Sound reproduction’s endpoint is the human listener, not fidelity per se

Evidence

However, once the sound has left the loudspeaker system, phase, by itself, turns out not to be a significant audible factor. Because both amplitude and phase information are needed to describe sound pressure as a function of time, this means that we really don’t hear waveforms. Incredible? … Phase shifts and even complete polarity inversions turn out to be “is it there or not?” subjective issues when tested in blind circumstances. Using contrived signals in headphone or anechoic listening, some listeners report hearing a “difference,” but a reliably stated “preference” has been elusive. In normally reflective rooms using music, the differences, if real, become vanishingly small or non-existent. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 504 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

An alternative goal of sound reproduction is to control the sound field within the loudspeaker set-up. This means that the pressure and velocity waves originating from the virtual sources are to be synthesized as plane waves or as spherical waves. The targeted sound field would then be well defined, and the reproduced sound field can also be simulated, or even measured. Unfortunately, the errors in the synthesis of the sound field between the targeted and reproduced fields do not say much about the perceptual significance of the deviation. Sometimes a small difference in the wave field causes a large perceptual deviation, and a large deviation in the wave field may be perceptually irrelevant in some cases. However, the advantage of this starting point is that the reproduction techniques can be derived mathematically. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1902 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Listeners judge reproduced sound against accumulated experience of live sound — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 49; Conventional distortion metrics cannot predict human response to music or movies — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 458; Commercial recordings aim for plausibility, not authentic reproduction (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Sound reproduction quality depends on both physical acoustics and human perception #corroborates (0.82)
• Physical accuracy of a sound field does not predict perceived accuracy #qualifies (0.78) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1902
• Humans hear spectral content, not waveform shape or phase shifts #corroborates (0.78) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 504
• Listening actively shapes the sound it perceives rather than merely registering it #expands (0.75) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 346
• Room acoustics and presentation method alter how listeners perceive sounds #expands (0.75)
• Ear-level microphone measurements capture artifacts inaudible to human listeners #exemplifies (0.72) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1355