[bigshot]

But doesn't the biological aspect also count towards establishing neutrality?

As long as we're talking about normal aging... the answer is not really. The frequencies one loses due to normal aging aren't commonly present in commercially recorded music. You could filter off the whole top octave above 10kHz and it won't have much of an impact on sound quality. The last quarter octave is at the bleeding edge of audibility anyway. You might be able to hear it with tones, but not under music.

I agree with the conclusion, but every listener in my position would not hear the exact same thing.

Just to throw in a little semantic niggle... They would *hear* the same thing, but they might not *perceive* the same thing. Perception is separate from sound fidelity. If we are talking about sound fidelity, yes, they would hear equal sound fidelity because the same sound would be reaching their ears. How they perceive that sound depends on their own jar handles, noggin and noodle. (to use scientific terms!)

 

[castleofargh]

Just to throw in a little semantic niggle... They would *hear* the same thing, but they might not *perceive* the same thing. Perception is separate from sound fidelity. If we are talking about sound fidelity, yes, they would hear equal sound fidelity because the same sound would be reaching their ears. How they perceive that sound depends on their own jar handles, noggin and noodle. (to use scientific terms!)

The same sound goes toward them, but as soon as some of it starts bouncing on the body of different people(who sit at the same place... not at the same time^_^), differences will exist at their eardrums.

 

[bigshot]

My point was that the way sound hits your individual body and you interpret it has nothing to do with the fidelity of the sound itself. Mixing up subjective perception and objective fidelity just muddies the waters. We can offer advice here how to improve fidelity and discuss how important it is to the appreciation of music, but subjective perception only applies to the one person who is subjectively perceiving. If two different people sit in the same seat and listen to the same song being played, they are hearing the same sound.

 

[Davesrose]

My point was that the way sound hits your individual body and you interpret it has nothing to do with the fidelity of the sound itself. Mixing up subjective perception and objective fidelity just muddies the waters. We can offer advice here how to improve fidelity and discuss how important it is to the appreciation of music, but subjective perception only applies to the one person who is subjectively perceiving. If two different people sit in the same seat and listen to the same song being played, they are hearing the same sound.

But there is objective differences in ear anatomy with individuals. This influences their perception of frequency range and positional audio. Measurements do show that this is not a factor with speaker design (when sound is part of environment) vs headphone design...where drivers are directly interacting with individual outer ear and/or ear canal.

 

[bigshot]

That has nothing to do with home audio or its fidelity. I don't think I can order a different ear canal from Amazon.

 

[Davesrose]

That has nothing to do with home audio or its fidelity. I don't think I can order a different ear canal from Amazon.

Whaat? How is having different observable perceptions of audio based on anatomy not part of home audio or fidelity?

 

[bigshot]

When you're shopping for an amp or a set of speakers or headphones, anatomy is a given. You can't change that. Sure your ear canals affect what you hear, so does your brain, the number of glasses of wine you've drunk, the temperature in the room, whether you had a good day or not... Subjective stuff like that is a given. You can't go shopping at Amazon and change it. If you want to focus on improving the sound fidelity of your stereo, I suppose you could practice zen and strive to become a happier and more fulfilled person. But that advice won't help someone who just wants to know if buying an outboard DAC will sound better than just plugging into their iPhone. Questions like that can be addressed and answered and good results can be achieved. Thinking about your ear canals and brain processing might be interesting from a purely theoretical standpoint, but you can't change it, and it doesn't make any difference to the fidelity of the sound being produced by your home audio gear.

 

[Davesrose]

When you're shopping for an amp or a set of speakers or headphones, anatomy is a given. You can't change that. Sure your ear canals affect what you hear, so does your brain, the number of glasses of wine you've drunk, the temperature in the room, whether you had a good day or not... Subjective stuff like that is a given. You can't go shopping at Amazon and change it. If you want to focus on improving the sound fidelity of your stereo, I suppose you could practice zen and strive to become a happier and more fulfilled person. But that advice won't help someone who just wants to know if buying an outboard DAC will sound better than just plugging into their iPhone. Questions like that can be addressed and answered and good results can be achieved. Thinking about your ear canals and brain processing might be interesting from a purely theoretical standpoint, but you can't change it, and it doesn't make any difference to the fidelity of the sound being produced by your home audio gear.

The point has been that individual ear anatomy influences HRTF, and it's a chief reason why people have different opinions about headphone brands (especially which one is most "neutral" sounding).

 

[bigshot]

And that is because of the individual ear and the subjective perception it creates. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the headphones. Headphones are the wild card in a bunch of different ways. You buy a decent set and adapt the system around it to suit your ears and taste. You can’t adapt your hearing to suit the cans. Perception is individual and subjective.

Until amps have DSPs to adjust parameters related to specific ear shapes, you’re dealing with the standard aspects of fidelity when it comes to home audio. Other metrics are interesting, but unless they’re user adjustable, there isn’t much practical application.

 

[Davesrose]

And that is because of the individual ear and the subjective perception it creates. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the headphones. Headphones are the wild card in a bunch of different ways. You buy a decent set and adapt the system around it to suit your ears and taste. You can’t adapt your hearing to suit the cans. Perception is individual and subjective.

Until amps have DSPs to adjust parameters related to specific ear shapes, you’re dealing with the standard aspects of fidelity when it comes to home audio. Other metrics are interesting, but unless they’re user adjustable, there isn’t much practical application.

