Effect of Ageing on Audiophile Preferences

Everything Else Humor
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Ted, I apologize if I have raised an old topic and have offended you or others in some way. I am new to this forum and in scanning the listed forums I did not see this specific topic addressed in any depth…I do see many other forum examples of questions being raised over and over. Often new insights and information come from revisiting topics. If revisiting topics is a bad thing, the moderator should alert us early on and direct us to the correct forum if we want to pursue the topic further.

Your inference that I am naive and trying to tell you what you can and cannot do is puzzling. I don’t get that. You even deleted a “sermoninzing paragraph about diversity” . what was that about? .Do you think I am being discriminatory by mentioning age? I am much older than you and didn’t feel I was deriding myself or others at all in posing the questions that I did. There’s a level of experience and finesse that comes with age, and I greatly respect older, seasoned audio engineers and designers for the masterpieces they produce. I especially like that they are designing with mature ears similar to mine to get every ounce of beauty and perfection out of their creations for me to enjoy.

Getting past your first paragraph, I don’t really disagree in principle with anything you say. We agree that audiology tests are just that --indicators that as we typically age the audible bandwidth becomes more constricted and challenging for our ears to deal with. It is a reality of the progression of life. I agree that we can overcome and even excel by optimizing and maximizing the quality of the bandwidth we can perceive and use all our inborn and developed sensitivities and redundant brain faculties to hear the music to our best and highest enjoyment…

I have no doubt that your listening skills are superior to mine and most others, due to your lifelong experience and as evidenced by your latest DS DAC software version Huron, which I love and have praised profusely. Huron is a perfect example of how a product has been updated and gives my ageing ears a higher level of enjoyment. It does something to bring clarity, detail and spatial definition back into my system either by optimizing the frequency band that I can hear or by playing with those mysterious sensitivities and redundant listening processes in my brain. Again, well done! I don’t know if I were a 20 year old if I would like the new version better than the older version, nor do I know if you had 20 year old ears if you could have designed a sound that works as successfully for my 65 year old ears. I guess we will never know. It doesn’t really matter, so I think I’m going to give this topic a rest.

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Ted, I find your last response, in which you compared your listening to that of your wife and daughter during the development of the DS software.to be valuable, compelling and responsive…Thank you;.

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Let me apologize, I didn’t want to shut down conversation, and I probably still have my foot in my mouth - I didn’t express my concerns well - instead of talking about experience/knowledge I meant express it a little softer - this topic comes up over and over again like “cables don’t make a difference!” or “which is better transistors or tubes?” - Even tho (like Elk) it seems extremely obvious to me what the answer is I forget that not everyone has seen the “discussions” over time.

Also FWIW: I have a > 70dB loss in my left ear at 4KHz and it’s back to (relative) normal by 8KHz, there’s no corresponding loss in my right ear. This great asymmetry pretty close to the spot where we are the most sensitive never seemed to affect my hearing - indeed I only noticed it when I didn’t hear crickets in one ear lying on a pillow and they were very clear in the other when I flipped over.

The diversity reference was about assuming that people who are different (e.g. hearing) can’t/don’t experience the world that same as others: different modes of sensing don’t necessarily lead to different sensual experiences - I probably shouldn’t have said anything.

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JosephLG said I think new equipment designs by ageing engineers actually do benefit us older listeners because the designers themselves have hearing that has evolved similar to ours and they can tweak previous designs and come up with new ones that sound better to us, or at least recommend tubes that sound great to their mature ears.
I am not aware of any audio enthusiast equipment designed by superannuated engineers which have been voiced for aging ears. Can you identify some examples?

I remain unconvinced this would be a good in any way. A good audio system reproduces the real acoustic world. If the frequency response is compromised to compensate for average hearing loss, the result will sound odd to everyone; the sound will no longer accurate mimic the real world. The reproduced sound will ring false, regardless of your hearing.

Think of the loudness control on a 1970’s receiver. These were specifically designed to produce a perceived equal-loudness contour - typically based on the work of Fletcher and Munson - when the system was played at low volumes. These attempts to compensate for our hearing deficiencies at low volume sounded absolutely dreadful, I suspect precisely for the reason I set forth above.

Ted, I apologize if I have raised an old topic and have offended you or others in some way. ... If revisiting topics is a bad thing, the moderator should alert us early on and direct us to the correct forum if we want to pursue the topic further.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the topic. And it is not particularly controversial and certainly not offensive.

