Here, this is what I'm talking about?

MixDream acts as a clean DAW analog buffer amp and I/O router, saving time and patching when specialized session needs arise.

and

IN THE MIX
All of my music mixes benefit greatly when summed in analog-- I became a true believer the very first time I mixed separate outputs from a DAW on a large API console. After carefully testing all 16 channels with a -18dB reference tone from a Pro Tools|MIXPlus system, I found that all channels contributed exactly the same level to the summing bus--within an astonishing +/-0.2 dB.

http://www.barryrudolph.com/mix/splmixdream.html

Is this really only a benefit if I was mixing OTB and whereby, only using the DAW for tracking and editing?

I've definitely found external summing mixers to be a noticeable improvement over ITB summing. The difference isn't subtle either.

My favorite boxes of choice are Dangerous Audio Summing boxes (the D-Box is simply the most amazing multi-purpose tool on the planet!)

Granted, I haven't tried the Mix Dream and it does look like a damn nice box!

My absolute best recordings (albeit of classical music which doesn't require a lot of level changes and automation) come from when I set the levels JUST right while recording and I don't have to alter the levels while mixing. I sum externally through the Dangerous and (occassionally to often) into the Bricasti and voila - audio chocolate!

I'm not kidding when I say the results are stunning and not subtle!

Cheers-
J.

work flow and size of mix

the smaller Jazz and Classical things do suit the Summing Box

But for the BIG pop music mix with many many channels and sub groups and effect sends,
it does get a little harder to know how to incorporate the Summing Box
Some ITB mixing with the Summing Box give part of the advantages

It's not a simple one shot answer for everyone
but
it is worth getting a demonstration to show what a Summing Box can do for some mixes

Man, I'm excited but still confused.

Whats the chain of events here.

You hook it up via subs from the DAW/ FF 800 outs?
It acts as a sweetner hardware control center ( patchbay ) for your external hardware. Example 16 ins for Comps, Eq, processors?
You somehow do some magic by using the summing box to balance everything and shape the imaging?

Then, take the 2 outs and return them back into the DAW as a left and right ?

Or take the outs to a DAT to further master the mix?

Sorry, I'm sounding kinda newbie here. Its something I've never done before. There is no one in my area that has anything like this to learn from.

a quick look at the suggested uses and wiring for some of the above mentioned boxes
like the Dangerous
they should have a white paper

in it's simplest form ... kinda when the 001 was released
NOT that it has anything directly to do with the 001 and these things have been around for years

BUT
a simple 16 channel levels mix on the PT LE ... ITB
compared to
an analog 16 into 2 with a Summing Box using the 001's 8 plus say an ADAT ... another 8 outs

the boast was
it sounded so much better and the OLD skool stereo image just worked better

IF you expand this to a complicate mix it all threatens to become a mixing desk again

Finding the balance is all about work flow and project size

not easy to give a one shot answer ... did I say that earlier ?

for me here is what i do
i record to Nuendo 4.3 mix ITB somewhat, but ALWAYS mix thru my Neve 8108, recording my mix back into Nuendo. so yeah, i use summing and one hellova way to do it i must say!!
SUM IT MAN!!! no matter what SUM IT

Call me a skeptic, but I just can't grasp how making an extra trip through AD/DA can possibly improve a mix. I'd love to hear some solid explanations from folks who are believers, not just the marketing hype passed out by Dangerous or the "I can't explain it, it just sounds better" refrain.

Degrading a single by taking it through a D-A and then back through an A-D prior to finished product makes zero sense to me. What could you possibly gain from analog summing that would overcome that degradation of signal?

Call me a skeptic, but I just can't grasp how making an extra trip through AD/DA can possibly improve a mix.;

Your a skeptic because you have not had any experince doing it or doing it right. When you have great outboard gear, it is very desireable and most often adds to a better mix than using half-ass crapy plugs that most people now use. With good to great converters you gain more than you loose with external gear than the signal degrade of more than one A2D and D2A conversion. Very common for pro's and those with hybrid analog/digital studios. It there was truely nothing to gain by doing it, it wouldn't be done.

