50-60-70 year old ears stating with certainty that what they hear is proof positive of the efficacy of analog, uber-cables, tweaks...name your favorite latest and greatest audio "advancement." How many rock concerts under the bridge? Did we ever wear ear protection with our chain saws? Believe what you will, but hearing degrades with age and use and abuse. To pontificate authority while relying on damaged goods is akin to the 65 year old golfer believing his new $300 putter is going to improve his game. And his game MAY get better, but it is the belief that matters. Everything matters, but the brain matters the most.
Kris Kristofferson was misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's. He actually had Lyme disease. He recovered from Lyme disease and continued performing. The most irritating aspect of posting meaningful tweaks on this forum is the knuckleheads here automatically accuse you of shilling for the manufacturer. What it reveals is that they don't have acute hearing by claiming that sonic improvements are imaginary and audio products are snake oil. It also reveals that the systems they listen to don't allow discernment of improvement because they're listening to crappy gear.
Unlike my father, I used ear protection when he was using chain saws, drills, impact hammers, etc. Unlike my wife, I use ear protection at rock concerts. My hearing is good to 16 kHz when tested. Probably better. I'm 65 and have excellent hearing. My father's hearing substantially deteriorated in his early 80s. My wife can't stand piccolos, flutes and percussive piano sounds. My mother, who like me, protected her hearing all her life, also has excellent hearing at age 87. So, protect your hearing and you probably won't lose it, unless bad genetics are involved.
Cant get my 14yr old daughter to pay attention to anything that has to do with my stereo. She lives for music too!
Guess I’m going to have to endure her tracks if I want her to listen...
Built her some speakers and got her a small amp for her room. She managed to pay attention long enough to decide which one of the three sets on offer she wanted. Picked the one with the most bass of course...
So I’m 51, and had my hearing tested a couple of years ago. I asked if my score was a pass for a 49 year old, and he said that my score would have been acceptable if I was eight. That said, I know I have lost some ability, and gained a little more background noise. Not horrible, but it’s there.
I was making a decision on a new piece of gear last week that I was auditioning - an EMM Labs NS1 streamer, and comparing it with my tried and true Bluesound Node 2i. I was always under the impression that the streamer really didn’t matter as long as all the bits were there. The magic really happens in the DAC, which in my case is also an EMM Labs. Much to my chagrin, I heard some very large differences between streamers both going into the same DAC. Was it a bias? Is my hearing even good enough to hear the differences?
i enlisted the help of my 14 year old freshman daughter. She loves music, but has no interest in high fi. I promised her a simple A/B off four tracks, one of which she knows very well from her iPhone and Beats. Surprisingly, she listened to A (Bluesound) and then sat up straighter when I switched to the NS1. She had no idea of what I was switching, by the way...I was able to leave everything connected and A/B with the remote. I switched the order up on track 2, left the same order for 3, and then back to the original order on track 4. I didn’t even tell her what to listen for. She picked out almost everything that I picked out in every track. The sound of actual air coming from a saxophone. The clarity in background farming parts. One guitar turning out to be three, sequenced over each other. The familiar track was Taylor Swift’s August, and she was like, I have never heard this song sound like this. So, my findings verified, I bought the NS1. My stayed in the room and listened for another two hours to so music of her choosing. (Priceless to me.)
If it sounds good to the listener, or better after experimentation, who cares how it measure or what anyone else hears? Extended listening vs. short blasts of A:B, a good discussion for a new thread perhaps.
Thank you @bstbomber & @rcronk for those well reasoned thoughts. One can't forget that in addition to our unique set of ears that they've been working in concert with our unique brain and continue to do so.
Our ears don't operate in a vacuum. Cherry picking them out of that equation and then breaking out that hoary meme of what we can't hear past a certain age ignores the rest that we can hear, or it's hoped that we overlook it and fall for it.
Physical hearing parameters of a person that a machine can measure - tell you next to nothing of importance.
It's discernment which is all. The ability to ascertain nuance that younger minds & personalities have not the intuition to perceive. It's a matter of maturity & wisdom. If you've bothered to cultivate them you reap the fruits. Even if you haven't you usually to some degree have some extra measure of them, unavoidably. It's not completely different (although more so in audio) from tastebuds being able to technically discern less as you age - yet if you've matured well & with some effort kept yourself perceptive & open-minded - the amount of nuance you can spot in food is far higher - even if the splashy extremes of spicy/sweet/tart, etc aren't so vivid. With your ears you don't need to concentrate to that degree, the cues are manifold & the lifetime of learning & practice amplify all the good things that more aggressively presented themselves when you were younger. Subtleties are hardly passive, inert things when you know their significance & how to let them register & trigger a depth of emotion - that was far more two-dimensional once. You hear more of significance - not less then.
