Re: Re: What causes listening "fatigue"?
I totally agree about the need for tone control, as they say 'beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder' so tailoring the sound to your liking is very important for ultimate satisfaction, IMO.
I use the Parametric Eq in my DBX Driverack crossover, with fantastic results. You can adjust the entire frequency response of the system from 20Hz - 20kHz in 0.1dB steps, all done in the digital domain, it sounds super clean and it doesn't degrade the overall sound too much like the old graphic equalizers used to with their cheap pots and dodgy circuits.
Regards,
Steve M.
I totally agree about the need for tone control, as they say 'beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder' so tailoring the sound to your liking is very important for ultimate satisfaction, IMO.
I use the Parametric Eq in my DBX Driverack crossover, with fantastic results. You can adjust the entire frequency response of the system from 20Hz - 20kHz in 0.1dB steps, all done in the digital domain, it sounds super clean and it doesn't degrade the overall sound too much like the old graphic equalizers used to with their cheap pots and dodgy circuits.
Regards,
Steve M.
dodgy circuits
Steve M said:Tone controls? A good equalizer? Force the music to sound good. That's what I do.
MJL21193 said:
Sorry for the off topic but this term gave me a funny thought. I wonder how many automotive collision avoidance systems will be deliberately based on dodgy circuits?
As for using an equalizer, I believe they can often be used to advantage to flatten out speaker response in a room at the listening position. I have a no-name Korean(?) cheap rack mounted one from the late 70's, 10 band per channel (20 slide pots) that is actually very good except for noisy pot issues that cleaner has fixed. It is totally silent and very low distortion.
Nope, it's simply that a GEQ has fixed bands and Q and except by freak chance it's unlikely that the centre freq of a particular band and it's Q will be appropriate to the resoant mode in your room. Toole has a number of papers that have this as a part of their content. He advocates measurement and the use of the appropriate parametric EQ. From the data and examples presented, it makes sense.MJL21193 said:
I think one of the main reasons is getting all stressed about how it sounds and if it's "right". You get so wrapped up worring that you can't relax. So there you are all hyped up and you start to focus on the smallest of imperfections and just miss the boat entirely. You simply burn yourself out.
Rob
Rob
Hi,
Could it be due to the A-D then D-A (and associated processing) process used in most sources these days ? Afterall the microphones and often a lot of the equipment used to record music is analog. Digital processing has a lot of work to do in accurately maintaining the analog original waveform.
As has been mentioned above the term listening fatigue was not heard of 20 years ago or more.
I think it would be interesting to know if people out there using analogue (turntable, reel-to-reel etc) suffer from the same listening fatigue as users with digital sources.
Thanks
Gareth
Could it be due to the A-D then D-A (and associated processing) process used in most sources these days ? Afterall the microphones and often a lot of the equipment used to record music is analog. Digital processing has a lot of work to do in accurately maintaining the analog original waveform.
As has been mentioned above the term listening fatigue was not heard of 20 years ago or more.
I think it would be interesting to know if people out there using analogue (turntable, reel-to-reel etc) suffer from the same listening fatigue as users with digital sources.
Thanks
Gareth
Hi,
Yes, I agree that speakers are the weakest link beilng that they are the least efficient item of the chain, but I still think it would be interesting to hear more from analog source users.
I find that if I switch from digital to analog generally I can listen longer without the slight harshness that can be found. Perhaps it is just me, I don't know.
Thanks
Gareth
Yes, I agree that speakers are the weakest link beilng that they are the least efficient item of the chain, but I still think it would be interesting to hear more from analog source users.
I find that if I switch from digital to analog generally I can listen longer without the slight harshness that can be found. Perhaps it is just me, I don't know.
Thanks
Gareth
I agree with many of the comments already made.
As I grow older, my tolerance for badly-reproduced music decreases, to the extent that I'd sometimes rather not listen at all that have to tolerate it. I'm not talking about gross distortion here, nor is it 'audio snobbery' - some mediocre systems are quite acceptable.
Certainly, high levels of compression can literally make me feel ill, so that I have to leave the room if I can't turn the noise off.
I suspect that with age, our ability to discriminate fine detail (resolving power, if you like) decreases, so anything which masks detail whilst still allowing cues to its presence causes fatigue as the brain attempts to discriminate.
For me, the psychological effect is very similar to that experienced when attempting to follow a conversation in a noisy room.
All this is nothing new - our parents (and, no doubt, theirs before them) also objected to the high SPLs which we preferred when young, I suspect for just the reasons I've outlined above.
Notice also that at the low-fi end of things, older individuals often prefer a more 'mellow' sound, deficient in HF. Might this be because such a response effectively removes some of the hints that remain of detail that is missing, and thus relieves the brain of the burden of attempting to decode them?
As I grow older, my tolerance for badly-reproduced music decreases, to the extent that I'd sometimes rather not listen at all that have to tolerate it. I'm not talking about gross distortion here, nor is it 'audio snobbery' - some mediocre systems are quite acceptable.
Certainly, high levels of compression can literally make me feel ill, so that I have to leave the room if I can't turn the noise off.
I suspect that with age, our ability to discriminate fine detail (resolving power, if you like) decreases, so anything which masks detail whilst still allowing cues to its presence causes fatigue as the brain attempts to discriminate.
For me, the psychological effect is very similar to that experienced when attempting to follow a conversation in a noisy room.
All this is nothing new - our parents (and, no doubt, theirs before them) also objected to the high SPLs which we preferred when young, I suspect for just the reasons I've outlined above.
