Hi Bernhard, > OK, kidding is a normal reaction to suppress fear. > > And if one reads the reactions on this list about patenting a tuning method, > it seems that everybody feels pissed on by this. ... or perhaps suspicious of what appears superficially to be slick marketing hype? As an auditory physiologist, this caught my eye: "The ear has the possibility to analyze pitch and beats nearly in realtime. Analogous to the function of the stereocilies and the hair cells of the cochlea, producing time delayed neuronal signals, Bernhard Stopper developped new electronic tuning devices for laptop and PDA." "The fractal symmetry allows locating exact neuronal regions, where time delayed signals will fall in minimal beat sum states." I won't comment much, except to say that this *seems* to be a very vague and tangential (and incorrect) reference to the model proposed by Jeffress in 1948 as a means by which sound localization can take place. It has not been widely supported, even today -- not that it's not a plausible mechanism. There is some work in barn owls, but in humans and other primates, the relevant brain areas are very difficult to reach. I briefly did some work with Tadarida brasiliensis, but this sort of thing is very difficult to establish, and I didn't find anything particularly compelling. That is why it would be truly splendid of you to help us neuroscientists out by sharing your method with us for "locating exact neuronal regions, where time delayed signals will fall in minimal beat sum states." I feel this would make our job much easier, particularly when mapping auditory response properties in large-brained mammals. More to the point of your work, your tuning method would not work the same for monaural recordings as for stereo recordings, and it would not work the same for listeners who are deaf in one ear. And yes, I'm guilty of a bit of sarcasm here, but you've also slaughtered the findings from my field of study to sell your product. I'm not trying to pick on you, but merely trying to illustrate a point. You've bent over backwards to snow everyone with techno-speak. However, what will really sell your method, in my opinion, is a more basic and earnest discussion that everyone can understand -- a discussion that doesn't invoke Einstein's theory of relativity or Maxwell's equations. If you're invoking Planck's constant or Avagadro's number in the discussion, you're probably not discussing the right things. All constructive criticism, I hope... Peace, Sarah (Commercial plug: now doing photography and web authoring at www.graphic-fusion.com ;-)
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