different people may hear the same sound differently...

unreceivedogma

Once your system reaches a certain level, there is no “better”, just different: it boils down to what YOU are hearing and what pleases YOU, not some audio cognoscenti.

My first reaction to your post was that I agree with you.  Upon reflection though, I have a couple of issues: (1)  Who defines/knows when one has reached that level?  and (2)  If I make a change that causes a difference, I may find that difference to be an improvement.

For example, you and I may listen to what we both consider a state of the art system, to which a change is made; a cable or a fuse or whatever ...  One of us thinks it sounds better, the other thinks it's only different.  Who is right?  Both of us are.  It goes back to what you said:  "it boils down to what YOU are hearing and what pleases YOU..."

One person's lateral move is another person's improvement. 

 Recently, I have had to accept my new different. It is my hearing, and so far, I can make a certain amount of adjustment. Too bad though for anyone else listening to my system. 

  But even before all of this, when a certain level of quality was reached, I still had preferences. Notably, most think that a flat response is the goal, when instead it should just be a starting point.

Once your system reaches a certain level, there is no “better”, just different

I have said this here dozens of times yet there are those here who will still try to preach differently. Most often though they are those trying to sell something. Sad.

Poppy Crum of Dolby has done extensive and humbling research on this issue.

if some folks in this forum took her work to heart, there might be less bickering about this or that component, connect, technique, etc. Once your system reaches a certain level, there is no “better”, just different: it boils down to what YOU are hearing and what pleases YOU, not some audio cognoscenti.

Wasn't trying to derail the thread, just being honest about how my ear/brain works. It has been sort of fascinating for me to know what it is like for 'normal' people.

Even before music, sound was extremely important to me. I learned at an early age, that much of what I heard was noise to me. This included language. Unfortunately, most sound in general was overwhelming and nearly intolerable. Especially shrill to me were girls screaming, dogs barking, and any traffic was confounding to me. You bet it affected my schooling. It seemed that a lot of it had to be figured out by myself in a way. 

 When I first heard much of the music that was in church or elsewhere, a lot of it sounded bad, and I was right. Finally, professional recordings of the day changed my mind, and though a choir was not understood by my hearing, the pitches, definition and more was still beautiful. This eventually led to me to learning to play trumpet, and band was a big thing when the music became more advanced. 

 A little later audio became enjoyable through equipment that I bought in high school. Never knew the lyrics to songs, but the melody, or counter melody along with other musical factors drew me further into audio. I suppose that it was a sort of natural choice. To this day, I sometimes wear ear plugs at a restaurant so I can read a book. Much the same reason that I will sit outside just to distance myself from the clucking.

 Most people don't have much of a reaction to a spoon dropping on the floor. I envy that.

Yep I never hear my wife or kids when they ask for money..LOL little levity seeing how we are all wound so tight. 

It is getting a bit metaphysical.
There is only one piano, regardless if 1 person or 100 are in the audience.

if the reproduced piano sounds like the real one, then it is “job done.” If it doesn’t then the EQ or equipment changes to make it more like a real piano should be universal across the 100 people.

Ha,ha! It's not only the ears that matter, but what's between them.

To quote the Firesign Theater's response to the auctioneer:

“How much do I hear? That’s metaphysically absurd, man! How could I know what you hear?”

People hear differently. Duh. 

when a person speaks, let's say in front of ten people, to most, the voice coming to them would be a non issue, but invariably to a least one person that voice would sound either outright annoying or subtlety not to their liking, or they all just won't have an issue with that voice. 

It's like when you meet someone, and immediately without any prior feedback of the person you completely dislike the person when everyone else is neutral to that person.

Biological fact is that all senses are somewhat different to various degrees from one individual to another. hearing is not different, specially since not two humans have exactly the same ears, ear canal, cochlea, tympanic membrane thickness, and brain receptors in order for us all hear a sound exactly as it is.  So, we all hear the same sound, but not exactly perceived by the brain the same.   

