Absolute References

Have you ever noticed that something can be "perfect" until you hear it slightly different? What you thought was right changes almost instantly when you hear it from another angle, or through a slightly different lens. Here's an example: look out the window where you are sitting right now. If the window's relatively clean, it'll look just fine. Now clean both sides of the window and notice how much better the view is. Fact is, we adjust to our surroundings and our judgments move relative to our surroundings and circumstances. When we were in Munich at the high end show the system sounded quite good on the Raidho's and I probably wouldn't have wanted to change a thing. But then we placed that tuning bell into the setup and an entire layer of grit was removed. We weren't even aware of the grit before placing this device into the setup. This means there's no real absolute reference in our heads to judge by. We may think there is, but it's merely an illusion we like to keep alive to help us through the day.