A blessing? Or a curse?

If your system is on the bright side a system that is neutral will sound dull. If your system is dull the neutral system sounds bright.....at first. Listen long enough and it will be the new normal. I find it interesting that in spite of all the tech we have "the vast majority have no idea what they are listening to". They have never seen a frequency response graph their system and it will be anything but flat. You can see such a graph on my system page.

I dont think that what define S.Q. in audio system can be understandable and perceived by an experienced listener ONLY in term of frequencies graph first and last....

What i listen to to create my own audio system with my listenings experiments were the real " instrumental timbre" and " imaging" ongoing experience for a long time experiments and for a pair of ears(mine) and not some frequencies graphs first and foremost ....I dont have any tech. apparatus anyway....

And "instrumental timbre" for example cannot be reduce to frequency attributes only, and same for the imaging experience....For example there exist 5 attributes at least for the definition of instrumental timbre:

1. Range between tonal and noiselike character
2. Spectral envelope
3. Time envelope in terms of rise, duration, and decay (ADSR, which stands for "attack, decay, sustain, release")
4. Changes both of spectral envelope (formant-glide) and fundamental frequency (micro-intonation)
5. Prefix, or onset of a sound, quite dissimilar to the ensuing lasting vibration

(wikipedia)



Then i dont think that what constitute an " ideal" audiophile experience must be linked necessarily to a flat or so called absolutely total neutral graph....

For sure all the homemade devices i created in my audio embeddings experiments comes from my biased hearing experience only and are suited to my likings....

But i prove for myself that we dont need money at all to live hi-fi experience, but we need our biased ears for sure...( all ears are biased by virtue of their own specific structure different for each one of us)

the vast majority have no idea what they are listening to

And by the way i know very much what i listen to without any technical apparatus help....Timbre and imaging can be perceived and recreated by the help of real ears only, especially in a small room with unique acoustical properties complex content and a particular topology of his own and a specific geometry....Small room acoustic is not reducible to some simple programmed linear algorythm... Ears are more than necessary here....Especially the specific ears that will live and listen music in this specific complex room.... :)

«Listening to pure frequencies only is like listening to an abstract soul without body»-Anonymus

«Like my wife, my biased ears are nevermind perfect, they are all that i need and all that i have anyway»- Groucho Marx

« What do you do for a living? i devise audio system for half deaf people»-Groucho Marx



:)

When something is not quite right in my audio system, it is not mainly my exact memory of his past sound quality that help me to be conscious of the problem and to correct it...

It is not some replicate model of the past sound keep in my memory, it is a feeling that warn me, like an alarm bell, that something is not quite right.... Then being conscious of the fact that something is not quite right , my alerted awareness can now listen critically and look for the problem....

It is not a conscious memory of the sound that i can recall from my brain, it is the unconscious lack of something that begins to emerge to awareness by the FEELING of my sentient body, because in the past some musical experience was associated with a pleasure that is now lacking, but my body gives me a displeasure or an unsatisfaction that gives to my consciousness the essential hint that something is wrong...

I dont recall or remember the sound in itself, i recall and remember the feeling associated to the musical sound....

It is not necessary to have " bat ears" but only to love music with his heart more than only with his brain....

All my listenings experiments, with which i created my homemade devices controls embeddings were experienced in this way: listening to my internal impression...And these embeddings controls gives me with a low cost systen a high end experience.... :) But without my listening experiments for many years no progress would have been possible at all....I never had the luxury money to buy what most call an high end "upgrade "....But i dont need any upgrade anymore thanks, not to my memory or to the "ears bat" i never had anyway, thanks rather to my heart listenings experiments and experience....

« All music are sounds, but all sounds are not music, the difference is sensed by the feeling organ»- Groucho Marx

« We listen with the heart and the body, not with the ears only»- Harpo Marx impersonating Beethoven

« Learning to hear is not pretending to hear something, it is learning from our emotions, and developing our feelings» -Anonymus

« Only robot can have sensation without feeling»- my wife


P.S. i am neither an engineer nor a musician, only an ordinary someone who dreamed to listen music with a very good sound.....

Final note: to answer the OP, it was not for me a curse because it was not an innate hability, it was a learning ongoing experience that help me create my audio room for peanuts costs, then a blessing.....