Orchestral accompaniment masks the voice’s fine spectral detail in recordings

Evidence

Pure tones appear relatively rarely in nature. Only some bird songs and the sounds produced by a flute can be considered to be pure tones. Most of the instrumental sounds in music are composed of a fundamental tone and many harmonics. The difference in timbre produced by different musical instruments depends on the frequency spectra of their harmonics. Whereas a flute produces primarily one single component, the fundamental, a trumpet produces many harmonic partials and therefore elicits a much broader masking effect than a flute. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 449 (#expands, via linked claim)

Sound of a given frequency can block our ability to hear softer sounds at nearby frequencies, but distant frequencies are not affected. The threshold for detecting the softer sound is raised by the presence of a louder sound within the same critical bandwidth. Even if the softer sound is audible, it will not seem as loud as it would if played alone. Similarly, two tones that fall within the same critical bandwidth will appear to be less loud together than two tones of the same total energy that fall outside each others’ critical bandwidths. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: High-pitched soprano singing sacrifices intelligibility for audibility; Solo voice and simple instrument recordings least reveal loudspeaker flaws; Music’s dense spectrum masks its own distortion products. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 451 (+4 more)

Related

• Instrument timbre differences stem from harmonic spectra that shape masking breadth (similarity 0.86)
• Timbre perception can be analyzed through component-to-component masking interactions (similarity 0.86)
• Music’s dense spectrum masks its own distortion products. (similarity 0.84)
• Masking noise prevents listeners from using unintended spectral cues (similarity 0.83)
• Partial masking shifts pitch away from the masker’s spectral region (similarity 0.83)
• Masked spectral components do not contribute to perceived timbre (similarity 0.83)
• Musicians describe sounds using pitch, loudness, and timbre descriptors (similarity 0.83)
• Acoustic polarity inversion is clearly audible with certain instruments and styles. (similarity 0.82)
• Masked sound components are perceptually ignored within complex sounds (similarity 0.82)
• An instrument’s identity is set by its unique recipe of frequency components (similarity 0.81)
• Critical bands govern tonal discrimination and timbre, not overall hearing resolution (similarity 0.81)
• Timbre is conditioned entirely by the strength and presence of overtones (similarity 0.81)
• Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected (similarity 0.81)
• Partially masking a tone shifts its perceived pitch upward (similarity 0.80)
• Loudness changes shift perceived pitch; reverb conceals the effect musically (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Instrument timbre differences stem from harmonic spectra that shape masking breadth #expands (0.80) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 449
• Different noise types mask different specific speech sounds by matching their spectra #expands (0.75)
• Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected #expands (0.75) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009