True or False?

Our hearing from the factory is not as highly developed as it can be. The more we use it critically, the sharper it becomes. Just like all of our senses.

I think it improves with paying attention to it’s use, just like visual acuity. I conjecture that as our systems improve, so does our ability to discern differences in sound.
For the individual that creates a paradigm where, instead of relying on our ability to make tweaks to our technology, we pay an expert to do it for us.

I’m not sure I have any idea of where the point of diminishing returns and zero returns are, because I can’t say what the limits of any particular persons hearing is. 
I’m much more open to others opinion on what they can and cannot tell by critical listening than I used to be once I started to research the science of hearing, and could relate it to something I know a fair bit about; visual acuity, something that I got caught up in as an artist. It’s fairly maddening to be able to see things that others don’t, and some people are born with it, others have to develop it.

I find that the more I listen to the system and not the music, the more critical I become of my system and obsessed with improving it, which results in refining my sensitivity to the changes in it. It doesn’t seem to end, but it is real.

Power cords...  Put fancy power cords on a LPS that feeds a DAC and on one on another LPS that feeds a fancy streamer.  LPS's got super hot.  Sound was straight crap, and I just knew I'd be sending the DAC and the streamer back. 

Then for sh!ts and giggles I replaced the fancy power cords with the wimpy power cords that came with the LPS's and the LPS's cooled down and the crap sound turned to pure bliss.

There is an excellent article on this question written by Geoffrey Morrison in Wire Cutter. It’s called: "The Best Speaker Cable". Google it. It’s written from a scientific perspective (i.e. data; measurements; double-blind auditions; etc.). This article features a bunch of additional links to other articles regarding interconnect cables and testing procedures involved. I found it extremely interesting, authoritative and informative. It also corroborates my own experiences in this regard. For speaker (and other audio) cables, it comes down to this: as long as you’re comparing cables or wires, reasonably well manufactured of quality materials, under controlled critical listening trials, length and guage are what matter most. For example: given a 6’ pair of reasonably good speaker cables, will most people be able to hear the difference(s) between 16 AWG and 12 AWG cables or wires in casual listening? Most probably won’t. Will they be able to hear the difference(s) in critical listening? Some will; some won’t. Will bona fide audiophiles be able to hear the difference(s)? Quite likely. Will that difference(s) be profound? No, unless you want to ascribe a subjective definition to the word "profound". Will a $150.00 pair of good 12 AWG cables sound different than a pair of $10,000.00 12 AWG cables to the average listener in critical listening trials? Very likely not. Will the same cables sound different to bona fide audiophiles in critical listening trials? Some may hear a difference(s); some won’t. Will those audiophiles who think they can hear a difference(s) perceive that difference(s) as better or just different. Well, "better" is in the ear of the beholder but, basically, it’s really just a difference(s); not demonstrably better, per se. At this point, any perceived differences are subtle and minute in the extreme and no one will be able to convince an audiophile who has spent $10,000.00 on speaker or other cables that s/he could have spent a tenth of that or less to achieve, effectively, the same results!

Ahhh, the Scientismists are at it again. Science has all the answers according to this "religion" Yet when they are backed in a corner they will say "science doesn’t have all the answers. Yet when someone tells of an experience they disagree with, they ridicule it, calling on science which they already have said doesn’t have all the answers So which is it? Either you rely on science exclusively, or not. This is the conundrum each one of the scientismists put forth because they always seem to mock experience they disagree with . No ones experience is good enough unless it agrees with the Scientismists POV.

But the very word, to "Know" is based on experience. which I and many others have. AAMOF, Science itself is based on experience. But the Scientismists tell us that the very thing that makes science (experience) is totally dismissed when one of us claims our experience all because we don’t have a machine to measure something to tell us what we like or don’t like. Funny thing is that they can tell us about what they have read but I see little or no statements of their experience. Is it because they have no direct experience?

There is much more to add but with dogmatic religious people whether it be Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Scientism, it becomes a futile effort because of Dunning Kruger syndrome which dominates most dogma.

Obviously a more resolving system will resolve more including anything resulting from some change in the system. No mystery there.

At that point, the "benefits" of tweaking further (other than to adapt to room acoustics) are mostly subjective and determined by personal preference. Once a system is highly resolving (and dynamic), the rest is basically room acoustics and seasoning to personal taste because you have achieved low distortion and noise, the things that muck with an accurate reproduction.

Again though, if you do not first address the fundamentals of putting together a system that is both resolving and dynamic, no noise and minimal distortion, you will be seasoning ie tweaking forever because tweaks cannot produce what is not there to start with.


Or you just may like to tweak out of curiosity. More power to you! It’s only when people talk solely about tweaking and mostly ignore or discredit the fundamentals of assembling a system that works well to-start that a red flag will go up for me.

Sometimes people may tweak to try to get all or most recordings to sound some way that they expect or want them to all sound as opposed to how they actually do sound. Big mistake!!!! You will be spinning your wheels forever trying to make everything sound like some ideal. It’s delusional to think that can really happen. Every recording is different. If you can hear the differences clearly you are in a very good place!