How does one get "trained" ears?

[morricab]

Hi morricab,

Just wanted to revisit this quickly, because as entertaining as I’ve found Gladwell’s books (and quite honestly, self-derivative), I think it’s worth stating that I think there's a degree of misinformation around this.

Firstly, there’s no “rule”. It’s just a catchy pop-psychology hook Gladwell excels at peddling.

Secondly, it’s been debunked by this 2014 study conducted by Macnamara, Hambrick and Oswald in which they discovered deliberate practice accounts for only a 12% difference across domains, and more interestingly varies greatly depending on which domain is practiced. In classical music, it was 21% difference, in sports, 18%, but in education and professions, fell to only a 4% and 1% difference respectively.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614535810

What’s more, Frans Johnansson’s book “The Click Moment” argues that predictors for success where deliberate practice makes a difference are most relevant in domains containing structure that’s very stable and where the rules never change, i.e., tennis, chess, and classical music. However, in domains in which innovation/trends see rules written and rewritten constantly, the difference falls away into statistical insignificance.

As you say, putting in the time is only one variable - how that time is spent matters as much if not more depending on the domain. Gladwell happily uses the Beatles as one of the benefactors of the 10,000 hour “rule” but downplays their race, their musical peers, the fact that they were part of a cultural shift in tastes and preferences related to socio-cultural norms (that they spoke English was a massive part of them being able to break into both the UK and US markets which were undergoing cultural upheaval), their management structure and the influence of George Martin. We’re they “talented”? Yes. Did they play a lot of gigs between 1960 and 1963? Yes. Was their success simply down to their talent and the amount of practice they did? No way.



Hi Al M,

I’m not trying to obfuscate the issue. I’m trying to put forward an argument that without understanding how “talent” is perceived within a specific domain (as above), it’s very easy to make assumptions that lead to gross generalisations. Are Nobel winners "talented"? Of course. But that's not the same as saying those nominated for a Nobel prize who do not win are "less" talented (nor for that matter, that scientists never nominated are "not" talented). It's a "prize" decided on by a voting jury.

I've read morricab's post #44 but domain specificity means exactly that. To equate dissimilar domains with one another relative to performance of the "best" or "most talented" would be an egregious error.

I stand corrected, thanks for providing the additional research information.

I would like to point out that I consider Gladwell's 10,000 hour "rule" to be more a "rule of thumb". In many domains it does take extensive training to gain expertise but there are definitely "naturals". An example is my Ex-girlfriend, she started violin at age 4 and by age 5 was playing Mozart Violin Concertos on Polish National Television. Did she magically get 10,000 hours in that year? Not hardly but she could already play better than a fair number of practicing professionals in orchestras...must be pretty frustrating for some of those professionals with larger egos.

I have not read "The Click Moment". What does he consider innovation/trend domains? If science is considered one such domain then I am not so sure he is right. The reason is that someone without intensive scientific training is not so likely to make scientific discoveries. You need the groundwork in order to have basics that can be reassembled to understand complex phenomena. Naturally, your brain has to be able to make those connections (that's the raw material) but awareness of the elements still takes years of study. I spent 6 years getting the basics (2 in high school, 4 in university) and then 6 more advanced training (2 years master's and 4 years Ph.D), where I was putting in 60-70 hours a week thinking about how to solve complex research problems. Today, I work on complex research problems with relatively little effort compared to my Ph.D student who is still struggling to make the connections between chemistry and physics that is the nature of my research. I think a few more years in working intesively in the domain should allow him to start making connections more easily...but maybe the "raw material" is also not there and he will never be very quick or insightful.

Alas, there are very few people who can easily go across domains and show extreme expertise in a number of areas...but they do exist. We have even idolized a few of them...like Leonardo da Vinci. I had a professor here in Switzerland that I worked for as post doctoral fellow and he was not only a good scientist but he was also a very good semi-professional violinist. He had even attended Zürich music conservatory and had some real talent. This man had impressive skills in at least two domains. However, I am sure he put in a lot of effort in getting "expert" at both domains. I also new a guy who was making a Ph.D in physics, was fast becoming a professional flamenco guitarist and was in the top 20 in Switzerland in table tennis. A bit of a modern day polymath...

