Benchmarking Headphones

As a self-deprecating former total egg-head now in a “12 Step Program” to escape egg-headedness…I’d still call myself dangerously close to being an egg-head, but I use the term harmlessly. In essence, some people tend to obsess over perfect explanations when no perfect explanation is possible or will ever be possible. Most of the world simply calls them “professors” or “intellectuals.” :expressionless: :crazy_face:

Ohhhhh, fighting words in the egg-head land! Get your armor and your weapons ASAP! The pure reductionists think this possible, but there are arguments as to why it’s not (e.g., emergent properties that require a certain level of complexity to exist at all. Consider the societal changes following the introduction of: 1. the printing press, 2. radio, 3. movies (and talkies), 4. television, 5. the Internet, and 6. smart phones with 24/7 social media. Each era was characterized by quantum shifts and indescribable in the language of the prior era. Those born today see only the end product, without ever learning how to be alone, ever learning how to read a map, ever needing to choose how to spend that $15 dollars on a potentially garbage CD instead of having access to unlimited music. To ‘reduce’ social media natives is to destroy what defines them. — written in typical egg-head fashion where the footnote is longer than the statement).

This is the “McDonald’s is just fine” phenomenon in a new domain. Those on a budget and without experience cannot care, and literally cannot hear until their perceptual systems are trained to hear. See my philosophy links above. Biological differences play a substantial role – I myself reached a “good enough” plateau with my HD-600s that lasted for years. So many subjective/objective discussions don’t consider that people can and do change and grow with experience. Your views follow from your personal history, as impressed on either a good or bad version of human anatomy and physiology (aka cognitive psychology and the philosophy of mind).

So much egg-head residue in my head…and it’s Friday beer time!

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