Ok, this is a slightly bizarre topic for this circle, but be patient with me here...
Like many of you, I've chased great sound for several decades. In my case, it's been at least 40 years, and I've been through every (ahem) phase of audiophilia that's emerged during those years. But as I was puttering around this past week, moving my speaker stands another inch out into the room, moving the curtains behind them, and toeing them in another couple of degrees, I flashed back to something I bought for my father back in the 1980s when he was beginning to have a bit of trouble with increasing deafness.
They were little flaps, somewhat cupped, that attached to the back of ones ears, and they were marketed to audiophiles. I'm sure I read about them in Stereophile or The Absolute Sound, because there wasn't an internet. Customers were encouraged, I believe, to wear them to live concerts and to listen to their home systems. I'm not certain, but I think they were made out of leather or some kind of faux leather.
Here's the thing: they absolutely and indisputably changed the sound of whatever one was listening to, just as cupping one's hands behind ones ears changes pretty much everything about our perception of sounds.
So what's bothering me is that my external ears are probably a good half-inch longer from top-to-bottom than my wife's, and perhaps the same amount larger from front to back. Also, her ears are less cupped than mine.
So is there any chance whatsoever that she's hearing things the same way as I am? And when you put a bunch of audiophiles in a room to listen to a system demo, are there some people for whom the system and acoustic treatment are optimized, while it just misses the mark for others just because of something as basic as the physical shape of their ears?
I know that I have significant HF attenuation in my hearing now I've hit 70, but I still love listening to high-fidelity music. It's just that I think that in order to satisfy myself to the highest degree possible, I may have to accept that I have to listen alone...because the closer I get to audio perfection for me, the further away I may get for everyone else.
We spend untold amounts of money on subtleties in this hobby, and often become frustrated when others don't hear what we do. Maybe that's just too much to expect.