@teo_audio 

There is abundant research available indicating that there is indeed variation in both individual physiology and in individual psychology that results in differences in not only in interpretation of sound but also in differences in preference perceptions.

All one needs to do is look at the vast differences in successful audio products for proof that people have varying preferences/tastes.

Audio equipment is designed by most engineers to do one thing: reproduce an input signal as accurately as possible (at a cost point). Measurements are used by all designers in analyzing the success of their efforts. It is an indispensable tool. Some audio engineers make efforts to tailor the sound of their equipment to appeal to certain people who like/prefer certain kinds of distortion, or use certain kinds of distortion to cover other kinds of distortion in band aid like fashion, while others seek to drive distortion of all types below audibility. People that like certain kinds of distortion call amps without "clinical", "cold", etc. People who don't want distortion call amps with "warm", "inaccurate", "syrupy", etc.

Some want the signal delivered as purely as possible, others want an instrument. Some want to add tubes to their class d to get this added distortion, some like to use cables as "tone" controls. What is clear is that people don't agree.

What people should agree on is that ultimately, due to these differences in physiology and psychology, we all have different tastes and preferences and thus, there is no right or wrong way to enjoy recorded music. There is no "best" anything- there is only what is best for us each individually. "Class d sucks", "tubes suck", "digital sucks", "vinyl sucks", and on and on, is nothing but meaningless babble. We must listen and decide for ourselves- the personal opinions of others are can't be relied on, trusted, or assumed to be "truth" for people other than themselves. I laugh at how people get so worked up over this statement. When it comes to subjective matters of taste, we should all heed the adage "to thine own self be true".

One will save a great deal of time and money by ignoring those trying to tell you that this or that amp sounds "best" or that this or that amp is "junk", that they can improve your amp with their mods and take it to an "11". That only "true" audiophiles have tubes and vinyl. That cheaper components can't possible sound "better" than less expensive ones, and on and on. Listening for one's self is the only way to find the truth. The rest is all hot air.

Regarding audio.. measurement of the meaning and context of said measurement has not been fully established as of yet, and may never be.

This just happened, literally, just the other day. It happens once every few months, it seems, maybe a few times a year, overall... that we learn something new about how the ear works.

New research throws doubt on old ideas of how hearing works

What this seems to be saying is that, in our individualism, we can and probably do have differences in the ’group strike’ of the hairs on the ear, re how we individually sense each note or how that note is placed, how it exists according to nerve impulses from sets of hairs, in our individual ears.

Thus harmonics, overtones, timing, spacial envelopes, etc, each different for each person. Some can’t hear all of the nuance that others do and that is probably tied to their recognition of note fundamentals, in the individual sense. This, due to the given note fundamentals normally happening below 1000hz.

The absolute cross connection of all of those cilia or hairs in the ear, vs the individual hairs at play at higher frequencies (individually shaped comb filtering and thus timing and level mixing) ...would bring about a microsecond, even verging on nanosecond flowing time sensitivity to the ear, depending on the person.

Everything known about human hearing via observation and individual reports from the world of high end audio.... says that this is not just possible, but likely to be the case and the evidence of human jitter sensitivity and so on, re distortions that add up to that effect, say this abundantly.

Subtle jitter differences at the pico to nano level and it’s spectrum (in jitter’s spectral patterning as a total, for the given gear, vs another jitter pattern) in digital audio is known to be ’hearable’ by humans, in the realm of high end audio and it’s correlation in measurement. This much, magazines and efforts like that of stereophile, have given or gifted us with --as data points to analyze may go.

The human ear-brain hearing mechanisms probably (one of - other creatures may be inherently more talented!) the most sophisticated and capable conscious and unconscious self adjusting FFT analysis hardware to exist, at this time. those peaks of capacity lie in individuals, not absolutes available to everyone. As it is a sense thing, not a mechanical electrical hardware thing, it is very difficult to quantify except to rely upon individual testimony. ie, science, where observation is king.

