How does one get "trained" ears?

[amirm]

Amir while im perfectly happy measuring , i dont listen to measurements, kinda boring

There is no measurement involved in becoming a trained listener, or performing said job. A mechanic can listen to an engine and hear something wrong yet an average person can't do that. The mechanic can do that because he has a) heard that sound before many times and b) has fixed a component that made it go away. (b) is the critical component that is missing from average person who has heard his engine and thousands of other cars. The replacement of faulty part in many system confirms that the audible diagnostic is correct. That is what training does and is different than simply experiencing.

Ordinary people are not in a position to develop the training that the mechanic goes through. As such their diagnostic of what could be wrong is routinely wrong because they don't have a verification step that shows their conclusion to be right beyond any doubt (i.e. replacing the broken part above).

Implicit in what a mechanic does is knowledge of what an engine is and how it works. If you don't know what a valve is, you can't tell what a sticky one is either. I am not a car guy so not sure what I said even makes sense. But hopefully it conveys the message that becoming a trained person requires inside knowledge of what you are getting trained for.

In the case of compression artifacts for example, we know what makes codec's job difficult. That then translates into critical audio segments that are much more revealing than other types. Simple audience applaud is very difficult to compress. Strings are difficult to encode. So we pick short, 30 second or even less segments of audio that readily demonstrate the effect to trained listeners who perform a lot of AB tests with the original and impaired version. Over time the job goes from impossible to almost trivial. No matter how much music we have heard, or whether we are an audiophile for decades, we are unable to hear the same.

In the case of speakers and rooms, frequency response anomalies are the top characteristic to determine. Training programs exist to get one to not only become sensitive to them but also be able to accurately identify the problem. Likewise there are music tracks that make this job far easier than others. Again, knowledge of how frequency response varies informs us as to why these clips work as they do.

I was an audiophile for 25 years before I heard my first piece of compressed music and was ashamed that I could not hear the artifacts. I just thought as mentioned by a few others here that I would naturally have that talent. I did not and nor did countless other audiophiles that we tested. Trained listeners who were not audiophiles could beat audiophiles in their sleep in their ability to hear and identify specific problems.

It is an unfortunate truth. We like to think we all have golden ears but sadly we have tin ears when compared to trained listeners or the industry would not train listeners!

 

[jkeny]

@bobvin, I would suggest that you don't worry yourself about trained ears or golden ears - everyone is at a different stage in their audio journey & there's no pinnacle of hearing - it's an ongoing jorney. Experience & an open mind is the best means of advancing one's appreciation of better audio playback. It's like any hobby, motivation is what refines this appreciation - most people outside the hobby don't really care much about audio but will recognise superior reproduction if pointed out to them. They may not have noticed this on their own because they are not motivated to focus on sound reproduction - it's mostly "good enough".

Nobody needs to be "trained" in recognising artifacts to be able to advance their appreciation of audio reproduction. Audio reproduction is an illusion & you will advance by judging how realistic you perceive that illusion to be.

 

[Gregadd]

It depends on what your goal is. Eeryone is qualified for music enjoyment. If that is what you seek then listen,listen,listen.
If you seek to detect audible distortions and artifacts that is a different matter. I don't suggest you go down that road. Once you do you can never go back. Once you identify an artifact or distortion, you will not be able to get it out of your head.

 

[treitz3]

Ed Zachary.

Tom

 

[the sound of Tao]

Hi Bobvin,

I'd suggest there are many ways to skin an audiophile... and that we should probably start with anyone claiming to have golden ears or to have the only right way to listen and assess the quality of sound and then also the correlated perception of music within the context of an audio system.

Wow, a great quest though but also a tough challenge to get even an overview into a page or two. I'll throw a few thoughts into the ring but I stress these are just thoughts and are no more validated than most anyone else's ideas.

There is great value in being conscious of how things work but truth be told its really probably optional in terms of enjoying music. Which leads us to determining purpose. If the purpose of the pursuit is to enjoy music it is possible to do it all in the dark of not knowing or completely in the light of understanding... indeed it's possible that training your ears could get in the way of you enjoying the music... nothing seems to get in the way of music more than being in an extended state of analysis.

So to clarify what you would actually like to be able to do... is it to be able to identify and then also express how a component or a whole system sounds. To define and convey the specific effects of what you are hearing and then also the connected quality of experience and to be able to identify what element or combination of elements within the system we could attribute to that experience. Is it ultimately how this affects us in our experience of the sound and also the experience of the music (very different but also clearly interrelated things). Any of this represents a fairly giant challenge and knowing what we are exactly wanting to define is probably an important step along the way.

