Golden ear

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For the mushroom, see Tremella aurantialba.

For the bridge, see Golden Ears Bridge.

A golden ear is a term in audio circles referring to a person who believes that they possess special talents in hearing. Golden ears claim to be able to discern subtle differences in audio reproduction that most inexperienced and untrained listeners cannot, much like trained wine experts can discern differences among wines inexperienced tasters often cannot.

The term has also been lent to titles of ear training CDs, which contain drills which teach the audiophile to identify different frequency boost and cuts, differing compression values, time delays, and reverb times. "The Absolute Sound", a monthly publication of audio products and production techniques, also gives out the 'Golden Ear Award' for products that break new ground in superior sounding audio equipment.

However, while repeated double blind tests have shown that some "golden ear phenomena" are myths, with the purported audible differences being strictly preconceptions on the part of the listener, other double blind tests have shown that many skilled listeners can, indeed discern differences among amplifiers, preamplifiers, cables, turntables and CD players.^{[citation needed]}

An ongoing blind loudspeaker listening program at Harman International's Northridge, CA. manufacturing facilities developed by Dr.Floyd Toole has demonstrated that listeners can be trained to reliably discern relatively small frequency response differences among loudspeakers, whereas untrained listeners cannot. Indeed inexperienced listeners cannot reliably identify even large frequency response deviations.^{[citation needed]}

Dr. Toole's research also indicates that when participants can see what they are hearing, their preferences often change profoundly. If the listener and test administrator don't know which sound source is the favored-to-win candidate, the differences often disappear (or the favorite loses)^[1].

Skilled listeners who claim to be able to hear differences among various pieces of audio gear assert that the ability to do so is no different than discerning picture quality differences among cameras, or discerning image quality differences among video display devices.^{[citation needed]}

Other experienced listeners point to "double blind" tests where obvious, audible differences have been purposely built into the test, yet results show most listeners cannot hear them, demonstrating that, perhaps, "double blind" audio tests, while not contaminated by "bias effects," represent a listening context that is so different from the typical listening situation as to render the test not necessarily relevant ^[2] or even reliable, though of course "blind-testing" remains an extremely useful tool in audio "myth busting."

See also: Audiophile

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