High End Audio and Your hearing as you get older

Unsound, I think you example of the balance in salad dressing is spot on. Not to be too mystical but, to me, balance is important in most everything.

As far as others' discussion declining hearing being a problem, it has already been mentioned that there is FAR more to hearing than just frequency response - distortion, timbre, harmonic presentation, etc. As someone else mentioned, I have trouble picking out voices in a noisy environment, but put me in front of my system in a quiet room and things are wonderful. Add to this the likelihood that we all hear things differently and anything more than generalization becomes difficult if not impossible.

I think it all ties in with what Ralph from Atmasphere is always mentioning and that is the loudness queues that the ear detects and gets processed;and since I moved into the age of 51 I have noticed some change in hearing;but if the electronics get lowered I got to think you would still be able to hear a change of some type whether better or worse I am not sure of though.

I liken it to taste buds. There is no doubt that both dull with age. For a teen, macdonalds food is the height of cuisine. As you age, all of your tastes become more discriminating. So at least in my experience (age 59), I care more about both the hardware (clarity) and software (harmonic complexity). It takes more quality and flavor to give me the same kick I got from listening to beatles/stones dreck on cheap stereos when I was 19.

Beatles dreck? I still get the same kick from them, albeit on better quality gear.

 
On-line hearing frequency test from 8kHz to 22kHz in increments: But can you hear THIS?