Speaker Wire Elevators

[grant fair]

Well Dean, your high end hearing is better than mine, but I am a few years older, so maybe that explains it. That plus working in a foundry next to a machine which knocked the sand cores out of brass castings at a sound level of about 120 Db. Those were mega-hurts. Bus drivers appreciated my no longer screaming at them at the top of my lungs (so I could hear myself) after I quit that job. Occupational health and safety has come a piece since the 60's.<p>Your monfilament idea is astoundingly insightful. I was thinking of fibreglass Litz wire, but you have knocked me off my conceptual pedestal. What can I say?<p>Grant

[Ron H]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dale Y:
I think you mean 10KHz not 10MHz.<p>With 10Mhz hearing and a diode earring you wouldn't need a radio to listen to AM and shortwave SSB causes headaches
Dean, you may be right. It looks like it may be just Grant and I who have your number.<p>Ron<p>[ April 27, 2004: Message edited by: RonH ]</p>

[jwax]

I can't believe the stupidest piece of junk gadget topic is up to 3 pages! Who keeps writing in?

[haklesup]

Surely, there is more to hearing than the ability to percieve pure tones of a single frequency (typical hearing test). Most tests and measurements I could perform require these pure tones or other contrived things like pink or white noise.<p>I do admit, even though I am still very dubious of the effecy of these elevators, that the mixture of the many tones commonly found in real music might just interact with the hardware and my ears in ways that cannot be efficiently measured by contemporary electronic equipment. That this complex interaction may be percievable by individuals who have either trained their ears (and brains) to recognize these cues or have been born with variations of these organs that makes this possible.<p>On the other hand. I think it is also quite possible that the sound they hear (beyond a certain quality level) is just as easily influenced by what they have been shown and what they have been told about the sample they listen to.<p>Only a well controled double blind scientific study can put this question (and this thread)to rest. With all due respect to the golden ears, testamony won't do it for me.<p>BTW, you can have all the current you want but you cannot transmute lead into gold without a nuclear (pronounced New-clear not new-cue-lur, a pet peeve of mine) reaction unless you've cracked the cold fusion nut.<p>Also, lets put this in perspective. To get sound that good you would need an amp and speakers that cost 10X to 100X more than these elevators making them a minor accessory to a super system owner.<p>Yes, its been a while since we've seen a 3 pager like this.<p>[ April 27, 2004: Message edited by: haklesup ]</p>

[rshayes]

Sorry, I have never heard of the "Taos hum".<p>I assume that Dean was playing the "Devil's Advocate", an old and honorable role (especially in anything as religious as the outer limits of audio).<p>I have a vague memory of a magazine article that described a linear accellerator that was used to transmute lead into gold (among other more serious things). It was exceptional in that it produced a high beam current, possibly in the milliamp range. It probably took a megawatt or two to operate, and may have produced a few micrograms of gold after several hours of operation. You could probably make more gold by selling the output of the solar panels to a power company and buying gold coins with the proceeds.<p>When dealing with "golden ear" controversies, three pages is just a start. Consider the possibilities offered by monster cables and fast recovery rectifiers to begin with. Not to mention the component controversies. At one point, Western Electric made metal film resistors with vacuum deposited gold contact areas on the ends. These, along with special tubes, were used in repeater amplifiers for undersea cables (expected operating life about 20 years). Any day now, somebody will probably publish an article describing the tremendous improvement in sound resulting from the use of these resistors as opposed to normal metal film resistors.<p>I suspect the reason for using sine waves as test signals is to keep the results simple enough that they can be measured and interpreted. Cross modulation of two sine waves in a square law device produces two new signals, for a total of four. Using square waves would result in an infinite number of cross products. Sine waves are also easy to detect in noise or in the presense of other signals. Princeton Applied Research used to make "Lock-in Amplifiers" that could detect signals well below the noise level.

[Dean Huster]

There's no doubt that something goes on in your head that causes the perception of received audio to differ from the results of electronically-measured parameters, and this "inner-ear" perception varies as you grow older.<p>Obviously, when I was younger, sound must not have affected me very much. Rock music didn't annoy me like it does now. That is easily explained by the fact that Mom was always telling me that the things she said to me "went in one ear and out the other", explaining why the annoyance wasn't there -- I couldn't hear! Why did the sound "go in one ear and out the other"? It so happens that on a young person's thirteenth birthday, a little fairy comes wafting into their bedroom at night and sucks out all the child's brains. The child doesn't get those brains back until their 25th birthday .... some even later. You can't say I'm wrong -- just look at the actions of any teenager and my story is proven true.<p>This may explain why I, with the golden ears, able to discern 10MHz audio nuances and the effects of Litz leaded glass filaments, can perceive sounds differently than those of you who must rely on expensive test and measurement equipment for your results. My 25th birthday came and went with no returned attributes! Same with my 26th, etc. Remember? I'm 55. Attributes? Hmmmmm. Maybe the brains were returned to my midsection, not my head. There's certainly something there, I'm sure of it. And it gets bigger every year, which explains why I'm getting smarter. It also explains why I, like so many men, think with my stomach! How else can I do it?<p>Aaaah, Ron ... why does our humor go to such waist? -- uh, waste. It reminds me of the time when I was working for Tektronix on April 1st when I counterfeited an internal notice detailing the introduction of a new Telequipment spectrum analyzer. I did such a good job of counterfeiting that the entire thing was taken seriously and totally ruined the joke.<p>I'm just too good. <p>Dean

[Chuck Barker]

why do the Taos hum?

