In Whose Ears Do You Trust Most?

"She keeps me honest, she can be merciless as she has no emotional investment." Precisely.

As for the Merlins, nothing has lead me to stray from them. Another solution for me has been to use two sets of electronics,Music Reference and Atma-sphere, as they sound different, yet both sound "right" (I know, not logical), and I can't pick one over the other. Though the significant other is very unhappy with the idea that I might ever switch the Atma-sphere.

French fries, you reminded me of how little I thought about equipment, sound quality and simply enjoyed music with my KLH Model Twenty back in the day. Though I did what an auiophile was back then, I did imagine I had reach audio nirvana and would never "need" anything else.

Thinking about this a bit more, I don't tend to doubt what I am hearing (for the most part) and describing it. I think I'm pretty good at that (my weakness is tweaks where for the most part I can't hear any differences). I feel less comfortable with the issue of proclaiming one piece of gear as "better" than another, assuming equipment of similar "quality" - I'm not talking about gross differences between mediocre and excellent gear. But when comparing the good stuff, I can hear differences, but find it hard to say which is better, as it always seems to be tradeoffs in one area of perfomance or another - and in no case does reproduce music sound like live, unamplified music - not very close IMHO. When asked to compare, I feel most comfortable saying two pieces of equipment (Music Reference versus Atma-sphere for example) are both very good, portray music differently and it is a matter of taste. I ask for other opinions of "disinterested" folks that know and love music since I feel I get a less analytical assessment (my own) and a more unbiased, natural reaction to the musical event coming through the gear.