What is the word? (sound quality)

"Richard Dobson" <richarddobson@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:onDdc.49864$Id.12392@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
> I would have to say "no".
>
> The first difficulty is in avoiding describing the source sound, rather than
the
> quality of the tranmission. The opposite to "opaque" is "transparent". To
> describe a sound as bright depends on whether the source is bright to begin
with.

Good point.

> The other difficulty is the overwhelming majority of adjectives, including
those
> above, and of course "bright" and "dark",are borrowed from the visual domain,
> which translates only inexactly to sound. We have extremes: dark v bright, but
> not much in between. Attaching to them any quantity (on a scale 1 to 10 say)
is
> ostensibly impossible. We also use onomatopoeic terms ("boomy"), or
> causal/mechanical terms ("brassy","grainy"), or terms from the sense of touch
> ("warm", "thick"). In short, we are obliged most of the time to describe a
sound
> by reference to some other sound, by common consent.
>
> In the meantime, the word "muted" would seem useful to describe the l/p
filtered
> sound, as that does at least describe an obstacle to reception, rather than a
> quality of the source. On this basis, the opposite has to be "un-muted", as we
> have little vocabulary to express the absence of an effect.

I've heard the term "covered" used to describe this.  I guess the opposite would
be "uncovered", though probably something like "present" or "clear" is more
common.  The term "covered" seems quite direct as you can generate a low-pass
filtered version of a sound source by covering it, e.g. with a blanket.

Jerry Avins wrote:
> 
>> Two comments:  notice that I'm looking for the word to
>> describe the right amount of high-frequencies (or, say,
>> the presence of high frequencies).  I used the example
>> of a low-passed piano to imply that I was looking for
>> the adjective that describes the original as compared
>> to the low-passed version  (you hear both and you go:
>> "there, this one sounds ____" -- "brighter", as per
>> Jon's message)
>   ...
> 
> Trite as it may seem, the description "high fidelity" comes to mind.
> Note that good high-frequency response is not always a good thing. Under
> some conditions, a low-pass filter can improve the pleasantness of
> music. Low-distortion audio in a flat passband tends to sound best to
> people with normal hearing when the product of the upper and lower
> cut-offs is close to 400 (KHz)^2. When small speakers limit the base
> response, the extreme highs become unwelcome.

Hmmm, even though I mostly agree with the above, I clarify
again that I wasn't implying any sort of judgement on that
attribute, but rather trying to find out what is the word
to describe it.

I'm going to explain now exactly why I needed that -- I'm
writing the report on a Term Project in a Speech Communications
course.  I implemented a system that increases (presumably)
the quality of digitized speech by adding a parametric
representation of the 4kHz to 8kHz  (which is absent at
the commonly accepted standard sampling rate for "speech
quality").

So, in comparing the results, I was trying to explain that
with the vowels, as opposed to fricatives (s and sh sounds,
which are white/pink-noise-like in nature), the high
frequency contents, if anything, just adds a bit of
naturalness by means of the harmonics that increase the
sound's _____  (and that is the word that I was looking
for).

With an S, or F, or SH, high frequencies *is* mostly what
defines those sounds.  For vowels, high frequencies simply
"decorate" it -- they add brightness that is present in the
original (acoustic) signal, and that is lost when digitizing
at 8kHz and thus limiting the bandwidth to the lower 4kHz
band.

I hope I got the right term  (well, the report is due
next Tuesday, so if I hear some further objections or
clarifications in this thread, I'll adjust the wording in
my report  :-))

Cheers,

Carlos
--

Jon Harris wrote:

   ...

> I've heard the term "covered" used to describe this.  I guess the opposite would
> be "uncovered", though probably something like "present" or "clear" is more
> common.  The term "covered" seems quite direct as you can generate a low-pass
> filtered version of a sound source by covering it, e.g. with a blanket.

You remind me that I've heard "hooded" in the same context. More extreme
frequency restriction would be "muffled".

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

Carlos Moreno wrote:

   ...

> I'm going to explain now exactly why I needed that -- I'm
> writing the report on a Term Project in a Speech Communications
> course.  I implemented a system that increases (presumably)
> the quality of digitized speech by adding a parametric
> representation of the 4kHz to 8kHz  (which is absent at
> the commonly accepted standard sampling rate for "speech
> quality").
> 
> So, in comparing the results, I was trying to explain that
> with the vowels, as opposed to fricatives (s and sh sounds,
> which are white/pink-noise-like in nature), the high
> frequency contents, if anything, just adds a bit of
> naturalness by means of the harmonics that increase the
> sound's _____  (and that is the word that I was looking
> for).
> 
> With an S, or F, or SH, high frequencies *is* mostly what
> defines those sounds.  For vowels, high frequencies simply
> "decorate" it -- they add brightness that is present in the
> original (acoustic) signal, and that is lost when digitizing
> at 8kHz and thus limiting the bandwidth to the lower 4kHz
> band.
> 
> I hope I got the right term  (well, the report is due
> next Tuesday, so if I hear some further objections or
> clarifications in this thread, I'll adjust the wording in
> my report  :-))

Loudspeaker designers of my acquaintance and some musicians would fill 
in your blank with "openness". George Briggs, in particular, meant that 
literally. He avoided backs on his tweeter mounts.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

"Clarity"?

Richard Dobson

Carlos Moreno wrote:

> Jerry Avins wrote:
> 
>>
..
> I'm going to explain now exactly why I needed that -- I'm
> writing the report on a Term Project in a Speech Communications
> course.  I implemented a system that increases (presumably)
> the quality of digitized speech by adding a parametric
> representation of the 4kHz to 8kHz  (which is absent at
> the commonly accepted standard sampling rate for "speech
> quality").
> 
> So, in comparing the results, I was trying to explain that
> with the vowels, as opposed to fricatives (s and sh sounds,
> which are white/pink-noise-like in nature), the high
> frequency contents, if anything, just adds a bit of
> naturalness by means of the harmonics that increase the
> sound's _____  (and that is the word that I was looking
> for).
> 
...

Could be.  But the problem with this word in the context
of speech signals is that it may be easily confused with
intelligibility, or with clarity in a more "high-level"
sense (the clarity of an explanation, the clarity of a
phrase in the linguistic sense, etc.)

I guess I'll go with "brightness", even if this word
seems to go better in the context of music signals.

Thanks,

Carlos
--

Richard Dobson wrote:
> "Clarity"?
> 
> [...]