Spoken like a young fella! Full of wrong science. On average we lose the edge with time, but there are those who hear perfectly well into very old age. Just as some are deaf from birth, some are spared.
The second important feature mentioned earlier is the brain. Studies in dementia as related to age and Altzheimers find that as the brain losses it's functions the centers that process hearing and MUSIC are the very last to go. I saw Chris Christopherson in concert on stage by himself for 2 hours with a short break. He said hello and went on from song to song. It was a perfect one man show. I noticed at the brief break a stage person came out and escorted him off stage and then back on again. The music continued without a stitch out of place. One month later they announced that he was retired and suffering with advancing Altzheimers.
He may not know his name or who his closest family members were but could pick up a guitar and sing for hours. It was also noted that his final concerts began with the first song he wrote as a child and that every song that night was in the exact order he wrote them over a lifetime. So, ya, there is the brain and a perfect set of youthful ears matched to a fine stereo system blasting away with some Kiss or Lead Zepplin may help kill some brain cells. Then to shut up long enough to listen to George Shearing and Mel Torme... well, I know that is not apt to happen.
You can drop a needle on vinyl and I can tell the 1950s & 60s 'Decca' recordings from RCA's. I can tell when 'mono' became 'High Fidelity" from a vinyl 'Stereo' that followed. The highest qualtiy recordings are still fantastic and the market was filled with some real cheap products. I can hear that. I can really appreciate putting a 180gm record on a $2,000 Rega turntable with a $500 cartidge and fine valved pre-amp.
It reminds me of being a kid in the 1950s. My dad taught school and with 5 kids there was little extravagance. Eating shrimp was one of them. At an early age I looked at cocktail shrimp and asked, "What is that?" I had a naked shrimp shaken in my face and asked if I want one. Hell no! It was on food on my plate that I was not expected to finish. My mom and dad got all the shrimp and they gave me my wish, Spaghette-Os.
After 70 some years I love to eat shrimp while listening to the wide range of music that I also love. I hear some much more than a bowl full of Spaghetti-Os. If you need some help with that get back to me.
Everyones ears are including ones left and Right are Different All Audio Judgement is based on What your ears can actually Hear, Training and Knowledge. I am a 66 year old Musician and Audio enthusiast. I have well worn and Trained ears. I have worked at Playing Live and in Studio. I worked with Live and Studio sound and worked at a Hi End Home speaker manufacturer. I judge but what my Ears Like to Hear.
Back when I was 18 a concert wasn't good until I couldn't hear,a sound concert, then riding the NYC subway home....well now I have ,I'm told hearing loss.....what ,no way.....
“@kevn - I have a couple of tracks I listen to for mids....” - perkri
Thanks so much for your reply, perkri : )
miijostyn, I didn’t actually describe anything, but was just asking perkri for a few more tracks he uses for his critical listening moments to determine for himself when he detects change and difference in sound quality - his reference to sibilance by way of recordings of Nina Simone was simply my way in to inquire further about other specific tracks of specific singers, you see.
However, you have raised an interesting issue for me, for which I am grateful. Of course I understand the difference between natural sibilance, recording sibilance, and sibilance due to distortion from volume control or equipment. I believe it was the very point that perkri was making in his reference to Nina Simone’s voice and the recorded voicing of it. It is these very nuances that help me understand how to listen better, and to know if what i am hearing is imagined or real, and detailed or distorted. But the more important issue of interest to me was your mention of timbre. I believe that everything that we are in dispute over regarding sound differences and the abilities of the ageing human ear to pick up nuance, has to do with our abilities to distinguish timbre. While it is considerably more obvious when played back sound is artificially sibilant, it is a lot more subtle if the sound being heard has more ‘air’ around it, more lifelike, and more right there. The lightness and ‘weight’ in the flux of the tiniest vibrations and variations in timbre is what determines the subtlest differences and improvements we hear; pure tonal frequencies, brand of speaker, cost of power cable, and indeed, almost surely even type of speaker, be damned. All that minute information can come by way of wholesale or part change of equipment, and by extension, the smallest changes of tweaks, in room and all else that connects the signal path. And as the sensitive instrument the entire human body is, I do not believe it is only the eardrum that collects this infinite amount of timbral information. Are there some aspects of sound that cannot be measured definitely, but can be experienced? I am not able to say one way or another. But I do know my ears, body, and mind are still good enough to learn how to understand listening better ; )
Sure everything wears with age. Genetics come into play how resilient ones ears compared to anothers the same age. Usually high frequency is lost unless you have been too close to a sub woofer too often. Just build speakers to suit your ears or buy some that compensate for what you lack. Good headphones may be the answer.