Anlalog summing is a bit different and can be argued. If your still using those half ass crapy plugs, then it won't likely make the night and day difference that people are expecting. In fact even in the the best of circumstances of plugs, converters and gear, analog summing can still often be a pretty subtle thing. But it is the small and subtle things that can take a mix to the next level.

AudioGaff, post: 346505 wrote: Your a skeptic because you have not had any experince doing it or doing it right.

That's a pretty audacious assumption there, bro.

It there was truely nothing to gain by doing it, it wouldn't be done.

This is a specious argument. People buy $50,000 solid silver speaker cables, yet there is nothing to gain by doing so. Snake oil and voodoo exists all over the audio world.

Anlalog summing is a bit different and can be argued.

Then please argue it, instead of offering ad hominem attacks like the above and below.

If your still using those half ass crapy plugs,

I asked for someone to offer me a solid explanation, and you make assumptions about my level of experience and then insult me.

Would anyone else like to try arguing for the concept instead of against the person raising the question?

Scott,
im not sure of your experience, nor your level of expertise in the matter of recording. i tried to look up your studio and found nothing so i cant make an educated guess as to the equipment you use or the anything else for that matter. But i can offer you my reasons for mixing thru my console.
1. because thats what i have been doing for 25 years.
2. a mix done thru a console using its line inputs, eq, filter, aux's and inserts for my outboard gear has way more openness, space, and depth. reverbs delays and such shine more.
3. ITB is just that a box, to me thats the sound you get, the sound inside a small box.
4. analog circuitry, and im no techy guy here, but as explained to me, the circuit of analog products react in a way that NO digital plugin could ever emulate. when you have something inserted into a channel all that you do within that console channel will affect the way that piece of outboard gear reacts. thats why i use that method because it makes my clients really really happy.
if yo uhave never tried a mix of yours thru a console then your truly missing out. its all about ELECTRONICS....not a digital plugin.

your comment about taking a track out thru a D2A and back into a A2D makes no sense to me at all my friend. for one my signal from my console is analog into my A2D as a 2track mix for the mastering engineer to do his thing. if you think that taking a track and going A2d, D2A, and back to A2D is bad, well my friend, thats how it gets done, and your way it most certainly done.....even if you wanted to take your mix and run it out of protools and into a clients cd recorder or something like that, your STILL going D2A and back to A2D since the recorder has converters in it, they may be better or worse than what you have but i can assure you that my method is practiced so very lovingly by many others in our community than you think.
REMEMBER, its not all about digital dude, analog it truly the sound of music.

planet10, post: 346545 wrote: Scott,
im not sure of your experience, nor your level of expertise in the matter of recording. i tried to look up your studio and found nothing so i cant make an educated guess as to the equipment you use or the anything else for that matter. But i can offer you my reasons for mixing thru my console.
1. because thats what i have been doing for 25 years.
2. a mix done thru a console using its line inputs, eq, filter, aux's and inserts for my outboard gear has way more openness, space, and depth. reverbs delays and such shine more.
3. ITB is just that a box, to me thats the sound you get, the sound inside a small box.
4. analog circuitry, and im no techy guy here, but as explained to me, the circuit of analog products react in a way that NO digital plugin could ever emulate. when you have something inserted into a channel all that you do within that console channel will affect the way that piece of outboard gear reacts. thats why i use that method because it makes my clients really really happy.
if yo uhave never tried a mix of yours thru a console then your truly missing out. its all about ELECTRONICS....not a digital plugin.

your comment about taking a track out thru a D2A and back into a A2D makes no sense to me at all my friend. for one my signal from my console is analog into my A2D as a 2track mix for the mastering engineer to do his thing. if you think that taking a track and going A2d, D2A, and back to A2D is bad, well my friend, thats how it gets done, and your way it most certainly done.....even if you wanted to take your mix and run it out of protools and into a clients cd recorder or something like that, your STILL going D2A and back to A2D since the recorder has converters in it, they may be better or worse than what you have but i can assure you that my method is practiced so very lovingly by many others in our community than you think.
REMEMBER, its not all about digital dude, analog it truly the sound of music.

