Musician's ear vs. engineer's ear and gear--help

[Ken Walker]

I hope I'm not the only one with this question.

I've been performing music for a long time. My ear is honed to the point where, in teaching or conducting situations, I can listen to a trio of guitar players and tell what strings are out of tune, if any. I can listen to four or five trumpets, and actually pick out out of tune notes in passages. I can tell players to not adjust the main slide, but only to adjust individual valve slides based on the fingerings of the out of tune notes. I can listen to a chamber orchestra and pick out strings that are out of tune on any instrument playing.

I can hear the differences between tube and solid state pres. I know when to use my Manley, 610, 312A, Toft, or Langevin. I can hear the differences between my ksm44, sm7, R14, U87, ksm 141, and at3035. I can hear the differences between my Distressor, RNC, and MC77. I can plainly hear what the Speck ASC-T and the EQ on my Toft bring to the table.

Now, for the big question. My a/d is only a MOTU 828mkii, unmodded. My frinds have Mytec, Apogee and RME conversion. The MOTU, at best, is a middle of the road piece, according to people here. I have heard recodrings of the same sources with all three pieces. From what I read here all the time, I would expect to hear a great difference between the three units--but I don't. I can hear that the Rosetta 200 sounds a little bit better than the others (to my ear), but not the all-emcompassing revelations of sounds I was expecting based on what I read here.

Am I missing something? Do I not know what to listen for? I listened to files on my KRK7000b's powered by a Crown D-150, and on a pair of NS-10's powered by a Bryston 2B.

Can you have a musician's ear but not an engineer's ear?

[KRStudio]

You are not hearing the high end of the spectrum and it could be two things right away.
1: NS10 does not haveupper end.
2: your hearing may be damaged in the upper end. That would not effect the way you hear fundamentals such as tuning, pitch and position issues.

When I went from useing MOTO to Apogee it was night and day difference.

[joelpatterson]

You may be in the realm of "distinctions without a difference," like you cut a banana in half, and then you try to judge which half is healthier to eat.

Strings being out of tune and horn players being flat and "flaws" in performance are not really in the same rarefied league as the esoterica that distinguishes different converters, and then the obvious thing to note is that if we all insisted on listening to pure sine waves, then yeah, these microscopic calibrations would matter, but in the scheme of everything they don't really. Full disclosure: my experience with engineers who employ the "sportiest" gear is that they all seem to exhibit a dogmatic faith in the stuff, and treat the capture as the final product... where my history of working with "lesser" equipment and squeezing out the best possible result leads me to the conclusion that the race car always serves the whims of the driver. If you ever start to think there's any kind of parity between the two, you've taken a wrong turn, somewhere.

"But-- I won this race! Look at my speedometer! Look at my oil pressure gauge! So what if I veered off the track and never crossed the finish line! I HAVE THE BETTER CAR!"

[Ken Walker]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

You may be in the realm of "distinctions without a difference," like you cut a banana in half, and then you try to judge which half is healthier to eat.

Strings being out of tune and horn players being flat and "flaws" in performance are not really in the same rarefied league as the esoterica that distinguishes different converters, and then the obvious thing to note is that if we all insisted on listening to pure sine waves, then yeah, these microscopic calibrations would matter, but in the scheme of everything they don't really. Full disclosure: my experience with engineers who employ the "sportiest" gear is that they all seem to exhibit a dogmatic faith in the stuff, and treat the capture as the final product... where my history of working with "lesser" equipment and squeezing out the best possible result leads me to the conclusion that the race car always serves the whims of the driver. If you ever start to think there's any kind of parity between the two, you've taken a wrong turn, somewhere.

Thank you for that. Interesting perspective that means something to me because I've heard your work.

[dbbubba]

Having an ear or something as elusive as talent is one thing.
Having a bunch of stuff like gear is another thing.

The two rarely meet at the same time.

In all my years of musical "travels" I have noticed that the truly creative and gifted people don't need to have the latest and greatest.
Not only that, but they rarely do.

Having great gear is a nice thing, but it isn't always required.
Making great recordings with what you have is where the true pro stands above the others.
There IS a standard or minimal requirement, but often there are excuses.

But for me.... I love it when people I know buy new stuff that is the latest and greatest because I'll probably end up owning it or at least using it once they tire of it!

[anabolique]

I have also assured myself that I have "musical ear", its confirmed. But I am pretty unexpirienced in "engineering kind of listening".... Yes, I know, it requires practice... but I was afraid of same thing... that I am not so talented in this field of "listening".