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April 8

Literature about effects of different speakers on a person

At first I thought it was just me having bad days, but then after years I noticed that if I hear some audio (podcast/music) from certain speakers - say the one integrated in a good laptop - I get relatively quickly headache (not even after 1 hour I have to stop it). If instead I hear from speakers that are still good but not great but a bit away from me (say 2-3 meters), I have no problems. Conversely with headphones I can endure audio for hours, without major problems. It is just my body behaving in a weird way or is there literature about this that shows that some audio sources are less pleasant than others for some people? --Pier4r (talk) 15:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That reminds me of this oldie:

Patient: It hurts when I do this!

Doctor: So don't do it!

--←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:06, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It probably relates to signal/noise ratio, or distortion. At some point, the distortion level makes processing the "signal" (music, speech, etc.) taxing on the brain.^{citation needed} [edit: 2603:6081:1C00:1187:4C16:31AD:E403:46E4 (talk) 21:19, 8 April 2022 (UTC)][reply]

Further thought: this reminds me of an old Marantz ad with the tagline "Don't turn down the music, turn down the distortion". 2603:6081:1C00:1187:4C16:31AD:E403:46E4 (talk) 22:42, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even further thoughts, probably off-topic - Marantz (in my not-so-welcome HO) had a fantastic marketing campaign: I don't think I've ever bought anything, ever, just on the strength of the advertising alone, except their early '80s hi-fi separates - 'champagne gold' brushed aluminium finish. They never said it's a pig to keep clean, tho' ... MinorProphet (talk) 09:49, 9 April 2022 (UTC) [reply]

I had a brief hunt for some decent literature about this, but failed to come up with anything useful. It's a bit like asking why driving down the motorway at 90mph is more relaxing in a V-12 Jaguar than in a 700 cc Smart. I expect that frequency response, sound pressure and equalization (EQ) have some bearing on the matter. Some well-known speaker manufacturers have put some effort into the problem - this review mentions some of the better-sounding integrated laptop speakers. I imagine that the sort of literature you're looking for would include something along the lines of the charts in this article. As it says, "Apple’s official tech spec page doesn’t list the frequency range of the speakers. Booo! Are they trying to hide something? Try googling “Frequency range” and “MacBook Pro”. You won’t find any easy results." There may be blogs from sound engineers from the speaker makers mentioned, eg JBL, Harmon Kardon, Bang and Olufsen - or even contact the firms directly. Sorry not to be more helpful. MinorProphet (talk) 21:52, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Further thought: some speakers may be optimized for reproducing MP3s - if you are are used to listening to full-range sound sources, eg CD, DVD, your brain might be struggling to fill in the missing frequencies. Some audio-oriented laptops include sound-processing technologies to deal with the issue. Some people™ have particularly sensitive hearing, others just don't care or can't hear the difference. MinorProphet (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Pier4r (talk) 07:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pier, when i was younger i used to throw up a lot when in my dad's car. It turned out he had the CD player set to max bass and max treble, to make it worse he would listen to the Archers on BBC Radio 4. I adjusted the settings right down one day and i was perfectly fine from then onwards! Zindor (talk) 00:44, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's difficult to adjust for all the variables in your scenario: the disparate speaker equipment, the variant types of sound processioning (including both purposeful equalization functions and artifacts from software and signal processing), proximity, and any additional idiosyncratic factors related to you yourself; I honestly wouldn't even hazard a guess, and the list of possible explanations run a gamut from the technological to the biophysical. However, all of that said, there is one thing that kinda-sorta occurs to me most immediately here, and Zindor's post immediately above touches upon it: you'll want to remember that not all sound which affects you physiologically is in the audible range. There are in particular some frequencies just on fringes of perceptible sound to which the sound detecting organs in the inner ear are sensitive. And sub-audible low frequencies in particular can, to some extent, effect the organs with sound waves which are even completely outside the ability to simulate perception of sound through the normal mechanisms, but still irritate the structures, particularly over an extended period of time. Unfortunately, any number of the technological and physical factors described above could cause such noise in your overall sound, so it doesn't narrow you in much, but a little experimentation such as young Zindor's may nevertheless bear fruit. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 19:18, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]