Console and outboard effects is one thing. That's a matter of preference, and if you have the top-drawer console and the top-drawer outboard effects to justify it, then it's a worthwhile thing for you to do if you prefer mixing in that fashion.

A summing box has a singular purpose - to take discrete channels out of a DAW and sum to 2-channel in the analog domain. When you use a summing box, you're doing one thing: converting your numerous signals (already pre-mixed in the DAW) from D to A to sum them to 2-channel as analog, then converting it back to D on the back end to pass along to the next step in the production chain.

That's what I don't get.

I have no issue with actual mixing OTB. I know lots of folks who do nothing more with the DAW than comps and edits, and handle everything else OTB.

I have an issue with doing all the pre-production in the box, then doing a conversion to analog just to run it through this one piece of equipment that does nothing more than sum the signals to two channels. I'd love to hear from folks that actually use these things as to what benefit they really get out of taking this step (as opposed to doing what you do, which is handle all your mixing in the analog domain)

PS: Here's the copy on the Dangerous Audio Website:

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.dangerou…"]Dangerous 2-BUS[/]="http://www.dangerou…"]Dangerous 2-BUS[/]

On one hand, it tells you about all these enhancements to your mix, on the other, it tells you how perfectly pristine and neutral the circuitry is. It reads like snake oil. That's why I'm a skeptic, because there's no real hard truth or quantifiable explanation for why it's supposed to be so much better than taking a project that was mixed completely in the digital domain, summing it in the digital domain, and rendering it as .WAV files (maintaining digital integrity) and passing it along without going into and then back out of the analog domain.

You can use a SPDIF cable to do the same thing with the client's CD recorder - maintain the digital integrity throughout.

Oh - and the reason you can't find my studio anywhere is because I closed that studio down about a year or so after I joined this site, and never got around to editing my sig.

yeah i hear you Scott, i wasnt dissing your website AT ALL, i just like to know who im going to be chatting with and seeing what they are about, im not knocking you on that.
anyway.......
thats why i use a console and not some BS little box. i know that my Neve will create a great 2 track sum, better than a dangerous or a tubetech or an spl or even the contemporary Neve summing box.
im doing the EXACT SAME THING as these BLB's only i have a bigger advantage than those BLB's. i have filters, eq, inserts, aux's all that cool stuff. im with you on this Scott, if your going to sum it do it on a console, its made for that and its not pristine and neutral who wants that!!!! make it FAT baby. Scott i encourage you to take a session to a console and see what happens, but to make it a realistic challenge you have to make the mix decisions not the house engineer.

Sounds like we're on the same page re: summing boxes.

I've done a few mixes on consoles in the past, and I always enjoyed the results, but hated the fader-riding component. One day I'll find a great analog console with automation that doesn't force me to compromise on the sound - and I'll probably wind up taking out a second mortgage to pay for it. ;)

dude riding faders is FUN and creative!! thats the cool part of mixing a record. with or without automation you have to make those initial moves anyway. put a little tape next to the fader and mark your spots. ride it man!!! it makes the clients take notice of how cool it is and they want in on the riding too!!!

planet10, post: 346562 wrote: dude riding faders is FUN and creative!! thats the cool part of mixing a record. with or without automation you have to make those initial moves anyway. put a little tape next to the fader and mark your spots. ride it man!!! it makes the clients take notice of how cool it is and they want in on the riding too!!!

I'm sure I would enjoy it a lot more if I didn't have such a tendency to get lost in the music and forget when I was supposed to pull that vocal track back or slam up the lead guitar. :)

Call me a skeptic, but I just can't grasp how making an extra trip through AD/DA can possibly improve a mix.

