From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!wgg Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Loud music Article-I.D.: floyd.1236 Posted: Tue Mar 8 08:44:07 1983 Received: Wed Mar 9 04:20:38 1983 I ought to stay out of this, but I have long had my own personal theory about loud music, particularly rock. Like any other analog device, the human ear has a region in its response where it becomes overdriven to the point where a 1 dB increase in input power is perceived as less than a 1 dB increase, and is accompanied by an increase in distortion. This is the region above so-called "peak linear" response. Again, like any other analog device, when the ear goes nonlinear, it perceives harmonics and intermodulation products that aren't in the input signal. When the input signal is music, the perceived harmonies have notes in them that aren't being played. Individual rock chords, as played, are pretty primitive, seldom if ever including anything more adventurous than the seventh. Played at low level, without distortion, (one common feature of electronic instruments used in rock is the ability to switch in deliberate distortion) the harmonies sound tame. So, it's played loud, and thereby gains a perceived harmonic richness it doesn't really have. On the opposite side of the coin, those who have listened to amplified jazz at similar levels have experienced the unpleasant "hashy" sound that all those intermodulation products can create in an eleventh or thirteenth chord.