[jollyrgr]

TAOS HUM<p>This is a throbbing sound heard by some people in the lower end of the human hearing range. There is a simple explanation for this noise. This is LOW baud rate communications for sending one way messages to submarines when they are under water. <p>These stations are in numerous areas. There is one in New Mexico and one in Northern Wisconsin. They transmit crude messages to subs under water and even ice caps. Long antennas (nearly 30 miles long in some cases) are supported via wooden poles. The antennas are suspended above exposed bedrock to permit transmission of signals literally through the earth. (NOTE: There is an ELF antenna in Wisconsin.) Wisconsin is no where near the ocean. If curious perform a search on "Ashland County" and "ELF" as the key words in either GOOGLE or YAHOO! or similar search engines. Most of the stories will be about war protesters that cut down the antenna poles but you will find overviews of the ELF system. <p>As it turns out some people can actually hear these transmissions. Many of the web sites call the TAOS HUM a "MYSTERIOUS HUM OF NATURE". But if you read carefully you will note the frequencies of the TAOS HUM and the submarine ELF signals jive. Many of the sites try to make it seem like an Art Bell story. The mysterious hum only some people hear. And it can be heard all over the world. As a shortcut, look at these two web links then ask yourself the question; are these too similar to NOT be the same thing?<p>http://www.subversiveelement.com/TaosHum.html<p>http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/doc ... part07.htm<p>
For further proof, here is a link that shows the frequencies the Russians use:<p>http://www.vlf.it/zevs/zevs.htm<p>
Here is one site that attempts to put it together:<p>http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/Taos-hum.html<p>[ April 28, 2004: Message edited by: Jolly Roger ]</p>

[perfectbite]

Jolly Roger, (back to person who started all this) My question on the Taos hum was how come only SOME people can hear or sense this low baud rate noise? (apparently it is an annoying background noise that NEVER stops). Something's going on in that those poor folks, prior to the admission of the ELF program and 'noise' source, were probably deemed certifiable crackpots for insisting they 'heard' something even if others didn't. If you don't hear it and I do BUT you have all the equipment that says that there is nothing there for me to hear or sense does that mean that you are correct? That the noise/sound (whatever it is I'm picking up on) is just a figment of my imagination?<p>In Dean's case it could be that because of the close proximity of his relocated brain to his waist, he could be sensing the rumbling of his stomach with a periodicity mysteriously just prior to mealtimes. <p>Perhaps those who 'hear' the various instances of the Taos hum phenomona have a particular body type or bone mass/body density ratio or maybe they all have a wooden leg. Or maybe Dean's fairy didn't suck out all of the 15 year old's brains. (Imbibing too much Pixie Dust the evening before no doubt).<p>A handful of folks like to eat small amounts of clay from certain riverbanks. It is very tasty to them. Who am I to tell them that they are quite mad?<p>My point is that IF these 'acoustically gifted' folks have nothing in common with each other THEN the primacy of their individual experiences takes precedence no matter what anyone's instruments show. Of course, in let's say Joan of Arc's case, if I were to claim that I actually had conversations with God and could 'hear' God talking to me that is slightly different but to combine questionable sensory input inextricably with some form of psychosis or delusion in all honesty just muddies the water and confuse the issue and doesn't do anyone a favour. Of course, not being a well equipped sceptic doesn't do anyone a favour either.<p>An idle question: - Apparently children who are born and grow up next to waterfalls don't hear the noise of the waterfall as a distinct noise. Is it possible that children born and growing up within range of an ELF hum have the same thing happen to them? Could it be a generational thing? One generation sensitive to certain sounds and another generation not only not hearing the sound but denying its existence. <p>I have read recently that excessive feotal sonic scans injure the foetus. Studies show that here is a slight co-relation (more than average) between a lack of development in a particular area of the brain and a high number of ultrasound scans. Maybe in another decade or two, like X-Rays and Radar and DDT etc. we'll be saying "Who knew?"

