"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?

 

 

devinplombier

@ezwind - (great Pigpen song, btw) - thing about the Ramones is that their musicianship was perfect for the music they played; they were tight, powerful, and energetic  as can be, and nobody could play Ramones music like the Ramones. The purpose of the music was to get people jumping around and moshing and such, not to sit and think deeply about it. They weren't about social or political statements - that's more the Dead Kennedys territory - their songs were often quite cartoonish, they were about humor and fun. 

+1 @panzrwagn 

Yup I got the Pareidolia thing down pat.  I see faces everywhere.  Really disturbing when its pitch black and I still see faces. Must be some neuronal malfunction.

Ok, back to my closet know for some rest.

Regards,

barts

At this point, I trust my own ears far above anyone eo. I learn a lot from others, but I know the sound of voices, instruments, and drums etc after a large number of decades listening!

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.

 

I always trust my ears.  Why wouldn’t I?  I also trust my tongue. If something sounds good to me, I’ll want to listen more or something tastes good to me, I’ll go back for seconds.  But if something sounds bad to me or something tastes bad to me, I’ll move on.

when it comes to my system, it’s all about pleasing ME.