If dancing makes us foolish, does watching make us wise? Since we are all both wise and foolish... What a pity not to dance!
Love the hobby! Love the music! It's a dance between the rational and irrational... to give me a smile.
I started building gear around 60+ years ago, built PA systems for pro use before they became commonly available... Electrovoice LR7's were thought to be a reasonable set up... Then came the VOX Churchill and the Super Beatle amps... Lots of stories there...
I worked in the pro and home audio profession for years... paid my way through school, owned my own custom installation business... Played in various musical groups from marching bands to Rock and Reggae... I used hearing protection on and off when needed, still do, ear plugs almost always in my pocket... and yes my hearing has taken a beating, no question about it.
Do I love this hobby? YES! Do I still love music? YES! Do I still upgrade my system with various tubes and tweaks? YES!
Are there various remedies and tweaks to preserve and improve my hearing? YES! I just happen to need them more now than ever before. Do Keep a smile on...
Me thinks Life is too short for much other than learning gratitude.
I’m a 64 year old road cyclist and my $2K Zipp carbon wheels shod with Michelin GP 5000’s II’s gave me a noticeable improvement . My $400 Loomis GLX rods gave me a noticeable improvement over my IMX rods . And 80 mg sildenafil gave me a noticeable improvement, in my depth of soundstage . Am I Pontificating ? No , the facts Man, just the Facts. BTW my first big concert was Rory Gallagher , Fleetwood Mac , and Deep Purple .
Mahgister, can you show us a picture of your mechanical equalizer? I am not sure what you mean by "tight pressure zone" comparing it to strings on a violin. Maybe you mean tight tension?
There exist no photography of pressure zones in a room only diagram...
Pick any acoustical article they will show you ...
anyway thanks for your interest....
Any room is not only walls waiting from the waves to bounce back and beign reflected, absorbed or diffused...
Any room is when sound come from the speaker a multiple pressure zones created by the meeting of waves and their resonance...
I say that these pressure zone are tight like strings of a violin because of the speed of sound the waves croos my room near 80 times in one second...
The brain decision threshold treat the incoming frontwaves is 80 millisecond if i remember well...
Then i compared the new pressure zones introduced by 32 fine tuned tubes and pipes to a a violin string optimally tight for producing the right tone....i use my equalizer to modify the equilibrium between the distributed pressure zones and the ratio between the timing of direct and reflected waves...
The metaphor comes from the fact that before my ears qualify the sound quality, the waves had cross my room and ears a great number of times...
A slight modification like the fleeting of a tight string produce a note...A SINGLE STRAW constituting the neck of only one of my 32 tubes or pipes of few inches could destruct completely the sound timbre, or modify radically the soundstage or the listener envelopment.... A single straw has more qualitative audible effect than some upgrade in gear...
That illustrate how powerful acoustical settings are...
Mahgister, can you show us a picture of your mechanical equalizer? I am not sure what you mean by "tight pressure zone" comparing it to strings on a violin. Maybe you mean tight tension?
kevn, all you describe are aberrations of frequency response. I can make any female voice sibilant by boosting frequencies between 3 and 5 kHz just 2-3 dB. I can remove sibilance just by dropping the same frequencies 2-3 dB Frequencies between 3 and 8 kHz are responsible for the "brightness" of the sound. This is frequently and incorrectly associated with detail or lack there of. If I were to give two very different speakers, say a Klipsch Cornwall and a Magneplanar 3.7i the exact same frequency response curve they will still sound very different. Even though their tonality is identical their timbre is not. It is in this domain where the best speakers excel. The problem for loudspeakers is that they have to mimic the timbre of a vast array of instruments that make sounds by a vast array of mechanisms. The speakers that are best at it seem to disappear leaving individual instruments hanging in space, 3 dimensions. I remember vividly the first time I heard a loudspeaker system do this. It was Dick Sequerra's Pyramid Metronome 2+2W+Ti system driven by Threshold electronics. The owner was heavily into jazz. I had him put on Waltz for Debby and a holographic image of the Bill Evans trio appeared in space. I was not even stoned at the time. Needless to say my satisfaction with my own system dropped to all time lows. There was no way I could afford equipment like that at the time but it gave me a target to shoot at. I can count the systems on one hand that reached that level of performance in my experience.