I can only suggest that for any training you would really need a defined system of assessment and that would be a very great thing for us. First up we could start by trying to define our primary learning outcome for the assessment.

eg perhaps as follows... Outline for a method for a system to assess the quality of sound and the experience of music when listening to an audio system or comparing components.

This is a very different learning outcome for audio training than is say subjectively being able to identify frequency response and or any other typical objective criteria.

There are also a range of states of perception that we need to identify to evaluate as our means of assessment... hmmmm, this is the hard bit. If we are engaged in subjective assessment then understanding our relative subjective state is also probably critical. That is if we listen within a range of perceptual states in terms of subjective assessment then an understanding what state you are actually listening in at any point will be important. Even better if you know how to change your state of perception... especially helpful if you are stuck in analysis... analysis is pretty much like it sounds!

Next up could be about us defining the criteria of the assessment... and also first impressions are important... most of us seem comfortable to start simply out with whether we broadly like something or not (and that is a good place to start). If it is a comparison of gear then also which sound or experience is preferred and or considered overall better and even better still better within specific context (and without any broader range of validation we can only can really define things to be genuinely be better for that listener).

It is also helpful to perhaps start with the sound as a whole and then proceed to break things into their component parts (as we often do) in a range of separately identifiable and broadly recognisable qualities. eg describing the quality and character of bass, midrange, treble, tonality, dynamics, presence, coherence, soundstage etc.

As a suggested way to start all this off is to simply capture and extract key words from the initial experiences of the sound (try to stick to simple words or phrases rather than complex descriptions) like natural, bold, solid, shimmering, liquid, warm, romantic etc. Capture these without questioning and they will help you move forward into further deeper analysis of these qualities somewhere down the track.

For example, say you felt the sound had a beautiful shimmering quality... what does this say about the quality and the extension of the treble. Define this further.

Also if you felt the sound was bold... what is that potentially, does it indicate dynamics, is it about a strong leading edge and well articulated attack, or could it be about an overemphasised mid bass. Try to build a scaffold of understanding as you go and let your experiences help drive the analysis.

Also important is identifying what is best about the sound as well as what is not... identify what is missing. This becomes about identifying constraints and then turning this around eg. I visit a mate and note a quality of sound that haunts me. It might be about a deeper bass foundation, or the relative visceral quality of the sound. So I attempt to give name to that experience and then bring that quality back into the system at home (without losing all the other things I love about the present system). To do this I suppose what seems really key here is understanding how the context of the sound correlates to the experience of the sound. Once we define that connection it enables us to focus on modifying our setup in a more conscious pattern of improvement.

Far out... it would be easy to go further but in the end for me assessment is ultimately about the sense of rightness... and as long as it sounds right I don't really want to think about it to much more, if it feels right do I really want to evaluate it beyond this. Sometimes we like to give name to things but this doesn't always make things better. That is the final point of assessment for me... letting go of knowing.

 

[Steve williams]

Hi Bobvin,

I'd suggest there are many ways to skin an audiophile... and that we should probably start with anyone claiming to have golden ears or to have the only right way to listen and assess the quality of sound and then also the correlated perception of music within the context of an audio system.

Wow, a great quest though but also a tough challenge to get even an overview into a page or two. I'll throw a few thoughts into the ring but I stress these are just thoughts and are no more validated than most anyone else's ideas.

There is great value in being conscious of how things work but truth be told its really probably optional in terms of enjoying music. Which leads us to determining purpose. If the purpose of the pursuit is to enjoy music it is possible to do it all in the dark of not knowing or completely in the light of understanding... indeed it's possible that training your ears could get in the way of you enjoying the music... nothing seems to get in the way of music more than being in an extended state of analysis.

So to clarify what you would actually like to be able to do... is it to be able to identify and then also express how a component or a whole system sounds. To define and convey the specific effects of what you are hearing and then also the connected quality of experience and to be able to identify what element or combination of elements within the system we could attribute to that experience. Is it ultimately how this affects us in our experience of the sound and also the experience of the music (very different but also clearly interrelated things). Any of this represents a fairly giant challenge and knowing what we are exactly wanting to define is probably an important step along the way.

