Our inner ears generate their own sounds
Our inner ears generates its own sounds – which might account for some dichotomy between measured and subjective quality of some high fidelity systems.
Seems to me that this effect, linked to below, would tend to make the subjective experience better than it would ordinarily be. Both aiding listening and confounding ‘golden ear’ evaluation of absolute quality of high fidelity audio
“Not only can the human ear detect sounds, it can also generate them. If the ear hears the two upper tones of a major triad, it produces the fundamental of the chord which can then be measured. This phenomenon [is] called “otoacoustic emission”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-audiometric-reliable.html