Mind Versus Heart
I often describe, to myself anyway, the difference between various appealing but different sounds as “one attracts my heart, the other my mind”.
By mind I do not mean technological wizardry – for that kind of appeal the object under the scope has to be the space shuttle, or the internals of a modern CPU chip, or a particle accelerator. Amps, speakers and CD players? Just don’t impress me. But hey, I might be more impressed if I built a few myself.
Anyway…
One of the main differences between Neli’s and my taste is that she likes sound that appeals to the mind more than I do, and that which appeals to the heart less. Not that we are not both enamored of both kinds of sound. We just have – over the course of time – discovered that we will be accepting of more faults in one type of sound than another.
By ‘mind’ I mean largely what we have called sophisticated sound. Well delineated, precise, accurate perhaps under-stated, certainly not over-stated harmonics, great separation, etc. Although this might remind you of a solid-state sound, we have not heard many solid-state preamps nor amps capable of producing this sound – it requires a deftness, an ability to render fine shades of detail and nuance and most of these are built instead to ‘impress’ (or to be inexpensive to build).
By ‘heart’ I mean a somewhat less precise sound, more concerned with continuousness and harmonics than separation between this very subtle sound and that. This kind of sound is more about the music, but the mind has to take a back seat – it cannot wander the subtle interplay of this sound juxtaposed with that, to hear the minute differences in decay between two chimes, one slightly heavier than the other.
See, I really like both kinds of sounds. And in general I design and build systems here that do both.
But sometimes, when updating my wish list (twice daily, don’t you know?), I really want TWO systems. Indulgent, I know.
Is this just me? Is everyone bifurcated like this but not so self-indulgent that they consider setting up two very, very expensive systems?
I certainly get a lot of flak, and will for this post no doubt, from the religious acolytes of one sound or the other. But struggle as I might, I really love both. Chocolate AND Vanilla. And I am right … smack.. in the middle – with no real preference between the two.
Thanks Mike
I think i can say your description about sound type for mind and heart is very similar to my description of macro linearity and micro linearity.
in macro we see low distortion, great macro dynamic, good separation, good timing.
in micro linearity we see integrity, smooth and continues flow, good micro dynamic and more correct tone, emotion, sparkle.
I think digital, solidstate and flat frequency response speakers are more in macro linearity or attract our mind.
analog tape, LP, low power good single ended tubes, good dynamic drivers (like ESP Speakers) are more in micro linearity or attract our heart.
I think for long listening sessions and communicating deeply with music micro linear system will handle better but for shorter listening sessions and listening more impressive music macro linear system is better.
hope to describe good with my very bad english 🙂
regards
Amir
Hi Amir,
Your English is getting much better – its already better than mine. You are an electrical engineer, right? So we can agree on what linearity means. It is a form of (potentially) measurable accuracy.
It is my supposition, and this may be just me, that the heart cares little about such things as accuracy [which puts any kind of accuracy in the ‘appeals to the mind, not the heart’ category].
My description above was sloppy: The heart… likes big slamming bass and subtle brushes on the drum heads when they are appropriate with respect to the music – the song – who cares [my heart says to me] if that was what was really recorded or not. It likes sweet beautiful harmonics, not caring if that is really the way the singer sounds in real life. It is like art – a painting of a rose has the right to look better than any rose that ever existed – it has little to do with accuracy [in the modern era of art] and all about communicating ‘rose-ness’.
When my heart listens – if I can make a few wild assumptions – it looks at colors, and swells, and dynamic transitions in and of themselves. It does not care about the recording process and the technology and the fact that CDs and LPs suck to a very large degree. It care about the NOW and is it experiencing musical beauty NOW.
I think what makes this difficult is that the mind and heart can sabotage each other. If the sound is too inaccurate, the mind says this is too fake – and the heck with this. And if the sound is too cool and heartless and uninvolving, the heart says this makes me uncomfortable and gives me a headache, and the heck with this.
Another aspect is that heartfull sound can be MORE accurate with respect to harmonics and flow. And mindfull music can be more engaging because of the underlying beauty of the mathematical nature of lots of very subtle details.
Something like that anyway 🙂
Take care,
Mike [late. late late. I know :-)]
Different take on this: If you are conscious at any point when listening and flipping a switch thinking it is a more accurate sound (mind), or a more heartfull sound – and analyzing it… you then have automatically made an analysis (choice) already with your mind. What you think is coming from your heart is really only coming from your mind when you make any judgment.
Heartfelt music exists only when you are NOT in ANY way thinking about HOW it sounds.
Kids listening to Ipods and enjoying it do not think or care about the sound or differences. It’s all heart music because they don’t ever get to the point of thinking about sound and sound quality. Ignorance is bliss. My opinion.
Thanks Mike
I think i can describe macro linearity and micro linearity with some examples but in final i think defining it with a Precise language like mathematics is not very easy.
