I know nothing, but that doesn't matter. Case in point: I just received the following e-mail from a veterinarian in Florida. He's a advisory board member, a frequent contributor, and funny as hell.
This writing is so much fun, I am trying to expand into other fields. Therefore, I've attached a ahort article that I hope you can use in your new position.
Use of the Common Dog, Canis familaris, to quantify acoustical output of two audio systems
C. “Big Woofer” W-------, BFD.
It is a well-known phenomenon that dogs have more acute hearing than humans. In fact, anatomical and physiologic studies (shaking the biscuit box at various decibel levels—see Farley et al) have shown that dog’s hearing is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than humans, even exceeding our ability to hear a Snickers wrapper in a crowded office building.
Therefore we used the dog to evaluate the qualities of two disparate audio systems. The two systems were:
1. Hitachiamoto BS 1009, with crystalline tube technology, earthquake buffered power supply, solid granite pre-Cambrian mounting system, powering a set of Aldeberan 9000 “Big Boy” speakers, with Mylar- silk laminate subwoofer, connected with titanium- gold layered unidirectional cable. For this test we diverted a dedicated power line from Hoover dam, de-powering Las Vegas for a period of two hours during the test.
2. Wal-Mart “Malibu Barbie Boom Box”, pink, with a new set of energizer bunny batteries installed.
Design:
We used a variety of dogs for this experiment; all were liberated form the Dallas Humane society, then flown to our laboratory in the high Nevada Desert for the duration of the experiment. To make the experiment closely approximate the human experience, each dog was fed a different diet, depending on the music he was exposed to that day. (Noted below)
The dogs were exposed to three types of music from archival compact disks: Bach Brandenburg Concerto #5 (1973 Fonseca Port, Stilton cheese)
Barry Manilow at Hollywood Bowl (Boiled hot dogs on white bread, unsalted chips)
Vinnie “Nasty Dog” Bombarino, the Italian Rap collection (Licorice)
Results:
The dogs exposed to the Bach showed a preference for the Hitachiamoto system, gathering around it almost exclusively. There is supposition that this may be because of the high heat output from the system, as the trial was done on a cold day, but this remains an area for further work.
The Manilow music drew unanimous attention to the Boom Box. This puzzled the researchers, until they realized that the boom box rendered the singer largely unintelligible, which we assume was the attraction.
During the Rap session, three dogs ran away. The other dogs acted painful, especially as the volume was increased, until finally one of the dogs tore apart the speaker wires in agonal struggle. We tried to play the CD on the Boom box, however the machine exploded.
Conclusions:
Dogs apparently are more discerning than we previously believed. The preference for J.S. Bach may indicate unknown mathematical abilities. (A grant has been submitted for further research.)
Barry Mainilow sounds best when barely intelligible. These findings are, of course, not new, but it is good to have them confirmed by an objective species.
Finally, apparently even dogs don’t want to be seen with a Pink Boom Box.
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