Again, ear anatomy is not subjective: we can have observable objective measurements as to differences in ear anatomy. You yourself say headphones are wildcards: people can have a different perception in audio with any given brand not just because of "subjective" brain functions....but that they do have a different HRTF due to ear shape. I would say that due to this discrepancy, this is a reason why a given headphone brand will always have different impressions with different folks given same source.

Having said that, I do agree that once we have common place DSPs that can take ear parameters into account...specific characteristics of a headphone become very diminished.

 

[bigshot]

Forget about what science is and isn't for a moment. Just try to understand what I'm saying from a practical standpoint. I'll try not to use the words "Subjective" or "Objective" again. I think that is what is derailing you.

Follow my line of reasoning here... There's nothing we can do about the shapes of our ears. We are born with it, and we live our lives with it, and we get used to it. It's the only thing we know. With home audio equipment, you can adjust or match each component to improve fidelity. With ears, you hear what you hear and that is all that you hear. (Says Popeye the Sailor Man.) Now on the other hand, our unique physiognomy is irrelevant to the fidelity of sound produced by our home audio equipment. I can be stone deaf and put on a set of headphones and hear absolutely nothing, but that doesn't mean the headphones aren't producing high fidelity sound. I'm just not perceiving it myself. And my personal experience of deafness doesn't mean that when you put those same headphones on, you will perceive the same thing I did. All of us live our lives as subjective solipsists. We can pretend that we are objective, and we can speak with great certainty about what we believe objective reality is; but ultimately, the only thing we experience ourselves is 100% solipsist perception. Now that I've proven that reality is an illusion, I have to say that I don't see how that has anything at all to do with how we choose home audio components... which ultimately is what we are talking about here. Hopefully this makes sense.

The future of better sounding home audio probably lies in using signal processing to synthesize and sculpt aural environments. That might involve applying information about the shapes of our ears, or maybe it won't. It may not even progress to that stage. Since everyone's ears are different, it requires some pretty precise customization, which might end up being more trouble to consumers than it's worth to them. Multichannel sound vs. mp3s and streaming have clearly shown that given the choice between better sound and convenience, consumers will choose convenience every time. In fact, it doesn't even have to really sound better- you can just *tell them it sounds better* and quite a few suckers will buy into it (SACD, blu-ray audio, etc.) People may just want "good enough" sound with more convenience. I dunno. My Magic 8 Ball says, "Ask Again Later".

I noticed at Amazon the other day that they have an Echo now that listens to the acoustics of the room and processes its own output to create dimensional sound. That may be the way things go. The biggest limitation to multichannel speaker installations is convincing the wife to allow intrusive speakers at specific points all over the room and running wires to all of them. If Amazon can come up with a little wireless tabletop speaker that you can use in pairs, or whatever multichannel configuration you want... and you can put them in any spot in the room that is convenient... and they will automatically compensate for the placement and the room... they may be onto something. Maybe in the future, we will have dozens of little speakers all over our house playing object based sound with built in room correction and ambience manipulation. With a setup like that, all speakers would be equal, and the number of speakers would determine better sounding systems from poorer ones.

 

[ScareDe2]

They should start by selling quality audio components instead of investing in marketing and design. I think the primary reason we are trapped in this rabbit hole is because the audio quality is on the downfall since at least 15 years.

There is this nuraphone supposed to adapt to your own hearing. People seem to have been extremely impressed. I did not hear but to me it smells like another gimmick trick delivering unreal immersive sound to the listener to score a first great impression and doesn't have nothing to do with neutrality.

 

[KeithPhantom]

audio quality is on the downfall since at least 15 years.

Audio quality has improved in the last years if you know where to look for. Nowadays, devices measure better than we ever thought and we can make audibly transparent gear if good engineering is used in the design and manufacturing stages. Now, the audiophile market is flooded with dubious claims of improved sound quality that cannot be measured or even acknowledged by a simple null test, and this is the problem of the high-end audio industry (and that's the reason I am not an audiophile and never will).

 

[bigshot]

They should start by selling quality audio components instead of investing in marketing and design. I think the primary reason we are trapped in this rabbit hole is because the audio quality is on the downfall since at least 15 years.

How far back do you go? I started building a stereo system in the mid-70s and it was expensive to get a good quality amp or turntable back then. There was a LOT of crap on the market at low prices, but not a lot of good stuff. Since around 2000 or so, it has been getting progressively better and better. Lower prices and better quality. A lot of that comes from components being built for stock parts. I'm told you find a lot of the same parts in cheap equipment as in high end, and that isn't a bad thing. You can go out and buy the cheapest blu-ray player on the market and play a CD on it and it will be perfect sound. Amps are consistently good now too. Headphones vary greatly, but cost doesn't always line up with the level of quality, and even mid range cans can be adjusted to sound very good. The best thing though is convenience. My music collection is incredibly flexible. I can play it anywhere. I think we're living through a golden age of home audio right now. The only problem is deliberate incompatibility, but that is mainly a problem with high end brands that want to lock you into buying their whole line of products by making them not work well with anything else.

 

[ScareDe2]

Maybe cheapies sound better now than before. Not the case with mid to high end audio. What beats a good Sony ES or any top of the line products from the 90's? My Sennheiser HD250 Linear 1 is $400 adjusted for inflation and it destroys every headphones in this price range and does better than the HD800, AKG K812 or T1. Soundwise. But ok, in some cases they have reduced inaudible distortions, their product looks better and there is a cult following. If Sennheiser announces a HD800z tomorow the headfi forum will cut on fire.