I recent years I have developed a hearing "defect" becoming very sensitive to sibilance. I changed a beautiful pair of speakers because they were too bright yet most others I have tried sound too dull. Each person will hear sound differently to you, possibly very differently. I have thus listened to speakers people tell me are great, but they sound awful to me. In the end I found a brand ( I have two pairs in separate systems) that do not sound sibilant, to me they are great speakers, reviews vary but generally are good to very good for them, Audio Physic (Yara Classic 2, and Sitara 25). I visit a number of hifi stores who frequently tell me x will sound better, they never do, to me, they have too much sibilance. Your ears are your ears no-one can tell you what you will hear or what you will prefer.
Whether to do anything about the limitations of our ears
In the thread 'How do you listen?' appears the following:
"We do not hear all frequencies equally well at all volume levels. Low bass and high treble in particular need to be at a fairly high level to be heard at all."
This asks a big question:
Should we listen as our ears hear, with their inability to apprehend all audio band frequencies at the same intensity? As we are of course compelled to do when listening to live music.
Or when listening to recorded music should we adjust the intensity of particular frequencies we don't hear so well? This will of course give a different presentation from what we hear live.
Or, to put it a different way, should audio manufacturers design equipment to present the frequency range as flat as a microphone perceives it, or as our ears perceive it?
But a microphone is just another flawed ear, with its own imperfections as regards intensity across the audio frequency range (and others of course).
Or, again: a flat response can be flat only as the means of listening presents it.
"We do not hear all frequencies equally well at all volume levels. Low bass and high treble in particular need to be at a fairly high level to be heard at all."
This asks a big question:
Should we listen as our ears hear, with their inability to apprehend all audio band frequencies at the same intensity? As we are of course compelled to do when listening to live music.
Or when listening to recorded music should we adjust the intensity of particular frequencies we don't hear so well? This will of course give a different presentation from what we hear live.
Or, to put it a different way, should audio manufacturers design equipment to present the frequency range as flat as a microphone perceives it, or as our ears perceive it?
But a microphone is just another flawed ear, with its own imperfections as regards intensity across the audio frequency range (and others of course).
Or, again: a flat response can be flat only as the means of listening presents it.