One cannot blithely dismiss the observer due to some individual scientist’s or layman’s inability to scientifically and objectively quantify the observer in the given scenario... as science, as an idea, as a reality, as a method... is built around the idea of the observer.

This sort of new data about hearing.. is not what you want to get into the hands of some semi-smart wank working at a company that is trying to come up with the next mainstream wasted space tunes for general consumption on the web. Ie, that pile of refuse artists that have no value except to charm the given youth aspects out of their attention and money. (I am old, this is my cloud, hear my yells)

That such persons might be able to find a way to leverage this thinking into the production and mixing to create the next flash billionaire out of that pile of ’wasted space flash in the pan signer of the moment’ schlock that exists at the bottom feeder area of the music market.

I consider all of the above (in the general sense) to be a given and known and have considered it a known for decades, now.

If places like ASR or others of similar thinking want to live in the past, in their safe zone of circular ignorance as related to their obvious religious adherence to blinkered scientism - is not my concern. My concern is when they project it upon others as an obvious diktat.

My audiophile hobby has trained my brain to hear more precisely, much as my photography hobby trained me to see and envision images better.

When I first heard my parents' new Magnavox lo fi console, i thought it sounded great.  After I got a mid fi Fisher 3 piece system, I could tell it sounded much better.  Later when I heard decent systems in other students' dorm rooms, I realized how much my mid fi system was lacking.

As I upgraded my rig through the years, I could hear improvements, albeit with diminishing differences.  Finally, I reached a point where I couldn't hear the difference any more -- that's when I stopped upgrading.  I had reached the limit of my ability to learn to hear better.

@teo_audio I really enjoyed your post. 

@teo_audio If only this level of enlightenment had reached a critical mass!

Great post!  Thanks for sharing!

@teo_audio   Good to have you back. 

+1 to your post and especially this >>>

 

In the end, the unherdable individual cats that escape the bag, are the only thing that saves us from the doom of being a boxed animal.

Celebrate the individual who makes your life difficult. If they aren’t there, everything you love and know and want for the world --dies. Forever.

I sang in any number of choirs back in the day. Very experienced choir master who had been testing choir members for pitch and vocal range mentioned I had perhaps the most perfect pitch she had ever observed. To this day, bothers me to no end when I hear off pitch singing, US National Anthem must be difficult to get pitch right.

I've always believed I heard music differently from others, many can tolerate as background, I become distracted. Engages  and opens up my neural transmitters and pathways, assume theirs very constricted. Funny thing is high quality sound doesn't much engage their neural transmitters or pathways either.

It's not only our fingerprints that are unique.

True!

@jonwolfpell


Agreed. The eye uses the same CPU as the ear, why should it be any different?

We each ’build up’ our hearing and visual and touch senses independently, with a common frameworks supplied by our individually derived and shaped biological package..

The ideas behind IQ are also in the ideas behind EQ, Ear-Q or Hearing Quotient.

To not let those who hear with their own sense training and native ability level (before, during and after basic training of that sense) dictate reality to those who literally hear differently, and at different levels of quality and native/learned hearing abilities.

Ie, the age old problem of: "I am dumb, therefore - you cannot be smart. and I’ll attack you with full-on unrelenting idealized righteousness-if you say different."

Nor is it possible to lay the desire to finalize some measuring structure/method/set of this whole issue of differences, at the feet of measurement. People want final answers to they can act on them and grow into the next problem, or for the tribe to feel ’safe’.

Regarding audio.. measurement of the meaning and context of said measurement has not been fully established as of yet, and may never be.

The enabled zipperhead army problem, come to life in the world of audio. A very commonly utilized methodology in other arenas, like politics and religion. In audio it has no real centralized head of manipulation but forms such anyway, in websites and forums that use this as a central motif--- which illustrates it exists as a central mechanic in the body or subconscious/unconscious mental pattering of the human body as a carrier of intellect. A major component of the fundamentals of tribalism.

