The Malkoff Front Porch

[dc38]

Until I see some scientifically validated data on perceptive capability, I'm going to accept that the human eye and brain have a fairly hard limit somewhere around 200 Hz.

if we had a hard cap of 200Hz, we wouldn't need a reason for higher refresh rates, nor PWM above 2kHz...

Do you have reliable sources that explain the testing methodology? I like to poke holes in things, and would like an opportunity to shoot down some flawed testing methodology

 

[md17]

I get it. I know this will probably read as a snarky comment, but I really don't mean it that way.

"The gold never oxidizes, so it carries those electrons just that much better to the speakers, which really effects the entire experience in the concrete bunker."

(I kid - I tease, but all in good nature)

Like I said, I'm not going to bother arguing with people who are convinced they have extra-sensory perception.
Feel free to reach out to one of the academics who researches these topics, and lend yourself to their testing. And, I mean that.
If you're convinced you possess such capabilities, nothing I say, and no amount of data will change your mind. I accept this. I also accept that actual testing in scientific conditions shows a fairly consistent, hard limit on human visual perception, which is a result of very real physical factors. I'm open to you contacting researches and expanding our understanding, though. If I'm wrong, I will adjust my understanding and move forward.

Until I see some scientifically validated data on perceptive capability, I'm going to accept that the human eye and brain have a fairly hard limit somewhere around 200 Hz. I'm not going to tell you that you're not a singular phenom, capable of breaking out of the confines of corporeal world, though. Again, I'm legitimately open to that possibility. Yes, I'm skeptical, but I find that being wrong is often fascinating.


That green looks absolutely fantastic. Did you Cerakote that yourself, or get it done?

The things I'd do for a green Malkoff, hahah.

And, oddly, the brass ring looks aesthetically fantastic with the green, too.

I got it cerakoted at a sorta local shop. It was very inexpensive to have several bodies tail caps and heads coated and they all worked well after. It did however add some thickness on the O-ring area so it made it a little harder to turn the head. I would request next time to tape that area off, but other than that, it has been great.

It does wear off, especially on the edges and obviously if it’s dropped onto concrete or pavement, it will take chunks out of the aluminum, but the coating does not flake off. Fun fact, it costs a lot more to make it look “battle worn” but it will battle wear itself in about a year if carried everyday and look even cooler than a forced finish.

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[Schokokeks]

if we had a hard cap of 200Hz, we wouldn't need a reason for higher refresh rates, nor PWM above 2kHz...

Do you have reliable sources that explain the testing methodology? I like to poke holes in things, and would like an opportunity to shoot down some flawed testing methodology

I'd wager there are an awful lot of reasons different refresh rates exist.

Like I said, this is kind of a waste of time. Nothing I say or provide you will convince you that you don't have perceptive abilities beyond anything ever verified by science.

I'm going to remain skeptical unless there's some new, compelling evidence. But I won't stop you from believing what you'd like.

You could probably find people researching this, and volunteer to be in the experiments, haha. They're usually trying desperately to find people to do experiments for most things.

I got it cerakoted at a sorta local shop. It was very inexpensive to have several bodies tail caps and heads coated and they all worked well after. It did however add some thickness on the O-ring area so it made it a little harder to turn the head. I would request next time to tape that area off, but other than that, it has been great.

It does wear off, especially on the edges and obviously if it’s dropped onto concrete or pavement, it will take chunks out of the aluminum, but the coating does not flake off. Fun fact, it costs a lot more to make it look “battle worn” but it will battle wear itself in about a year if carried everyday and look even cooler than a forced finish.

Real World Concepts | Waterbury, Connecticut – CERAKOTE AND LASER SERVICES

The Multipurpose WordPress & WooCommerce Theme that helps you build ANY type of website in no time. Design visually with the best Live Builder for WordPress you ever met.

realworldconcepts.net

Wow, they have some impressive work. I've seen a lot of cerakoting and laser engraving in the gun community, but theirs is really nice.

I half wonder if I could spray some of Brownell's Alumihyde on one, haha.
Maybe if I come across an MD2 or MD3 for cheap, or accidentally mar the finish on one of mine, I might give it a go.
I DO have an older MD head with the more narrow hole...I could widen that, and Alumihyde it to cover up the raw aluminum...

