[jmagill]

I knew there was a very real possibility this thread would devolve into yet another tedious debate about 'opening up,' which was not my intent, so to try to direct it back toward the point I was trying to make, let me clarify.

First, as several here have said, what I hear is good enough for me, too, and I'm not questioning what anyone hears. As I said, it's only they who should be doing the questioning.

Second, I merely used the 'opening up' phenomenon as an exercise to illustrate to those who use their subjective opinions to style themselves an authority on matters of perception and taste how questionable such matters are when examined objectively. I could just as easily have used as examples those who say they can hear the difference between Brazilian and Indian rosewood, or why Adirondack spruce makes the best top, etc.

My goal was to try to add a cautionary note to the tendency of some to promote without question their subjective experience as objective truth, and to encourage them with good reasons to, in fact, question that subjective experience.

Then perhaps, we can move beyond guitar lore for a while to fresher, more interesting topics.