Something Millercarbon has preached Be A Better Listener. Do not get mired in data.

Chickens aside, learning how to listen, learning the vocabulary of sound is critical in the enjoyment of high end audio.

 

Amen. Learning to listen may include learning to describe sound; in this regard, it might be like odor. FWIW:

"Numerous studies with English speakers support this view: there are few terms for odors, odor talk is infrequent, and naming odors is difficult. However, this is not true across the world. Many languages have sizeable smell lexicons — smell is even grammaticalized. In addition, for some cultures smell talk is more frequent and odor naming easier. This linguistic variation is as yet unexplained but could be the result of ecological, cultural, or genetic factors or a combination thereof. Different ways of talking about smells may shape aspects of olfactory cognition too."

SOURCE: https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(20)30277-1

Still trying to figure out if this site is hate or audio.  I can see why postings are low. When I do post I appreciate the help.  

That article would have been much more helpful if he actually provided a set of tips on what to listen for. Yes, he provided some information on how bass notes are produced and knowing the different parts of a bass note might help determine if your system is capable of distinguishing those parts and would therefore be called a "good system", but other than that info the article was extremely light on what to actually listen for. 

He also said determining "the same pair of colored glasses" of our hearing is of no value at all, but viewing the world through rose colored glasses means being optimistic and I've read multiple times that there is far less damage to our hearing done by listening to loud music if we actually like the music we are hearing. Something about the stress associated with not liking what we are hearing combined with the volume that actually causes hearing loss. So crank it up if you like it.

New here, but reading some of the forums it seems that so many of these “ discussions “ seem to devolve into a circle jerk of hypertrophic prostatic  dribbling contests.

@hhscott yes they do and remember everything sits on a Ritz.