[jollyrgr]

Perfectbite,<p>Most of this posting will be my best guess as I do not have a complete scientific answer to your questions. My guess as to why only some people hear this is because of their physical makeup. From my understanding of what frequencies humans can hear vs what dogs and cats hear is related, more or less, to the distance between the ears.<p>Elephants, for example, can hear way below what humans hear. But dogs and cats can hear well above our range of hearing. Hearing range will also vary among different people. My guess is that the people that can hear this noise have extra sensitivity to low frequencies or maybe their is some chemical in their bodies that picks up this signal in some electromagnetic form and decodes it into hearing. But with the proper pickup device I can bet the signal would be detected.<p>I can (used to, at least) could hear high frequencies quite well. For instance I could amaze one of my high school teachers by telling him he forgot to turn off the computer monitor. (This was in the Apple II days when the monitors were the standard green NTSC jobs.) I could hear the flyback transformer oscillator circuit. Still to this day I can hear the TICK TICK TICK that comes from motion sensors above certain automatic doors. You are probably thinking I'm nuts but I do hear noise coming from these sensors. Not a constant WHINE but a TICKING noise. <p>There was also a TV show on dolphins I was watching one of the Discovery channels. There was several scenes of the researchers working with the dolphins with the dolphins sticking their head out of the water. I could hear the clicks and high pitch noise coming from the dolphins (I was quite surprised that the recording and broadcast equipment could reproduce this noise so effectively). Yet the people watching the show with me did not hear this.<p>On the low end my hearing is not as great. A friend and I used to work together at a radio station. We were trying to figure out some problem with recordings we and other staff members were making to carts (think short tapes similar to 8 tracks) that caused record level problems. Carts normally do not have erase heads of their own and need to be bulk erased with a large electromagnet. Most of us knew how to erase carts properly but a few did not and were introducing a THUNK to the so called blanked tape. While I could hear the 25Hz tones used to queue the automation system I could not hear this thunk. My friend COULD hear it though and heard it as a vibration or low rumble. We could see the VU meters moving and even see the vibration of the woofer cone; he heard it, I did not.<p>So I think your suggestion of body make up or bone structure is quite right.<p>As far as kids not being able to hear waterfalls as distinct noise this is very true. I know this from my own experience. In my instance, though, I grew up under the approach path to O'hare airport's two main runways (14L and 14R for approach and 32L and 32R for departure). And when I say right under I mean right under. (At night the landing gear lights swept across our yard when the gear was lowered.) All but the loudest aircraft became second nature and were ignored. Visiting guest always wondered how we could sleep at night with all that noise. Two of my aunts lived on different creeks. They never heard the creek noise but DID hear airplane noise quite well while visiting us. When I visited them I heard the creek almost constantly. <p>When my brother and I were at college we lived in an apartment that was right next to freight train tracks (south boarder of the small parking lot was the train tracks). The train noise did not really bother either of us. I guess we are immune to the train and plane noise.<p>Speaking of planes....the Stealth fighters and bombers are not really completely invisible to RADAR. Just the microwave based versions used today. I believe it was Poplar Science, Radio Electronics, or one of those magazines where I read an article about how some people could detect when the Stealth was flying because they got "airplane flutter" on their TVs. <p>How about using a TV to detect tornados? And not by watching the weather channel or local news. <p>http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/ ... 059-01.htm<p>I wonder if this story will start another thread of its own?

[haklesup]

If a TAOS hums in the woods and noone is around to hear it, Does it really make a sound? (or was that a tree falling....)<p>Just couldn't resist this addictive thread one more time. Allow me to pontificate just a little longer.<p>Humans percieve sound in more ways that just hearing. Low frequencies (infra-sound) are felt in the gut and high frequencies (ultra-sound) are percieved in other ways that are more subtle. (take for instance the pain field generators that use ultrasound) you may feel it in your teeth, a headache etc if it is really loud. Furthermore, these ultrasound frequencies bounce off the surroundings creating harmonics that are in the normal range of hearing. At some rather high frequency, ultrasound must be effectively damped (in air) at such a short distance for it to effectively not exist (i'm sure well below 1MHz).<p>In any case, take for example a Hi-Fi system. If it could produce infra and ultra sound it would enhance the reality of the playback even if I could not hear it. Anything I can do to the setup to enhance this response should be good. However at what point do I reach a diminishing return. This obviously depends on how you personally percieve music. wether you hear better than normal or that you process the sound in your mind better dosen't really matter. (I think even with my average ears, if I took the time to listen to many sound samples and kept track of the quality and other factors, I could learn to be much better at it but still may lack the advantage of someone born with a better shaped inner ear or more hearing cells or can regenerate these cells more efficiently when damaged etc.)<p>So, do the elevators enhance the sound in tiny but precievable ways, maybee. I'm not sure if I am debunking or defending them anymore.