I can only suggest that for any training you would really need a defined system of assessment and that would be a very great thing for us. First up we could start by trying to define our primary learning outcome for the assessment.

eg perhaps as follows... Outline for a method for a system to assess the quality of sound and the experience of music when listening to an audio system or comparing components.

This is a very different learning outcome for audio training than is say subjectively being able to identify frequency response and or any other typical objective criteria.

There are also a range of states of perception that we need to identify to evaluate as our means of assessment... hmmmm, this is the hard bit. If we are engaged in subjective assessment then understanding our relative subjective state is also probably critical. That is if we listen within a range of perceptual states in terms of subjective assessment then an understanding what state you are actually listening in at any point will be important. Even better if you know how to change your state of perception... especially helpful if you are stuck in analysis... analysis is pretty much like it sounds!

Next up could be about us defining the criteria of the assessment... and also first impressions are important... most of us seem comfortable to start simply out with whether we broadly like something or not (and that is a good place to start). If it is a comparison of gear then also which sound or experience is preferred and or considered overall better and even better still better within specific context (and without any broader range of validation we can only can really define things to be genuinely be better for that listener).

It is also helpful to perhaps start with the sound as a whole and then proceed to break things into their component parts (as we often do) in a range of separately identifiable and broadly recognisable qualities. eg describing the quality and character of bass, midrange, treble, tonality, dynamics, presence, coherence, soundstage etc.

As a suggested way to start all this off is to simply capture and extract key words from the initial experiences of the sound (try to stick to simple words or phrases rather than complex descriptions) like natural, bold, solid, shimmering, liquid, warm, romantic etc. Capture these without questioning and they will help you move forward into further deeper analysis of these qualities somewhere down the track.

For example, say you felt the sound had a beautiful shimmering quality... what does this say about the quality and the extension of the treble. Define this further.

Also if you felt the sound was bold... what is that potentially, does it indicate dynamics, is it about a strong leading edge and well articulated attack, or could it be about an overemphasised mid bass. Try to build a scaffold of understanding as you go and let your experiences help drive the analysis.

Also important is identifying what is best about the sound as well as what is not... identify what is missing. This becomes about identifying constraints and then turning this around eg. I visit a mate and note a quality of sound that haunts me. It might be about a deeper bass foundation, or the relative visceral quality of the sound. So I attempt to give name to that experience and then bring that quality back into the system at home (without losing all the other things I love about the present system). To do this I suppose what seems really key here is understanding how the context of the sound correlates to the experience of the sound. Once we define that connection it enables us to focus on modifying our setup in a more conscious pattern of improvement.

Far out... it would be easy to go further but in the end for me assessment is ultimately about the sense of rightness... and as long as it sounds right I don't really want to think about it to much more, if it feels right do I really want to evaluate it beyond this. Sometimes we like to give name to things but this doesn't always make things better. That is the final point of assessment for me... letting go of knowing.

That was probably the best post I've read here in a long time when it comes to golden ears and training. Tao.....for me I'm exactly on your wave length and I couldn't have said any better as what you just did.Your advice to Bob is right on

Kudos and thanks

 

[treitz3]

Very much agreed Steve. That was an excellent read IMO the sound of Tao! My hat is off to you tonight sir.

Tom

 

[Steve williams]

It depends on what your goal is. Eeryone is qualified for music enjoyment. If that is what you seek then listen,listen,listen.
If you seek to detect audible distortions and artifacts that is a different matter. I don't suggest you go down that road. Once you do you can never go back. Once you identify an artifact or distortion, you will not be able to get it out of your head.

Terrific advice

 

[Ken Newton]

I feel that this is a very important topic. Much money is spent and time consumed acquiring system listening experience. Often, just when you feel you know what sort of sound character you are seeking, some new listening experience informs that you haven't yet fully arrived. The building of audio system observational skills leads one to explore a wide divergence of sound character paths before eventually narrowing down to the character of system sound that seems to best suit you. Many experienced audiophiles learn that they have a priority for the importance of the sound character aspects they prefer. Some prize tonality first, others, stereo imaging first, others still, dynamics first, etc. Those are only discrete aspects of the sound however. I agree with those who suggest that the integrated whole is what matters most.

