That's the point. The mechanisms that humans have to perceive sound is very complex and well known to not be reliable. The parts of the brain that remember sounds are even less accurate. There's loads of scientific papers on the subject on humans' perception of sounds.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbm.25325
This is just one which links several others. Many of these are hard reading and not intended for the layman.
I know what you're saying. Just because equipment is more accurate, that doesn't mean that ears aren't accurate enough. I'm very familiar on the ear and how it processes sound. I didn't graduate college before I got too sick, but I did make it through that part of my education in Audio Engineering Technologies, that I was going to Belmont University for.
IF I'M LISTENING TO MUSIC, MY EARS ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS, FART BOX MAN.
I trust my ears, and they've never let me down. The weather also changes, that changes sound, because it changes static atmosphere pressure (BAR), humidity, overall air density, which changes the speed of sound, which also changes the losses of the sound in the air. There's always something to say why something isn't right.
PWK has full vehicle 3D audio physics software, and occasionally something like that may even have a slip up in predicting outcomes.
I can hear when a sub is able to pick up notes after some play time that it couldn't before, and it was clearly due to play time and woofer stiffness. I feel like I've said this so many times. I'm sorry if you don't understand how EASY this is to hear. BUT, you might have to play lower than you do to be able to hear it, I'm not sure. I don't assume and judge everything about you, I just do it in sarcasm to your responses, since you understand how everybody hears, with your highly developed telepathy.
No doubt our minds trick us. I've tested the paragraph above with test tones. You'd have to be retarded not to be able to hear it. It's not woowoo, it's very simple, and it's happened enough where I've noticed. I care, because I've seen it happen. Many of my boxes can play well below 30 hz, some play well below 25 hz, some play below 20 hz. Ok? You're not doing that. Let's keep some relevance and context to our sarcastic judgements. You have a ton of knowledge, and I really don't disagree with you; you and I agree wayyyyyyy more than we disagree. I think we just come from two different basshead areas, which is fine, and I like it when people don't do the same thing as me. It keeps us all fresh and it's fun as hell. I need people like you doing SPL stuff and building subs and testing so I can learn whatever is found, from you, and others. I learn from everyone.
It's silly to say people can't hear stuff. You have zero way to prove that any single person isn't hearing what they think they're hearing. You can't prove it either way, if they are or aren't. So don't sit here and say I can hear what I've clearly heard from installing many systems and tuning them and I kept a whole list of tones on my phone to help with tuning people's systems. GTFOutta here with that stupid "you can't hear it stuff." It's asinine. And don't go acting like I say every sub needs a magic unicorn anal stretching ritual or something ridiculous like that. All it is: people just being careful with their volume when the sub is brand new, and especially if they're trying to dip low on the regular. It's just play time. No ritual. It's just being smart and careful, because you care about your equipment.