Notice also that at the low-fi end of things, older individuals often prefer a more 'mellow' sound, deficient in HF. Might this be because such a response effectively removes some of the hints that remain of detail that is missing, and thus relieves the brain of the burden of attempting to decode them?
listening fatigue
i agree with the veiw that speakers are the weakest link in any sound system i had a set of three way speakers that had amazing specs on paper they had titanium tweeters and yes after a while i did get tired listening to them, i recently changed the speakers, now have silk dome tweeters and guess what no listening fatigue!
i agree with the veiw that speakers are the weakest link in any sound system i had a set of three way speakers that had amazing specs on paper they had titanium tweeters and yes after a while i did get tired listening to them, i recently changed the speakers, now have silk dome tweeters and guess what no listening fatigue!
Switching distortion
I have noticed that I am very sensitive to switching distortion. This increases as the level decreases in class B amplifiers just where the ear is most sensitive to high order harmonic distortion. The most obvious sign is on female vocal with words ending in "s" which comes across sounding like "tssszzzzzz". If you listen to a good source through a class A or error correcting amplifier this does not occur. I don't think listener fatigue is new John Linsley Hood mentioned it in his 1969 design for a 10 watt class A amplifier.
I have noticed that I am very sensitive to switching distortion. This increases as the level decreases in class B amplifiers just where the ear is most sensitive to high order harmonic distortion. The most obvious sign is on female vocal with words ending in "s" which comes across sounding like "tssszzzzzz". If you listen to a good source through a class A or error correcting amplifier this does not occur. I don't think listener fatigue is new John Linsley Hood mentioned it in his 1969 design for a 10 watt class A amplifier.
What Causes Listening Fatigue?
1) This kind of thing. This too.
2) Resonant energy storage in poor-quality drivers, particularly uncontrolled resonances in the critical 1~5 kHz region. (Bad actors: undamped metal cones, cheap metal-dome tweeters.) Gross tweeter distortion due to poor crossover design is very common in inexpensive speakers.
3) At lower listening levels: crossover distortion in poorly-designed Class AB amplifiers, feedback amplifiers with inadequate phase margin and reactive loads above 50 kHz, and a lot more common than you might think, AM radio being picked up by the speaker leads (which typically resonate around 1 MHz) which gets into the feedback loop and creates intermodulation distortion at the input-transistors of the amplifier. RFI in analog electronic equipment is becoming more and more common in the RFI-filled domestic environments we have today.
1) This kind of thing. This too.
2) Resonant energy storage in poor-quality drivers, particularly uncontrolled resonances in the critical 1~5 kHz region. (Bad actors: undamped metal cones, cheap metal-dome tweeters.) Gross tweeter distortion due to poor crossover design is very common in inexpensive speakers.
3) At lower listening levels: crossover distortion in poorly-designed Class AB amplifiers, feedback amplifiers with inadequate phase margin and reactive loads above 50 kHz, and a lot more common than you might think, AM radio being picked up by the speaker leads (which typically resonate around 1 MHz) which gets into the feedback loop and creates intermodulation distortion at the input-transistors of the amplifier. RFI in analog electronic equipment is becoming more and more common in the RFI-filled domestic environments we have today.
There is no accepted deffinition for listener fatigue or for what might cause it, so anybodys guess is as good as another.
I do know that I get it more now than I used to.
There are two factors to consider in this (and all of audio listening for that matter) and those are the emotional and the technical aspects. Emotionally music was a lot easier when I was younger, I had a lot less on my mind (and a lot more intoxicants). But I do find that some types of music can be emotionally soothing. Hendrix is just not on my system as much as he used to be because, emotionally, I just can't take it. Although when I am in the mood, the sound quality is better than ever and I like the recordings as much as I ever did - but I have to be "in the mood" Hendrix just can't seem to "put me in the mood" anymore.
This is why I have such a huge variety of genres - to satisfy the mood of the moment. I find that now I have to fit the music to my mood, seldom will the music change that mood - it used to!
It seems to me that anything in the sound playback that causes us to have to listen through it, like resonances or nonlinearities or diffraction will cause our brains to tire of this task. And I really do think that this happens more readily as we age. I am also of the belief that older people are much more sensitive to certain sound playback aberations. I feel that I am - or maybe I have just become attuned to them through a cleaner reference. I just don't know. I know that I can hardly listen to most sound systems that I hear these days.
Is it age or experience - its very hard to say.
I do know that I get it more now than I used to.
There are two factors to consider in this (and all of audio listening for that matter) and those are the emotional and the technical aspects. Emotionally music was a lot easier when I was younger, I had a lot less on my mind (and a lot more intoxicants). But I do find that some types of music can be emotionally soothing. Hendrix is just not on my system as much as he used to be because, emotionally, I just can't take it. Although when I am in the mood, the sound quality is better than ever and I like the recordings as much as I ever did - but I have to be "in the mood" Hendrix just can't seem to "put me in the mood" anymore.
This is why I have such a huge variety of genres - to satisfy the mood of the moment. I find that now I have to fit the music to my mood, seldom will the music change that mood - it used to!
It seems to me that anything in the sound playback that causes us to have to listen through it, like resonances or nonlinearities or diffraction will cause our brains to tire of this task. And I really do think that this happens more readily as we age. I am also of the belief that older people are much more sensitive to certain sound playback aberations. I feel that I am - or maybe I have just become attuned to them through a cleaner reference. I just don't know. I know that I can hardly listen to most sound systems that I hear these days.
Is it age or experience - its very hard to say.
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