 

[dc38]

Nothing I say or provide you will convince you that you don't have perceptive abilities beyond anything ever verified by science.

One last thing...could you answer the next queries honestly? For some time, 60 fps (essentially 60 Hz) was (mis)considered to be the "scientifically proven" upper limit of human vision... Did you buy into that?

Also, how do you reconcile that science is consistently proving portions of its "long established" understandings to be wrong? As with my other posts adressed to other posters in the past, I'm trying to establish the extent of your congruency in logic, a.k.a. a what point you start being ok with double/contradictory standards of logic...

 

[lampeDépêche]

Schoko, dc -- you may also want to consider that there are two questions that might be at stake here:
1) can humans see fluctuations in light faster than Xhz;
2) can humans be affected by fluctuations in light faster than Xhz.
It might be that dc38 really is *affected* by PWM in ranges in which he is not capable of *seeing* PWM. Our eyes are the main channel by which light affects our body, but not the only one.

And here are two more questions that are slightly different:
1) can humans see fluctuations in light faster than Xhz
2) can our visual experience be affected by fluctuations in light faster than Xhz.

It's worth thinking about sound in this regard. When I hear a concert A, I am not aware of any vibrations within it -- it registers as a pure tone. But what affects my ears is a fluctuation in air pressure at 440hz. And it is very easy for me to distinguish 440hz from one octave up at 880hz, or two up at 1760 hz. I cannot hear the fluctuations as fluctuations, but my ears and brain are clearly affected differently by them. Young humans have no problem distinguishing different frequencies up to 20khz or so, even though they all sound like pure tones.
So, it could well be that humans cannot look at frequencies above Xhz and see that they are vibrating -- they look like "pure tones". But they can still distinguish pure tones by what are in fact differences in frequency.

 

[dc38]

Schoko, dc -- you may also want to consider that there are two questions that might be at stake here:
1) can humans see fluctuations in light faster than Xhz;
2) can humans be affected by fluctuations in light faster than Xhz.
It might be that dc38 really is *affected* by PWM in ranges in which he is not capable of *seeing* PWM. Our eyes are the main channel by which light affects our body, but not the only one.

And here are two more questions that are slightly different:
1) can humans see fluctuations in light faster than Xhz
2) can our visual experience be affected by fluctuations in light faster than Xhz.

It's worth thinking about sound in this regard. When I hear a concert A, I am not aware of any vibrations within it -- it registers as a pure tone. But what affects my ears is a fluctuation in air pressure at 440hz. And it is very easy for me to distinguish 440hz from one octave up at 880hz, or two up at 1760 hz. I cannot hear the fluctuations as fluctuations, but my ears and brain are clearly affected differently by them. Young humans have no problem distinguishing different frequencies up to 20khz or so, even though they all sound like pure tones.
So, it could well be that humans cannot look at frequencies above Xhz and see that they are vibrating -- they look like "pure tones". But they can still distinguish pure tones by what are in fact differences in frequency.

condition 1 is definitely a vital point, if the "on" brightness goes high enough with a certain pulse depth modulation, I cannot tell the difference. The brightness would need to be a bit higher for pulse width modulation, but the same theory applies...it's why I mentioned "lower modes".

Condition 2 is a more subjective one...I believe that eye strain from monitor viewing can be partially attributed to a lower frequency monitor, but moreso that we're not exactly physically designed to look directly at sources for extended periods...

Your sound frequency example is apt! "Frequency" is such a contextually subjective term...Frequency of sound vs. the frequency of a pitch, lol...440hz tone tuning can be perceived as sound, but would the same 440hz tone played at the periodic frequency 440Hz still sound just like 440hz tone, or would it scale (HAH PUN) up? (I actually don't know this as I've never tried it, but now I'm curious...)

**And holy poop sorry for derailing the thread, could @Admin separate the starting point of the Hz/pwm/frequency discussion into its own thread?

 

[lampeDépêche]

**And holy poop sorry for derailing the thread, could @Admin separate the starting point of the Hz/pwm/frequency discussion into its own thread?