[Dean Huster]

If the usual defense for listening devices in a room was to go into the bathroom and talk with the shower running to provide a blanket of white noise, I wonder if the waterfall would also blanket an area making it difficult to hear ower-volume conversation -- or is it possible that the brain, after living with this background all its life, is able to "tune out" the background such that low-level conversation to them is the same as it would be to us in a quite forest. My gosh -- that was one sentence. On the other hand, that same person who lives by the waterfall, if he were to venture to a quite forest, would his hearing be impacted in a kind of "reverse" way without the waterfall background present?<p>Dean

[Donald S. Lambert]

Gee whiz gosh or hot diggety dog. Guess I can add some remarks to this goalless topic. Back in the dark ages (1949) while I was going to a trade school on the G. I. Bill (no job openings otherwise, and I didn't follow up on the training either. I got involved in a project to rescue a family from motorcycle gangs.<p>The gangs rented an area that was in a natural ravine that funneled all sound to their house. A hundred or so motorcycles revving up and also loud speaker system drove them wild. I had a little electronics knowledge and I found out that he was a contractor and had acquired movie sound systems that were obsolete. The speakers were not in housings so he had a bunch of 50 gallon drums with the end cut out and cut an opening in the other end and bolted the speakers on the ouitside of the drums. He had portable 110 vac generators and plenty of romax so we set it up. The sound systems had microphones so we put them into sort of funnel deals to pick up sound from the motorcycle camp area.<p>So on a Friday night with the speakers hung from trees or on top of boulders (rugged country) and a gully that wasn't easily traveled by one on foot to protect us we were ready when they set up. Waited till they were into the booze stage and had their camp all set up.<p>With the distance between us there was a ten or so second time between the occurance of sound and it reached the mikes and another such time to get back to them. And the mikes were not spaced even distance from them. We didn't worry about distortion or phasing but for totally high output. And it got their attention. Took them about an hour to get enough.<p>The gangs packed up and roared off beat up the one that rented them the camp site (according to the news) and ended up with a knock down drag out fight with the local county law officers. Since the motor cycle gangs were already in trouble with the law they spent time in the lockup.<p>How loud was it? No measurement was taken but several speakers ruptured their cones. And the tubes in the amplifiers were really running hot. When the sound system was shut down it was so quiet. Greybie

[perfectbite]

Perhaps this topic should be changed to 'BTW, speaker wire elevators.'<p>Dean, those of us with eyes to see have true blind spots where the retina connects to the optic nerve bundle but our minds compensate for this visual deficit. Also, apparently, our hearing is selective too. If we could 'hear' the normal squeaks, pops and groans of our sinews and joints and lungs and hearts working we would be overwhelmed by this interior noise. That internal 'noise' becomes an 'unregistered' background noise to us until we reach another age (about the time our knees start to give out) at which time we actually start to hear the very loud pops and squeaks.<p>In thinking of your 'somehow reverse hearing sensitivity in the waterfall noise range' I came to the conclusion that to posit that such white noise, present even from conception, could possibly leave a 'hole' in one's range of hearing would be absurd so there must be another way to look at it. The only example I could come up with would be walking, on a breezy day, through tall, wind moved rustling grass. We can separate out the wind produced sound and hear both the rustling of our passage AND any other rustling not caused by the wind. It would have to be about the same for the waterfall babies. The rainy and dry seasons would cause changes in water flow and noise which would be discounted. Whether or not it would make their hearing compensatorily more sensitive in that range you'd have to ask the waterfall babies.<p>Thank you all. I have enjoyed the various entries and excellent stories this topic has provoked. Especially Stephen's no nonsense look at 8 ohm speaker cables which was impressive. I looked for the posting requesting a cheap and easy way to transmute base metals into gold but it's gone. Perhaps the poster's question wasn't taken seriously enough? The closest I got was to dig channels from both oceans to your backyard in Utah, establish a decent flow rate, probably something on the order of about a 1/4 of a cubic mile a day, and, using a multi megawatt solar panel generating station, electrolytically separate out the gold as it is carried by. Forget producing micrograms of gold that would be the way to go. Chaucer, in the 14th. century, spent a lot of time and money on itinerant alchemists who would produce 'transmuted' gold into heated potions by hiding small pieces of gold in their stirring stick 'wands' and, when the alchemist did the procedure and gold appeared in the bowl, telling the 'sucker' that they weren't doing it right and, for a price, would then give them another 'recipe' or more detailed instructions (the more obtuse the better) and tell them to keep trying and that they would be back next year to check on their progress. He eventually gave up in disgust.<p>My serious point was that the scientific method has its blind spots. And, while Jolly Roger's example on the necessary suspension of disbelief between the evidence of one's senses versus the evidence of one's instruments does count as a prime example of instrumentation over sensing, its application is somewhat limited. Folks knocked down by waves can become very disoriented and drown thinking that they are swimming to the surface when they are actually swimming toward the bottom. The rule is, under such dire circumstances, to follow the bubbles, they'll always go up.