 

[stehno]

I hear LOTS of problems in most systems, but I doubt they are distortion (voltage) per se. There's hardly any high distortion devices out there.

The trouble I find going from component to component is the "solutions" aren't necessarily all that gratifying (if they do anything), and half the time are worse.

By a wide margin the most crippling distortions are inaudible (in and of themselves). Moreover, it's what these crippling silent distortions do to raise the noise floor of a given playback system so high that much of the music info falls below the raised noise floor so that you're only hearing small percentages of notes and music. It's actually quite similar to hearing a Redbook track of music vs its MP3 counterpart. Quite similar.

 

[spiritofmusic]

The philosophy on all this is fascinating, but back to the coal face
Like the majority of addicted audiophiles, I've spent several years upgrading, two decades in my case, and a small fortune on expenditure
I've gone the time honoured route of hearing the next best thing, and maxxing out on ancillaries, to a point I'm happy with
I've just switched to a room which has exceeded all expectations, and the great thing is that everything I love about my system is further enhanced, but now I can hear much smaller differences btwn gear, and things that helped a lot in the past are now perceived as only moderately enhancing or actually negative
I'm back to going to a lot more live music, and I've been to a couple of setups recently, both involving ribbons/panels, where I'm immediately picking up on room anomalies and poor ancillaries, incl a VERY pricey system and room where I just couldn't get on w the pre/pwr/spkrs (lack of) synergy
In my case, room acoustics improved beyond all measure, and much purer mains have shaken some rocks that were in my ears, and also the very principle of the room as blank canvas that I had NOOO idea at all was so very true
Trained ears? No
But opened ears, yes

 

[bonzo75]

The philosophy on all this is fascinating, but back to the coal face
Like the majority of addicted audiophiles, I've spent several years upgrading, two decades in my case, and a small fortune on expenditure
I've gone the time honoured route of hearing the next best thing, and maxxing out on ancillaries, to a point I'm happy with
I've just switched to a room which has exceeded all expectations, and the great thing is that everything I love about my system is further enhanced, but now I can hear much smaller differences btwn gear, and things that helped a lot in the past are now perceived as only moderately enhancing or actually negative
I'm back to going to a lot more live music, and I've been to a couple of setups recently, both involving ribbons/panels, where I'm immediately picking up on room anomalies and poor ancillaries, incl a VERY pricey system and room where I just couldn't get on w the pre/pwr/spkrs (lack of) synergy
In my case, room acoustics improved beyond all measure, and much purer mains have shaken some rocks that were in my ears, and also the very principle of the room as blank canvas that I had NOOO idea at all was so very true
Trained ears? No
But opened ears, yes

So you admit you are a good case study example, yes? Maybe we could take before and after pictures of your ears?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Sure
And then you can post a selfie of your brass neck

 

[DonH50]

I hear LOTS of problems in most systems, but I doubt they are distortion (voltage) per se. There's hardly any high distortion devices out there.

The trouble I find going from component to component is the "solutions" aren't necessarily all that gratifying (if they do anything), and half the time are worse.

Probably mostly the room and speaker placement relative to the listener. Electronics are pretty clean these days, for the most part. I wonder how much of the very high-end speaker experience comes simply from the help consumers get in properly setting up the speakers?

 

[JackD201]

Trained ears? Training.

 

[Jeffy]

I have been to 22 CES shows as well as other audio shows. I fine tuned what I like over many, many, years. Now I have a couple of friends who gone to a few shows, but have listened to lots of gear and are older than I am, yet they seem to like every system they hear. So no matter the other experiences they still don't know what they actually like. I wonder how many people are like this?

 

[spiritofmusic]

I think people who like every system at a show have no idea what they do like
For me it's the opposite, I really struggle to find even a few rooms that really float my boat
So many seem v similar to others w no standout traits
Tend to go for those smaller rooms w moderate unfashionable gear, often running a tt and/or valve amp I'm unfamiliar with
Eg in Munich last yr there was a small room running Thoress amps and a tt
The atmosphere, choice of music, and core sound was just right leaving a lasting impression

 

[DaveC]

I'm surprised some entrepreneur hasn't developed a course(s) in how to train your ears to be an audiophile. The subject has infinite variations, such as the difference between amps, cables, DACs, preamps, recordings, etc. Actually, this might be something I can do when I retire. The potential is there for a nice revenue stream.

