Golden ear

Music perception

A person said to have golden ears is one who can perceive more subtle changes in sound than others, either by training or by birth. The skill is rare.

An ongoing blind loudspeaker listening program developed by Floyd E. Toole of Harman International has demonstrated that listeners can be trained to reliably discern relatively small frequency response differences among loudspeakers, whereas untrained listeners cannot. He showed that inexperienced listeners cannot reliably identify even large frequency response deviations.

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).

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 from discerning picture quality differences among cameras, or discerning image quality differences among video display devices. However others argue that there are fundamental differences in the way audio and visual reproductions such as a photograph are compared, photographs can be compared side by side and simultaneously whereas audio must be compared sequentially.

The minimum audible change in sound pressure level is generally thought to be around 1 dB, but less than 0.1 dB has been reported in blind listening tests. When testing, the level difference between stimuli is therefore recommended to be calibrated to ±0.05 dB.

In the context of high-end audio, the term golden ears is frequently used in a sarcastic manner to refer to people who subscribe to pseudoscientific, magical or paranormal principles around audio equipment.{{Cite journal

Age and hearing

The term golden ears has also been used by audiologists to describe mature adult test subjects who show a hearing acuity similar to that of youthful subjects. In this group, the normal, expected age-related decline in hearing acuity is not observed.

Notes

References

1. Whitaker, Jerry. (April 1986). "Editorial: From here to infinity". Broadcast Engineering.
2. Kamlet, Rick. (November 1, 2005). "Listening Evaluation". SVC Online.
3. "Blind Testing in the Audio Realm, by Dave Moulton".
4. [http://theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/The_Audio_Critic_26_r.pdf The Audio Critic, issue 26, page 3, letters to the editor, R. A. Greiner "Photographic results are much more definitive and easier to compare than are audio results. (...) In the first case a time-sequential comparison is made, and in the second the comparison can be and usually is simultaneous."]
5. [http://www.lts.a.se Ljudtekniska Sällskapet]
6. (2010). "The Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science: The Auditory Brain". OUP Oxford.
7. (2015). "Communication and Aging: Creative Approaches to Improving the Quality of Life". Plural Publishing.
8. Frisina, S. T.. (2009). "International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste". John Wiley & Sons.