Does someone’s opinion affect your opinion?

If all adjustable parameters are good,your own ears do the final sign off.

Every listener at a show/demo room will not agree a SOTA rig sounds amazing.

It looks like your perception is tainted however. Time for another cartridge upgrade.

I spend a lot of time in Company experiencing different Sources, i.e Vinyl, CD and even Streaming of late.

Along with this there are Cables, Phono Amp's, Pre-Amp's, Power Amp's and Speakers put into service to be scrutinised be a Group of experienced audio enthusiasts, that have approx' 200 years of being quite interested in and owning audio systems under their belts as a group.

I can assure that at times the whole of the follow up descriptions can be largely gobbledygook, as there are times when each individual has locked on to a frequency that another had not been effected by, or overlooked the frequency and was more attuned to detailing and dynamics.

These items produced during a replay, that become a sticking point, are in my view related to ones mood at the time of the occasion, as mood brings out variances of sensitivities.     

It seems to me that your friend would be a more valuable friend if they would expose you to a system that is not harsh to their ears. That would at least give you some ability to relate to their comments, or not.

I engage my preamp’s 10k equalizer to compensate for my age related hearing loss. I am guessing that should I forget to disengage the equalizer, my teenage daughters would find some music to be quite harsh.

@mahgister 

It is normal for most to be influenced to some level or degree by others opinion....

Another important thing is learning to trust our ears....

Then we must set some acoustic experiments and train ourself then this improve self confidence a lot...

Exactly, perfectly right!

Guttenberg said something interesting about the audio journey, recently. As we age, we change our opinions in part because of our physical hearing, but largely because of our ability to discern. 

If a friend made a comment which lead me to question what I was hearing, it would probably because I trust their discernment. That would give me a reason to do what Mahgister suggests -- do experiments. We only have the science and technology of audio because of skepticism, testing, questioning, and corroboration of results.

I am happy that we think the same about that...

In audio forums half the quarrel about sound perception is based on the gear difference and in our different stations in our each different audio journey...

Acoustic experiments help us to relativize the importance of the gear and make us more able to understand each aspect of the audio vocabulary...

there is three vocabulary and three perspectives in sound perception to understand , they meet, but they never reduce to one another...

The audio vocabulary : about imaging, soundstage , high , bass, mid-range etc

The music vocabulary : melody, rythm, harmony, tonality, atonality, polytonality, etc

The acoustic vocabulary: reverberation time, listener envelopment, first reflection and secondary one, diffusion, absorption , timbre experience...soubd sources localization etc To this we must add the psycho-acoustic vocabulary which extend physical acoustic ...

The three vocabulary correspond to three sound experience mediation with different tools...Three environment which intercept one another without loosing their specific power...

The three vocabulary for example meet deeply when audiophile analyse the "timbre experience" even more  more than about space localization of sound because the timbre perception is more subtle and more hard to get right ......In music, audio, acoustic and even in psycho-acoustic, the "timbre" experience is FUNDAMENTAL to understand... It is the basis... Localization and immersiveness are more audio and acoustic concept than musical one too...

Without knowing precisely how to use and control aspects of these three perspective , the "timbre" experience escape us in part....

I dont know if you think the same about that....

My best to you...

@mahgister

It is normal for most to be influenced to some level or degree by others opinion....

Another important thing is learning to trust our ears....

Then we must set some acoustic experiments and train ourself then this improve self confidence a lot...

Exactly, perfectly right!

Guttenberg said something interesting about the audio journey, recently. As we age, we change our opinions in part because of our physical hearing, but largely because of our ability to discern.

If a friend made a comment which lead me to question what I was hearing, it would probably because I trust their discernment. That would give me a reason to do what Mahgister suggests -- do experiments. We only have the science and technology of audio because of skepticism, testing, questioning, and corroboration of results.