It would make a good seminar for an audio show as well.

 

[Bobvin]

As I explained at the outset, professional audio training is field specific. My (self) training at Microsoft was for hearing small impairments caused by audio compression and signal processing. It was not about any and all things in audio. I had a large team of signal processing experts who developed technologies such as audio and video compression and it was critical that we could validate our designs quickly and reliably to make fast progress and keep up with our competitors. As I explained I was quite presumptuous to think just because I was an audiophiles for decades I would be able to hear these artifacts easily. Yet my hat was handed to me when I tried to compare compressed music to the original and failing miserably at that. I had been through all the things you all say makes you good at hearing distortions yet faced with a real example of massive amounts of distortion, I was deaf as a pot of plant. A file that was less than 1/10 the size of the original seem to sound pretty close to the original.

So I set out on a process to train myself and over time got extreme good it and built up the reputation of having "golden ears" at Microsoft.

Ultimately though anyone can claim to have such skills as you did in your first post here. The question is how do we verify that? Verification is key part of any training. If you train to become a doctor, you have to pass exams that demonstrate you have learned the material. In this thread though we have person after person claiming to have golden ears by self-grading themselves. Yet you chose to question me and not them. I know why you went there but it was not a wise move because I have had to demonstrate my skills time and time again in the above domain.

I totally get where you are coming from Amir. When I left Microsoft, I joined a little startup and we made a chip with the hope of enabling many companies to produce MP3 players. (Ultimately, Apple used our chip to create the first several generations of the iPod.) I was in my audiophile hiatus years at the time. Besides finding bugs in software, listening tests to detect how well we implimented various compression schemes had to be performed. I could not do it. It disappointed me greatly that my prior years as an audiophile did not equip me to hear the errors unless it was a clear drop out, stutter, click, etc. that near anyone could hear.

That said, we also did not have the resources to build a dedicated room for analysis, and mostly relied on cheap headphones. I don't know what kind of space you had at Microsoft for your evaluations, but I know for sure resources would have been available in far greater quantities than we had as a startup.

 

[Diapason]

I think people who like every system at a show have no idea what they do like
For me it's the opposite, I really struggle to find even a few rooms that really float my boat
So many seem v similar to others w no standout traits
Tend to go for those smaller rooms w moderate unfashionable gear, often running a tt and/or valve amp I'm unfamiliar with
Eg in Munich last yr there was a small room running Thoress amps and a tt
The atmosphere, choice of music, and core sound was just right leaving a lasting impression

I find myself liking (or at the very least admiring) lots of different *kinds* of systems: SETs n' horns, panels n' power, dynamic speakers with SS, dynamic speakers with tubes, analogue, digital, whatever you're having yourself. All of them can sound great to me, while simultaneously sounding completely different. That said, I'm the same as yourself at shows in general, for whatever reason I generally come away not really enjoying the sound of anything.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Diapason, the joys of shows are to be found in the rooms you stumble across by accident and don't want to leave
At Munich the afore mentioned Thoress room, B&O BeoLab 70 room
At a small show just outside London we dropped into the Elac room to have his new sub $500 stand mounts launched, and we couldn't leave our seats
Other rooms like the MLevinson/Kef Muon room made you run to the hills
And I still remember these Elacs to this day

 

[Diapason]

Sounds like we need more training to truly appreciate those other rooms...

 

[amirm]

You are mistaken Amir. There are no 'data driven guys', merely guys who claim they're data driven.

Have you read any Antonio Damasio? I suggest you digest his book 'Descartes' Error'. In claiming you're 'data driven' you're arguing against established neuroscience.

Hi Richard. I must say when I woke up this morning, last thing I thought I would be challenged with was this! As a data-driven guy yourself, I am pretty sure you don't mean this and are hoping for an emotional reaction from me. Well, I won't go there .

For clarity your read of his work is not correct at all. He does not say to ignore data and rely on emotion. Emotion is what fills in the gaps between data points we have to make decisions. But in many disciplines such as science, it cannot and never does replace data. The computer you are typing on would not exit if it were designed by emotion rather than data.

