Are most Audiophiles hard of hearing?
- Thread starter Rexp
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Ron, that is great. Since For Duke was D to D, the tape must come from a back up recording done on tape. I have a tape of the Dave Gruisin Shefflied DtoD which was from a tape backup. Larry
To the extent that the demographic of audiophiles leans heavily on middle age or older males, the answer is still probably not quite "most" audiophiles have hearing loss. But, a lot. Myself included. Concerts, music festivals, motorcycles, and playing music too loudly at home and in the car are the likely contributing factors for my hearing loss.
"Hearing loss affects approximately one-third of adults 61 to 70 years of age and more than 80 percent of those older than 85 years. Men usually experience greater hearing loss and have earlier onset compared with women. The most common type is age-related hearing loss; however, many conditions can interfere with the conduction of sound vibrations to the inner ear and their conversion to electrical impulses for conduction to the brain."
Publication: https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2012/0615/p1150.html
"Hearing loss affects approximately one-third of adults 61 to 70 years of age and more than 80 percent of those older than 85 years. Men usually experience greater hearing loss and have earlier onset compared with women. The most common type is age-related hearing loss; however, many conditions can interfere with the conduction of sound vibrations to the inner ear and their conversion to electrical impulses for conduction to the brain."
Publication: https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2012/0615/p1150.html
My son's piano teacher is completly deaf in one ear, but also has absolute pitch. There are many parameters involved in "hearing". That being said, hearing loss is inevitable for most of us. I have some hearing loss in my left ear. My audiologist was worried and had me get a scan. Everything is fine. I enjoy my system.
I can always hear a difference when somebody post a video and makes an alteration to the system. I can also hear a dramatic difference between somebody playing a horn based system and a dynamic driver system. But I cannot really say what either system actually sounds like. I can only make assumptions based on hearing other systems that were similar topology n the past.
I don't see any validity at all in playing a track of something digitally played or analog played and asking me to tell you which is which. If the video was people sitting in a room listening, I would find it to be interesting. That never seems to happen.
I have seen Mike at Suncoast audio do a video with three people sitting in a room. Thay was nteresting to here their feedback.
I don't see any validity at all in playing a track of something digitally played or analog played and asking me to tell you which is which. If the video was people sitting in a room listening, I would find it to be interesting. That never seems to happen.
I have seen Mike at Suncoast audio do a video with three people sitting in a room. Thay was nteresting to here their feedback.
I have not played the tape. I did some research, and I am murky on the origin of the tape recording of the original performance.
Considering the vinyl is D2D I don't want to guess whether the tape or the LP will sound more convincing.
I listened to both on my phone with Etymotic in-ear monitors. I have a slight preference for sample B, which seems to have a fuller sound. I cannot tell you which is the CD and which is the vinyl rip. Perhaps sample A is the vinyl and suffers from the "ticks and pops" cleaning? Perhaps sample B is the vinyl and offers more dynamics, in spite of the "ticks and pops" cleaning?
Which one do you prefer listening to (on your speakers)? -> P.S. not the files, but the original CD and LP...
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This thread is about why most Audiophiles couldn't spot the (superior sounding in this case but not always) vinyl playback. Is it a hearing deficiency issue or do folks just hear differently or they picked the vinyl sample as digital because they thought that sample sounded better and assumed it must be digital.
However fun it may be to play these little games, I doubt you will come to any conclusion vis à vis our hearing with these types of tests. There are too many variables.
Do we hear differently? To some extent I am sure we do, and this is supported by research (left/right hand dominance, mother tongue, are factors in pitch recognition, for example). Is there any way to correlate these differences with audio technology? Absolutely not. So who cares?
I appreciate what you are trying to do but this is still a digital representation of an analog vinyl playback- an edited/modified analog playback actually, because the record noise has been removed.
Think of it like this. Suppose I take a picture using the film back on a Hasselblad camera. Then I take the same picture with the same camera using a digital back. I develop the film and make a photograph. I also print out the digital version of the picture with an ink jet printer. Next I place both pictures side by side on a wall and I go say, 50 feet away and take a photo of the two pictures using a digital camera with a long telephoto lens. I send out that digital file to see if people can tell which picture is film and which is digital. After some discussion, I decide to use a much more expensive telephoto lens and retake the photo of the two pictures. I send that digital file of the two pictures out to let everyone decide which is the film shot and which is digital. It is still a digital representation of a film photograph. Maybe enough difference exists between the two prints to say which is made from film by looking at the digital file or perhaps too much information is lost or transformed by the second generation output- ie, I am looking at a picture of a picture. I already know that the information transferred is something less than 100%.
My point is the only way to really evaluate film vs digital is to look at the two photos in person. And the only way to evaluate vinyl vs digital is to hear the two sources in person. I don’t see the reasoning of critically listening to a file of a file or a file of a vinyl record playback to make a comparison.
In my mind I am seeing that painting of the painter painting, of the painter painting and so on into infinity.
Ok, what I understood from the responses that it’s unnecessary and it’s best not to share future samples for comparison. I cancel AP vinyl vs SACD and AP vinyl vs XRCD. I will also delete the post.
We’ll continue to compare a video on youtube which is recorded 3 meters from speakers.
My Cd player is not a part of my setup for the last 8 years. As far as I remember I preferred the vinyl versions over Cd for almost all albums I compared including this one. When I compare the samples I shared with headphones I still prefer the one captured from vinyl.
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