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From: bilver!bill@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Vermillion)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Golden Ears
Message-ID: <6449@uwm.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 90 12:48:38 GMT
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In article <6425@uwm.edu> korenek@ficc.ferranti.com (gary korenek) writes:
>bilver!bill@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Vermillion) writes:
>> The general consensus among those in the business is not
>> how good your hearing is, but how well you listen, or learned
>> to listen.
>
>'Learning to listen' is why people trade up to high-end audio
>gear.  Over time, the old Decca mono record player just doesn't
>sound that great anymore.
>
>Many years ago when I was a high-end audio salesperson, we had
>a name for people that made claims to superior trained listening
>abilities - ''Golden Ears''.
>
>I believe myself to be a Golden Ears of a sort.  When listening
>to music, I listen for various things at different times.
....

Learning to listen is really a lot of training, but it still doesn't make
for "Golden Ears".  I had been called that at times, but don't believe.
Our other studio engineer was "golden eared" in my opinion, but then you
meet someone who hears things that you don't and you are quickly humbled.

This instance happened in '81 or '82 about a year or so before I got out of
the business.   Andy and I had lived in that control room for 5 or 6 years
and though we knew it pretty well.  Gene Eichelberger (one of the legendary
Nashville engineers [his truck did the audio for the film Nashville] ) was
engineering a session with Turley Richards.  Turley had gone totally blind
shortly after his Warner Bros album (with his 4 1/2 octave vocal range) had
been released.

When listening to playbacks Turley insisted that the image was shifting.
None of us heard it, but he insisted.  

We got out the equipment and measured a 1/2 db mis-track on the monitor
level control.  Turley had heard the image shift - we had never noticed it.

We then marked the exact point of balance on that control and then adjusted
the levels during mixdown using the VCA's only.  Many times I have heard
things that clients didn't, and conversely there were times when clients
heard things I didn't.  Thankfully the latter occurances were far
outweighed by the former.

Meeting someone who is truly "Golden Eared" is quite an experience.

-- 
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
                      : bill@bilver.UUCP