Hah, yeah, personally I can't pinpoint what a listening fatigue feels like but I can relate to feeling that sometimes the volume must be turned down. I love music so much so I listen to it all the time what ever the available source is, it is just different volume for different devices and situations. If there aren't speakers around I'll whistle 
Thinking it through the "volume down" feeling, fatigue to me, is mainly caused by bad (volume war) mix/master distortion. Speakers distort as well and can't listen mobile phone too loud it almost hurts no matter what the master is. I think the frequency response extend and smoothness must affect as well, somehow I'm thinking distortion the main culprit though.
Thinking it through the "volume down" feeling, fatigue to me, is mainly caused by bad (volume war) mix/master distortion. Speakers distort as well and can't listen mobile phone too loud it almost hurts no matter what the master is. I think the frequency response extend and smoothness must affect as well, somehow I'm thinking distortion the main culprit though.I guess the main reason why the lower sound quality of small radios isn't causing listening fatigue is the way it is often used: Mainly for low volume background listening while concentrating on something else.
I am not sure wether panned intensity stereophony does also have a fatigueing effect due to its unnatural way of reproducing a soundfield.
Regards
Charles
I am not sure wether panned intensity stereophony does also have a fatigueing effect due to its unnatural way of reproducing a soundfield.
Regards
Charles
Actually I find lack of clean bass/bass extension to be one of the worst culprits to induce fatigue and a desire on my side to turn music either waaay down or off.
Mostly off though.
I used to be of the same idea, but I changed my mind after hearing well articulated and responsive bass from closed enclosures. The better the transient respons is, the louder I seem to tolerate it.
(I have heard great bass from vented enclosures as well, it just seem to be more difficult to get)
Presumably you are conceptualising your analysis clearly, so you can explain it in clear articulate terms.
I cannot really see why the concept of RMS should be applied to an audio waveform, its origins are in the sine wave equivalent of a DC case, and The peaks in audio are far from sinusoidal.
If limiting is used to 'clip off' the peaks as a way of reducing dynamic range, the perceived average volume will not be changed a great deal, and I argue that this may lessen fatigue - may.
Compression can be soft but limiting is always hard.
In other words limiting is compression with an infinite compression ratio.
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Mid '90s generally or check here because not everything has had all life squashed out of it:
Album list - Dynamic Range Database
Album list - Dynamic Range Database
Worst head ache I ever had was a after a Status Quo concert in 1976 at Apollo theatre in Glasgow, Scotland.
It was massively loud and I was stood behind a stone pillar to try and escape it a bit.
Could barely hear anything for three days afterwards.
Thank goodness there are laws in the UK now to stop that.
Saw them again in 2006 and the level was much better.
It was massively loud and I was stood behind a stone pillar to try and escape it a bit.
Could barely hear anything for three days afterwards.
Thank goodness there are laws in the UK now to stop that.
Saw them again in 2006 and the level was much better.
Yes, I think the number is literally how many dB above RMS the peaks reach.
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Not helpful to toss around the word "compression" since there are many ways to issue a recording with less dynamic range (if that can be defined) than the original performance (if there was anything resembling an original performance anyway).
As per my criticism of Earl, your brain has no knowledge of the original sound and so your brain is not struggling to reconstruct it. There is no perceptual difference between a "smart" compression app and a clever artist who knows not to shout into the horn too loud.
And what golden-eared person can guess what kind of compression has been applied unless it is obvious "breathing" or hard-edge peak limitation (which is not correctly called compression and would never be issued as a commercial recording except for YouTube purposes). You just don't know the original source and can only deduce it logically (not perceptually) from past experience at concerts (if the music of Taylor Swift is ever played live at a concert venue).
So lets not make a fetish of compression. It has been with us since Caruso and any recording studio with a knob marked "Volume" or a studio with computers.
As per my criticism of Earl, your brain has no knowledge of the original sound and so your brain is not struggling to reconstruct it. There is no perceptual difference between a "smart" compression app and a clever artist who knows not to shout into the horn too loud.
And what golden-eared person can guess what kind of compression has been applied unless it is obvious "breathing" or hard-edge peak limitation (which is not correctly called compression and would never be issued as a commercial recording except for YouTube purposes). You just don't know the original source and can only deduce it logically (not perceptually) from past experience at concerts (if the music of Taylor Swift is ever played live at a concert venue).
So lets not make a fetish of compression. It has been with us since Caruso and any recording studio with a knob marked "Volume" or a studio with computers.
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I agree when it is obvious, but peak limiting maybe done which is relatively innocuous.
I also agree with bentoronto, and was musing this evening about fatigue.
It is IMO not just one thing, but anything which sounds wrong or bad and that results, in we fetishists about high SQ, being aware of the failing and being distressed by it because we want perfection.
It can be a muddy mid, or a (BBC) chesty mic technique, or shrieky presence and top, this being variably audible on my new FM tuner from track to track, and intruding into consciousness whilst I am working at stuff.
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