Your position does however appear to be based upon an assumption that age-based changes in hearing render an individual less capable of accurate perception. Presuming how others perceive the world and projecting limits on their capabilities typically does not go over well.

I don't know if I were a 20 year old if I would like the new version better than the older version . . .
I posit you most likely would have. Keep in mind the frequency response of each DirectStream firmware is ruler flat;old ears receive no special treatment. Additionally, the difference in sound is due primarily to reduced jitter and noise, which were already incredibly low - yet all experienced ears can perceive a difference. The vast majority are very pleased, users and reviewers alike.

And if our ears continuously grow as an evolutionary adaptation to compensate for hearing loss, why do our noses continue to grow? (Leaving aside that people are born with a tremendous range of ear sizes from minute to huge - those with small ears are evolutionarily disfavored? - , and for most of human history the life-span of mankind was so short aged-induced hearing loss never came into play and would have thus not been an evolutionary factor.)

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Ted Smith said

Oops I forgot to add:

FWIW my wife, daughter and I still hear the same things, describe them similarly and prefer the same changes in of cables, changes in components, changes to the DS software, etc. even tho both of them have hearing thresholds that are at least 30dB more sensitive than mine above, say, 4kHz. They are pretty useful for reliable blind testing.

Just to explain what I wanted to express as my assumption (both ears equal):

  1. hearing losses hardly influence the ability to hear equipment differences and comparisons to real instruments. Experience and many other aspects than frequency dependant ones are essential here

  2. hearing losses hardly influence preferences of i e. different firmwares with lots of included changes and improvements because some changes don’t affect frequency issues at all and many other abilities to differentiate audio quality play a bigger role.

  3. even strong hearing losses don’t affect the ability to hear pure frequency related differences

  4. strong hearing losses of a very narrow frequency band probably don’t affect even pure frequency related absolute level evaluations (i.e.different “brightness” perception compared to one with no hearing loss)

  5. But someone would have to explain to me (good chance I have to learn) how it should be that strong wide band hearing losses (whatever we define as wide) shouldn’t affect pure frequency related absolute level evaluations (i.e. different “brightness” perception compared to one with no hearing loss)

It’s important to me we don’t confuse the ability to differentiate with the ability to evaluate absolute frequency levels only.

If someone with a hearing loss of let’s say 50dB around 2k should have the same perception (in his brain) of let’s say a component that’s bright in this range (and only of this very aspect, not soundstaging, truth to real instruments or anything else), as someone without hearing loss in his brain, I beg for explanation :wink:

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I don’t really think we have a disagreement … just misinterpretations.

I don’t think I assumed that “changes in hearing render an individual less capable of accurate perception”. Things that are perceived may be accurate or inaccurate. What I did assume (and still do) is that as we age we can no longer hear certain frequencies as well. Some high frequencies eventually go silent while others are reduced in audibility. It is biological, and both factual and perceived.

We all recognize that our hearing gradually changes with age, and rarely for the better. That is not an assault on the abilities of the best audio designers in the world, including Ted and BHK. Ted’s DAC and BHK’s preamp are near perfect, as far as I am concerned, and are treats for my ears and brain. I think any hearing deficiencies that the best audio designers have can actually help them design better sounding products that benefit all. If the sound pleases them, it has a better chance of pleasing me and others.

I do recognize that the DS DAC is ruler flat, as are many if not most high-quality modern audio components. I don’t necessarily think a component has to be ruler flat to sound good, but being flat is admirable. I understand that lowering noise floor is a primary technique that enables the ears and brains of all listeners, young and old, to better hear details and low level information at most all of the important frequencies in the human audible range. By removing the noise, low level signals that our ageing ears could not normally pick up are more easily deciphered and processed by the brain. I get that. That is how most equipment revisions and new issues of high-end gear achieve high and low end extension, greater clarity, focus, sound stage imaging, etc. All this appeals to ageing ears (like mine) who consciously or unconsciously want to recapture, and even improve upon, the beautiful, clear, full range music they remember hearing on their audio systems in the past. I even understand that our bodies can even sense (feel) frequencies that are inaudible through the ear mechanism, so many designers go even outside the audible range to make their components sound more alive and musical.

Enough with the ears getting bigger as we age. Sure, noses grow to, but who really knows why. Maybe to compensate for loss of smell as we age? [postscript by JosephLG: This is a non-serious joke response to a non-serious rhetorical question by a previous poster]

I still believe my basic hypothesis in my opening statement is correct. Reading back through, I can understand how a quick read can lead to wrong interpretations. I wish I had been a better communicator. Like you, I have grown weary of this topic and am ready to move on. These ageing ears just now want to go relax and listen to some music on my PS Audio based gear.