Try running a 60hz tone through the set up. Sit where you sit and listen to the timber of the bass. Then walk around the room. It will at some point become a droning mess, at other points it will almost vanish.
Very true. It was eye opening to me when I actually heard cancellations occur as I walked around the room when setting up twin subwoofers. I found that not only location of subs and the location of the sitting position was important but using the phase adjustments made enormous differences. At 60 hz I can flip one switch on one of the subwoofers 180 degrees out of phase and create a null where you can't hear anything. Dead sound occurring at 60hz in my listening position. Move my head 3 feet forward out of the null and bingo there's the sound again. It also has a big impact on the lower 30hz region. Flipping the switch on the phase was like turning on and off the light. Huge differences in timber and output were achieved.
The important lesson is that bass needs to be focused on the seating position and can have negative interaction with the main speakers that can be phase corrected. This is a critical experiment that can yield a huge difference and it's free!!
Hearing, or, loss of hearing, I can testify, is indeed real, and, a huge loss of ones god given happeeenissseses... Proof: I can’t hear all the girls whistling at me (my hearing was much better in the 60’s, 70’s, a decent run in the 80’s)
jasonbourne52 You can hear a pin drop. Wow! That is proof to you, I presume, that you have perfect hearing. Go get a test. You will be surprised at the middle frequencies you do not hear, much less the ones above about 200 cps that a dropped pin makes; however, we can just turn the volume up a whole lot and hear stuff that is normally silent to us. even if with a highly different frequency curve than a baby, or young teen. I bet if you ask a bunch of tweens if they use a ringtone out of teh frequency of adults, you will find some a=who can demonstrate this to you. This ring allows them to check messages in class, without allowing the teacher to hear it.
He has a deep voice normally, but it's particularly deep on this track. The upper register of his voice is what I listen to. I listen for how open it is.
Sade - Pearls
She has a wide range in her singing on this track. Starts dark and rich and goes to some lovely highs. I listen for how clearly the middle part of that comes through
Rockers HiFi - Going Under
Like most electronic music, it has some extremes. Singer again has a dark register. I listen for how well the upper range of his voice comes through.
Bill Charlap - Stardust
Shirley Horns voice has a ton of air in this recording. I listen for how well it "floats" above the instruments.
I think we can all agree that dogs have superior hearing. I have 3 dogs and five systems. The dogs have free range in the house. When I put on music they are free to come and go. My observations are that all three dogs come and lay down and listen to my TAD CR-1s and YG Acoustic carmels Two dogs come and listen to my Audio physics tempos and my sonus faber cremona Ms. Only one dog comes and listens to my Vienna acoustic Mozarts. And if I switch the direction of my cables, the dogs just go outside.....
‘Sibilance is a useful one. Nina Simone has a certain way of presenting sssss's. And for whatever reason, when recorded this part of her singing can get quite shrill when played back. I listen for how much clarity there is in those parts.
When listening to mids, I listen for transparency and how "bright" "crisp" they are. Also, they can be placed slightly higher or lower in the register.” - perkri
Thanks very much for this perkri - yes I also find differences in bass and highs the easiest to distinguish - it’s the mids that aren’t easy and take time. Besides Nina Simone for sibilance, are there specific sections of specific tracks or songs that are your go-to’s whenever you are listening for differences after a change of cable or tweak? The parts that most clearly show difference in sound quality? Thanks again!
I generally don’t read much on this site. Mostly because the topics seem a little silly. In this case, everyone likes what they like, almost never the same as someone else on a regular basis. I work for a company that requires a hearing test every year. My position doesn’t require the test, but I do it anyway just to see how my hearing is doing. I am 71 and think my hearing is great. Wrong, during the last 5 years, my hearing has degraded considerably. Not for regular hearing, but for the higher notes, dropped lots. I hear base just fine, but the highs stop at 14db. I’m told that is normal for my age. The question becomes how much do you spend to improve the sounds you can’t hear? My digital system now, sounds as good as my analog system did years ago. Buy and listen to what sounds good to you. Don’t argue the point, it’s a futile argument that can never be solved.