I try to explain it:
see to a picture of a baby, our brain will process lot’s of information from that picture.
two painter start to paint this picture, one of them try to exactly copy the picture and one of them try to follow his emotion for painting that picture.
we see the final result, the first painter give you a very similar picture but you can not communicate with this picture and you sense picture is accurate but there is a absent thing in it and you can not what’s absent but your heart say you do not like that baby like original picture of baby.
second painter come out from restriction of accuracy and try to paint it with his sense. this picture is not exactly similar to original but your heart like it and you sense this baby is more familiar (not similar) with original baby.
hope to describe it right with my bad english.
I say in objective domain we can define macro and micro parameters.
macro parameter of a sound is it’s transparency, neutrality, macro dynamic, soundstage and all parameters that a beginner listener sense at first view.
micro parameters is like flow, micro dynamic , sparkle that are hidden at first view but they need more time to be detected.
macro linear system is a system that transfer macro parameters correctly and micro linear system is a system that transfer micro parameters correctly.
in my idea in mathematical model we can define it with meaning of smooth function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_function
Maclaurin series of a function can help us to describe this object mathemaically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series
more linear in macro has lower amplitude for every element but has more elements.
like 1+.0005x+0.002×2+0.004×3+0.01×4
more linear in micro has higher amplitude for every element but has less elemnts.
like 1+2x
i expanded this discussion in farsi but for translating it to english i need time, hope to translate it for you.
in the final more simple structures could have more micro linearity and more complex design could have better macro linearity.
to michael:
we should know difference of audio with music enjoying.
most audiophiles try to enjoy sound and they forget enjoying sound is a restricted domain that is very bad idea.
i
Hi Mike,
[I thought Neli was going to post and tells us ALL how it REALLY is… 🙂 ]
So, first, I agree with you on your main point.
The technique I use is kind of like this: I tune in with my mind. If the mind is pleased, it stays focused awhile, else it bugs out and I just let the music wash over me without thinking about it. I also periodically do brain-like things like compare the sound to what I might here at a show “what would I think if I walked into a room and heard THIS?”. Etc.
Believe you me, I can NOT think about how it sounds REAL easy [it might be called spacing out, or it might be called ‘got a lot on my mind’, or it might be called Attention Deficit Disorder, or … :-)]
Finally, I disagree about the ipod’ers. I think of them as collecting tiny thumbnails of music, like people collect thumbnails of, say, photos of roses [or, say, the Mona Lisa]. It may be ‘enjoyable’ and communicate something about what a rose (song) is, but it does no way, no how, compare to the real thing. Nor is a thumbnail comparable to a painting of a rose, nor a well-taken photo. Maybe these ‘thumbnails’ of music might inspire a few people, but I would argue that by-and-large it is not the music itself inspiring them – but something else related to the experience at the time. Or it might just be the rush of a song coming on that is not entirely bright, harsh and annoying? 😉 [Yes, I know you use an iPod. I am taking liberties here :-)]
I remember the portable radio blaring in the open garage in the summer when I was a kid. I know I liked the songs, but I do not remember ever not wanting to make sure I did not get too close to the radio. If I tapped my foot it was because something else was going well. Same as it was at the gym yesterday.
I understand the ‘It has to have flaws in order for you to really love/enjoy something’ philosophy. But I think it only applies to people 🙂
Take care, Mike. And thanks for posting!
-Mike
Mike, If you were stranded on an island with only an ipod, would you enjoy it? Would you at any time be inspired by any of the music?
Hi Mike,
I think on a deserted island I would enjoy the music because of all the things it reminded me of that I could not experience on a deserted island.
But more to your point – can forced or willing, conscious or unconscious deprivation of quality make/allow one to experience the same heights of pleasure with things of lesser quality? I agree it CAN but on average I think more people enjoy driving an S8 than an A4 – and that more people on a percentage basis would more likely enjoy, over a longer period of time, a piece of art from Santa Fe than a poster from K-Mart.
Not that a person couldn’t enjoy the poster from K-Mart – but the kind of enjoyment, and it’s depth, I think, are greater. Perhaps because a person makes more of a commitment to experiencing the music,art,car when they specifically go out of their way to experience something of quality. Some people might think this snobbish, but it is really just observing human behavior – almost everyone I have ever met had some hobby where they spent way more than what I would spend on something – and enjoyed it that much more than I do as well… from guns to baseball cards to carburetors to shoes to guitars……
I think 99.99% of iPod’ers (more in fact) enjoy their iPods as much as I enjoy my shoes. In other words, they do the job and could care less about anything more than that.
Good question tho 🙂
Take care,
Mike
Dear Amir,
Somehow your post of July 14th got stuck in Moderated Comments in WordPress and did not automatically post to the blog and I did not see it until now. So Sorry!
I will actually read it and try to respond shortly – but wanted to apologize for the oversight.
Thanks,
Mike
Thanks Mike, no problem 🙂