But before I go, the first link below is quite humiliating and funny. The second link is more encouraging. These are not for you audio experts. You already know this stuff and have test equipment of your own.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/how-young-are-your-ears?utm_term=.askGV7VX7#.jaJJndnXd

http://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

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JosephLG said

…

I do recognize that the DS DAC is ruler flat, as are many if not most high-quality modern audio components. I don’t necessarily think a component has to be ruler flat to sound good, but being flat is admirable…

I hope the fact is widely accepted that i.e.how "bright" or "rich" a component sounds (and they all do sound more or less different in this regard) seems to be mostly independent of their ruler flat response (which they almost all have).

So to me a ruler flat response is more a standard than a quality or sound criteria anymore. In the past this may have been different.

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JosephLG said Enough with the ears getting bigger as we age. Sure, noses grow to, but who really knows why. Maybe to compensate for loss of smell as we age?
Seriously? The size of your nose has nothing to do with how well you smell. And women typically have a much better sense of smell, with generally smaller noses. :)
I still believe my basic hypothesis in my opening statement is correct. Reading back through, I can understand how a quick read can lead to wrong interpretations.
I see no misinterpretation and at least I did not conduct "a quick read." Your stated hypothesis is "part of our need to “upgrade” as we get older may have something to do with our need for greater emphasis on the frequency extremes, something we miss from our younger years when our hearing sensitivity was greater."

You asked for other opinions and received them. We disagree with you. This does not invalidate the discussion.

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Well, Joe, since it appears we’re not done picking on you ; ). - Let me ask about this line, “the beautiful, clear, full range music they remember hearing on their audio systems in the past”.

This confuses me somewhat. But I’ve never been particularly nostalgic for sound I used to have - it seems to me to have been a continual, ongoing improvement over the years both in the gear and my listening skills (with some steps forward and back, like life).

Is this the basis for the “ageing ears” idea? You have a memory of things sounding better to you, years or decades ago, either because your ears and/or the gear were better then? You’re listening to Huron on a DS DAC and mentally comparing it with a memory, and you’re thinking, “Now we’re getting somewhere” back toward the days when it was good? Honest, just trying to understand.

Reading through your set of questions and subsequent thoughts in the first post reminds me of Paul’s Post today where he was taken to task for misusing “begs the question”. You’re saying, look at shows - it’s all old guys, and we can prove they can’t hear as well, so that must be why…etc.

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JosephLG said

I don’t really think we have a disagreement … just misinterpretations.

I don’t think I assumed that “changes in hearing render an individual less capable of accurate perception”. Things that are perceived may be accurate or inaccurate. What I did assume (and still do) is that as we age we can no longer hear certain frequencies as well. Some high frequencies eventually go silent while others are reduced in audibility. It is biological, and both factual and perceived.

I was trying to show you that that isn't necessarily true. Did you read my first post in this thread?

Perceiving impulses (transients) well involves perceiving their high frequencies correctly but this doesn’t necessarily depend on having good high frequency hearing of steady state tones. It can be done by making sure that the change in many different hair cells are coincident.

I (and many people I know) may have high frequency loss, but ultrasonic noise still feels like something is pushing on the side of my head. Clearly I’m sensing it in my ears but I can’t tell you it’s pitch… (Tho I doubt that that perception plays any part in normal listening except tiring me out sooner.)

Also the point of my post was that we actively adapt to perceive what we’re listening for in spite of changing function in the ear. (Also as I mentioned there is feedback from the brain to the ear to adapt - the dampening of loud sounds for example.) The brain always is taking the most reliable input for a given feature and overriding less reliable inputs (e.g. the McGurk effect.) As some inputs change we still perceive many (most) of the features we need to tell changes in tone, which instruments are which… As we get older it may take more brain power to perceive some things than it did earlier, but that doesn’t mean the ear/brain can’t perceive them.

To compare things to memories of them involves seeing how much the active input matches the remembered input pattern at a high level. It isn’t necessarily done on a frequency by frequency basis, but on a feature by feature basis. The brain doesn’t need everything to match, just enough of it that we get a unique answer, missing low level features (or features at a different level) barely affect the results of the match. I.e. cymbals sound pretty much the same to me as they always did, even tho many of the higher frequency overtones that one might think one needs to compare tones of cymbals are attenuated or missing.

