"I Trust My Ears"

The point of this thread is that sound quality is determined not by our ears but by our brains. Our ears merely transduce the sound waves. Our brains make value judgements as to what sounds good, or which one between A and B sounds better. Just like our eyes see pictures, but it is our brains that see beauty.

None of this has to do with measurements and I’m not sure why they’re being brought into the conversation, other than the ears vs measurements trope is a familiar one.

Instead it has everything to do with whether and how much we can / should trust our brains to accurately and reliably perform nonsimultaneous A/B comparisons when it is notoriously inaccurate and suggestible in that respect. Literally tens of thousands of pages have been written on the subject, reaching far beyond audio into gastronomy, oenology, etc., and, perhaps more tragically, police lineups. People of good faith place at the crime scene with absolute certainty a person who was later proven to be 500 miles away at the time.

The train-your-brains argument is of course valid. Some of the folks who fail these tests are highly trained and have decades of experience, however, like those wine critics who couldn’t pick California wines from French once the labels were removed.

How many of us account for the fact that the subtler differences we think we’re hearing may just be our brains telling us there’s something when there’s nothing just because it seems there should be?

Measurements can be a useful screening tool if nothing else. For example, speakers that roll off 6 dB at 50 Hz, or amps rated 200W into 8 ohm, 250W into 4 ohm, and "not recommended" below that, I know right away they’re not for me.

But they could make other folks happy and that’s great.

@kofibaffour 

I haven’t gotten around to room measurements yet. I will though. Some measurements are invaluable. Others are worthless. A person can’t just be against measurements, period.

But the word itself tends to have negative connotations around here. Talk measurements up in a positive way and next thing you know some folks are waving pitchforks and burning Amir effigies, so when it comes up in a thread as a side topic it can be a distraction.

So you can choose to trust your senses and interpretation of those senses by your brain, or not. And so we all make mistakes, obviously our senses and brains not always right. Point is why is this such a big deal for enjoyment of our audio systems?

Put this way, of course it isn't a big deal. If things stayed on that level, everything would be perfectly copacetic, because at the end of the day everyone is free to build systems that please their tastes using whatever means and techniques they see fit, and enjoy music they love in peace.

The trouble comes from the folks who perorate endlessly on forums and in online rags, telling grandiose tales of stunning sound improvements allegedly due to modest tweaks or devices never designed to have any effect on sound quality.