Listening acuity increases with hours logged of listening time and the more time you spend listening the more you hear the little differences that matter the most and you want to hear what the sound equipment will do at that time and will accept nothing mediocre at that point.
I listened some costly tweak product on youtube marketed by a well known company and it is EVIDENT that there is an audible effect....
Was that the one where he placed a large metal object (effectively) right against the microphone? Well duh! (not to you), of course that is going to make a difference! Or is it the one that had the shelved output that would not correlated to the communicated changes? All this is readily evident when you do correlated analysis of the audio samples. Not everything is as it seems.
No i listen to ALL the video on youtube with many customers...
Simple... But an audible effect is one thing, and not the story...
Remember: i personaly NEVER BUY "tweaks"
I created my own at NO COST....
Negating an audible effect is not my way...I will let sunday club scientist debunking some unreal and sometimes some real audible effects....
Investigating to create a better effect at no cost is my way....i prefer my listening experiments...
It is better to teach people how to fish without complicated means or tools than to use blindtest to criticize any means or tool for fishing without teaching people how to fish at NO COST....Some effects created by costly tweaks are real.... Negating all audible effects is non productive.... I prefer to assume the effect is there and VERIFYING IT at no cost....Improving my audio system is my goal, not a pretense to science with blindtest....
I am not against blindtest... Why not?
Especially for costly product...
But this does not solve the problem of HOW to improve at no cost my audio system...
I prefer sometimes assuming that something is real, some acoustical audible effect and trying to replicate it at NO COST... why contesting in principle ALL testimonies like placebos? The goal of a statiscal experiment using blindtest cannot be useful for me, save for particular spectacular costly product... It is not a general solution for customers listening their music and wanting to improve their S.Q..... Making my own listening experiment at no cost or at low cost is more useful and fun...Speaking about the results in my case is not promoting a brand i use only homemade or very low cost products...
My whole thing is "just try it". If it doesn’t make a difference, then you are good!
And because one person doesn’t hear any difference, doesn’t mean another who says they do are a victim of marketing.
Quick story to illustrate my thoughts on hearing vs listening.
I’ve been working on a speaker for a bit. A project I’ve been mulling about for a few months. Experimenting with a coax driver and a capacitor less crossover. Was trying to decide between two values of the resistor (8.2 ohm and 10 ohm). The high end was different. One went higher, but was missing the bit just below, the other didn’t go as high but held the info up to that point. There was a distinct difference to my ears.
I wanted an "unbiased" and "uninterested" opinion. I asked my 8yr old son to listen. Now, he has fresh ears and can hear a fly fart next door... He heard the clarity of the speakers, and commented on that. I asked him if he could describe what the differences were and if there was one he liked better as I A/B’d the speakers for him (Mono - L/R channels). He couldn’t. I asked if he could hear a difference. He couldn’t.
Hearing is biology. Much like sense of taste is biology. Listening is a skill, something learned or taught. Like taste, being able to isolate nuances is very much a skill.
Prior to Covid hitting, a friend was going through cancer treatment/surgery. He was unable to work for the better part of two years prior to Covid arriving. He was scheduled to have his final surgery but that was canceled due to the pandemic. He is a chef, and when Covid arrived, he got pretty down. I started fixing his stereo so he could listen to his vinyl collection. The transformation in his ability to listen for nuanced changes in a speaker build/tuning is astonishing. (I’ve built a lot of speakers for him). He is 64 and we often joke about the biological limits our age has put on our hearing. He is listening with far greater acuity than ever before.
I feel like this is a journey, and not a destination.
Excellent post!
My own remark
FIRST
To perceive something especially a change which can be subtle, and characterize this change positively or negatively ask for some pre-requisite...
We must use some cd or vinyl whe know very much by heart already
We must choose a recording with these characteristic: natural acoustic of the instrument sound, and human voices first with piano or orchestra or few acoustic instrument... No pop, no rock, Why?
Because changes being detected they will ask to be judged by reference points... No commercial music sound natural, all is modified, and it is the TIMBRE natural experience which will be our signpost ALL ALONG the journey....
Distortions and sibilance are always detected easily if we use a known reference point: acoustic natural timbre in non amplified, or non electrical instruments and especially voices...
