NZ Skeptics Articles

Articles tagged with "sound"

Cryptids of New Zealand: Part 2

9 December 2024

In part one of my delve into obscure local cryptids we looked at the Kabagon, which bore more than a passing resemblance to an elephant seal, the Roa Roa, which was likely a case of mistaken identity of livestock, and the Rotomahana Saurian, which may well have been a floating tree. Here are three more cryptids I found that appear to have rational explanations:

A computer hard drive that makes your music sound better?

31 January 2022

I'm sitting here writing this week's newsletter with music playing in the background - I've just listened to tracks by (and I'm name-dropping here) Malcolm Middleton, the Flashbulb, Madvillain, PJ Harvey, Mogwai and 65daysofstatic. I'm enjoying this music being played from Plex on my Chromecast, through my TV, via a Sony home theatre amp, to my in-wall 7.1 surround sound speakers. The entire setup might have cost me $1,200, if we exclude the cost of the TV (another $1,500). But could I be enjoying my music more if I'd spent more money buying reference equipment from high-end specialist companies?

Did NASA Astronauts see aliens?

15 April 2018

The NZ Herald seems to think so, republishing a Daily Mail article this week about a lie detector test that Buzz Aldrin apparently took recently to prove that he believes he saw an alien craft on his way to the moon in 1969.

What makes a scream alarming?

1 August 2015

Researchers from Switzerland and Germany have just published a paper in which they describe using brain imaging and a cool way of looking at sound, called the modulation power spectrum (MPS) to understand just why screams are so alarming. Rather than looking at the amplitude and frequency of sounds over time, the MPS plots the modulation frequency against the number of cycles per octave, shown as a kind of heat map. On this kind of spectrum, there is a clear zone that gives clues to the gender of the speaker, and another distinct zone that gives information about meaning. But there is also a zone that until now hadn't been associated with any function. In fact, it has been thought to be irrelevant to human communication. This region corresponds to a perception of sound called roughness, which is thought to be unpleasant.

New woo for you

1 February 2012

Alison Campbell learns how to fine-tune the universe with a didgeridoo.

Tied up in cables

1 August 2005

Bob Metcalfe (Skeptic No 75) might have been reading New Zealand Tone magazine: Bringing Technology to Life, Sept-Oct 2004. The front cover promises "Hi-fi cables: science or hocus pocus", and on page 46 there is an interview with Bob Noble, "sales manager for respected cable manufacturer Chord". On page 47 there is a review of three Chord cables. The only science in the interview is the importance of screening to cables since cheap electronics in homes today are "leaking interference back into the same mains power ring that supplies the hi-fi. This degrades the final sound considerably. If you don't believe me, turn all those other appliances off and see what it does to your hi-fi sound." Nobody puts the case that there is any hocus pocus to cables.