[REVIEW] Aurisonics ASG-2 & 2.5 (with many comparisons)

[Gintaras]

vwinter, why one chap listens mostly to jazz and classic, another one needs only rock and punchy music and the next one like me listens to all genres? it is impossible to tell how because only person in question can tell. i told how i undestand good sound. cannot help you more on that.

 

[kyuuketsuki]

Quote:

kyuuk, no, people do not hear earphones differently, they hear music differently, it all depends on your hearing and musical background. my friends musicians hear music very different from us, actually i took some learning from them which made my ears open to completely different way of listen, i search for harmony in first place, and not so much about detail or neutral unless we mean by neutral a live like natural sound.

 
You basically said the same thing as I did... I didn't suggest people HEAR differently, but rather they learn to hear different things over time, which builds their auditory preferences. (AKA preferred sound signature or likes/dislikes in a headphone) So it isn't the headphone, or the individual hearing, but their preferences...

 

[vwinter]

vwinter, why one chap listens mostly to jazz and classic, another one needs only rock and punchy music and the next one like me listens to all genres? it is impossible to tell how because only person in question can tell. i told how i undestand good sound. cannot help you more on that.

I'm not really talking about good sound. I'm talking about being able to describe what you hear, not how you hear it. It's a small but important difference.

You say you learned how to listen differently from your musician friends. Thats understandable and interesting. How did that change the way you would describe a specific aspect of a headphone's response? You specifically. I'm genuinely curious because I feel we're talking about different things or at least encountering a communication problem.

There's a general trend on these forums to describe what sounds good or bad to someone vs what something sounds like. It's difficult, even for me while I'm talking about it, to separate the two. People generally can't differentiate between them very easily and it becomes a problem of expectations once money is spent.

 

[quartertone]

But each person has different areas of sensitivity too. One person will grow nauseous from heavy bass, or another get a headache from a treble spike, while a third might get on well with both. That seems to be being passed over here.

 

[vwinter]

But each person has different areas of sensitivity too. One person will grow nauseous from heavy bass, or another get a headache from a treble spike, while a third might get on well with both. That seems to be being passed over here.

Is this a response to my comment? I'm not really sure if I should respond lol.

 

[eke2k6]

Quote:

But each person has different areas of sensitivity too. One person will grow nauseous from heavy bass, or another get a headache from a treble spike, while a third might get on well with both. That seems to be being passed over here.

 
I think the question he is asking is "is this sensitivity physiological, or psychological?"
 
I'll give a personal example. At a meet two weeks ago, the host had this extremely spicy salsa. Most people couldn't handle it, but I thought it was just right. Now does that mean I have less "pepper" receptors in my mouth? No. I simply learned how to eat spicy foods without letting them burn me. I don't allow the food to touch the back of my throat, which is generally the area that causes the most discomfort  when eating spices. Growing up in Jamaica with spicy foods everywhere really helps one hone such a skill.
 
In the same way, we grow accustomed to various stimuli. I promise you that if you force yourself to exclusively listen to a headphone that too much "x" or "y" for a long time, you'll find yourself growing to like it more and more. I'll let Barney Stinson explain:
 

 

[gnarlsagan]

Quote:

 
I think the question he is asking is "is this sensitivity physiological, or psychological?"
 
I'll give a personal example. At a meet two weeks ago, the host had this extremely spicy salsa. Most people couldn't handle it, but I thought it was just right. Now does that mean I have less "pepper" receptors in my mouth? No. I simply learned how to eat spicy foods without letting them burn me. 
 

 
Not to be argumentative, but to my knowledge people do have different concentrations of taste buds on their tongue. I definitely agree people can adapt very well to things, but I wouldn't rule out physiological differences in hearing either.

 

[vwinter]

I think the question he is asking is "is this sensitivity physiological, or psychological?"

I'll give a personal example. At a meet two weeks ago, the host had this extremely spicy salsa. Most people couldn't handle it, but I thought it was just right. Now does that mean I have less "pepper" receptors in my mouth? No. I simply learned how to eat spicy foods without letting them burn me. I don't allow the food to touch the back of my throat, which is generally the area that causes the most discomfort  when eating spices. Growing up in Jamaica with spicy foods everywhere really helps one hone such a skill.

Gotcha, it was in general.


I used to do a lot better with spicy food when I ate more of it. Now, not as smooth sailing

I just assumed that my body was regrowing less sensitive nerve endings in my mouth if I was just going to keep killing them off lol.

 

[Gintaras]

vwinter, i see where you coming from, but sometimes i feel too much terminology kills emotion and impression.

lets take Eke example about food, i go eating in a good peasant restaurant and order duck, it tastes great very fresh and comes with red cabbage marinated in home red wine honey with potato damplings again home made. Then next week i visit Michelin star restaurant and they have roasted duck too and since i love eating duck i order one, this time however this duck is prepared in very different way in two serves, one is rose fried steamed breast and the second serve is duck leg meat in mint-lime-mustard sauce.

since i equally enjoyed both what termins i have to give as to describe accurately my experience?

