It's worrying to think we audiophiles might be the chosen few, the golden eared bunch endowed with perception powers not shared with the plebiscite.
Worrying, but not true. In all my many decades of working with both the cognoscenti and the curious, I have yet to find anyone not able to discern differences in sound quality when listening to our reference system.
Which leads me to believe most people just aren't interested in identifying and singling out the good from the bad. That to them, there's little value in the choices we make. Too much trouble to activate internal protection filters reserved for more important tasks like figuring out which apple to eat, what parking space to wait for, or which movie to watch.
Seems to me the Chosen Few place a higher value on what reaches their ears in the same way a chocolate connoisseur guards their taste buds against a Hershey bar.
The election to enjoy better sound reproduction is not reserved for a select group of specially endowed listeners.
No, we hear differences because we've chosen ourselves.