SECOND
Nothing can be clearly perceived and understood without a CONCEPT to seize it consciously and describe it... Then we must read about acoustic ...And If there is 3 working embeddings dimensions to modify and make cleaner with controls settings and devices : mechanical , electrical, and acoustical...
The most important one is acoustical...
Acoustic of a room is so powerful even experience audiophiles here underestimated it....
The room is not easy to control and as it has been said many times, it’s the biggest part of the system.
He is right absolutely....
For acoustic controls there is no easy road.... It takes time... this is the bad news... The good news is it is possible to ststematically afress it in a dedicated room without investing money only by hearing experiments with only homemade devices but it will not be esthetical...
The living room will ask for more money and even more difficulties because of the limitations you can impose in a living room...
The most useful piece in a system is not any piece of gear it is a dedicated room....
If someone is not being limited by money and he is so proud of his gear that his pleasure is boasting about it, his experience cannot help us...My system value is 500 dollars and i have hear better system than mine, it is easy to look for them on youtube....But if they are better in the absolute concretely it is an another story which can be telled only by acoustic means... In ratio S.Q. /price my system is one if not the best i ever listen to....
The goal is reaching audiophile experience for ordinary mortal with very limited money...
Then a dedicated room is the greatest gift.... By the way acoustic treatment with passive materials is mandatory but in a small room had his limits.... We must also controls timing of the wavefronts and ACTIVE means of controls could help tremendously: Resonators, ionizers, Schumann generators, BUT especially powerful : a mechanical equalizer based on Helmholtz acoustic resonators principles....An Helmholtz resonator can adress all acoustic problems in his own way: imaging, timbre, soundstage, listener envelopment factor in relation to sound width of the source...
Why?
Because a room is a very tigth pressure zone, like a set of strings on a violin....Each pipes and tubes resonastors introduce a different pressure which will damp AND enhance different frequencies...The set of tubes will be like a silent orchestra on his own, and the location of tubes and each pipes would be important and even the orientation of the variable neck position in the room linked to each pipes and tubes...
With a mechanical equalizer you modify the room for your speakers with your ears to control the fine tuning process...
An electronic equalizer is different and use a mic and is valid measure are for a millimeter precise location not for a human body location in the room...It can be a useful tool but cannot replace acoustic control by only itself.... A mechanical equalizer is PART of the room... It is an active tool modifiable through time... It is not esthetical for sure.... But some are more crafty than me...
This is my mechanical equalizer that teach me this: one could destruct acoustically a room/system or revive it completely with an audible effect very powerful with only a straw of very thin diameter, and short lenght at the right location or not....Then changing an amplifier will never be able to compete with this straw save going from a shitty amplifier to a better one... Nothing less will compare....
Acoustic is the key to audio experience if you had already choosen relatively BASIC good gear...But chosing good gear is the easy part of the journey...
The rest is marketing ignorance voluntary or unvolontary.... This is my experience....
I listened some costly tweak product on youtube marketed by a well known company and it is EVIDENT that there is an audible effect....
Was that the one where he placed a large metal object (effectively) right against the microphone? Well duh! (not to you), of course that is going to make a difference! Or is it the one that had the shelved output that would not correlated to the communicated changes? All this is readily evident when you do correlated analysis of the audio samples. Not everything is as it seems.
clearthink1,211 posts04-21-2021 11:12pmdletch2"One day, a few will clue in to the fact that if all they chase are marketing claims and not real substantiated audible claims, then things will never get better and that they are part of the problem."
What we hear are real substantiated claims
If you don't know what the word substantiated means, I don't think we can progress any further in this discussion. Good day.
Perkri, The best you can do is to get the bass right at the listening position by doing all those things you mention. As many here have noticed other than rebuilding your media room the best way to deal with the bass problem is by adding multiple subwoofers. Room treatments come into play at higher frequencies above 250 Hz.
It is undeniable true that many fine systems are ruined by room acoustics.
Dismissing
science because it doesn't fit nicely into your scheme is your own
mistake to make.
It's odd how the self-proclaimed objectivists here get defensive when someone questions their holy "science." Challenging and questioning, collecting data and analyzing it, are all part of science. Blindly accepted common belief is not "science."
Science does not know everything but it's information
creates a foundation on which to build further knowledge.
That's true, but what it thinks it knows is not infallible.
No 70 year old has a putter that is any good any more.
