By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

Everything seems normal, right, until we hear something different. Then it all changes.

We don’t notice things until what we have come to accept as right is changed. We don’t notice there’s no body to a cymbal until we hear one that has it. Or we don’t notice a singer’s voice is anything but natural until we’re presented with a comparative difference.

Our ear/brains have amazing abilities to adapt to our surroundings and allow us to comprehend sounds and their sources even if they aren’t true to those sources.

It is only when we hear something more natural that we recognize the deficiencies and then find it hard to imagine how we ever bought into the first sound as being real.

This continual mental upgrading process happens almost without notice until it comes to recorded music. With recordings, there’s no memory to massage or question. It is there for the examination. The instrument that had at one time sounded so perfect is still flawed once you have been shown its failings.

What we take for granted as normal is all relative. It can change in an instant.

Once you hear better, there’s no going back to what once was right.

For more on this story go to: PS AUDIO