Leaderboard

I think in these cases, it's not the instrument that is sounding different, it's a person's variability. Your mood, how much noise you've been exposed to that day, your blood pressure, all these things can affect your system, including your hearing. So if you've lost some "highs" tonight, your Tele sounds good. In the morning, that humbucker sounds nice but the Tele sounds like an ice pick. People can be very good at hearing slight differences, but when it comes to better or worse, we are affected by our biases. Since in audio there is no absolute "target" it's purely a judgement call. I've seen cases where a race driver will comment about how a change has really improved the car, but then the stopwatch numbers say he's 5 tenths slower. Is that an improvement? Maybe, if it means you don't crash, maybe not if that 5 tenths puts you in row 11 instead of row 1. At least you have a real measurable target.

Sweet rig!

Sometimes I wear a wig when I play. And bellbottoms. Things sound more like they did in the back in the day. Not sure if it's the pants, the hair, or both. But it works.

No disrespect but does your engineer hat cover your ears? For real. All talk and studies on what is or is not on pickup design and construction lack two of the most important considerations especially for players and listeners as we age. When was your last hearing test and what is the spectrum of frequencies you can actually hear? There is as much a chance everybody you are communicating with has the same number of hairs on their heads as the same drop off of high frequencies. Fact The way our brain interprets sounds and vibrations hitting our eardrum is unique to each of us. Suggest you read