"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 I am not yet at the "last few percentage points" stage, I'm still where upgrades can make a really large improvement. This year I'll complete my listening room, and then I'll add at least one set of speakers, a new streamer, and a new DAC......so far I have at least a year trying new speakers, streamers, and DACs; so I should be near a decision when funds clear up. |
I trust myself for what I like. I've been to countless live music events of every kind; a world class symphony and opera company, blues , jazz, rock music venues of every kind in town. I've seen Solti conduct Verdi's Falstaff, Wagners Ring at the Lyric, to a spitting fight at a Dead Kennedys show at the Aragon( Jello Biafra started to yelling spit on me at the audience. You had to have been their, or not), and evry kind of modernist, world music imaginable. I may want to read other people's opinions on music here, but in the end, it's almost always my first instinct/choice that I go with, and most importantly, enjoy listening to. "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?" Well, then so be it. It's my brain that is going to enjoy, or not, what I hear. And "We must train our hearing by tuning our brain with thinking concepts and setting experiments in a system/room with different musical styles", "Tastes must be educated.", " We need acoustics concepts to understand audio", "Crocodiles had tastes and we cannot convince them their tastes are bad habits...A part of our brain is a crocodile..." and on and on. @mahgister I would be so depressed if I had to go through all that to enjoy a concert. In all of that, I have never heard any system reproduce any live music event I've been to. I've heard spectacular systems producing great sound, and I have listened to a live Jazz performance, then played back in the same room, not moving from my spot. I own one recording that puts me almost inside an orchestra, something like I once heard at Symphony Center from a front row seat just left of the conductor.
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Agreed. Listen to below original music. If they sound absolutely the best, your ears are good. Alex/Wavetouch You Don't Know You're Born - Mark Knopfler My Favorite Picture of You - Guy Clark
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ghdprentice said it well. I for one started this journey just at the start of covid and all I relied on was reviews and forums. I have always wondered, back then, was I hearing good enough. yeah, wallet say so, but was it good enough?? As covid subsided and more shows open up (and dealers) I took that opportunity to answer my questions. well, I found out that I was not too off tangent. we can go on and on, but for me, let me summarize it. You don't know what missing unless you know what you're looking for. And, you think you are right, but sometimes you are wrong.
needless to say, I thought my system is good and satisfying a couple of years ago, but after listening to shows and reading a lot on forums and finally listening to High end ($$$$$) gear, well, you will know what you are missing because our brain is telling us to observe (listen) carefully what a truly expensive gear sounds like compared to my home gear. As this discovery unfolds, then you now seek that goal but being realistic on your wallet. You will eventually reach a point that your gear is good enough (again based on your budget) and that's where you can stop (if ones wishes). I check mine against top $$$ builds and my EARS tell me that I am close. |
First, i can enjoy any concert in any place with good or bad acoustics, i dont bother with sound if i goes to hear an artist... Second the goal if we want to create a system/room well optimized acouistically, mechanically and electrically is not reproducing a live event ... This is impossible even if your budget is way over my 1000 bucks system... Third is you are like i am interested to do the most with the system you have, you must train you hearing, why ? to understand room acoustics...Is it a mystery impossible to understand? there is no other way...
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