Fine with me to move it elsewhere and not clutter up the Malkoff thread. Maybe people could use that thread to collect more links to scientific studies.
Part of my point in distinguishing questions up above is that experimental science is powerful in part because it asks very narrow, carefully-defined questions: if I set up two conditions as much alike as possible, and vary only one input factor, what kind of difference will there be in the output factor?
But that also means that if you ask a question different from the one that the experimenter asked, then the experimental results may not answer that question. Sometimes the scientifically correct answer is, "we don't know yet; our test didn't test for that."

 

[dc38]

Fine with me to move it elsewhere and not clutter up the Malkoff thread. Maybe people could use that thread to collect more links to scientific studies.
Part of my point in distinguishing questions up above is that experimental science is powerful in part because it asks very narrow, carefully-defined questions: if I set up two conditions as much alike as possible, and vary only one input factor, what kind of difference will there be in the output factor?
But that also means that if you ask a question different from the one that the experimenter asked, then the experimental results may not answer that question. Sometimes the scientifically correct answer is, "we don't know yet; our test didn't test for that."

Precisely!

 

[flashlightinterested]

One thing that has been proved fairly conclusively, and therefore I think is somewhat on the topic of Malkoff lights, is that emitters have lower efficacy at higher currents. And thus, running a light at a higher current but cycling it on and off to achieve say 20 lumens will require more power to the emitter than running it at a constant current that achieves 20 lumens. So PWM generally means shorter run times.

 

[GMT2330]

Like the sound of an M31WLL. I have some of the neutral Nichia ones from illumn and they’re really nice. Will this be the first low output (L,LL or LLL) M31 in a warm tint?
Any ideas on output? Perhaps in the 50-100 lumens range?

 

[md17]

Stops battery rattle AND helps me remember the mode selections for the new driver

 

[flashlightinterested]

It seems the M61HOT no longer uses the XP-L HI. The listing now says it makes 800 lumens and 33,000 candela, which is a significant increase in throw. It no longer mentions the emitter.

 

[Schokokeks]

Like the sound of an M31WLL. I have some of the neutral Nichia ones from illumn and they’re really nice. Will this be the first low output (L,LL or LLL) M31 in a warm tint?
Any ideas on output? Perhaps in the 50-100 lumens range?

I do think this is the first warm low output.

From my previous correspondence on this (I've been PESTERING Kosen about M31 modules), this should be ~70 lumens. I think he was aiming for 300 mAh draw, and with the warm, it might be slightly less lumens.

So, it could well be that humans cannot look at frequencies above Xhz and see that they are vibrating -- they look like "pure tones". But they can still distinguish pure tones by what are in fact differences in frequency.

This is kind of why I'm not really interested in the rabbit hole.

It's like how digital audio works, where it samples along the sinewaves. At a certain point, I can't tell the difference between the literally stepped digital waves, versus the smooth waves of an analog recording; we have hard perceptive limits.
Our brains cannot process super fast things, as it's a chain of electrical impulses physically traveling, creating chemical reactions.

If someone believes they can transcend these physical limits, they may not believe that the mind and brain are the same thing, and that's fine - but I'm not going down that path.

 

[lampeDépêche]

Our brains cannot process super fast things, as it's a chain of electrical impulses physically traveling, creating chemical reactions.

Clearly true. The question is: how fast? And the answer is that we have different frequency cut-offs for different responses. Perhaps our eyes cannot tell the difference between a 5khz refresh-rate and a 10khz refresh-rate. But our ears clearly do.

If someone believes they can transcend these physical limits, they may not believe that the mind and brain are the same thing, and that's fine - but I'm not going down that path.

I have never suggested anything like this. I have just said that the current studies test some frequencies against some responses, and not other frequencies against other responses. Being overly confident that you can extrapolate from tested cases to untested cases is not scientific.

 

[Schokokeks]

Clearly true. The question is: how fast? And the answer is that we have different frequency cut-offs for different responses. Perhaps our eyes cannot tell the difference between a 5khz refresh-rate and a 10khz refresh-rate. But our ears clearly do.

