High End Audio and Your hearing as you get older

DJohnson54 is right. When I started my high-end journey 29 years ago, I was 18 years old, and my mentors were in their 30s, 40s and 50s. I remember being shocked that my buddy in his early 50s could not hear the hiss and cracks on our favorite LPs. But he knew how to listen to music and appreciate the best things about recorded music, and he educated me accordingly. Another mentor told me repeatedly not to waste too much money on equipment, as the average man's hearing begins to fall off gradually at about 20 years of age (mostly high frequencies) and gets downright bad in his 50s. Interestingly, women's hearing does not start to decline until late 20s and their ability to hear well extends quite a bit later into life than the man's. These are, of course, general statements of scientific concern, and each one of us ages differently. But it used to make me smile to myself when some of the aging editors of TAS and some other publications would wax on about minute differences in equipment, and I felt rather sure that I (in my 20's)was hearing significantly more detail than they were. This point has been driven home to me so many times that I consider myself more of a music lover now than a 'sound buff.' Lessons here: Enjoy the music; trust your ears; find the system which complements your life, not controls it.

"Are they in use in the US?"

There were some businesses that were giving it a whirl but the media jumped all over it - you know, child abuse and all that. In retrospect, they were probably right to do so; between the attitude of indifference and disrespect that I see so many teens directing towards adults, it would be far too powerful a weapon in our hands.

At 56, my hearing ability has suffered as evidenced by my inability, at times, to hear someone talking directly to me in a noisy environment. But put me in front of a system and all bets are off concerning the limits of my hearing. Just like speed reading is nothing more than training the muscles of the eyes to focus on a larger portion of the page, one's hearing acuity is improved over time and with practice. We hear things about 50 milliseconds before we see things when they are less than about 10 meters from us. Our hearing developed long before our vision did all those many years ago. We react faster to sound when startled. Sensitivity to sound decreases as we age but acuity can and does improve. All it takes is a 'hint' of the sound and our brains fill in the rest.

Nonoise, I suspect that brain filling might become fatiguing, and without the regular calibration that younger folks enjoy, perhaps even unreliable. As the clip that Ballan linked suggests, that doesn't mean that our listening experience is without merit or even potential growth. It just might be different.

Not directly related, but pretty close. I heard (I think it was on NPR) recently that all folks that ride motorcycles without helmuts or hearing protection of some sort will have significant hearing loss as they age (age = more exposure). Of course, "significant" is relative. The loss is due to the wind noise & not loud mufflers...

Something I'd never considered..but not being a motorcycle rider, it's just interesting to me. If there are any riders hear..think about it..