FWIW We know that people’s ears grow bigger in the same ways whether one is deaf or not. Also parts of the ears that have nothing to do with sound perception (e.g. the ear lobes) tend to change in a manner consistent with cartilage growing - there’s no need to seek additional explanations for something well understood.

I certainly do miss hearing many things which are essentially totally above my hearing range now and not being able to deal with following a conversation in a crowded venue. But these don’t seem to affect my audiophile experiences at all.

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Pick, pick, pick.

Badbeef (funny name), let me see if I can answer your questions as I’m halfway raising the white flag of surrender but still in the trench.

Nostalgia is part of the equation. I remember everything I played in my 1998 system sounded clean, very detailed, holographic, full bodied and alive. I recall over the years the system slowly giving up a degree of top end. For example, one musical piece with a bank of snare drums playing in rapid succession in the back of full orchestra lost its punch, sounding not as crisp and present. Cymbals lost some shimmer and horns lost some upper bite – despite tube rolling with better NOS tubes and upgrading cables from cheap copper to more transparent OFC and silver-component wire. All those upgrades helped, but not enough. In hopes of getting back most of that original character, I recently replaced my original CD player with PS DSMP and PS DSDAC (Torreys to Huron revision), and added the BHK Preamp. That restored some of the lost top end, but the system still doesn’t sound quite as good as it used to in the upper registers. I speculate that the perceived gradual loss of articulation at the top is likely due to (guess what!) a progressive lowering of my ears’ high frequency sensitivity due to ageing. That is at least one explanation I can surmise.

My observation of the bulk of attendees at the audio shows being old guys was not meant to be a slur. I’m there, and I’m old. We are not ashamed. Reality is that older men are typically the ones who can most afford high-end equipment and are willing to pay for it. They are also the ones who, like me, have reached that threshold where hearing high frequency content is becoming more challenging. I have noticed that some of the most popular rooms are those with set-ups that, to the perception of my not-that-shoddy ears, are pitched way too much toward the treble. Is that a clue, or what? I also wonder why the Wilson loudspeakers are so appealing to so many, when I find other speakers like Von Schweikert to be much more balanced, natural and pleasant to listen to. Not a criticism of Wilson, but more a commentary on how different people hear different loudspeakers. Supposedly all these speakers have flat frequency responses, but my ears perceive a different story. I know I’m shamelessly generalizing and will get my hands slapped…of course speaker sound and performance also greatly depends on the room, the paired equipment and the power supply.

So, Badbeef, did I answer your questions?

Ted, I did read your well-written post in which you talk about, among other things, how the ear and brain can respond to frequencies when the pitch might not even be audible in the conventionally understood way. I know you are an expert on hearing and on listening. I respect your knowledge and ability to design wonderful sounding audio components even with the kind of biological hearing limitations we are all dealt in life. The science of hearing, especially how the parts of the ear work and how the brain processes and interprets all this data is fascinating and way beyond my comprehension. I know one scientist who has spent his entire career just studying how our brain detects the direction a visual stimulus is coming from.

Finally, I hope we can stop addressing the big ear syndrome. That was meant to be humorous. but sure got some attention. I know that my big ears will likely do nothing to improve my hearing.

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" I have noticed that some of the most popular rooms are those with set-ups that, to the perception of my not-that-shoddy ears, are pitched way too much toward the treble. Is that a clue, or what? I also wonder why the Wilson loudspeakers are so appealing to so many, when I find other speakers like Von Schweikert to be much more balanced, natural and pleasant to listen to. Not a criticism of Wilson, but more a commentary on how different people hear different loudspeakers"

Agree completely with all of that.

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I do sometimes wonder why certain speakers are held in high regard, but FWIW I feel the same about them today as I did when my hearing was much better.

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To add to my prior post, Joe: I don’t necessarily see (or hear) that the overly-bright or “hifi-ish” trend in gear is a defacto proof of your argument. It could just as easily be appealing to that segment I mentioned in an earlier post - those who, young or old, newbie or old hand, perfect hearing or nearly deaf, PREFER that sound, either because their innate hearing is such that it sounds better to them, or they are mentally/aesthetically/musically focused on detail, and “air” and frequency extension, etc. etc. - which may or may not be what others of us consider “musical” or “realistic”.

It could be what their clients/distributors/end users are asking for. Most are in it not to lose money, but to at least pay the bills while trying to adhere to their design principles and sonic aesthetics.

