When is it time to stop the never ending quest for audiophile playback perfection?

[Josh Mound]

On 10/6/2021 at 11:12 AM, BlueSkyy said:

Yesterday, I listened to Dave Grusin’s “Sweetwater Nights” from his "Out of the Shadows" album for the first time in a long time.  I used this song back in the day to tweak the playback head's azimuth of my Sony Walkman cassette player into alignment with the record head on my Nakamichi Dragon tape deck by making sure the triangle sounded correct and the bell sound at the end of the track did not sound overly “leaden”.

 

Well I listened to that cut yesterday and I could barely hear the triangle at all!  I thought the sound system had developed a “glitch” but then realized that, to my horror, it was probably my ears that have gone off.  In order to make the tune sound acceptable, using JRiver MC's equalizer funtion I had to crank in about a +7db parametric filter at about 5.500 khz with a Q of about 1.5 to fix it.  The same thing held true on another system and even through headphones thereby confirming to me that my hearing has begun to crap out.  I suspect at some point I my schedule a visit to an audiologist to confirm these unscientific findings.

 

The point of all this is to say that I am asking myself that it may be time for me to stop investing lots of time and loads of money in search of audiophile nirvana if, after all is said and done, the sensors in my head have begun to fail.  I suspect the truth of the matter is that, until science and medicine can develop a high quality direct interface from my audio system's electronics directly into the part of the brain that allows me to hear bypassing the ear itself, the spending of any more money on the latest DAC, cable or speaker system will be in vain.

 

It sucks to get old!

 

Your thoughts?

 

I think doing some hearing tests -- even app-based ones -- is more helpful than assuming this track indicates something. There are so many factors, from the mastering to the format to the transducer and beyond, that it's completely possible your hearing isn't the issue. In doing my TBVO columns, I've certain come across masterings that rendered some sound almost inaudible. Headphones or speakers? Even more so.