Do you trust your ears?

[Phelonious Ponk]

Knowing what you like sounds "subjective". My position is "No" is a cop out. In this hobby you must listen....whether you listen well and have learned or not, or you don't trust your judgement is nothing to be ashamed of. There are many tin ears in this world.

My position is that "no," in this context, is a recognition of the very real impact bias can have on perception. If you're not talking about subjective judgement, what are you trusting your ears to do? To identify distortions? To hear variations in linearity, dynamic range, imaging generated by electronics or wire? To differentiate between very small differences in two pieces of equipment?

Have you tested and verified that trust? Or are you simply sure you hear which one is "best," when the choices are right before your eyes?

Tim

 

[amirm]

Knowing what you like sounds "subjective". My position is "No" is a cop out. In this hobby you must listen....whether you listen well and have learned or not, or you don't trust your judgement is nothing to be ashamed of. There are many tin ears in this world.

Voting no doesn't mean one doesn't listen, or is not a careful listener. I was trained to be an expert listener. I can beat many people in my detection ability of certain distortions. I listen and listen extensively. But as I noted, I also test my ability often to know how truthful my perception is in these listening tests. It is that data that tells me that as differences get smaller, my hit ratio drops and bias plays a far bigger role than any differences (should they even exist). I suspect people have not had these humbling experiences as to be so sure of not having tin ears .

 

[jkeny]

Trust implies a statistical basis - how often has my hearing let me down? It's not about is my hearing 100% accurate all the time! I answered yes because I rely more on long term listening to evaluate a device - A/B listening can only be used in certain limited ways & really doesn't give a good indicator for what I want to do - live with the sound of a device long term.

One of the issues pointed out in the replies here is that how can we tell that our hearing has let us down? What is the "truth". Some resort to limited set of measurements for this "truth" & others reject this stance. This seems to be at the heart of it - some have a desire for "certainty" others can happily live with uncertainty. Seeing as there is no such thing as certainty in anything in life, I have long ago learned to be happy with uncertainty & enjoy it. There was a line in "Parenthood" where the old dotting granny describes her exhilaration on a rollercoaster with it's ups & downs but some people prefer the merry-go-round http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1h_hmdVJAc

A supplementary question of interest might be "how many people have been misled by an A/B listening tests" In other words chosen the device that they couldn't live with over the long term?

Edit: There really shouldn't be any problem for these two groups to co-exist. Problem arises when the merry-go-round group believe they have the "truth" & try to convince the people off the roller-coaster

 

[microstrip]

Voting no doesn't mean one doesn't listen, or is not a careful listener. I was trained to be an expert listener. I can beat many people in my detection ability of certain distortions. I listen and listen extensively. But as I noted, I also test my ability often to know how truthful my perception is in these listening tests. It is that data that tells me that as differences get smaller, my hit ratio drops and bias plays a far bigger role than any differences (should they even exist). I suspect people have not had these humbling experiences as to be so sure of not having tin ears .

Amir,

A trained listener will develop some abilities to detect some type of differences, such as those you refer "as certain distortions". He will get more consistent data, will be an excellent tool for some type of development work, but I am not sure that a trained listener will be able to diagnose some special aspects that I and others valuate a lot in our listening.

Just for curiosity - do you feel that if you check your listening abilities using a tube amplifier known to have good sound performance, such as Steve Lamm ML3 or my Audio Research REF150 you will get the same results as any good measuring solid state amplifier?

 

[jkeny]

My supplementary question "how many people have been misled by an A/B listening tests" In other words chosen the device that they couldn't live with over the long term?
Relates to a concept that this thread actually touches on - is there concious hearing & sub-concious hearing?. As JackD said earlier in the thread - if he hears a stick snap above his head he has jumped for cover - this is an autonomic response - the signal has been processed before he has consciously registered it. A/B listening tests ( & listening tests in general) force us to focus on the consciously registered differences between systems, not on the more difficult to analyse subconscious differences we might feel when listening to systems. this, I believe, is why long-term listening is more appropriate.

 

[RogerD]

Do you trust your ears? Yes,who would not be more confident when any particular measurement reinforced what you hear. After a point though the measurements will fail to quantify what you hear. Your ear will always be the final arbiter. Remember reproduced sound is an illusion and parts of that illusion cannot be measured.

 

[amirm]

Amir,

A trained listener will develop some abilities to detect some type of differences, such as those you refer "as certain distortions". He will get more consistent data, will be an excellent tool for some type of development work, but I am not sure that a trained listener will be able to diagnose some special aspects that I and others valuate a lot in our listening.

That is only part of it. A trained listener also learns to really listen for artifacts. He can look past how "pretty" the sound is and use his ear as an instrument. And he has verification of the same thought countless amount of tests he participates in. My area of specialty was hearing compression artifacts. I assume we all agree that compression artifacts are of far bigger level of degradation than any of the differences between amps, cables, etc. Yet, in testing literally hundreds of audiophiles, with very rare exceptions, none could remotely come close to my ability and that of our other trained listeners. What was obvious to me was not even audible to them. Again, this was careful testing where the "truth" was known. So one could get objective data as to whether someone did or did not hear these non-linear distortions.

If you can articulate how you are good at what you are valuing, then I am all ears as to what those things are and how you determined you are good at it relative to others, let alone trained listeners.

That said, you are right that my experience does not expand to all distortions. I was at JJ's house and he was demo'ing the speakers he had designed. He could clearly here artifacts due to the mid-range driver that I could not. He had developed that ability through playing with many drivers and hence knew the specific impact. So I am not saying I have superhuman abilities above others. But simply addressing the point that if one votes 'NO" by definition he doesn't listen and has tinny ears .