Lighten up. There was no direct attack. Your statement read that since you can't grasp it, it is safe to assume that is because you have no experience doing it and doing right. Because if you did, you would then, or should be able to grasp it.

There is nothing to argue. You come to our own conclusions based on your skills and experience. If you can't grasp it and would rather argue with no basic frame of reference, go fo it. I stand by my statements.

AudioGaff, post: 346588 wrote: Lighten up. There was no direct attack. Your statement read that since you can't grasp it, it is safe to assume that is because you have no experience doing it and doing right. Because if you did, you would then, or should be able to grasp it.

There is nothing to argue. You come to our own conclusions based on your skills and experience. If you can't grasp it and would rather argue with no basic frame of reference, go fo it. I stand by my statements.

Well, if all the summing box proponents have to offer is "you don't get it, because if you did get it, you wouldn't be arguing", then it seems my skepticism is justified.

Your defense of the summing box sounds exactly like the audiophile defending his $50,000 speaker cables.

All I asked for was some objective support, not voodoo and snake oil, like Dangerous Audio gives on their product page.

(edit)

If the "you have no experience doing it" was some sort of hint towards "you've never used one", I'm sorry, but I'm not inclined to drop $2700 on a piece of equipment just to "try it out", especially when the producers of said piece of equipment can't be bothered to offer anything but esoteric descriptions that could be just as easily transposed to any piece of audiophile listening equipment or accessory and still appear written for the specific product.

PS: Telling me that "it is safe to assume that is because you have no experience doing it and doing right" because I don't get why you'd want to D/A to use a box that does nothing more than sum, knowing that you have to A/D again (both trips being a signal degradation, BTW) is another ad homenim attack. You're basically telling me that if I don't understand why someone would do this, then I must not know anything about audio. That's absolutely an ad homenim argument.

Moderator or not, you're way, way, way out of line here.

Back to the summing boxes themselves:

Dangerous audio boasts a noise floor of -83dB.

Now you're telling me that you're reducing my SNR on top of the degradation of signal required to use your box?

Once again, I ask the proponents of these boxes:

why should I spend the money on a box that forces me to degrade my signal (by performing extra D/A and A/D) to use it, when the box itself increases my noise floor?

What exactly does the summing box do to my mix (other than reduce my dynamic range) that would make me want to employ it?

Please, give me something real, not "if you don't get it, you're just stupid" (not far from what AudioGaff is saying here)

Scott ... forgive me if I am wrong, but it reads like you have a personal thing with Dangerous ( note: Dangerous Music , NOT "Dangerous Audio") . Honing in on this thread, heading for a direct hit against a very respectful company with such a pristine track record. I don't get it?

audiokid, post: 346629 wrote: Scott ... forgive me if I am wrong, but it reads like you have a personal thing with Dangerous. Honing in on this thread, heading for a direct hit against a very respectful company with such a pristine track record. I don't get it?

I am "picking" on Dangerous because they have been making these boxes longer than anyone else, and their ad copy on their website is easily the most suspect.

When someone tells me I must not have any experience recording "correctly" because I want hard facts instead of fluffy audiophile-esque ad copy as a reason to invest in a piece of equipment, I'm definitely going to go into attack mode - except I attack the issue, instead of the defender of that issue.

Suspect to what?

audiokid, post: 346634 wrote: Suspect to what?

Have you read their ad copy?

It literally reads like the same copy I've seen on every ridiculous $$ speaker cable website out there.

"The solution is the 2-Bus’s pristine audio path - delivering nuance, depth and clarity to your mix without any added coloration or distortion."

"in terms of sound quality, spatial detail and headroom"

How does something deliver "nuance, depth, and clarity" to a mix "without any added coloration"?

It's a summing box. It has no controls. It takes the sixteen channels you send from your DAC and sums them as they sit to a 2-channel mix. Explain to me how this box functions, without using the fluffy language in their ad copy, because their ad copy sounds a lot like [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.trademe…"]this[/]="http://www.trademe…"]this[/].