Dismissing science because it doesn't fit nicely into your scheme is your own mistake to make. Science does not know everything but it's information creates a foundation on which to build further knowledge. In saying , " I don't know," you initiate the first step in the learning process. There is a ton of information about sound perception available that audiophile tend to side step. There is a book that is relatively easy for a lay person to understand, "An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing" by Brian C J Moore. It is a very good place to start.
Silence in a system is a good thing when there is no signal. Turn it up with no signal with everything hooked up and turned on. The nature of the hiss will be a clue as to what is causing it.
Sibilance is a useful one. Nina Simone has a certain way of presenting sssss's. And for whatever reason, when recorded this part of her singing can get quite shrill when played back. I listen for how much clarity there is in those parts.
When listening to mids, I listen for transparency and how "bright" "crisp" they are. Also, they can be placed slightly higher or lower in the register.
When listening to bass, I look for a sharp, tight bass. It can get muddy real easy.
Try running a 60hz tone through the set up. Sit where you sit and listen to the timber of the bass. Then walk around the room. It will at some point become a droning mess, at other points it will almost vanish. There will me a place where it sounds really good. This is where room treatments come in to play. The room is not easy to control and as it has been said many times, it's the biggest part of the system.
Try moving where you sit, try moving the speakers so you get the bass to sound the way it did when you walked around the room.
A lifestyle system, where you are filling the room with sound, is a different kind of challenge.
My whole thing is "just try it". If it doesn't make a difference, then you are good!
And because one person doesn't hear any difference, doesn't mean another who says they do are a victim of marketing.
Quick story to illustrate my thoughts on hearing vs listening.
I've been working on a speaker for a bit. A project I've been mulling about for a few months. Experimenting with a coax driver and a capacitor less crossover. Was trying to decide between two values of the resistor (8.2 ohm and 10 ohm). The high end was different. One went higher, but was missing the bit just below, the other didn't go as high but held the info up to that point. There was a distinct difference to my ears.
I wanted an "unbiased" and "uninterested" opinion. I asked my 8yr old son to listen. Now, he has fresh ears and can hear a fly fart next door... He heard the clarity of the speakers, and commented on that. I asked him if he could describe what the differences were and if there was one he liked better as I A/B'd the speakers for him (Mono - L/R channels). He couldn't. I asked if he could hear a difference. He couldn't.
Hearing is biology. Much like sense of taste is biology. Listening is a skill, something learned or taught. Like taste, being able to isolate nuances is very much a skill.
Prior to Covid hitting, a friend was going through cancer treatment/surgery. He was unable to work for the better part of two years prior to Covid arriving. He was scheduled to have his final surgery but that was canceled due to the pandemic. He is a chef, and when Covid arrived, he got pretty down. I started fixing his stereo so he could listen to his vinyl collection. The transformation in his ability to listen for nuanced changes in a speaker build/tuning is astonishing. (I've built a lot of speakers for him). He is 64 and we often joke about the biological limits our age has put on our hearing. He is listening with far greater acuity than ever before.
I feel like this is a journey, and not a destination.
Some of you sound like a bunch of old men railing against the dying of the light. Demographically we're old and physically our hearing has declined. Can experience overcome these facts? Somewhat, but overtime we all decline. It's inevitable. Has someone invented a viagra for the ears?
I didn't say that I lied about what something did in order to achieve this. I didn't present anything in a way that said something did something it actually didn't - I worked to convince people to get something they didn't need.
Big difference...
Take a minute, and think about what you are reading in stead of simply reacting to it
hilde45/perkri - "perkri, I really enjoyed reading your list of tweaks and the rationales for each of them! I'm still learning, so can you tell me how you listen to each tweak to determine what difference it's made and whether that tweak is working or not? Serious question because the only thing that will keep me from going down a rabbit hole is a process by which I can know (a) whether a tweak has done something and (b) the degree and character of it. Thank you."
hilde45, may I ask if you were referring to specific passages of specific tracks that perkri listens to in order to gauge difference or improvement with each change or tweak he makes? I ask because I have a similar request of perkri, if so : )
If your argument was ‘old people claim to still hear the highest frequencies’ you may have a point. But if you claim that a 70 year old audiophile with 40 or 50 years of experience in this hobby can’t make a judgement on cables anymore I have to disagree. A 65 year old golfer will know exactly if his new putter is any good because of his experience in using putters for over 40 or 50 years.
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