HT wine-tasting (was HT tests)

[A440A@aol.com]

Inre comparing listener response to temperaments, Richard writes:

>>It should be noted before going on that all this would do is establish (at 
best)
the preferences of the listening group in the most general of senses. It would
explain absolutely nothing relevant to why any such preferences were 
observable.<< 

   It will also explain nothing of quantum mechanics, viral theory, or 
intergalactic time zones, but so what?  At this stage of the game, 
establishing the preferences of the "listening group" is a valuable piece of 
information.  It may allow a tuner to chart a course leading to more money 
and customers. I think that is worth the effort, in and of itself.    
    As to "why" these preferences are observable, I submit that to the 
listener sensitized to the nuance, the variation of harmonic values in music 
is more aesthetically attractive than sameness.  I believe that our emotional 
sensitivity to the sonic envelope evolved in a non-intellectual(ie, 
non-mathematical) environment of sensory stimulation. In this light, ET is an 
artificially created compromise arrived at for reasons having little  to do 
with innate harmonic attraction, but rather, in spite of it.  As this 
hypothesis is continually tested, and the evidence grows of its validity, the 
demands required to contradict it grows, as well, (another damn pun..)  It is 
a thin rebuttal to say that since it can't be proven, it can't be true.   
     As the preferences continue to exhibit a common bias, (the preferred 
sound of a WT piano) from a widening pool of listening groups, it becomes 
more and more difficult to offer an alternative (oops, another one) 
rationale.  This process will continue, and I, for one, am heartened by the 
growing evidence that when all else is equal, the WT continues to be 
preferred.
 Regards,
 Ed Foote RPT