Placebo Effect
Sometimes, there's more than meets the ear.
"Dude, I'm telling you," said the albino husky with a tinge of frustration in his usually collected tone, the office chair being pushed behind him as he got up and slamming into one of the laboratory's cabinets. "He's either bluffing, or it's intermodulation distortion ..." Beginning to file the documents and reports generated from the day's tests, he waited for a response from his colleague - but nothing came.
Turning to face his co-researcher, one eye bigger than the other, the white canine noted hesitation in the hyena's eyes. "I'm just saying," started the hyena with a sigh, scratching the back of his head with a brown paw, his eyes looking to the side. "I mean that kid seemed spoo--"
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Jeff!" Interrupted Chris, snapping the binder closed with more force than necessary, the canine's voice a quarter of an octave lower than usual - it was this aggressive behavior that Jeff disliked, prompting his gaze to look away. "You have a master's degree in electrical engineering, and you're well on your way to getting a doctorate," continued the husky. "You know this is all audiophool nonsense, just snake oil. It's just some form of distortion!"
"Well, all right," said Jeff, his eyes darting back and forth between the sterile, white wall to the side and his lab partner's judgmental glare, blinking more frequently than required. "Either way, uh, you got the reports, I'll take the audio back home for, eh, analysis," stammered the hyenoid while clearing his throat. Turning around on a hind paw and tapping his left jean pocket to make sure he had the flash drive with the relevant audio files, he started to walk towards the exit. The two exchanged brief, cold goodbyes and the hyena found soon himself back home.
He threw himself face first into the living room couch, grunting as his body connected with the cushions, not from pain, but the stress of having to work with his passive aggressive co-researcher and boss. It did not help one bit that he was also his doctoral thesis supervisor. Chris was a hardcore skeptic, a pure naturalist with unwavering faith in the scientific method. This frequently put him at odd with Jeff's more openminded approach, but it never mattered - Chris was Jeff's boss and, by default, was always right.
In this latest experiment, the two were supposed to analyze the purported benefits of "high-resolution" audio files. Chris was convinced it was all down to the placebo effect, and any genuinely audible differences were due to the audio equipment introducing distortion into the signal chain. This was Jeff's thinking as well - until the trial with the one kit. Younger individuals had a keener sense of hearing; it extended into higher frequencies, so having a young fox as part of the experiment was natural.
For each volunteer - goats, dragons, parrots, cats, etc. - an audio file at an absurdly high sampling frequency (192kHz) extracted from a vinyl record was played alongside a CD-quality excerpt of the same song in a random order, and the volunteers were to identify which sample was which. Every single participant chose as if they were guessing randomly, which meant they could hear no difference between the two samples ... except the kit. The youngster chose, with pinpoint precision, the correct file every single time.
This alone was remarkable - but the 8-year-old's reactions during the experiment were even more alarming. During playback of the CD-quality file, he listened intently, tail completely still, one footpaw over the other as both dangled right over the floor, ears pointing up as the closed ear headphones serenaded his eardrums with the sound of soothing yet, to the fox, unfamiliar classical music. The first time the high-resolution audio started playing, the kit tore the headphones off his ears with a swift motion and, with one hind paw flat on the ground ready to sprint towards the door, asked to be allowed to leave in a stammering, cacophonous flurry of words, motioning towards the door frantically, his pupils constricted. Both scientists were puzzled and taken aback at the reaction, but after significant cajoling convinced him to stay.
After this, each time the program chose the high-resolution file, his demeanor changed. The fur on his tail stood on end as the kit's eyes darted back and forth, his toes clenching the chair's leg with considerable force. Neither of the researchers were trained psychologists, so Chris assumed it was oversensitivity - and while Jeff didn't know what it was, he knew mere hypersensitivity to sound doesn't cause such a visceral reaction.
Having come out of his post-work blues, Jeff got to work on his laptop in the living room with his butt resting on the same sofa, the glow of the audio editor and analysis program reflecting in his eyes. He had been told to doublecheck the files to see if the downsampling from high-quality vinyl rip to CD-quality was done properly, since the kit's results were puzzling. Chris was convinced the kit was just hearing some form of distortion and the unnatural sound was making him freak out, but to be on the safe side, they would have to analyze the songs via software to see what the actual difference was - mere downsampling, or something else.
The CD-quality file cut off cleanly at the expected frequency, and a cursory playback revealed a normal sounding song. As expected for most vinyl rips, the frequency tapered off well before the maximum recordable frequency was reached for the high-resolution audio file ... but Jeff noticed something peculiar. Just before the maximum frequency, he could see an extremely mild and narrow range of nonzero energy - there was some form of audio there. Zooming in, he could see that there was a repetitive pattern over the course of the whole song.
There was no way he could hear this, nor would his headphones be able to play it even if his soundcard supported it, so he had to get clever - he used a high-pass filter to get rid of everything before the inexplicable frequency. Jeff then slowed down the audio, downshifting the inaudible energy till it was comfortably within hearing range. As a final step, the hyena sped the song back up, but this time without altering the pitch. After about five minutes of processing, his audio editor finally had the excerpt ready for playback. Blinking, Jeff pressed the familiar triangular arrow.
The first time the segment played, he heard nothing except static and random distortion. He raised the volume cautiously, not wanting to damage his hearing, and played back the sample again, pressing one of the headphone speakers closer to his ear with two fingers. Jeff's eyes shot open. "What ... No, how? We ripped it ourselves ..." he thought, looking to the side with his eyes wide open and lips slightly parted, as the audio came to a stop once again. Was he hearing a ... voice? His cursor moved across the screen erratically in a panic as he adjusted the volume gain for a second time and, after a releasing some stress with a sigh, pressed the play button.
Jeff's blood ran cold as he felt his stomach sink to the center of the earth as the raspy, guttural voice spoke.
"I'll ..."
How could this be? They ripped this from an old vinyl record. The hair on Jeff's tail stood erect and his eyes darted back and forth, trying to comprehend what he was hearing.
"... kill ..."
What the hell was this doing on an old, dusty LP? Jeff's hind paws curled in a mixture of fear, panic and confusion as his toes gripped the velvety fabric of his living room rug, his pupils constricting.
"... you!"