Found this video the other day. Thought this subject is worth discussing. Audiophiles can easily fall into the this trap.
When did we stop trusting our ears?
This topic easily blends into the EQ discussion.
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Most of the time… measurements, reviews, forum discussions are there to try and help people get a sense of a thing before hearing it, and in large part because people don’t have access to the equipment. So I’m not sure how useful “trust your ears” is to people with no opportunity to do so.
I don’t have much of an opinion on the rest of this video since it’s fairly typical messaging you see from certain areas of the hobby, but I have to disagree with the “long term listening is better than the 5 minute A/B” bit. There’s an element of truth to that, simply because you’ll be able to hear how it handles more of your music. But if you have a very well-understood set of reference tracks that you’re extremely familiar with and know exactly how they’re meant to sound, the shorter term test is probably more useful, because your brain doesn’t have time to normalize to the sound.
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Agreed, long term listening is the winner here. Blind testing engages your fear of failure emotion and forces a choice that can be ridiculed. After hours or days, a change will either be noticeable or not and have differing results that make parts of one being a preference and the other having another preference. In speakers, that can be dynamic range versus flat frequency response versus imaging and soundstaging.
Measurements are necessary for design and for evaluation of the final product. I like frequency graphs of various types and they do affect my choices, but certainly are not the final arbiter. Altogether, not worth getting over emotional about it. I have bought the wrong speakers, but i got over it…eventually. Case in point: I bought Sequerra Metronome 7s when I should have gotten the Fried Model Qs. The Sequerras were not well constructed and had little if any vertical imaging nor bass. The model Qs were wide open in soundstaging and imaging, plus rolled off slowly which let them reach into the basement stairs, if not all the way to the bottom. That was more than 25 years ago, and I am still ok.
Headphones have proven to be more satisfying because I was more cautious and trusted my ears…a lot.
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Some interesting points made. Whilst I understand the reference set of tracks argument, it’s led me astray too many times to mention. Long term listening has worked better when evaluating what to keep and what to not invest $$$ for equipment.
Measurements are good as far as informing the prospective user what to expect on a macro level. Since almost everything made over the last several years has reasonable measurement specs, the specs alone is not going to tell the user how it will sound to them in their system.
Too many times, I’ve read reviews of headphones that get great reviews, only to find that are not going to work out. Bought and sold a LOT of headphones before arriving at a stable of cans that I’m happy with. If anything, I’ve gotten more suspect of reviews when it comes to headphones, There are several brands that are highly regarded in various circles that I tried and sold because it did not sound right in-situ. Here’s the thing: Everyone’s in-situ is different.
I found myself chuckling at some of the stories the video’s presenter brought up. Many of us have been there. So, I don’t see anything wrong with the base concept of “Trust your ears”, espcially if some reviewer disagrees with what you know you like.
30 second in and I can say, just love it! Your gear your immersion your music. There is a constant drive to out do something. And while I believe that your brain get’s used to a sound….. My Atrium kind of breaks that philosophy. I can’t put anything else on. (edit’s coming as I watch more)
That audiophile shame: One of my ear drums is malformed, it’s because I was born premature. But I don’t notice a difference from left to right (if anything I heard a “hole” when I tried IEM’s the first time). When I recently had an ear infection, I used my mom’s “ear camera” to look at what was going on and I said outloud “oh this side isn’t anything like the other”. I have a thin strip of skin over one of my ear drums. But guess what…. I still have an audio experience. And it’s one that I love. I hear differences between headphones DAC’s and Amp’s. I can recognize that the Apple dongle dac from apple.com is superior to the one from the amazon apple store. I can acknowledge that the Atrium sounds substantially better than my Elex and down headphone collection. I love tubes, I just love this hobby. I listen to music differently, when there are vocals to music I don’t process lyric’s…. I get the chorus and the jist of the lyric’s (love mos def and talib kweli), but guess what. I’m flawed. I’ve found myself hunched over a loud speaker in an underground rave. My hearing probably isn’t top notch….. but I love this hobby.
I think that we try far to hard to make this a science, and the human aspect is anything but. You have the band quality, mastering quality, file quality, DAC quality, Amp quality, headphone quality and the shape of the head and ears. But everything going on between the ears…. IE ear drums and squishy bit’s IE brain and there is no black and white. Then you’ve got placebo effect and expectations…… this is just a gray hobby. I truly appreciate what @Resolve and everyone else is doing, truly. I know that the science they present is going to further the hobby. I just hope that they don’t lose sight of the fact that this is a multi MULTI faceted hobby and the science can’t ignore what you love and don’t love. Please make sure that this isn’t weaponized against your everyday listener, or even against the reviewers putting in the leg work. To everyone who think’s EQ is all, is just a bunch of whooy, I agree somewhat. But I also believe that it’s a tool to explain a portion of this hobby. Just don’t lose the magic of the passion along the way.
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