Should reviewers post their hearing test results?


great thread by joshcloud 9 the other day, about hearing...
turns out i can't hear below 40 Hz, or above 16 kHz. not that i believe the results of a web-based audiogram are accurate, but merely suggestive.
it got me wondering though, these reviewers with "golden ears", what limitations do they have? i mean, we all lose some hearing with age, and noise exposure. so it'd be interesting to know, at least on a one-time basis or web site, just how sensitive these ears are that people trust.
i understand that the only ears that count eventually, are our own.
but imagine an art critic who is color-blind. it wouldn't mean he/she couldn't be a critic, just that those reviews would be, ahem, colored, by knowing whose eyes are examining the work.
otowick
No. More important that they publish their qualifications, education, training and experience.

Also important that they describe their listening rooms (which few do). A lot of these guys have no idea what they're talking about. What's more appalling is that many of them have no idea or do not wish to discuss the effect of their listening rooms on the sounds they do hear.

Hearing test results are misleading anyway because the high frequency loss that many (eventually all) of us have really isn't relevant, so many people might erroneously discount the opinion of a reviewer who tells them he can't hear above 13khz.
Paul, I agree that the HF rolloff could become the red herring...like tweeter extension, maybe.
But seeing the undulations between 100 and 10k, for example, could give readers an idea of whether a reviewer has a midrange dip, a low-treble "hardness" sensitivity, etc. I also wonder if soundstage height sensitivity is correlated with pinna size, too?!
Well, Ernie, I am not an md or audiologist, but I wasnt aware there was much variance in hearing acuity between 100 hz and 10 khz. If people have varying degrees of sensitivity to parts of the frequency range that just about everybody hears, that would be very interesting, perhaps making everyone else's opinion completely irrelevant.

Regarding soundstage height, stereo just isn't designed to capture that information, so say JG Holt and others (and I beleive them). I have noticed different miking techniques give more or less of a sense of height, but never a difference between two components playing the same recording. What does happen without stringent controls, is that people think they're hearing more height when all they're hearing is more size from simply playing a little bit louder.
You wrote: "Well, Ernie, I am not an md or audiologist, but I wasnt aware there was much variance in hearing acuity between 100 hz and 10 khz."

It depends on what environmental noises they are exposed to. My wife is 15 years younger than I am and has more extended HF sensitivity BUT: She has a huge sensitivity dip between 3-4kHz because, I believe, she has taken the NYC subway to work for >20 years. Although some have advanced the idea that auditory haircells can regenerate, many people suffer suck-outs at specific frequencies if they have been exposed to high levels for a long time or extremely high levels for a short time.
Very interesting, kr4. I knew the hard of hearing had uneven sensitivity, but I hadn't thought about loss of sensitivity in specific ranges due to trauma. Maybe reviewers should have their hearing tested and disclose anything unusual.