Being a data driven guy , I have to cite Damasio himself from preface to later revisions of his book:

"Based on my study of neurological patients who had both defects of decision-making and a disorder of emotion, I advanced the hypothesis and emotion was in the loop of reason, and that emotion could assist the reasoning process rather than necessarily disturb it, as was commonly assumed.

[…]

Finally, I never suggested that emotion was a substitute for reasoning, but in some superficial versions of the work it sounded as if I was proposing that if you follow your heart instead of your reason all would be well.

[..]

Reasoning does what emotions do but achieves it knowingly. Reasoning gives us the option of thinking smartly before we act smart, and a good thing too: it is apparent that the emotions alone can solve many – but not all – the problems posed by our complex environment and that, on occasion, the solutions offered by emotion are actually counterproductive."

Starting at the top, we see that he himself is data driven. His entire thesis relies on researching patients who have lost the ability to feel emotion. Without that data he would be nowhere. The rest is scorning those who abused his work making it look like we should just be emotions beings.

The last bit is what we are dealing with in this thread and hobby: "complex environment." With vast majority of audiophiles not being engineers or scientist and hence not knowing what ticks inside these devices, this hobby is very complex. Data brings clarity to it, cuts through emotional influences that color and distort it, and helps us have a compass that shows us the true north with respect to our ultimate goal of fidelity.

On the other hand emotions are responsible for the unprofessional conduct, specifically name calling and such which we have witnessed in this thread. If you cherish those, then fine but I do not.

Finally, I am familiar with this work because it is at the heart of marketing to consumers. We (marketing) want to sway consumers using their emotions instead of letting them use logic which may cause them to buy a different product. Apple is incredibly good about this. They put a lot of money in the box that their product comes in. No one uses the box after they buy the product so at first it seems like wasted expense. But research shows that you emotionally capture the user with this good "out of box experience" (OOBE), and from then on, they are likely to be less critical. It is what brand advertising is about, etc.

Of course marketing is the enemy of what we are trying to do here. We don't want to buy an audio product based on marketing and appeal to our emotions instead of the device performing well. So be aware of Damasio work, very aware, but not in the context of deciding what is or is not a good audio product.

 

[morricab]

I think people who like every system at a show have no idea what they do like
For me it's the opposite, I really struggle to find even a few rooms that really float my boat
So many seem v similar to others w no standout traits
Tend to go for those smaller rooms w moderate unfashionable gear, often running a tt and/or valve amp I'm unfamiliar with
Eg in Munich last yr there was a small room running Thoress amps and a tt
The atmosphere, choice of music, and core sound was just right leaving a lasting impression

I agree. I have trouble finding rooms that really sound good (meaning natural and realistic). See my top 5 Munich rooms report in Positive Feedback for 2016 show. Those were not the only 5 rooms I thought were good but it would have been hard to make a top 10 even in a show the size of Munich.

I did not find the Thoress room to be so good even though I wanted it to be. It had a lot of the ingredients I like but I felt it was really let down by the loudspeakers. The sound was rather dull and uninteresting with not a lot if inner resolution. Maybe I am wron and Thoress amps are not so great but I heard a lot of anomalies with those speakers in tonal balance.

 

[NorthStar]

Every morning when I wake up I press click on the coffee maker and read all the news.
After a good dose of news, when I'm satisfy with my fix, I eventually end up here. :b But not before my morning walk outside with the moose and the caribous and the eagles.

I want to train myself in loving more this planet, this wildlife. And music sound so much sweeter after sex, and food taste better.
I don't know if it's in the standard practices of trained listener's set of ears, but I feel that all our senses perform optimally when well relaxed physically and mentally, like empty, stress-free, ... completely numb.

We're part of a trend, the perpetual search for peace. We take any challenge presented, with full relaxation and ease. ...The only way to get what we want.

I was reading the news this morning; I saw these two fathers with their kids on their shoulders looking @ each other with the vision of peace .....

Some kids the main music they hear is the sound of bombs above their heads.