Just for curiosity - do you feel that if you check your listening abilities using a tube amplifier known to have good sound performance, such as Steve Lamm ML3 or my Audio Research REF150 you will get the same results as any good measuring solid state amplifier?

Probably best to not derail this thread into tube vs transistor debate . I thought we were just discussing our ears, not equipment.

 

[Robh3606]

Listening is a learning process...except for maybe the rare golden ear. Interesting that 7 have answered "no". Now "no" is not most of the time,is it lack of experience or you don't trust your judgement. How do you honestly pursue this hobby in a meaningful way and answer "NO"?

Hello Roger D

I answered no. I have been pursuing this hobby for over 40 years. I also build speakers. Without my measurement rig it would be an almost impossible task.

It's really easy to just be a listener in this hobby and say trust your ears.

Things jump up to a new level when you roll up your sleeves and put your hearing and your knowledge to the test and actually try to build something that sounds good to you, your friends and measures well to boot.

It's challenging and it's humbling.

My experience building speakers has changed how I look at things. It has taught me how easily my ears can be fooled. I completely agree that listening is a learned process and I am much better now than I was before I started building speakers.

If you think saying no is a cop-out what can I say. Different points of perspective and experience.

Rob

 

[jkeny]

............Probably best to not derail this thread into tube vs transistor debate . I thought we were just discussing our ears, not equipment.

I think Micro's question is a good one & should not be interpreted as a thread derail - it's not about tube Vs SS - it's about evaluating the sensitivity of the A/B listening test. We have dealt with this in the DBT thread also - a test needs to have a control that qualifies it can test what it purports to be able to test & doesn't change the tester in some way that he no longer can differentiate between DUTS.

Can you say more about your humbling experience? After you realised the "truth" through A/B testing that the difference between DUTs that were previously obvious, now disappeared - when you went back to sighted listening was the difference now gone & remained so?

 

[RogerD]

Hello Roger D

I answered no. I have been pursuing this hobby for over 40 years. I also build speakers. Without my measurement rig it would be an almost impossible task.

It's really easy to just be a listener in this hobby and say trust your ears.

Things jump up to a new level when you roll up your sleeves and put your hearing and your knowledge to the test and actually try to build something that sounds good to you, your friends and measures well to boot.

It's not that easy, it's challenging and it's humbling.

My experience building speakers has changed how I look at things. It has taught me how easily my ears can be fooled. I completely agree that listening is a learned process and I am much better now than I was before I started building speakers.

If you think saying no is a cop-out what can I say. Different points of perspective and experience.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Now designing and building equipment is a whole different ball game. Any designer who does not use measurements is totally relying on the "art" part of this equation. I would never disagree with what you are saying....all I am saying is the ear is the final arbiter. There are many parts to the "WBF" level of reproduction of music. A big part of that level of reproduction is achieving a level of virtual reality,there are parts to that level as of yet,I don't think can be measured. That's why the unexplained is described as a "synergy".

 

[NorthStar]

Wow, this is very interesting; I don't know if Amir's posts have an overall influence on the voting process, but now the 'Yes' side has diminished (73%, from 80%),
and the 'No' side has augmented (22%)!

This is a fascinating discussion.

 

[Groucho]

Wow, this is very interesting; I don't know if Amir's posts have an overall influence on the voting process, but now the 'Yes' side has diminished (73%, from 80%),

Yes, these polls are very subjective.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, these polls are very subjective.

Lol, I think you're right. ...Nothing objective about it, or is it?

 

[microstrip]

(...) My area of specialty was hearing compression artifacts. I assume we all agree that compression artifacts are of far bigger level of degradation than any of the differences between amps, cables, etc. Yet, in testing literally hundreds of audiophiles, with very rare exceptions, none could remotely come close to my ability and that of our other trained listeners. What was obvious to me was not even audible to them. Again, this was careful testing where the "truth" was known. So one could get objective data as to whether someone did or did not hear these non-linear distortions.

(...)

Probably best to not derail this thread into tube vs transistor debate . I thought we were just discussing our ears, not equipment.

Can you tell me if any current electronic audio component used in our systems suffers from compression?
BTW, my interest was not tube versus transistor debate, but to know if using two very different types of amplifiers would affect your trained listening capabilities.

 

[JackD201]

When this poll ends I bet there will be almost as many interpretations of the results as there are respondents. Maybe more! LOL.

 

[MylesBAstor]

When this poll ends I bet there will be almost as many interpretations of the results as there are respondents. Maybe more! LOL.

What's a matter? Don't trust the results!?!?

 

[JackD201]

The numbers don't lie, it's what we'll make of them that I'm worried about!

 

[theguesswho]

Yes I trust my ears exclusively. I would never let a machine tell me what I would like to hear. I have never seen specs correlate out to what I hear. I have heard 10 watt amps sound as loud as 100 watt amps. Speakers without subs go lower than speakers with subs. Accuracy and purity of essence in electronics that measure "bad".
Ya gotta please da ear!


Wendell

 

[cpp]

I do trust my ears but how much does your eyes play into that.. Does visual cloud your judgement in what you hear ???

 

[MylesBAstor]

I do trust my ears but how much does your eyes play into that.. Does visual cloud your judgement in what you hear ???

Of course there's integration, not isolaion, of every sense. See how long you can stand on one leg, then close your eyes and repeat the experiment. Then switch legs.

Nothing in our body, muscle, organ, gland, etc. acts alone. We live in a dynamic world constantly experiencing stressors.