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Second opinions — how have others (including non-audiophiles) helped you?

Have been building a system since December 2020, just about at a place where I can rest for a while. Very enjoyable process of researching, trying, listening. Last phase, room treatments, are just about done.

Along the way, it's been very useful to bring in other family members and some close friends to listen and tell me what they hear. Most are non-audiophiles. But what jumped out to them helped me recalibrate what I was attending to and listen anew.

I was really trying to listen critically — sometimes with checklists of qualities to pay attention to. But myopia is a hard problem to see around, if you will. In some very important moment (including speaker tryouts), they pointed to obvious problems which I was missing.

Here's one recent example. I had been trying to tame some bass peaks and loaded the front of the room up with panels. I got those peaks under control — tight bass, well placed imaging, natural sounding instruments. Then, I had my wife sit down, and in a couple of seconds she noticed that things sounded "constrained" and "missing air." I pulled a couple bass traps out of there and things opened up — "Ah, that's better," she said. As I sat to listen, she was right. Better reverb, more space, lightness.

That's just one example. My question to anyone wanting to share is how other people (including non-audiophiles) helped you improve your system.
128x128hilde45
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
4,974 posts
 
I have a sense that many people are much more experienced than mastering92 gives them credit for. They need some direction as to what to pay attention to and how to describe it. After all, people already use their hearing quite carefully to get around in the world and most love music. They have a lot of practice in careful listening. What they need is some direction from audiophiles about how to describe what we're especially interested in. That's the point of my post -- to ask how people who have been able to address your concerns (with or without your help) have helped you improve your system.

I read an article long ago which pushed back against the idea that people had lost most of their sense of smell. What researchers discovered was that people lacked the language to designate what they were experiencing, and that with some training in olfactory vocabulary, their sense of smell seemed to improve. Of course, their senses were fine -- what improved was their communication about their senses. And as any wine expert can tell you, this can feed back into their ability to discriminate. Hume wrote about this long ago, by the way.
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mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,961 posts
 
I read an article long ago which pushed back against the idea that people had lost most of their sense of smell. What researchers discovered was that people lacked the language to designate what they were experiencing, and that with some training in olfactory vocabulary, their sense of smell seemed to improve. Of course, their senses were fine -- what improved was their communication about their senses. And as any wine expert can tell you, this can feed back into their ability to discriminate. Hume wrote about this long ago, by the way.
Very deep observation indeed...

We cannot perceive adequately a phenomenon for which we have no concept whatsoever...And further we cannot improve our perception of this phenomenon if we cannot even name it...

It is true in audio threads where basic phenomenon are not adequately described because they are not rightfully conceptualized and not rightfully named...
jdoris
972 posts
 
Completely agree, hilde!
I call it the "partner test": if my partner, who enjoys music a lot, but is not a hobbyist, could not hear an upgrade, I'd start to think I was "squinting" to see a difference to justify the expense.  If it's an improvement subtle enough to require "trained ears" to hear it, I'm happy enough to get it, but I don't want to pay much for it.  (Subtle improvements might generally be the only ones available at the outer reaches of the hobby, but most of us aren't there.)

I once immediately moved on from a 3x$ CDP upgrade, when the "improvement" only seemed audible with concerted effort, on some tracks.
As you suggest, I find the same thing with wine: people can actually taste a lot, and appreciate excellent samples, even if they claim to not know anything about wine.  They can't identify the vineyard by taste, but neither can I.
(PS:  Reductio ad absurdem and Hume in one day -- you're elevating the discourse around here!)


mesch
3,466 posts
 
I am not surprised by the the experience with your wife. When treating a room one often over treats and then finds that one has to 'dial' it back. Somewhat like tone control use ( I lack these). Two sets of ears are better then one. I often use my wife's as well. She has better upper register hearing, having much to do with the 'air' within a recording. 

You have done a great job with your system. I am impressed.
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