Don’t want to freak you out…

@jimmy2615 

This is the point I was hoping to get to here. If I have to do it because of dinky ears plastered to the side of my head, anyone who wants to take the entire "system" into account, or that is just a bit scientifically curious, should try changing the orientation of their pinnas, cup their hands behind the ears etc.

I can say, after a bit of playing around with throw pillows this morning, that if I wasn’t going to remodel our family room so that I can rotate my system, the best solution for me, without spending a fortune on room mods, would be a high wingback listening chair that suppresses rear reflections.

I realized when I got back into sound systems that I never got the maximum out of my older systems because of this, and used an equalizer to bump up the highs.

But the fact behind this little musing is that since no two ears are the same, meaning  that no two listeners are the same, no one is hearing a particular system the same. So all the equipment talk and preferences are based on opinion biased by the listeners body.

Do we all hear about the same? Yep, but we hear differently enough so that we all should realize that, given a "perfect" stereo source, all of us would notice slight differences in the sound of the system. How a system sounds to that group would look like a bell curve of variations in sound, and the middle 60% or so would pretty much agree on certain characteristics.

But for me, I'll now consider that someone may not hear something I do or do not in system sound.

And of course, if you have "normal" ears and enough money that spending a tidy sum on your system and room modifications, this is fairly irrelevant to you, unless your just curious, and want to have the ability to cut others some slack from time to time.

Sorry, but this thread kind of shocks me. Of course, cupping your hands behind your ears will enhance your hearing of sounds directly in front of you; all of these products merely replicate that age-old trick in a hands-free way. Great for eavesdropping on conversations across the room, or for making out dialog on TV if you have old ears and brain and have come to that point where it's difficult to filter the signal from the noise. But for stereo listening? Are you kidding?! I've read many sales pitches for devices that claim to enhance the soundstage which suggest you try cupping your hands behind your ears in order to see what product X (an amplifier, an omnidirectional speaker, a channel crossfeed headphone processing circuit) is intended to cure! Note that the "Earglasses" product advertises as one of its virtues that it "blocks noises that come from your side or your back." You DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS if you want to enjoy the illusion of instrumental placement, soundstage width and depth, "air" around instruments, and even accurately perceived instrumental timbre.

@william53b -

      "You know you haven’t been to a site in a while when, all of a sudden, there are images. When did this happen?"

     The posting of pics is a recent AudiogoN enhancement.

     If you have a pic or gif, online w/a url: enter that link and either should appear, when previewed or posted.

     There’s also a pic choice in the functions bar, above.

     Thus far: I haven’t gotten that to work, on my laptop.   I’m missing something, apparently!

                         Have fun and happy listening!

@rodman99999 

Thank you for the info. 👍

@william53b -

      You’re welcome.