3721

That’s a compelling argument.

Even better is that Frasier was doing talk radio, so who cares if he’s hearing things in the wrong ear?

3722

Well yeah, mono, didn’t think of that :)

3723

Because stereo music is kind of like watching a 3D movie. If you wear the glasses backwards, the image gets all screwed up. It still might LOOK like 3D (I tried this during Avatar for a few seconds), it is not. Modern stereo recordings use an arsenal of production effects to make it sound like the music is within a space, using head related transfer functions and other techniques to fool the ear. Reverse that, and the illusion is broken.

Now if you are listening to an early Beatles recording, then yes it is just as simple as “the guitar is in the other ear now, so what?”

As for a radio host wearing his headphones correctly, his medium is audio. People like Ira Glass put on a radio show that features a lot of music and interviews recorded in stereo. Maybe it does not matter to a show like Frasier but how can you be in the business of audio and not understand the importance of correct monitoring?

Did I mention I’m a headphone geek?

3724

Jesus fuck you guys are way over analyzing this. He’s not listening to music on those damn things and it’s probably a mono, horribly low quality, feed. Whether they’re backwards or not wouldn’t make one bit of difference in that situation. Maybe he just prefers the wire running down his right side instead of his left.

3725

I’m not sure I believe this.

I mean, I don’t say you’re outright wrong, as I’m not an expert. But still, if you were listening to real sound from real sources in a space without echoes, you could just swap the real instruments on the left with those on the right, and it seems to me you’d get much the same effect as switching headphones when listening to music.

But I am willing to learn; I’ll read any link you provide that explains why left-right makes a difference compared to right-left.

Anyhow, there are clear and obvious reasons why wearing glasses backwards screws up a 3D image, whether they’re polarized, red-blue, or shutter, but it’s certainly not obvious why switching headphones would screw up music, and in fact I personally, though not an audiophile, notice no significant difference apart from the apparent instrument location.

3726

Yeah, yeah, we get it, we’re not talking about the TV show anymore :)

3727

With visual medium it is much easier to notice technical problems. You don’t need a “golden ear” to notice audio issues, but it helps.


A short video on psycho-acoustics, which stereo technology is very much a part of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics is another article on the subject.

I don’t know if they go into the backwards headphone thing, but it may give you some idea of the complexities of decoding sound by the brain and ears. Just as an example, binaural recording use a device called a Neumann head, which is a vaguely human head shaped device with microphones exactly where the ears are. Due to the way the human head, and the shape of the ears affects the sound (cover the tops of your ears to notice the change), when the audio hits the microphones, the stereo signal is an almost exact real time replica of what happens when we hear sounds. So when a binaural recording is played back using earbuds or some other headphones that sits in the same place the microphones did on the Neumann head, the sound “decodes” into a 3D soundscape, where you can hear noises in the recording outside of your head, like listening to a surround system, but with 2 channels. Reverse the channels, and the illusion collapses. To some extent almost all modern stereo recordings use tricks similar to a simple binaural recording. Pink Floyd for example used HRTFs to make it appear sounds are coming from over your shoulder from a stereo recording.

I’ve listened to some modern pop music and it is basically mono, with no dynamics, so if you are listening to stuff like that, I doubt it matters much if your headphones are reversed. Not criticizing that type of music, just pointing out it is basically not stereo, not in the way live jazz or classical is, or wonderfully produced albums like Thriller or Aja.

Finally, if it sounds good to you with the headphones reversed, it is good!

Sorry for the off topic, but I really am an audio/headphone geek.

The headphones Frasier is wearing are Sony MDR V-6 or Sony MDR V-7506 (the pro model, the only diff is a gold plug and a higher price tag). I highly recommend them if you want good indestructible headphones for under $100.

3728

Frasier does a talk-radio call in show. The phone callers are all going to be in mono anyways, aren’t they?

3729

Yes, but they are backwards!

Some info on HRTF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function

3730

I love the Track Changes–Compare Documents feature of Word.

3731

This is the Frasier headphone thread, mmalloy.

3732

That doesn’t seem like a random thought to me, Raife. It seems like you gave that some thought before posting :(

3733

Tiny purple fishes run laughing through my fingers.

3734

The Ambien thread is THAT way.

3735

And you want to go and take Raife, to the cold land of the winter. guitar solo

3736

Outside my window is a tree.

3737

What the hell was I thinking when I booked a 6AM flight?

3738

I wonder how the Federation from Star Trek would’ve dealt with the issue of the Mass Effect-verse’s Krogran population growth and threat to galactic stability.

3739

They’d go on a mission, learn some important lessons, and end up sweeping the actual problem under the rug and refuse to acknowledge it wasn’t resolved.

3740

Wouldn’t it depend on which generation of Star Trek we’re talking about… I mean in your interpretation Kirk didn’t have sex with anyone, that’s just not right.