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From: ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: don't be afraid to trust your ears?
Message-ID: <2315@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Dec-83 10:07:28 EST
Article-I.D.: rabbit.2315
Posted: Thu Dec 22 10:07:28 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Dec-83 04:37:56 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 25

Unfortunately, one can't always trust one's ears.  Four examples:

	1.  If you are comparing two (musical) signals
	    and one is SLIGHTLY louder than the other,
	    they will both appear to be the same loudness,
	    but the one that is actually louder will
	    SOUND BETTER!

	2.  If you change something and you are expecting the
	    change to have a particular effect,  you will
	    perceive the change to have that effect, whether
	    it does or not.

	3.  If you are comparing two signals and someone else
	    in the room claims one is better than the other,
	    you will tend to find reasons to agree.

	4.  I have heard that deliberately introducing 0.5% or
	    so second-harmonic distortion makes music sound "better."

The purpose of any audio system is to reproduce music, of course.
But it does not follow from that that ones judgment criteria
should be totally subjective.  There is, after all, such a thing
as acquired taste.  Some comparisons are best made more objectively:
by machine or by double-blind test.