Passive Bookshelf Speaker Selection

A speaker IS a hearing aid. It's a giant hearing aid. Every speaker is tuned differently because every designer has a different amount of hearing loss. The trouble is the speaker you buy is unlikely to match your ears. If it does, it will be by chance. Do not be duped. 

You can try the HSU HB-1 Mk2 HB-1 MK2 Horn Bookshelf Speaker  or the HC-1 Mk2 which is a center channel that you can stand upright which is what I did in my office HC-1 MK2 Horn Bookshelf Speaker Both of these are good and if you don't like them you can just ship them back.

kenjit:

A speaker IS a hearing aid. It’s a giant hearing aid. Every speaker is tuned differently because every designer has a different amount of hearing loss.

The mistake you’re making kenjit, well one of them anyway, is a common one. You think of the human ear as a microphone and the human brain as some kind of printout or readout. As if all we do is register energy levels of vibrating molecules and graph them out on some kind of screen in there somewhere. Big mistake. (And who’s watching the screen then, eh?)

Not that its not an easy enough mistake to make. We have an ear drum, and little bones, and nerves, and it looks an awful lot like a microphone and wires. But then it gets to the brain and that’s where this simplistic mechanistic view falls to pieces.

We don’t register frequencies, kenjit. We recognize patterns. You need to stop obsessing on hearing and spend a little time thinking about listening. Hearing is passive. Hearing is when the audiologist puts headphones on and plays some noises and you indicate whether you hear them or not. All the stuff you keep talking about with speakers, that’s hearing. That is NOT listening!

Listening is not passive. Listening is active. Hearing is primitive, reflexive. Listening is actually a very high cerebral function. Listening is how we learn to know the difference between a violin being played well and a violin being played poorly. You cannot tell the difference by frequency response. You can only tell by listening.

Once you understand the difference between hearing and listening then so many things fall into place. You will see why it is that all these different speakers are actually a good thing. Because when we listen to music its the patterns that carry us away. When the patterns are believable enough we no longer feel its a recording or a speaker we feel its Jennifer Warnes. But just as you can hear your girlfriend and know its her even if muffled by a blanket that ruins the frequency response, in other words ruins the sound that you hear, when its really her you know it by the patterns.

You know this is true. You could easily tell a perfectly frequency correct recording of your girlfriend apart from your actual girlfriend talking to you through a blanket. The blanket totally ruined the frequency response but not the patterns. I’m repeating this over and over again because its a big deal and you (and a lot of other people- you are NOT alone!) need to get it straight. Not just so you’ll quit bugging us listeners about it either. But because this gross misunderstanding is doing nothing but holding you back.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Some people simply find certain speakers better at revealing the patterns than others. Even if the frequency response is off. Because we HEAR the frequency response, but we LISTEN to the patterns.

Maybe you just need to become a better listener. I don’t know. Plenty of weak listeners out there. Anyone can’t hear for example how some wires obviously sound better one way than another, its not because they can’t hear. Its because they aren’t listening. Give it a try. Go and listen. You will see.

Kenjit’s negativity sounds like he may simply suffer from some form of depression (very common) and might benefit from some professional help.

IMHO

+1 mapmanI have a small dark room in the basement that I could let Kenjit use for a year or two until he gets better.