Most of the public presume, perhaps erroneously, that concert hall acousticians must have hypersensitive "golden ears" hearing. They can hear things that others can't. While it is true that there is no substitute for learning about concert hall sound than by listening, it is also true that the great progress we have seen in concert hall design can be attributed to knowledge based scientific developments over the past seventy or so years. So much of hearing is a learned, neural activity. Take for example, the young music student taught to tune his or her instrument by listening to beat frequencies. The same is true for the concert-goer, who has a whole new experience open up after the phenomena of spatial sound are pointed out. Beethoven had a very poor pair of ears to work with but his neurological processing was - to use an overwrought word - genius. But let us, at least for now, consider some of the physical aspects of hearing.
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