last whining, smelly, vinyl-loving hippy drop dead so that this non-argument can finally be ignored. It isn’t that vinyl sounds _better_, its merely that vinyl sounds **different!!** We’re not talking about acoustical engineering here, but the emotional attachment of memories. Once there’s no one left who remembers how the suck-ass, oops, I mean ‘original’ vinyl recordings sounded no one will care. As for modern vinyl releases, niche marketing for club DJs and fanboys, nothing more. I’m not just bitter, I’ve been an audiophile most of my adult life. When CDs arrived it was a religious experience because it was so freaking obvious to me that vinyl recordings were not ‘warm’. Vinyl recordings were, ahem, shit. Dragging a diamond across a piece of plastic? Oh yeah, that’s a great sound capturing medium! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/72 "2009-01-08T09:37:03Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > LPs cannot reproduce high frequency signals. Like I wrote, the size of the needle’s tip, for one, limits the frequencies that can be accurately reproduced. However, a turntable will likely produce _some_ high frequency content, nevertheless, in the form of noise and distortion. I am wondering (not claiming) if, considering the hypersonic effect, could this high-frequency energy account for the so-called “warmth” of analog sound? Some quadraphonic LPs could handle signals up to 45 kHz. They encoded the extra channels in a 30 kHz subcarrier. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/73 "2009-01-08T10:03:29Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > But can inaudible, subconscious hypersonic sound that seems to be at best discriminated by presence really be counted towards sound quality? I’d say yes. Simply put, if you play two recordings to a group of people, in random order, and ask them to rate on a scale how “soft” or “hard” it sounds, and you find a significant statistical trend, then I’d say that counts towards sound quality. Interestingly, while there was a quite significant trend for qualities like “soft” and “hard”, there wasn’t for “like” and “dislike”. So, _de gustibus_ and all that… ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/74 "2009-01-08T11:12:29Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > I’d say yes. Simply put, if you play two recordings to a group of people, in random order, and ask them to rate on a scale how “soft” or “hard” it sounds, and you find a significant statistical trend, then I’d say that counts towards sound quality. Interestingly, while there was a quite significant trend for qualities like “soft” and “hard”, there wasn’t for “like” and “dislike”. So, _de gustibus_ and all that… I don’t know, I feel that’s cheating a bit – let’s say you’d discover some subconscious signal that gives people who listen to it a nice warm and prickly feeling, and you subsequently encode that into your audio recordings. Have you then raised their quality? ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/75 "2009-01-08T16:44:40Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > It isn’t that vinyl sounds _better_, its merely that vinyl sounds **different!!** We’re not talking about acoustical engineering here, but the emotional attachment of memories. Once there’s no one left who remembers how the suck-ass, oops, I mean ‘original’ vinyl recordings sounded no one will care I feel strangely the same about my old VHS tapes, especially the ones I taped off TV, with some of the films followed by something like an episode of Mission Impossible. DVDs just seem to encourage interupted viewing. Sit down, watch a favourite scene, then remember something else more important to do instead. > [@Keeve](#): > > Carrying this over to sound recordings, it seems to me that true sound is on an infinite range of wavelengths, and a digital recorder must round off each and every one of them to whatever degree of accuracy it is capable of. In contrast, the analog recorder can capture the full range of everything. In actual practice, the digital may sound better if it can capture the very fine distinctions, etc. Dad thought something similar might work with chemical film photographs and digital photographs. His idea (which I think the boards debunked) was that you were looking at something with a resolution in the range of atoms compared to one that was so many dpi. But there’s a limit to the resolution an eye can discern anyway, so it in the end it makes little difference. Is there such a discernible difference according to the human ear? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/76 "2009-01-08T22:04:22Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > The way I read it, it’s a four-way speaker with a crossover. Although a custom job, it’s not an unusual listening setup. Two woofers, two tweeters, with one tweeter only getting HFC. I think you will find it very difficult to get a 100kHz flat response with a single driver. > > I don’t get your objection to the double-blindedness of the study. The piece was played in full-spectrum and audible-spectrum in random order. Since the HFC cannot be consciously perceived, there was no way for either tester or subject to known which was being played at any given time. There was either sound coming out of all four drivers, or only the three drivers assigned to the LFC. I only scanned the article, but I didn’t see any reference to a double-blind testing protocol. If it’s mentioned, could you please quote the relevant section? > [@](#): > > I’ll grant you that I would have liked to see a bit more discussion of measured sound levels between the samples. However, in their setup, the audible-frequency signal _is the same_ in both LFC and LFC+HFC samples. Since HFC are imperceptible, the apparent sound level between the two samples ought to be the same. I didn’t see anywhere that they went to any effort to match the sample levels at all. This looks like a parody from the _Journal of Irreproducible Results_. It has the form of science without actually containing any science. The Ethan Winer piece is very relevant here. If they heard one piece, then left the seating location to have a PET scan, then sat back down to hear another piece, they are very unlikely to be in exactly the same location. Different location, different sonic conditions. The chart in the Winer article pointed at 3 to 6 dB difference at different parts of the spectrum with a 4" difference in location. Hell, they may have been measuring the effects higher blood pressure on hearing caused by sticking the subject’s head into a PET scanner! ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/77 "2009-01-08T23:50:27Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > **mks57** … > Again, I cite my experiences with a direct to disc LP of Dark Side of the Moon. Played with my Shure V15/5 cartridge on my Pioneer quartz-locked tangential tracking turntable, you could walk into the room with the opening track playing, and not even be aware that there was anything playing, and by the end of the clock crescendo be running out of the room from the sound!.. Did you also play the CD in direct comparison in the same environment? I have done so with the LP vs CD in a high-end soundroom, and I felt the CD was noticeably superior, specifically regarding the very low frequency “heartbeat” in the song. “Time” is actually what I use to test potential speakers, there is such range in that song that any speaker or amplifier limitations become immediately apparent 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/78 "2009-01-09T01:45:32Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > It would also require that all the recording equipment preserved those frequencies as well (I wonder if the Moran & Meyer study accounted for this). I was re-reading the thread and noticed this. Yes, the Moran & Meyer study used equipment that could reproduce extended frequency range. The source was a SA-CD player capable of reproducing up to 90k and electrostatic speakers. The signal from the SA-CD was split and one output was run to the A side of the A/B/X comparator. The other output was run into the input of a HBB CD recorder set in record monitor mode, and the output of that went to the B side of the A/B/X comparator. The listener would push the button to switch to a randomly selected input, either the direct, very high quality and extended-range SA-CD or the 44.1 k, 16-bit bog-standard CD. Only a small percentage of the listeners were able to do better than random chance. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977/79 "2009-01-09T03:03:50Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > I only scanned the article, but I didn’t see any reference to a double-blind testing protocol. If it’s mentioned, could you please quote the relevant section? > > (…) > > The Ethan Winer piece is very relevant here. If they heard one piece, then left the seating location to have a PET scan, then sat back down to hear another piece, they are very unlikely to be in exactly the same location. Different location, different sonic conditions. The chart in the Winer article pointed at 3 to 6 dB difference at different parts of the spectrum with a 4" difference in location. Hell, they may have been measuring the effects higher blood pressure on hearing caused by sticking the subject’s head into a PET scanner! I’m sorry, but reading your objections, I think you should have read the article closer. First, there were four distinct experiments, two with EEG, one with a PET scan and a psychological evaluation test. EXPERIMENT 1. To examine the physiological effect of sounds with an inaudible frequency range, 11 subjects were presented with the FRS, HCS, and baseline conditions. (…) In accordance with conventional recordings of background EEG activity, subjects were asked to keep their eyes naturally closed during the experiment to eliminate any effects of visual input. The presentation of the sounds in both FRS and HCS conditions lasted 200 s, which included the entire piece of music. The baseline condition also lasted 200 s without sound presentation. The inter-session intervals were 10 s. Two recording sessions were repeated for each condition in the following order: baseline–FRS–HCS–FRS–HCS– baseline. EXPERIMENT 2. The validity of the digital audio format internationally employed for CDs was evaluated under more ordinary listening conditions. Seventeen subjects were presented with sounds using a cutoff frequency of 22 kHz, which corresponds to the upper range of sounds recorded by a CD. Subjects were then asked to keep their eyes naturally open as they usually do when they listen to music. The open-eye condition was also appropriate to control the subjects’ vigilance. Each subject was presented with four types of conditions: FRS, HCS, and baseline, as in Experiment 1, plus LCS to elucidate the effect of an HFC when it is presented alone. As in Experiment 1, each condition lasted 200 s. Before the actual recording sessions, HCS was presented once to familiarize the subjects with the experimental environment. To avoid any influence by the order of presentation, the four different conditions were performed in random order across the subjects. After a 10-min rest, the same four conditions were repeated in reverse order. Neither the subjects nor the experimenters knew which conditions were being performed. PET measurement and analysis The sound presentation equipment was installed and calibrated in the PET laboratory of Kyoto University Hospital. Subjects lay supine, with their eyes naturally open, on the PET scanner bed in a quiet, dimly lit room. Their heads were fixed in individually molded helmetshaped rests that were contoured to leave their ears undisturbed. The distance from the speakers to the subjects’ ears was approximately 1.5 m. As in the EEG study, special attention was paid to the immediate environment to minimize the subjects’ discomfort. Six of the subjects were studied using FRS, HCS, and baseline conditions, and the other six were studied using FRS, LCS, and baseline conditions. The order of the conditions was randomized across the subjects and a total of six scans was performed on each subject with intervals of 7 min. Psychological evaluation of sound quality We also evaluated the subjective perception of sound quality. Since the subjective impression of sounds is closely related to the subjects’ psychological condition, this evaluation was performed separately from the EEG and PET experiments. We used the same piece of gamelan music as was used for the EEG and PET experiments. First, a pair of FRS and HCS, each lasting 200 s, was presented. The order of the conditions was randomized across the subjects. After an intermission of 3 min, another pair of FRS and HCS was presented in reverse order. Therefore the stimuli were presented in an A-B-B-A fashion, in which FRS and HCS were assigned to A and B or B and A, respectively, in a randomly counterbalanced way across the subjects. Neither the subjects nor the experimenter knew what the sound conditions were, although they did know that the presentation was in an A-B-B-A fashion. The subjects filled out a questionnaire to rate the sound quality in terms of 10 elements, each expressed in a pair of contrasting Japanese words (e.g., soft vs. hard). Each element of each condition was graded on a scale of 5 to 1. The scores were statistically evaluated by the paired comparison method described by Scheffe´ (1952). In all but the first experiment the order was randomized. All four experiments were performed separately. No one was moving from one room to another to have a scan taken. Also, notice how in the EEG and PET test they were also taking baseline measurements, which is why you can rule out the effect of the environment on the listener. Yes, head position has a significant influence on how a sound is heard. And, yes, with the exception of the PET experiment the authors could have provided more detailed information about relative position to the speaker. However, even if listeners _were_ moving around, considering that the order was randomized, how do you explain correlation to show up in all tests for the group? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-analog-records-actually-considered-to-sound-better-than-digital-cds/479977.md?page=3)