Its a very complex equation to hear subtleties in a strange room with different gear and so on.
Some of us are wired to do this as a profession.
Eg, Taras, the other half of Teo Audio, his job has been to do exactly that thing. To be one of the best at it, the one called in when all the other pros fail. He’s the only one who give guarantees in the contract. all the others are so nervous about their skill set that almost no acoustics firm at the high end pro level will give guarantees and refunds on paper. They simply walk out the door and refuse the contract. Taras is, IMO, the ultimate acoustics ’cooler’. Hire him if you want the best. He’s not getting any younger and the skill set is not transferable. Peak skill is like that.
Anyway, his job is to analyze the acoustics of any space and convert it to the perfect soundstage for human speech intelligibility, for the myopic and idiotic microphone. Which just happens to be perfect for high end audio acoustics and systems.
To explain the whole envelope or complexity of issues at hand with where one heard a difference in the Axpona room - or not, we enter not just into the science of the complexities.... but we also enter the area of strong potentials in personal butthurt... regarding ego and clan position. Emotions, on the personal level and how this colors thought. And more. Extra ugly bonus points: Music is about emotions so we process down in the animal levels on this one, the coloring and filtering area of the mind, the animal baggage, the fundamental filtering (of all in/out) areas.
It becomes a ’why am I not smart?’ kind of issue. It goes deep into human psychology with all of the complex mess in earlier posts as part of the equation. Hearing is not perfectly equatable to general intelligence, as variants exist like a smart person being physically weak or vice-versa.
eg, to go into the room at Axpona and hear nothing is not all that surprising.
To go into the room and train one’s ears over a few days, then one hears it. One might hear it minimally, vestigially, or even grossly or intensely.
Then... as one spends months at it, like working out at the gym, one end up with what is perceived as a ’great difference’.
Or one might not have the physiology/psychology to get ’bulked up’ in one’s hearing ...or has a different cognitive direction, or hearing design and physical package.
Then... at that point ...one might deign to decide if that difference, in level of intensity or type/nature... is important to a person.
Me? I’ve done this so long and in so may directions and ways, that when I’m peaked out, like an athlete at perfect prime, who is fully prepped to take on the most strenuous task possible (which ain’t all the time!).... I can generally tell what kind of speaker is in the given room at the show (crossover type, box type, ported, sealed, panel, single full range, etc), what kind of amplifier/system, tube or solid state, feedback or not, what kind of acoustics are in the room, etc. All that from outside the room, near the doorway.
Like learning to see waldo quickly in the given image, it’s a skill. The kind that people can learn. We can each complete tasks to various levels and so on. Learning. Retention. Capacity.
Individualism. Humanity’s curse and most potent savior/future.