Some (as of recent) call it mass formation psychosis, in a negative context but it also has positive qualities with regard to humans having societies and cultures that work for the betterment of all. Since all of us are not at the same level of mental and physical capacities (that pesky individualism thing! "why can’t we all just be identical corralled animals?", cried the totalitarian version of Rodney King), it is subject to manipulation by various individuals and parties. The audio world is no different in such aspects.

In the end, the unherdable individual cats that escape the bag, are the only thing that saves us from the doom of being a boxed animal.

Celebrate the individual who makes your life difficult. If they aren’t there, everything you love and know and want for the world --dies. Forever.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder “

Probably the same for the ear too……

One point that always seemed logical to me is that if each of us hears through our own "filter" when exposed to reproduced sound, we also filter actual live sound through the same filter, so the effect is neutralized as far as identifying differences between live vs. reproduced.  This breaks down when you introduce hearing loss or tinitus as the system becomes less sensitive to differences, which is, alas, my world now.

People definitely hear imaging differently.A lot of people seem to hear left/right imaging but not so much the phantom centre channel stereo effect and especially centre image projection and depth.I suspect this is far more common than we think.

Depth perception and distance location ability would have been critical to the survival of our species but that does not mean everybody would hear it as accurately.I suspect people with an interest in /enjoyment of hunting might be better at it.Or learn to be better at it.

Hearing is the most personal of the senses

Maybe you forgot the sense of touch? Or taste.
There is even a song about them.

@gs5556 

Indeed. Yet the claims and forum wars continue.

Hearing is the most personal of the senses: there is no way for a person to describe what he hears to any other person. Not even a deaf person can describe the absence of sound because it is impossible to simulate deafness, the vibrations in your throat get converted to sound so not even the most effective sound absorption will work.

That is why it’s pointless to get into arguments with audiophiles and claim they can’t hear what you can't hear or you hear what they don’t hear. You have no way of knowing and never will.

@cd318 

Exactly what I have been saying though by some of the responses you would think I suggesting eating babies.

Whether we hear differently enough for it to make any significant difference is besides the point.

Audio equipment has only one task to perform, and that is to reproduce the signal that it's being fed as accurately as possible.

At least as accurate enough to be beyond the limits of human hearing.

Whatever happens after that must always be a wholly subjective experience.

A matter of taste if you like.

There's just no getting away from that.

@djones51 

I agree that this should be universally understood. To me, it’s why I look for electronic components that measure beyond human audibility and speakers with a flat FR in anechoic chamber since they would be easier to "tune" to my tastes.

Makes perfect sense.

Bruno touching a little on what people hear or don't hear and their proclivities for Valves, SS, and his Class D Amplifier Modules. 

Everyone uses EQ. Some straightforward others clandestinely.

All of this implies that we must have our speakers custom tuned if we all hear sound differently then every speaker needs to be tuned accordingly.

No, not at all. 

 @djones51 so you are using an EQ?

"The Boob"

To me, it’s why I look for electronic components that measure beyond human audibility and speakers with a flat FR in anechoic chamber since they would be easier to "tune" to my tastes.

I agree that this should be universally understood. To me, it’s why I look for electronic components that measure beyond human audibility and speakers with a flat FR in anechoic chamber since they would be easier to "tune" to my tastes.

All of this implies that we must have our speakers custom tuned if we all hear sound differently then every speaker needs to be tuned accordingly.

@nonoise

One would hope but there are clearly many who don’t. Or they haven't kept current with modern research.

Great book...

"How do our brains create meaning from the sounds around us? That is the question at the heart of a new book from neuroscientist Nina Kraus, called Of Sound Mind."

KRAUS: So I think it's a really compelling point that each one of us hears the world differently. And here is a biological example of how this is the case.

So much for the theory that we all interpret what we hear in the same way. "No accounting for taste" is proven again to be true...

I've always understood and said that and the article you linked to said it back in '08. Most members (I would hope)) here know that. It's been argued to death on these forums for reasons that elude me. It's not only our fingerprints that are unique.

All the best,
Nonoise