Thanks, guys, and much appreciated.
It really is a skill. Said it before, bears repeating. Again and again.
Its a skill, and a hard one to learn at that. A lot of the usual assumptions simply do not apply. Like, listen to musical instruments. I grew up learning to play. Mostly french horn, but also trumpet, sax, harmonica, piano. Makes you real good at discerning pitch and tone. Which sounds good but in hindsight handicapped me for years. All the years I listened for what I was good at listening for, under the false assumption that was all that mattered.
Problem is, all musical instruments, whatever attack and decay, whatever timbral or harmonic character they have, its all natural and to some extent under the control of the performer. In any case its all natural. Being real good at hearing the difference in the shape of your hand and how far into the bell it goes in the sound of a french horn doesn’t exactly carry over into hearing the difference in liquidity and image depth from faster diodes in a solid state amp.
Its a whole different set of sonic attributes. And it doesn’t do any good to say that just because you can’t hear them, or more to the point aren’t aware that you’re hearing them, that they aren’t important.
One thing I did early on was drag my wife around to act as impartial observer to check my evaluations. Actually a more negative opinion since she wants to spend even less than I want to spend. Which is, for the record, zero. Yet time and again we got the same result- she couldn’t say exactly how, but the better sounding gear always sounded better. She preferred it. By enough to be worth paying more for. Even though she couldn’t say why or how.
This has been demonstrated so many times in the years since its beyond doubt. People can and do hear these things, and people definitely do prefer better- even though many times they cannot express their feelings well enough to say exactly why. That part took me years. Truth be told, still working on it.
It really is a skill. Said it before, bears repeating. Again and again.
Its a skill, and a hard one to learn at that. A lot of the usual assumptions simply do not apply. Like, listen to musical instruments. I grew up learning to play. Mostly french horn, but also trumpet, sax, harmonica, piano. Makes you real good at discerning pitch and tone. Which sounds good but in hindsight handicapped me for years. All the years I listened for what I was good at listening for, under the false assumption that was all that mattered.
Problem is, all musical instruments, whatever attack and decay, whatever timbral or harmonic character they have, its all natural and to some extent under the control of the performer. In any case its all natural. Being real good at hearing the difference in the shape of your hand and how far into the bell it goes in the sound of a french horn doesn’t exactly carry over into hearing the difference in liquidity and image depth from faster diodes in a solid state amp.
Its a whole different set of sonic attributes. And it doesn’t do any good to say that just because you can’t hear them, or more to the point aren’t aware that you’re hearing them, that they aren’t important.
One thing I did early on was drag my wife around to act as impartial observer to check my evaluations. Actually a more negative opinion since she wants to spend even less than I want to spend. Which is, for the record, zero. Yet time and again we got the same result- she couldn’t say exactly how, but the better sounding gear always sounded better. She preferred it. By enough to be worth paying more for. Even though she couldn’t say why or how.
This has been demonstrated so many times in the years since its beyond doubt. People can and do hear these things, and people definitely do prefer better- even though many times they cannot express their feelings well enough to say exactly why. That part took me years. Truth be told, still working on it.