We summarise recent clinical studies on neurosensory differences between humans across age and gender, in particular related to Auditory Envelopment and reproduced sound. In audio engineering, listening quality is generally explained and tested considering just snapshot (frequency domain) metrics: Frequency response, sound pressure level, distortion and direction of sound. However, the two elusive dimensions, time and change, play the most important roles. Not only in hearing, but in all our five primary senses. Human sensory physiology is summarised, along with recent studies on a particular time-domain dimension, Auditory Envelopment (AEV). Naive and professional subjects of any age and across genders, point to AEV as a coherent and universal inducer of emotion in sound reproduction. With a conference in Paris attendees are furthermore able to experience AEV at one of most conducive places for it to emerge naturally: Inside the newly renovated Notre Dame cathedral. Using the quadrant model from Nordic universities, it is discussed if audio engineering, like medicine and other “objective” sciences, may have been tending primarily to adult male needs and preferences. Our literature is abundant with investigation of frequency-domain attributes such as power, punch and mobilisation; but ignores physiological and mental effects of the time-domain modulation that happens on basically any time-scale, as we listen. It appears stonemasons centuries ago knew important things about humans and hearing that would have been lost by now, had it not been for their magnificent monuments. Because of those efforts, however, we still have guides to what sound might achieve on new platforms, when we remember to listen slowly.
