As We See It

Just thinking after seeing the photo and the title of the column...

How would you say listening with glasses on differs from glasses off?

Eyeglasses can vibrate, they have a resonant frequency, they have surfaces we put right in front of our faces, etc...

I listen with glasses off, with no chair back at head level.

Also interesting - listening to a Hi Fi 'sounds different' than listening to the same sounds with an 'appropriate' source of visual cues. We actually hear things differently with different sight cues!

Thanks for the interesting "As We See It."

As we see it affects how we hear it!

Is that how you listen to live music as well?

with candles
glasses off
shoes off
incense

I do find that glasses have a tendency to reflect the center image of vocals and instruments with fussy speakers like Magneplanars. High-backed sofas and chairs also absorb or reflect in an undesirable way.

I think the best way to verify what one hears is by consensus. One opinion or subjective review is just that... If many hear and report, there are truths that come to the fore that I see as 'objective'.

music and "The Teaching Company" are constant companions.

At home, with my big Sennhieser System, I can become an Addict

On the Road, with a nice player & little in-ears, there is no loneliness

I'll be buried with Lang Lang playing

Music is a lifetime friend & an endless supply of dopamine.

My little Etymotics shut-out the "maniacal" World

Music creates a paradisiacal environment.

"Thank God for the Radio" the Kindels c.1986

"Thank God for Music",

my whole lifetime,

Tony in Michigan

There's some basis to support Kal, Herb and others who prefer to listen without eyeglasses. I had the honor of chatting with Jake Turner between flights at the Brussels airport in the mid '70s. He asserted that not wearing eyeglasses is essential for the full musical experience because the compression/rarefaction of sound is also sensed by the corneas of our eyes. The corneas have the highest density of nerves making them exquisitely sensitive to pressure (and if abraded, intense pain). Jake Turner was a great audio engineer who made notable contributions to the advancement of sound reproduction. It's worth looking up his accomplishments with electostatic headphones and speakers after Koss purchased Acoustat.

... listen with eyes open rather than eyes closed?

Very deep meditations- JVS
Keep writing and Happy Listening!

when I was in the Audio Business, I realized that people listen with their eyes.

First they read a positive TAS Review, then they buy what they've read about and finally listen as they're friends audition this latest "important" upgrade to see if the new "thing" is as good as ole HP claimed. It usually wasn't, oh-well. The TAS were such bull-shitters compared to our Tyll & Herb.R of Stereophile who take the time to put the piece into "their" vast context of experiences.

On this matter of eyes & ears, how many of us have the "Earned Confidence" of someone like Bob Katz?
Can we believe our ears?
I discovered that I couldn't until I had the Univ.of Michigan's Audiologists adjust my audio gear to perform in harmony with my personal hearing response curves.

Another factor is people's "Sacreds". As a Salon, I ran into this all the time: Only tubes sound good! is an everyday example.

There seems to be plenty of Sacreds, vinyl audio folks are chuck full of em. Headphones have a few: Balanced vs. single ended is a darn good example. It should be obvious that single ended has greater potential for being better. ( there's less to go wrong )

Listening, in the Dark with half a fifth of 5-Oclock Vodka already inside me, a bag of Chips, a can of roasted Beer Nuts and an 8 ounce Glass of the remaining happy-juice is about the best darn listening experience a person could hope for. ( I forgot: sitting in a Navy Blue crushed velvet Laz-y-boy with only a few cigarette burns and a fresh pack of Pall Mal unfiltered or a nice $5 Cigar ) Bring it on!!!

Tony in Michigan

ps. by now, nearly 20 years of no-booze & definitely no smoking!!!, phew.

...likes the same thing. That's why young music lovers are surprised or frustrated their friend doesn't "get" the newest artist/recording being shared. Music is a personal experience, even in the presence of empathetic others. Mature music lovers realize they themselves are different people depending on time, circumstance and context. That's why our tastes change. Perhaps audio gear is the same. One system grates whereas another seems to fulfill a personal need at that moment. That's why we can't all agree on what makes good gear.

Papermate?

BIC?

I would think reviewers, being a type of connoisseur, would appreciate the finer points of high end pens.

Kal:

Speaking of reviews, I have found many of your reviews to be well-reasoned and very helpful.

Thank you.

That phrase could get legged out to two or three more levels of objective subjective when talking about music reviews. I can't imagine how a reviewer washes out all the things that I know affect my own perceptions of music, or of music through any given system. There are days (rare, but still) when NOTHING I listen to is satisfying, and days when listening through my emergency power outage radio is immensely satisfying.

I have noted in your reviews, and almost everyone else's on this site, that a peak experience seems to correlate with forgetting that you've got a job to do - losing track of your role as assessor and critic and just dancing... or whatever place that music takes you away from your professional role. It doesn't happen in every review. Not that its terribly rare - since you all try to avoid reviewing things that will be poorly reviewed - but rare enough to have gotten my attention. I've started to look for those as key markers that something being reviewed is really special - or at least that's my theory. Particularly relevant to me since my drug of choice is music - other than background music, I listen to leave this petty world behind. So far, the few decisions I've made on new gear based on the reviews I read here seem to have confirmed that theory.

Reviews without measurements are useless. Might just as well be ignored.

All good amplifiers are transparent and sound identical. Audiophiles cannot tell them apart in blind tests. So, what do they write about when they review transparent low distortion gear? Bad/ distorting amplifiers with “signature” sound have no place in a high fidelity system.

I'm a candidate for a much wider variety of music than what I like at any given time, and what's in my growing but modest collection. Some things I learn to like when I come back to them later, some I like when I hear them on different gear, some I like when I read an encouraging review and take the time to listen and re-listen, and some I learn to like when friends turn me on to the music. There's a kind of empathy that connects me to a new piece of music, then the composer/artist, and given enough time and exposure I can imagine liking things that I'd usually dismiss in a quick listen today.

Shouldn't the title of the post be "The Reviewer's Jason?"