Originally Posted by Hermes

Interesting discussion thanks to Doge and others. The house I purchased in 2016 had speakers installed throughout the house in the ceiling and the family room was set up as a home theatre with 3 speakers in the ceiling at the front and 2 in the rear and a power subwoofer in a cabinet next to the fireplace with hole in the bottom of the cabinet.

I had a audio video company design and setup a home automation system with audio video controlled from my computer or phone as well as a TV style remote. The speakers are okay but not great even though they are good quality, a ceiling location is marginal. However, my wife loves that everything is hidden and she can dial up whatever music, lighting and HVAC from her iPhone. She hates to see speakers or speaker wire.

My best listening is via my B&O head phones although the feed is basic Apple computer quality or via the web. No analog amplifier for me. Boo.

In my younger days, I had some direct to disc recordings that were really nice.

To my dismay, the higher frequencies of my hearing are starting to diminish. I have been tested and I got the classic diagnosis from the doc - you are doing really well for a man of your age. Please. Spare me. Let’s talk about how to fix / decrease the rate of decline.

According to my doc, my ears are perfect. It is in the brain where vibrations are turned into what we hear as sound is the problem. She did not really have a fix.

What I have noticed is that since restarting piano and playing the counterpunctal music where I have to listen to each voice and strike the keys at different intensities to “voice” the music, my hearing seems better. Maybe I wish it to be better and have deluded myself into thinking it is better. When this Covid thing is behind us, I will get another hearing test and see if I have improved.

My hypo is the brain is so goal oriented that if given a hard task such as playing a 4 voice fugue perfectly, it will “train” and improve. As a musician, I have to produce a certain quality of sound with a lot of details and to know whether it I correct or not, I have to hear it.

I think audiophiles in their pursuit of quality sound also challenge their brains to differentiate what is “good”. Let’s hope we all maintain our hearing and its ability to differentiate small details over a wide range of frequencies.