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Ted Smith said

I do sometimes wonder why certain speakers are held in high regard, but FWIW I feel the same about them today as I did when my hearing was much better.


Fully agree. At the times of the Watt/Puppy I heard some JM Lab in comparison which were paradise to the ears. I preferred nearly anything else I compared at the time

The Wilsons did have their strenghts, but to me they always had anything but a pleasant sound, they pictured very close to the speakers in depth and had a PA-like sound characteristic in comparison to others. But they were very dynamic sounding.

After that I just heard the huge Alexandria I guess it was, which were certainly very impressive but not that much different to me in characteristic. Matter of taste probably.

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It’s not a coincidence that I have JM Lab speakers and not Watt/Puppy, Alexandria or similar. You can just look at the speakers and see the differences in design that affect soundstage, coherence, attention to delivering what’s presented to them. (I do know plenty of people that really like the Watt/Puppy, Alexandria and similar speakers - they just aren’t to my taste.)

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There have long been overly bright speakers, with tilted-up treble. As most of us know, these can be initially impressive and exciting to listen to, but fatiguing and unrealistic with more listening. But some like this sound regardless, young and old. I generally find that younger listeners prefer them more than older listeners as they like the fireworks.

As far as the system which one remembers sounded clear, transparent and amazing thirty years ago now seeming dull, I posit this is experience and listener accommodation. There are many things that impress us upon first experience, but after a while no longer impress as we grow accustomed to them. That is, with increased experience the older setup no longer impresses. And it is very hard to recapture that initial early excitement.

We experience this with firmware upgrades. The DirectStream possessed superb sound when I first got it. Now after hearing Huron, the initial firmware no longer impresses as it first did. The first firmware has not decreased in quality, but with our greater experience it does not impress as it once did.

As an analogy well known to car enthusiasts, the first sub 4 second 0-60MPH car you own is thrilling. After a while it is not as exciting and adrenaline producing as before. So you mod it to add 50 horsepower. The thrill is back, sort of, but not as good as the first time. So you mod it again. But you never recapture that initial thrill. Been there. :slight_smile: The car did not get slower, my sophistication increased. I can always prove the car is still as impressive as ever by taking a neophyte for a ride in the twisties, or on a racetrack, and listen for the screams. :slight_smile:

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Ted Smith said
... I.e. cymbals sound pretty much the same to me as they always did, even tho many of the higher frequency overtones that one might think one needs to compare tones of cymbals are attenuated or missing. ....
I interpret this as "the brain is quite fully compensating frequency areas which are missing from hearing losses".

I can easily accept that if it’s a medical fact, wich it possible is!

pro speaks the fact that training improves hearing losses

con speaks, that I don’t know old people with bad hearing who hear the same as before without hearing aids

Two things I’d still wonder about:

Does this really mean such frequency dependent hearing losses have no negative effect in perception? As if no hearing loss was present?

And can you be sure that what you interpret as “cymbals sound the same to you then and now” is objectively true and that your brain doesn’t fool you (or me in such a case) in another way?

Would be really interesting to know for sure…I’m ready to believe everything :wink: Guess I’ll have to ask a friend who’s otolaryngologist…but I’m shy to do it…it’s probably like asking an electrician for a separate power cirquit or a solid ground for hifi :wink:

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Ted Smith said

It’s not a coincidence that I have JM Lab speakers and not Watt/Puppy, Alexandria or similar. You can just look at the speakers and see the differences in design that affect soundstage, coherence, attention to delivering what’s presented to them. (I do know plenty of people that really like the Watt/Puppy, Alexandria and similar speakers - they just aren’t to my taste.)


Yes, maybe pure matter of taste…but also synergy. At the time I also heard them with a CJ tube power amp, which was kind of better then.

Looks: I always wondered how midrange/tweeter pointing crooked to the ceiling can be time coherent and less than room critical…but I’m not a speaker designer :wink: They did it differently with their bigger speakers.

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Elk - we’re doing a lot of this today, but again - yeah. Have never been much of a gearhead despite growing up in the Detroit area, and for 25 years of my career being a supplier of video and audio production for Ford future vehicle marketing research. As such, on occasion I had the opportunity to drive some awesome Fords, Jags, Volvos, etc. – and many of their competitor’s vehicles. At one point, at a Mustang clinic, I drove a Vette - I mean, DROVE it. And for the first time, understood what the gearheads were going on about. There’s theory, and discussion of specs, and then there’s experience. Didn’t make me want to buy one, but it was cool.