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.