I have never suggested anything like this. I have just said that the current studies test some frequencies against some responses, and not other frequencies against other responses. Being overly confident that you can extrapolate from tested cases to untested cases is not scientific.

Our ears work by an entirely different mechanism. There's really nothing in nature that pulses lights on and off at frequency rates, let alone high frequencies, and/or no significant advantage to evolving mechanisms to detect this.

Processing vibrations in the air into sound has clear advantages, so we have biological mechanisms to do so.

Rods and cones are not tiny vibrating hairs, so assuming because I CAN perceive high levels of frequencies with my ears means it's possible to perceive them with my eyes makes no sense. What are we even doing here?

This is why this entire discussion is of no interest. It quickly goes off the rails and becomes a massive timesuck where I'm expected to personally defend well established, highly documented science that has centuries of data.

No offense, but if you truly believe this is possible, you can conduct experiments, get it published, shock the scientific community, and make a whole career for yourselves. In the meantime, I have little interest in pedantic arguments about this, because I'm not anyone's science tutor. I do not believe our fundamental understanding of sensory organs is so fundamentally wrong, that there's a high likelihood of human perception of high frequency light pulses, and that centuries of science are wrong because you shined a light on a fan, or got a headache one time blinding yourself, or what have you.

I know it's sexy to dream that "BASIC SCIENCE IS TOTALLY WRONG, AND ALL THOSE KNOW-IT-ALLS MISSED IT!" but it's all pretty open source. But reading that isn't fun, sexy, or counter-culture. I don't need the intellectual masturbation. I've already taken classes on biology, and I've read more papers on sound perception than I'd ever dreamed of. There's no evidence that we have fundamentally misunderstood how human perception works, and the limits of it.

I have no interest in further explaining how eyes and ears work differently. Next thing I know, I'll be explaining taste buds. This isn't hidden knowledge. Feel free to research this yourself. I'm not trying to be flippant, but simply blunt. If you have a plausible theory of how this is actually possible, that's one thing, but so far, it's just, "Well, it could totally be. You never know, right?"

Nothing is ever 100%. But if something is 99.9999%, and has been verified for centuries, I'm going to operate on the assumption it's correct. COULD it be wrong? Sure. Do you have compelling data showing that? No. Do you have a coherent explanation for why that is wrong, and why? No.

Again, I get it. You can totally hear the notes better when the speakers are hooked up to the gold wires.
I don't believe it, but if you want to, have at it.

If you say PWM totally gives you a headache, and you're ESP sensitive to it - great. You better avoid it.
I still don't believe that's true, but you're welcome to believe what you want. But, also, I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise, because look at how circumlocutious this already has become.

 

[lampeDépêche]

I don’t know who you think you’re arguing with, but it is not me. I have not said anything about ESP, or gold wires, or showing that basic science is wrong. It sounds like you have had to argue with loons before, but nothing that I have said is like ESP, gold wires, or overturning basic science.

 

[Schokokeks]

Right, and like I said, that's why I'm just not going down this rabbit hole.

Until someone presents some actual research on human eyes even possessing the capability of perceiving high frequencies of light as distinct pulses, I'm just accepting that PWM at 310 Hz is not perceptible without artificial conditions applied to it (shinning it on a fan to lower the perceived frequency).

If anyone feels they can totally tell, then fine. They're free to believe what they want, but I still don't believe it.

 

[Schokokeks]

One last thing...could you answer the next queries honestly? For some time, 60 fps (essentially 60 Hz) was (mis)considered to be the "scientifically proven" upper limit of human vision... Did you buy into that?

Also, how do you reconcile that science is consistently proving portions of its "long established" understandings to be wrong? As with my other posts adressed to other posters in the past, I'm trying to establish the extent of your congruency in logic, a.k.a. a what point you start being ok with double/contradictory standards of logic...

This isn't really accurate. CRT monitors were using 60Hz as a refresh rate because that's what our electrical grid was using, and people could often notice it. Many other people could easily ignore it. It wasn't that science had established humans could not perceive things at 60Hz. We knew that was possible, but the alternative was installing really expensive equipment to up the rates that things were running at - which would have been a waste of time.
Our brains can automatically smooth most of this out well enough that 60 Hz is fine in most conditions.

