Trained and untrained listeners mostly rank loudspeakers the same way

Evidence

Listeners of all backgrounds are able to do this, but those with training, experience and normal hearing do it more rapidly, with better consistency. In the end, the product rankings for most listeners are very similar. Obviously, people with hearing loss have a handicap. Their opinions are more variable, and they exhibit biases depending on the nature of their disability. They still enjoy music and movies, but their opinions should be their own. Not surprisingly, age is a factor in this, as well as occupational or recreational exposure to high sound levels. Abuses in widespread headphone listening appears to have resulted in increased hearing problems in young people. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 42

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s soundscape work on acoustic ecology and how expertise shapes sonic discernment.

Related

• Musicians judge loudspeakers on different rationales and can be inconsistent raters. (similarity 0.87)
• Naive and trained listeners agree closely on loudspeaker quality ratings (similarity 0.86)
• Roughly 75 percent of people have sufficiently normal hearing to make reliable loudspeaker judgments (similarity 0.86)
• Hi-fi enthusiasts judge sound quality more reliably than untrained musicians do (similarity 0.85)
• Musicians who are not audio enthusiasts judge loudspeakers on different rationales (similarity 0.85)
• Listeners judge loudspeakers equally well on studio-produced popular music (similarity 0.85)
• Hi-fi enthusiasts, not musicians, are the most reliable listeners (similarity 0.84)
• Musicians make poor or unreliable subjective loudspeaker evaluators (similarity 0.84)
• Hearing loss makes listener opinions unreliable no matter how experienced (similarity 0.84)
• Hearing-normal listeners give far more consistent loudspeaker quality ratings. (similarity 0.83)
• Hearing-impaired listeners give inconsistent sound-quality ratings unlike normal-hearing subjects (similarity 0.83)
• Musicians do not reliably align with ordinary listeners in judgments (similarity 0.83)
• Most listeners can recognize audio excellence when comparing loudspeakers side by side. (similarity 0.83)
• Listeners largely agree on preference, and preferred speakers measure smoothest (similarity 0.82)
• Human sound-quality judgments are skewed by expectation biases, not just the sound itself. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Musicians who are not audio enthusiasts judge loudspeakers on different rationales #contradicts (0.85) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 72
• Trained listener panels differ systematically from the general audience #contradicts (0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 879