Your Most Prominent Audio Component

8th-note wrote: The neuron issue relates to an interesting idea about analog vs. digital. Most audiophiles (I think) believe that our brains and nervous systems work on an analog model. Our nervous system, however, much more closely resembles a digital network.

The nervous system, as opposed to individual neurons, uses processing that has both analog and digital properties.

This is significant because many in our hobby believe that digital is somehow unnatural and therefore inferior to analog.

I don't believe this is a good argument because the nervous system has no way to know how the information it receives from auditory transduction (or from other sensory systems) is created or processed; it has only the signals.  If those signals are suitably similar to those of a natural sound, it will sound natural.  Which is better?  If you believe in measurements, the answer is easy.

The Controversial Sound Only 2% of People Can Hear

This "Hum" researcher has come up with the best explanation I have heard yet - the so-called "Hum" is strongly correlated with with buried gas and oil pipelines, and he demonstrates graphically the physics at play.

My point here in the context of this thread is that not all "hearing" is created equal.

There may be little variability in the bio-electrical-chemistry of the brain, but there is tremendous variability in the discipline of listening. Thats one reason why why one cartridge can sound genuinely great to 100 people but can sound just as genuinely awful to 20 others. 

Genetics, Brain, and Personality

"We also demonstrate how these research directions can be integrated using genetically informative designs in order to determine how genetic influences on personality are mediated by variability in brain structure and function."

bump