golden ears

[criticaldistance]

i'm not sure if this is the best forum to bring this up in, but i'm guessing that to be a great mastering engineer, your ears need to be top notch... here is my question:

i hear the term golden ears thrown around quite a bit, but i'm confused as to what it actually means.

does having golden ears mean that your hearing is extremely well developed, meaning you can hear above and below the normal 20-20khz range of human hearing? is this something you are born with or something that you can develop over time with more and more experience and practice?

or is the term used more subjectively to describe someone with a solid grasp on sound theory, frequency response and dynamic range with the experience to get the most out of this knowledge?

discuss...

[streaky]

The second one! I never worry about the 20 Hz-20kHz thing, I can only hear 1k.

[mischa janisch]

I always thought there was only one guy with those solid metal ears - and he only appeared once in a james bond movie... but maybe it was another part of his face that had a solid metal replacement

[Thomas W. Bethe]

From WIKI

A golden ear is a term in audio circles referring to a person who believes that they possess special talents in hearing. Golden ears claim to be able to discern subtle differences in audio reproduction that most inexperienced and untrained listeners cannot, much like trained wine experts can discern differences among wines inexperienced tasters often cannot.

The term has also been lent to titles of ear training CDs, which contain drills which teach the audiophile to identify different frequency boost and cuts, differing compression values, time delays, and reverb times. "The Absolute Sound", a monthly publication of audio products and production techniques, also gives out the 'Golden Ear Award' for products that break new ground in superior sounding audio equipment.

However, while repeated double blind tests have shown that some "golden ear phenomena" are myths, with the purported audible differences being strictly preconceptions on the part of the listener, other double blind tests have shown that many skilled listeners can, indeed discern differences among amplifiers, preamplifiers, cables, turntables and CD players.[citation needed]

An ongoing blind loudspeaker listening program at Harman International's Northridge, CA. manufacturing facilities developed by Dr.Floyd Toole has demonstrated that listeners can be trained to reliably discern relatively small frequency response differences among loudspeakers, whereas untrained listeners cannot. Indeed inexperienced listeners cannot reliably identify even large frequency response deviations.[citation needed]

Dr. Toole's research also indicates that when participants can see what they are hearing, their preferences often change profoundly. If the listener and test administrator don't know which sound source is the favored-to-win candidate, the differences often disappear (or the favorite loses)[1].

Skilled listeners who claim to be able to hear differences among various pieces of audio gear assert that the ability to do so is no different than discerning picture quality differences among cameras, or discerning image quality differences among video display devices.[citation needed]

Other experienced listeners point to "double blind" tests where obvious, audible differences have been purposely built into the test, yet results show most listeners cannot hear them, demonstrating that, perhaps, "double blind" audio tests, while not contaminated by "bias effects," represent a listening context that is so different from the typical listening situation as to render the test not necessarily relevant [2] or even reliable, though of course "blind-testing" remains an extremely useful tool in audio "myth busting."

and if you want to get your own "golden ears" or at least have a training course that will give you some of the basics I highly recommend Moulton Laboratories :: Golden Ears

[macc]

I think this just got answered (ish) over here;

Stereo Analizer and phase, why?

[Darius van H]

IMO, golden experience is more important then golden ears.