[BC] NO HD RADIO FOR CHRISTMAS -- Why not let it die?

[Mike McCarthy]

It's called selective masking...or whine filter.  Most men develop it 
within a year after the nuptials.  (GR)

Seriously, there is a hearing classification or condition which involves 
the ability to selectively decipher one sound in a group of several of 
close level. Example...crowded bar and you are having a conversation. You 
can select the other persons voice for processing while masking out all the 
other noise.  Some people can do this well, while others have a difficult 
time.  And it does change with age as I understand.  I'm the latter and 
it's at times hard for me to understand others in that kind of 
environment.  Otherwise I'm in the top 95% of hearing for all age 
groups....as of a couple years ago when I had my last battery of tests done.

It's frustrating when you need to repeatedly ask your converser to repeat 
themselves several times.

MM

At 09:23 PM 12/2/2005 -0800, DANA PUOPOLO wrote
>I agree, Rich.
>
>I have my XM home tuner connected up to my re-capped Advent 300 receiver.
>Speakers are Athena AS-B1, which are considered "Low high end" speakers. I can
>CLEARLY hear artifacts on just about everything bit rate reduced (especially
>male voices) - even many FM analog stations that use bit rate reduced audio
>sources.
>
>Here's a (related) question - with all this bit rate reduced audio everywhere
>(radio, TV, DVD movies, etc.) that involves psychoacoustic masking, could our
>ears be getting 'better' at masking? That is, could they be getting trained to
>work better at masking?  The reason I ask this is that today I noticed that
>when I'm in the shower and my wife talks to me from another room, I can hear
>her but not make out what she's saying. With the shower off I can her her
>fine. It used to not be this way. My latest hearing test (about a year ago)
>shows that my hearing is fine.
>Could it be that my ears/brain have become better at masking then before
>because they're being 'exercised' more these days?
>
>Anyone?
>
>-D