"I Trust My Ears"

Sound science is just another science.

@mashif ..."I trust my feelings. If I listen to music I love and it doesn't feel right, SOMETHING is wrong. I can use my ears and brain to analyze why."

I'd just like to point out what a great answer that is. It is so easy to get stuck on the analytical side, and have it start leading. Ultimately it is your subconscious that is soothed and satisfied by music.. which is why it is so universally appreciated. Listening to your inner self is probably the most important aspect of putting together a great sounding system. 

I took a quick look at the Sean Olive article @sargonicuse references.

It’s well-known that Harman uses focus groups in its design process. Olive is / was involved in setting up a training program for listeners participating in those focus groups.

As is the norm with Harman / Lansing research, Olive’s piece is well-documented, thorough, and accessible to the non-engineer. 

Interestingly a training software was developed. It is named How to Listen. It can be downloaded here. I intend to take a delve when time permits.

Thank you for this interesting link.

Today I’m very tired and have no energy. I feel like I’m sick. I have blurry vision and I can’t focus anything what I see. My eyes are dilated and my ears feel like plugged with cotton ball (I feel pressure around ears).

I have a collection of IC cables. They are my previous references such as JPS s3, XLO sig/ref, AQ diamond x3, etc. Since I make my own cables now that I wanted sell and I had 3 appointments yesterday (Saturday). Every buyers want to hear/compare different cables. I was curious about their sounds and listen them very carefully with buyers. I heard them about 5 hours yesterday. And I’m sick today.

I know why I’m sick. My older ICs are top quality and they sound very impressive which make my ears/brain to be confused. I tried to go back to my regular ear state such as talking/shout myself, listening original music, hitting a metal door hard for big bang, etc. It has happened before and it lasted a couple of hours to come back to normal. But today, my sick ear state is not curing. I’m bit scared that this dilating will last few days. What strange is the original music (always my reference) sounds strange to my ears. I know my ears are cured when the original music sounds good/normal to me.

My audio system is an only natural sound system in the world. And my ears/eyes has always been very clear and focused (w/out effort) that my thought has been clear too. I know this abnormal ear state today will be normal tomorrow if not today. But I can’t make a regular life until my ears are normal. I wonder how I lived before I have a natural sound system few years ago. Can’t you trust your ears?  Alex/Wavetouch

I trust my ears = only way to find what subjectively resonates with me.  But it doesn’t mean to only try once then draw conclusions although this may apply on some occasions.

Building trust in my ears likely stem from experience from many demos.  Starting out late in our high end audio hobby, my strategy was to demo the best gear based on reviews, then try to recreate favored Sonics within my budget.  Attended many audio shows and brick n mortar stores.  Many had great Sonics, but very few resonated (pulled me in, hard to leave) with me.

If one is not trusting their ears, perhaps they have not demoed enough to know the playing field aka what Sonics to target.

Another possibility is that our moods greatly affects our engagement in our audio systems including boredom.  I mitigate this through variety- different systems (SS/tube, analog, digital) and components (various carts, amps…)