Apologies in advance to anyone who owns the item I linked.

You are making a blanket statement based on an ad you read.

Well, here's how I use a summing mixer/box whatever. I don't make all my decisions based on the DAW headphone mix of my interface. Basically I send all the tracks directly to the mixer or box whichever and make my mix decisions based upon that 2-bus blend. The summed 2-bus only gets re-digitized when I'm ready for a mixdown. At heart I'm an analog guy. I crave the sliders and rotaries. It just isn't practical for what I do. I don't do any non-classical anymore so my outboard is mostly sitting in storage with desiccant bags thrown in the cases. However, if I do use outboard it's mixer time. I just don't like any of the plugs I have if I have time to go dig the gear out of storage. It's a waste of gear I know but I always intended to go back out on the road or back to the Corps. One new wife and children later.........

audiokid, post: 346637 wrote: You are making a blanket statement based on an ad you read.

No, I'm looking at the ad and going "why would I want to buy this, based on this nonsensical description"

and hoping someone out there has a legitimate answer.

Scott Griffin, post: 346661 wrote: No, I'm looking at the ad and going "why would I want to buy this, based on this nonsensical description"

and hoping someone out there has a legitimate answer.

Based on your posts in this thread, its clear to me you have been following and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Good to see you back here.

Just out of curiosity, what crowd would that be?

My basic philosophy: If I'm tracking digital, I'm not coming out of the digital domain during the mix unless whatever I'm employing in analog justifies the signal degradation of going D/A and A/D. In Planet10's case, sure. Coming out of digital to mix on a Neve, with near 6 figures worth of outboard analog effects that are far superior to any plugin, yeah, that justifies what I'd lose on those two conversions.

Why can't anyone just answer the question: What exactly does the summing box do for you that justifies having to make those two extra conversions? It can't be headroom, because these boxes have a noise floor that is higher than the board I use to track (-80dB v -105dB). It can't be coloration, because they advertise specifically that their box doesn't color the mix, and is neutral on the same level as a mastering console (whether that is true or not is up for discussion, but that's the claim). So what is it?

Scott -
A couple things -
I think you're hanging a little bit on this whole "sonic degradation" from multiple conversions thing an awful lot.
Yes, at a tiny level, bits of jitter and possible errors are introduced. However, this is more a matter of academia more than anything else. I would suggest that, even after a dozen trips back and forth from an AD, most people (even self-proclaimed audiophiles, golden ears, and engineering pros) wouldn't ever hear the difference. I know that opinion isn't popular, but I think that the idea of introducing one trip through an AD/DA cycle is hardly cause for alarm.

Additionally, I don't read Dangerous's copy as being snake oil at all. First, they're suggesting that using a pristine analog chain (vice a standard, non-esoteric mixer with extra, non-defeated circuitry such as gain, EQ, effects and likely inferior OpAmps) is better than using an inherently inferior chain. As for the added depth and clarity - I can attest to this. I use a summing box on a regular basis. My weapon of choice also happens to be a Dangerous Audio box. I can hear a noticable and repeatable difference when using the box. Can I give you quantifiable specifications and measurements? No, I haven't done them. However, the mere fact that I can reproduce attainable results means that, at least for my purposes, I don't need to.

That being said, here are two comments in your corner. I don't agree that it doesn't add color. I believe that, if you make something different, you're adding some color. For my intents and purposes, the color is that of openness and depth. Or, think "bigger." The other comment in your corner - I don't find the difference to be SO dramatic that I choose to do every album OTB. In fact, due to the complexity of the setup for me (since I'm a mobile studio guy), I only find myself mixing through this OTB solution on my best albums. If it sounds great to begin with, I'm going to notice a bigger difference in quality.

I can't speak to the noise specifications of the unit since I've never done a recording where the noise floor was below -80dBFS, but I can tell you that I have never noticed one tiny bit of noise introduced by summing OTB.

