High End Audio and Your hearing as you get older

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.

 
On-line hearing frequency test from 8kHz to 22kHz in increments: But can you hear THIS?
 

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.

Ballan,

Thanks for the TED link to Evelyn Genie. I hope to meet her one day - inspiring. I noticed they have a video with Benjamin Zander speaking about passion. Having met Benjamin several years ago I am sure that is well worth watching too.