Heck, we learned this with fluorescent lamps. We've all experienced this as ballasts have failed, and the frequency decreased into our more perceptible ranges.

None of this is bleeding edge theoretical research.

This was simply the most common refresh rate large amounts of people were able to experience.

I have friends who INSIST they need the newest graphics cards because they NEED 300 fps for a game to "look smooth."
Or that they need a monitor that has a pixel refresh rate of 2ms, because 3ms is just too slow, and will result in ghosting.

Most normal people can play with setting on their computer, and quickly realize the limits of their perception these days. Many people will do that, and insist they're extra perceptive "and can totally tell."
Studies asking humans "to tell" conclusively show humans have a limit on when they can tell, and when they are guessing.

And just because new discoveries happen doesn't mean fundamentally understood things are always (or often) wrong. That's not really a common occurrence, and is really just media sensationalism. Most "totally wrong, fundamental science" was never truly fundamental, but some aspect of theoretical science that cannot be tested, or had not been tested.
How eyes work isn't really a mystery. It's been well understood for a good while. Further, we've had how long where companies have had a direct financial incentive to establish basic perceptive boundaries of humans? Cartoons and early film quickly figured out these limits, and dialed them back to a cost-effective balance point. When both theoretical and practical domains agree, that's probably a good sign they're on to something.

 

[dc38]

This isn't really accurate. CRT monitors were using 60Hz as a refresh rate because that's what our electrical grid was using, and people could often notice it. Many other people could easily ignore it. It wasn't that science had established humans could not perceive things at 60Hz. We knew that was possible, but the alternative was installing really expensive equipment to up the rates that things were running at - which would have been a waste of time.
Our brains can automatically smooth most of this out well enough that 60 Hz is fine in most conditions.

Heck, we learned this with fluorescent lamps. We've all experienced this as ballasts have failed, and the frequency decreased into our more perceptible ranges.

None of this is bleeding edge theoretical research.

This was simply the most common refresh rate large amounts of people were able to experience.

I have friends who INSIST they need the newest graphics cards because they NEED 300 fps for a game to "look smooth."
Or that they need a monitor that has a pixel refresh rate of 2ms, because 3ms is just too slow, and will result in ghosting.

Most normal people can play with setting on their computer, and quickly realize the limits of their perception these days. Many people will do that, and insist they're extra perceptive "and can totally tell."
Studies asking humans "to tell" conclusively show humans have a limit on when they can tell, and when they are guessing.

And just because new discoveries happen doesn't mean fundamentally understood things are always (or often) wrong. That's not really a common occurrence, and is really just media sensationalism. Most "totally wrong, fundamental science" was never truly fundamental, but some aspect of theoretical science that cannot be tested, or had not been tested.
How eyes work isn't really a mystery. It's been well understood for a good while. Further, we've had how long where companies have had a direct financial incentive to establish basic perceptive boundaries of humans? Cartoons and early film quickly figured out these limits, and dialed them back to a cost-effective balance point. When both theoretical and practical domains agree, that's probably a good sign they're on to something.

Hey, I get it. You aren't experiencing something unless everyone agrees that you are, even if those people can't experience it the same way that you do. The average human can NOT split a plastic bb mid flight at will even with a ton of practice, but there was a Japanese dude a while ago who could. I'd argue that an above average hand eye coordination in an individual is a good indicator that their spatial awareness borders the realm of "ESP".

If I had to summarize your stance in not so many words, "because the performance delta of the average human is so small over the course of specific studies, even if exemplary outliers did exist, they become scientifically irrelevant and therefore insignificant to me because they serve no practical value."

What are your thoughts on that study I sent you? would you consider it bogus, or inconclusive?

 

[archimedes]

I found this IEEE white paper [IEEE Std 1789-2015 Recommended Practices for Modulating Current in High-Brightness LEDs for Mitigating Health Risks to Viewers] addresses many of these issues in substantial and fascinating detail. It includes some very useful charts, and is also extensively referenced as well.