 

[RogerD]

By a wide margin the most crippling distortions are inaudible (in and of themselves). Moreover, it's what these crippling silent distortions do to raise the noise floor of a given playback system so high that much of the music info falls below the raised noise floor so that you're only hearing small percentages of notes and music. It's actually quite similar to hearing a Redbook track of music vs its MP3 counterpart. Quite similar.

Very true....bringing the music closer,expanding the information imbedded in the media has a lot to do with silent current noise. You can't hear it,but it is present and the lower noise floor will give a indication of how much the audio signal has been separated from noise. I think redbook has a tremendous amount of information on it's own. But it takes experimentation and experience to recognize the musical and reproduction markers to achieve a very low noise floor.

 

[microstrip]

It would make a good seminar for an audio show as well.

Someone has written a book on it "THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO HIGH-END AUDIO BOOK" by Robert Hartley. It seems it is a successful book, it is now in the 5th edition.

Part Three is particularly relevant for this thread:

Part Three:
• Becoming a Better Listener

A. Audiophile Values

B. Pitfalls of Becoming a Critical Listener

C. Sonic Descriptions and their Meanings
1. Tonal Balance
2. Overall Perspective
3. The Treble
4. The Midrange
5. The Bass
6. Soundstaging
7. Dynamics
8. Detail
9. Pace, Rhythm, and Timing
10. Coherence
11. Musicality
12. Notes on Learning Descriptive Terms

D. Critical Listening Setup Procedures

E. Single-Presentation Listening - What It's All About

F. Critical Listening Summary

G. Level Matching

 

[NorthStar]

Hi Richard. I must say when I woke up this morning, last thing I thought I would be challenged with was this! As a data-driven guy yourself, I am pretty sure you don't mean this and are hoping for an emotional reaction from me. Well, I won't go there .

For clarity your read of his work is not correct at all. He does not say to ignore data and rely on emotion. Emotion is what fills in the gaps between data points we have to make decisions. But in many disciplines such as science, it cannot and never does replace data. The computer you are typing on would not exit if it were designed by emotion rather than data.

Being a data driven guy , I have to cite Damasio himself from preface to later revisions of his book:

"Based on my study of neurological patients who had both defects of decision-making and a disorder of emotion, I advanced the hypothesis and emotion was in the loop of reason, and that emotion could assist the reasoning process rather than necessarily disturb it, as was commonly assumed.

[…]

Finally, I never suggested that emotion was a substitute for reasoning, but in some superficial versions of the work it sounded as if I was proposing that if you follow your heart instead of your reason all would be well.

[..]

Reasoning does what emotions do but achieves it knowingly. Reasoning gives us the option of thinking smartly before we act smart, and a good thing too: it is apparent that the emotions alone can solve many – but not all – the problems posed by our complex environment and that, on occasion, the solutions offered by emotion are actually counterproductive."

Starting at the top, we see that he himself is data driven. His entire thesis relies on researching patients who have lost the ability to feel emotion. Without that data he would be nowhere. The rest is scorning those who abused his work making it look like we should just be emotions beings.

The last bit is what we are dealing with in this thread and hobby: "complex environment." With vast majority of audiophiles not being engineers or scientist and hence not knowing what ticks inside these devices, this hobby is very complex. Data brings clarity to it, cuts through emotional influences that color and distort it, and helps us have a compass that shows us the true north with respect to our ultimate goal of fidelity.

On the other hand emotions are responsible for the unprofessional conduct, specifically name calling and such which we have witnessed in this thread. If you cherish those, then fine but I do not.

Finally, I am familiar with this work because it is at the heart of marketing to consumers. We (marketing) want to sway consumers using their emotions instead of letting them use logic which may cause them to buy a different product. Apple is incredibly good about this. They put a lot of money in the box that their product comes in. No one uses the box after they buy the product so at first it seems like wasted expense. But research shows that you emotionally capture the user with this good "out of box experience" (OOBE), and from then on, they are likely to be less critical. It is what brand advertising is about, etc.

Of course marketing is the enemy of what we are trying to do here. We don't want to buy an audio product based on marketing and appeal to our emotions instead of the device performing well. So be aware of Damasio work, very aware, but not in the context of deciding what is or is not a good audio product.

I just finished reading your post; it rings very right. That was a nice read, purely on an intellectual level, none to do with emotions.