perfectly balanced ears?

last night, i entertained my last batch of visitors (some met for the first time) who came to listen to my system. i say "last" because i don't think i want to invite and accept invitations to listen to my system anymore.

the reason is nothing political nor personal. simply, i have concluded that human's hearing is so vastly different that it is difficult to find two persons with the same hearing, perception and listening ability.

for example, i laboured to get my vocal height close to four and a half ft and with the centre image right smack in the middle of my back wall. yet many listeners cannot detect it. some commented that it is skewed to the right/left and image height is a mere 3 ft, blah blah blah. imagine one of maggie's greatest strength is image height! it is both frustrating and amusing. because it is right in front of me; i get that everytime i sit in the sweet spot! it is not until i played them the ultimate test disc - chesky test disc #1 track #10 - with bob anders walking around within the soundstage that they are convinced that i got it right, and dead right centre. i had to resort to this test disc again last night.

how could this happen? i believe our delicate ears are built differently. i find that many listeners cannot quite detect the highest frequencies (above 16KHz, i guess) hence their perception of height could be majorly affected.

audiophiles come in many kinds. some are particular about soundstage; some imaging; some speaker positioning; some bass but very few are particular about intricate aspects like tonal balance, tonal colour and quality, harmonic texture, midrange liquidity, midrange density, moisture, microdynamics.... the list go on. why not strive to be an all-rounded audiophile?

over the years i only came across three (to be exact) audiophiles who could pinpoint my system's strengths and weaknesses accurately, and to my approval and satisfaction. one of them is our savvy audio note dealer, wong. wong is the first one and only one that pointed to me that my audio research's triode sound and tonal colour is in a league on its own.

my close-door policy is not meant to be anti-social but rather i believe some things are best left to the enjoyment of the owner.

who said that hi-fi is not a selfish hobby?