High End Audio and Your hearing as you get older


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I understand that your hearing decreases as you get older. Does it decrease to the point where at say, age 70, a mid-fi preamp and cd player sounds just as good as a high end preamp and cd player.

I'm 57 now, but wondering if when I'm 70, all this hi-fi stuff will sound the same as mid-fi stuff to a pair of old ears.
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mitch4t
I think it all ties in with what Ralph from Atmasphere is always mentioning and that is the loudness queues that the ear detects and gets processed;and since I moved into the age of 51 I have noticed some change in hearing;but if the electronics get lowered I got to think you would still be able to hear a change of some type whether better or worse I am not sure of though.
I liken it to taste buds. There is no doubt that both dull with age. For a teen, macdonalds food is the height of cuisine. As you age, all of your tastes become more discriminating. So at least in my experience (age 59), I care more about both the hardware (clarity) and software (harmonic complexity). It takes more quality and flavor to give me the same kick I got from listening to beatles/stones dreck on cheap stereos when I was 19.
Beatles dreck? I still get the same kick from them, albeit on better quality gear.
Wow, now I'm going to sell all my equipment as I "can't" hear anything from 14Khz on up. But there is more to test signals than that. There has to be. I can hear instruments that play at higher frequencies on a regular basis but can't hear the friggin test tones. What's weird is that even on a low setting, the 8Khz test tone hurt my ears while the 12 Khz test tone was soft and really nothing beyond that.
I know this opens a huge can of worms but this goes a long way against the argument that only what can be measured is the sole criteria. So many flat earthers stick to their measurements with a fanaticism that borders on religion and yet I can hear things that I shouldn't.