My process for summing is simple - first and foremost, get the levels right going into the box. I've noticed that if I don't have to modify the original recording (afterall, changing digital faders changes the bit resolution and thus the sound), then I get the greatest benefit. Of course, benefit is had regardless - even if I have hefty automation going on in the tracks.

If I had my druthers and enough money and time, I'd get something along the lines of Speck's large line-level mixer and use it for complete summing and mix control. If you could add automation to that, it would be a dream come true. Until then, I get the results I want from my outboard summing, both predictably and repeatably.

On a side note - you're more than welcome to come by my studio and play around with my Dangerous box instead of dropping the hard earned cash on it just to try it. I'm only a few hours away.

Cheers-
Jeremy

Thank you, Jeremy, for that offering. I'm glad someone took me up on the original question instead of assuming I have some sort of hatred towards the concept - and I may just have to take you up on the offer to play around with the setup. I'll have to dump some tracks and bring them over sometime. :)

You raised an interesting point about digital faders and bit rez. Does this all, essentially, come down to the idea of summing voltage versus summing bits? Is this the basic answer to the original question, that summing real voltage on a clean signal path in the analog domain yields a more musical result versus summing bits in the box?

That would make a bit more sense, and that plain-English explanation goes a lot farther towards making me interested in trying it out, far more so than the gobbledy-gook on DA's website.

That's certainly my take on the whole issue is that using good ol' voltage (with a technically/theoretically infinite sample rate, or "continuous") versus digital with 24 or 32 bits per sample is technically more accurate, smoother, etc. Of course, manipulating faders ITB works differently than manipulating faders OTB. How much is difficult to determine. Afterall, as I mentioned, I find that my best results come when I get the levels right to begin with and don't have to ride digital faders.

Cheers-
J.

My thoughts on the matter, whether correctly or incorrectly, came from a good discussion I had with some cat a bit earlier in either this thread or Chris' other one about his Mixdream.

I'm not going to say it was his contention for risk of incorrectly paraphrasing him, but both his argument and a recent argument I read based on 'all plugin EQs are in fact exactly the same' were based around the fact that as you could prove unequivocally that a digital mixer would sum two or more out of phase tracks to zero, it therefore proved that it sums perfectly. He went up to something like 200 tracks and still achieved perfect zero.

However this is talking about subtractive summing, and I think the contention in analog summing is a different one, as it is a cumulative or additive sum. With analog (correct me if my terminology is slightly wrong) having technically infinite headroom, or perhaps pushing towards a warm even-order harmonic distortion, versus digital making continual cumulative sums with bits carried forward, points rounded down etc; the contention is not that digital summing is perfect and so is analog, but that digital summing is perfect only within the accepted calculation tolerance, and analog summing may be equally imperfect, but it is imperfect in a way that is more pleasing to the ear, thereby ending up being not perfect, but the better choice of the two, assuming gear is up to scratch.

Its the additive artifacts or lack of them (for want of a better term) that provide the sense of breadth and depth, as I understand it. In addition I believe part of the idea put forward is that some of these cumulative effects are occuring above 20kHz but they still affect the overall sense of harmonics which reach the amp/speakers?

Jeemy, post: 346706 wrote: My thoughts on the matter, whether correctly or incorrectly, came from a good discussion I had with some cat a bit earlier in either this thread or Chris' other one about his Mixdream.

I'm not going to say it was his contention for risk of incorrectly paraphrasing him, but both his argument and a recent argument I read based on 'all plugin EQs are in fact exactly the same' were based around the fact that as you could prove unequivocally that a digital mixer would sum two or more out of phase tracks to zero, it therefore proved that it sums perfectly. He went up to something like 200 tracks and still achieved perfect zero.

However this is talking about subtractive summing, and I think the contention in analog summing is a different one, as it is a cumulative or additive sum. With analog (correct me if my terminology is slightly wrong) having technically infinite headroom, or perhaps pushing towards a warm even-order harmonic distortion, versus digital making continual cumulative sums with bits carried forward, points rounded down etc; the contention is not that digital summing is perfect and so is analog, but that digital summing is perfect only within the accepted calculation tolerance, and analog summing may be equally imperfect, but it is imperfect in a way that is more pleasing to the ear, thereby ending up being not perfect, but the better choice of the two, assuming gear is up to scratch.

