(Audio) Neuro-Vascular Apoplexy - is it real?

(also known as Corrupt Response & Auditory Perception Syndrome – CRAPs)

Back in the early 80s I began a long study into the effects of different audio equipment on our ability to identify that often elusive quality – musicality.

What is musicality?

Can systems which are perfectly adequate from a technical point of view really have the ability to suppress or enhance musicality?

Something I had noticed many years ago was that I would enjoy music played through a system but that on a different day, in a different room or perhaps just in a different listening position I found myself enjoying the music far less. I spent many years pondering this issue but could find no logical explanation for the effect until one day I happened to be reading a paper on Neuro-Vascular Apoplexy when suddenly the old musicality issue came to the fore. What followed were several years of research culminating in what I believe to be the definitive answer to the question as to why some systems sound musical and other do not.

When we listen to music in the home our body and senses receive information from many sources. Our ears receive the direct and reflected airborne sounds but our bodies also receive information in the form of vibration via the structures which make up and are contained with the room. This creates a problem within the brain’s processing centres because the information received via our ears and the information received in the form of vibration through the body will show relative phase errors – we feel, and therefore our brains process the room transmitted vibrations with time anomalies realtive to the airborne signals.

This ‘confusion’ due to phase error impairs our ability to process vital timing information and is, I believe, the root cause of systems suffering from poor musicality. This effect can be demonstrated quite easily. In my own tests, listeners were made to stand on a variety of decoupled platforms and listen to the test system. For the purpose of my tests I used willing students from the University of North London and we conducted the tests using a modest system set up in the student digs. Naturally, no room treatments or tonal correction was used. The students stood on non ferrous platforms decoupled from the floor using a variety of methods including sorbathane pads, high viscosity oil, water and coil springs. In all cases the test subjects recorded a more favourable reaction to musicality, or PRaT (pace, rhythm and timing) than when standing directly on the floor. Further improvements were noted if the tests were performed in darkness, however several of the subjects had balance issues when using the coil springs under these conditions and we had to terminate the experiment early due to one subject suffering a fracture.

You can part test these findings for yourself at home by listening to music while standing on one leg which reduces some of the vibration flow.

 

Interesting Rob.

Will give it a go

 

Or cup your hand behind your ears ......to see how Noddy's mate listen to his hifi.

 

Excellent, thanks Pete.

Must try that

 

Stand someone on one leg in the dark on a wobbly stand and get them to listen to music to see if they enjoy it more? Ha ha, I like it. The 'standing on one leg with your eyes shut' test is difficult enough anyway without falling over, so I would expect 99% of an individuals concentration to be pretty much fixed on staying upright! And how do you tap your feet to the music on one foot? Um, hopping I suppose Only kidding.

I think there's a more important factor that can contribute to how much you enjoy your music as well, a factor that is pretty much entirely un-measureable - as you say, you can enjoy the same music more or less on different days; I personally can enjoy the same music more or less on different days, on my system in my room, where nothing of consequence can possibly have changed. I think it's down to my general mood and state of mind.

 

But something has changed. The quality of the mains supply.
It varies from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, even second to second. You are only listening to electrons. The mains is the fuel for your system. When it goes south, it's akin to trying to run an f1 car on derv.

 

I have a filter gizmo, but I'm sure it varies as you say, you're probably right, though I've not noticed things changing minute to minute (or less) thankfully. There's the effect of humidity and all sorts as far as I can gather. It's like chasing shadows isn't it?!

Thing is, if you're talking enjoyment, then I certainly enjoy more/less on different days. If you're talking audible changes in quality or character of the sound due to whatever, then I've not noticed any....which leads me to believe that it's me that's different on different days.

 

It's an insidious thing. Sometimes you can put on a piece of music, that had demanded your attention and enthralled you a couple of days ago, only to find that for some reason your attention is wondering, and you don't really want to listen any more. You can't quite put your finger on it, so you blame yourself, thinking that you aren't in the mood to listen.
IMHO this is not the case. It's just the mains is corrupted to an extent that it wasn't on the previous listening session.
Thirty to forty years ago, this phenomena was much less of a problem; by and large, once a system was up and running, it would sound the same every time. the enjoyment factor remaining constant. Today however, corrupted mains is rampant, and with every year that passes, it gets worse.

 

Auntie Ants tells me that listening to music whilst bouncing on her trampoline (which she actually does most days at one point or another) really enhances her musical enjoyment. It must be because for a large part of the time on the trampoline she is completely decoupled in mid air. It all makes sense now.

 

Back EMF. Something that is using is also contributing, you cannot have one without the other. The insiduous advance of all things digital are the main culprit. Listen in the middle of the night!! now in theory in the middle of the night the impedence is higher and the voltage is often lower, but the clarity and your missing elements return, why?

I take you one stage further on to the power supply in the unit you are working with, many things can be done to alleviate the problem which has been about 10 years work. The art is to suppress without filtering and thereby increasing the impedance of the feed. If you filter it should have specific targets.

The mains is very much worse than it was 10 years ago relative to these things, and much of it cannot be measured as it is transient i.e. too fast for the available test equipment, especially digital.

There is equipment now available used by the CIA et al that when pluged in to your local supply (local transformer) will show exactly what you are doing on your computer even if you are off line.

Richard

 

This 'confusion' due to phase error impairs our ability to process vital timing information and is, I believe, the root cause of systems suffering from poor musicality.

I'm a capacitor. You're a capacitor. My nurse says capacitors are bad. Chirp squeak w**kers.

 

By coincidence, I find watching women bouncing on a trampoline enhances my enjoyment of music too.

Well, my system sounds great whenever I listen to it. My mood changes a lot though, so sometimes I don't listen as attentively as other times, and occasionally I turn it off altogether and watch TV instead. Any well designed equipment sounds just fine plugged into any old wall socket, in my experience. Mains is just one of those things some audiophiles like to worry about.

-- Ian

 

You are truly one of lifes fortunates.
May it always be thus.

 

Richard, where did you hear about that CIA tech paranoia?

Instead of sitting on spikes and a mana armchair, just have a few beers

 

Its probably in relation to BPL (broadband over power lines). Otherwise its impossible beyond monitoring the power consumption and the noise outputted on the line which could be an indicator of what’s going on

 

Don't be silly. Where did I say I was worried about it. Anyone can read what I do on my computer with pleasure, probably the only outcome will be boredom My important passwords are safe and I block unwanted downloads, that is all I worry about. It was a means of explaining how much information travels back into the mains system which then contributes to messing up the sound of your hi-fi. And your hi-fi is doing the same but analogue which is less distorted. The mains system is a very effective carrier wave.

I consume nothing, apart from tea and occassionally coffee, that can mess around with my consciousness, including alcohol, yuk! horrid stuff.

Richard

 

Sounds like a highly dubious mish-mash of concepts. I doubt "information" is flowing into the mains in any quantity - noise might be though...

 

What is the difference?

Richard

 

At the simplest possible level noise is random but information is not. RFI is noise.

 

On a serious point, I think that some of these mains issues are made worse by the common adoption of toroid transformers through the audio industry using cores that are barely adequate for the job. DC and other crap on the mains will often saturate the Tx causing that oft complained about buzz. I think big frame trannies sound better if you can use them without inducing hum into the circuits.

I think you hit the nail on the head Ian when you say "Any well designed equipment sounds just fine plugged into any old wall socket" - well designed means care and thought put into the use of tranformer and related PSU components.