"I Trust My Ears"
Do you? Can you? Should you?
I don’t. The darn things try to trick me all the time!
Seriously, our ears are passive sensors. They forward sonic data to our brains. Ears don’t know if the data in question represents a child crying, a Chopin prelude, or a cow dropping a cowpie. That’s our brains’ job to figure out.
Similarly, our brains decide whether A sounds better than B, whether a component sounds phenomenal, etc.
So, "I trust my ears" should really be "I trust my brains".
And that has a different ring to it, doesn’t it?
ghdprentice said it well... We must train our hearing by tuning our brain with thinking concepts and setting experiments in a system/room with different musical styles.. Tastes are nothing except a starting point from the animal in us to the angel passing through us. Tastes must be educated.
Perception of an unknown event from which we had no prior concept cannot be recognized nor memorized. We need acoustics concepts to understand audio.
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Yes, @devinplombier, this is can be very tricky, indeed. I don’t anticipate (because I started in this hobby so late), I’ll ever accrue the skill/experience that our friend @ghdprentice describes, so I’ll continue to only purchase gear I can demo at home and return if necessary. Still, speaking from experience, I know this strategy cannot guarantee one will not make mistakes! ;o)
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How YOU perceive the sound is most important. The physics is known but perception is not. Many variables to consider. Two experienced listeners can have two completely different opinions listening to the same component. Hearing sensitivity varies from person to person. Expectation bias can also cause differences in opinion. Placebo effect also. Even your mood can affect the sound. Bottom line is YOU are the final judge of what sounds best. |