Its the additive artifacts or lack of them (for want of a better term) that provide the sense of breadth and depth, as I understand it. In addition I believe part of the idea put forward is that some of these cumulative effects are occuring above 20kHz but they still affect the overall sense of harmonics which reach the amp/speakers?

I was right with you until you started discussing above 20kHz. That is a can of worms that we don't want to open here, lest we wind up with another 96Khz debate. Not only has it been proven repeatedly that the human ear cannot perceive sound above 22Khz (less if you are older and/or have put your ears through more abuse), but the whole issue is moot, because modern speaker systems and amplifiers do not reproduce sounds above 20Khz, certainly not at any meaningful volume. This I have tested personally, with speakers that claimed to reproduce up to 50Khz, coupled to top-shelf class A tube amplifiers (also purported to reproduce super-high-frequencies) Dabbling in the metaphysical (and very much speculative) realm of non-auditory perception of VHF (i.e. "feeling" sounds through other parts of the body) is definitely not high on my list of debate topics.

No, but (again, as I understand it) its something to do with the fact that an analog or alternatively, higher-resolution digital system, making calculations that are good way above 20kHz, results in a better end result between 20 and 20k. And so yes it probably pushes that to the 96kHz debate which is off-topic for this.

As an interesting aside...also not wanting to venture down the >20kHz argument...

I recently just picked up an Ultra Sonic cleaning tank for cleaning brass instruments (from Ultra Sonic Power Corp).

The principle behind this is simple - put a large, powerful transducer below a tank of water with a little bit of detergent and BOOM - clean horns. That being said, the system is designed to repeat a VERY LOUD 40kHz tone into the water. Of course, it's completely inaudible (though the transducer is loud in the audible range too). However, when I use the tank for the better part of an afternoon, I get dizzy, sick to my stomach and a bad head ache. When I wear dense foam ear plugs, I can make it a LOT longer without side effects.

Interesting...

(BTW - I just got my hearing tested and thankfully, despite my quickly-compiling age, my sensitivity was WAY above average at all frequencies, even intra-octave ranges! WooHoo!)

Cheers!
J

that sounds like great fun. all good things make you sick after too much.

I think you're on to something Cucco. I'm not getting into the aforementioned debates either, but I do have an example to support your "experiment":

In the late 90s, The Flaming Lips released an album called "Zaireeka". It was 4 separate discs w/ the same material on each disc.
Well, at least the same "songs" - each disc contained different portions of the program material.
The idea was to put each disc into a different system, attempt to start them all at the same time, and see what happens.
Of course, the inability to start all 4 systems simultaneously, coupled w/ the notion that different systems will play back at very subtly different speeds, resulted in the 4 discs being minutely off from each other as you progressed through the material.

The other part of this experiment was the inclusion of sub- and super-sonic frequencies. Sounds you "felt" rather than heard"
Now, it could have been just the fact that there were multiple systems playing all around (we had a larger space to use, so you could actually walk around and hear more or less of one or the other 3), but I experienced similar effects.
In fact, the band/label felt the need to include a warning on the packaging about the possibility of disorientation, dizziness, nausea, and in extreme cases, loss of bowel function.

How accurate and realistic these warnings and my experiences are is up to debate. Let's just say that I can verify that something happened. And that performing this experiment while under the influence of foreign substances seems to exaggerate the effects.

What does this have to do w/ OTB summing? In all probability, nothing at all.

A can of worms indeed.

Can worms hear these frequencies? They certainly respond to hyper-sonic and sub-sonic, as do I and a lot of other'humans'.

Does this have anything to do with summing? Naw.

Hey, humans absolutely respond to subsonic frequencies. I heard they actually pinpointed the "brown note" at around 9 Hz. *grin*