 

[eke2k6]

Quote:

 
Not to be argumentative, but to my knowledge people do have different concentrations of taste buds on their tongue. I definitely agree people can adapt very well to things, but I wouldn't rule out physiological differences in hearing either.

 
That's the thing, I personally feel like music choices and sound preferences play a far larger role than physical changes. I mentioned in the Ety thread that science would have a hard time keeping up with human conditions if we differed so greatly. Medications would be completely useless for certain people. I think physical differences can count for maybe 5% of change (yes, I studied extensively to produce this figure 

), enough to tip the scales in either direction, but not enough to hear an iem completely differently.
 
Another example of adaptation...before I sold my GR07, I started hearing it as too flat and uninvolving. After selling it, I decided to give it one final listen before shipping...and it sounded fantastic.
 

 

[james444]

Quote:

Thanks for the response guys. Differences in HRTFs are definitely something I've been meaning to learn more about. I don't think it can explain large differences in what people hear, but since a lot of our comparisons focus on minutia I'm still curious as to exact variance. Like can one person's HRTF cause a bump at 1-3khz for example, and if so what is the variance of that bump? One, two dB? More?

Also am I correct in assuming that HRTF variance exists regardless of fit? While fit is definitely issue, I see it as separate from HRTF. The latter would exist under all listening conditions I think.

 
HRTF variance certainly exists regardless of fit, as even measured eardrum responses have shown to be different among individuals. According to Rin's blog, the best available DF response curve is based on measured eardrum responses of 47 subjects. Note that not all of these subjects have been tested under the same conditions at the same time, but data was gathered from various studies and averaged into one curve. To put things into perspective, the world population consists of roughly 7,100,000,000 (7.1 billion) people.
 
Having said that, HRTF variance is actually taken into account in Rin's graphs in form of a target corridor with blue and red dotted min/max lines. This corridor is about 4db wide in the range where our ears are most sensitive and for which ABX tests have shown that differences of 1db or more are definitely audible. Which, in my understanding, means that HRTFs of different individuals can differ quite audibly and may still be considered as within tolerance of the same DF target corridor.
 
Jm2c, from a skeptical layman's point of view.

 

[gnarlsagan]

HRTF variance certainly exists regardless of fit, as even measured eardrum responses have shown to be different among individuals. According to Rin's blog, the best available DF response curve is based on measured eardrum responses of 47 subjects. Note that not all of these subjects have been tested under the same conditions at the same time, but data was gathered from various studies and averaged into one curve. To put things into perspective, the world population consists of roughly 7,100,000,000 (7.1 billion) people.

Having said that, HRTF variance is actually taken into account in Rin's graphs in form of a target corridor with blue and red dotted min/max lines. This corridor is about 4db wide in the range where our ears are most sensitive and for which ABX tests have shown that differences of 1db or more are definitely audible. Which, in my understanding, means that HRTFs of different individuals can differ quite audibly and may still be considered as within tolerance of the same DF target corridor.

Jm2c, from a skeptical layman's point of view.

Wow thanks for your input. I've read Rin's writing on it but wasn't sure exactly how much variance was involved. Up to 4dB is pretty big imo, especially since we are so much more involved in small in FR differences here. I think something like this is a good reason to be more tolerant of different tastes.

 

[Gintaras]

Eke, no psychological... because if i do not like sound i would sell and not even mention that IEM. however i like doing lot research and reading various responses and also some pro reviews, so spending time on this i limit possibility of mistake. mind this i will not even succumb to the idea of forcing myself to like something only because this belongs to me.

as concerns spicy food your claim made me curious, how you manage to eat that without letting food touch your back throat? really, if you could explain because i try imagine this and .... ROFL

 

[vwinter]

HRTF variance certainly exists regardless of fit, as even measured eardrum responses have shown to be different among individuals. According to Rin's blog, the best available DF response curve is based on measured eardrum responses of 47 subjects. Note that not all of these subjects have been tested under the same conditions at the same time, but data was gathered from various studies and averaged into one curve. To put things into perspective, the world population consists of roughly 7,100,000,000 (7.1 billion) people.

Having said that, HRTF variance is actually taken into account in Rin's graphs in form of a target corridor with blue and red dotted min/max lines. This corridor is about 4db wide in the range where our ears are most sensitive and for which ABX tests have shown that differences of 1db or more are definitely audible. Which, in my understanding, means that HRTFs of different individuals can differ quite audibly and may still be considered as within tolerance of the same DF target corridor.

Jm2c, from a skeptical layman's point of view.

I've been trying to make heads or tails of those max and min tolerances for a while. So does this imply that in that critical area, depending on the people, there could be differences of upto 4db between how people hear a portion of that range?

 

[quartertone]

My problem with spicy food is that I love eating it, but my digestive response to it has deteriorated over the years...