Over my journey of acquiring listening expenrience I eventually discovered that two characteristics of the reproduced sound are most important to me. Possibly, the only important characteristics to me, which naturally requires that subordinate aspects are properly supportive. The first is that the sound seems real/live to me. Notice that I don't mention anything about it sounding faithful to the source, which is something impossible to know anyhow unless one was present at the recorded event. Even should one have been present, any accurate audio memory of the event would have faded shortly thereafter. The other characteristic is that the sound be able move me across a wide range of emotions. Joy, sadness, excitement, hope and more, including some feelings which can't quite be put in to words.

 

[NorthStar]

I just finished reading Tao's excellent post above; it opens up a vast frontier into the sound of music, an equilibrium.
_____

[video=vimeo;149445060]https://vimeo.com/149445060[/video]

 

[DaveC]

It depends on what your goal is. Eeryone is qualified for music enjoyment. If that is what you seek then listen,listen,listen.
If you seek to detect audible distortions and artifacts that is a different matter. I don't suggest you go down that road. Once you do you can never go back. Once you identify an artifact or distortion, you will not be able to get it out of your head.

One thing that's handy to recognize is fatiguing sound.... all audio systems stimulate the nervous system to some degree, but certain kinds of distortion are irritating and fatiguing, the effect usually increasing with SPL. Understanding the symptoms in both the system and the listener is very helpful.

Fatigue also often causes people to want to add warmth, but this can be a trap, as cables are often used for this and the result is a significant loss of fine detail. So fatigue can not only cause issues with the listener losing interest, but it can also cause people to adjust their system in ways that are ultimately limiting.

Fatigue can also be tricky because it's often mistaken for resolution or speed, and initially the effect can be enjoyable for some people because they like the stimulation, but this never lasts, even these people will get fatigued in time.

Lack of fatigue is a primary design objective with my cables, I avoid parts that are fatiguing so for my non-cost-no-object cables the compromise is warmth. Warm is cheap, accuracy without fatigue is difficult and expensive.

 

[DaveC]

I'd also say for me, training the ear or designing gear is FAR different vs normal listening. It takes method, concentration and playing short clips of the same music over and over. Evaluating a complete system is closer to normal listening but I use tracks I'm very familiar with. So for me it' super easy to separate analytic listening from normal listening/enjoyment of music. To get a true sense of a system, component, change or tweak takes both analytic listening as well as living with it for music enjoyment over some amount of time. Especially if you're in "uncharted waters" and haven't experienced the particular facet of audio you're focusing on. I'll change something on my speaker and listen to it for a few weeks, and I play my system for hours every day... it can make the design process seem slow and more like doing nothing but listening to music, but every job has it's perks...

 

[Ken Newton]

DaveC,

Good observations in your posts #31 and #32.

 

[Bobvin]

Thank you all for the great responses. The question was not only for myself, but in a general sense for any of us who wish to avoid spending our hard earned $$ on a component that fails to deliver. Analytical listening is what I consider myself doing if auditioning a component at a dealer. Sure, at home if I have the luxury to audition a component, I blend analytical listening with just sitting back to enjoy the music, to see if a component reveals more musical pleasure. But I don't always have the luxury, so would love to trust my critical skills a bit more.

I understand Amir's auto analogy. Growing up without means—I did all my own car repair. I learned what a bad bearing sounded and felt like, noisy lifters, an exhaust leak, or timing being off. My wife just looks at me funny when I identify a car related sound, sometimes even on a car driving by.

I think of my experience with wine. First step was learning how to actually taste wine. Before I learned this step I didn't know what I was looking for, didn't understand the difference between sipping wine and getting enough in my mouth to actually roll aound and coat all parts of my mouth, breathing in before swallowing and then exhaling to experience 'the finish'. Then a friend who is quite knowledgeable shared some wines from his cellar. He opened several bottles of the same variety to show extreme examples, of a flowery bouquet vs an earthy one, fruit forward vs mineral driven. Over time I've tried to enhance my knowlwdge for the same reasons as with gear—to make better purchasing decisions. Has this knowledge screwed up my ability to enjoy wine? Far from it, I know better what I like and when I've found a real bargain. And it has enhanced my ability to appreciate exceptional wines.

With wine, if I blow $50 on a bottle that turns out to suck, I'm bummed. If its really not to my liking I've been known to pour it down the sink. Life is too short to drink wine I don't like. But this crazy audio hobby, with cables that cost thousands of dollars, isolation footers at nearly $1k a pop, racks that start at five figures and go up... etc., etc. making a bad purchase can hurt, and make a person gun-shy too.

With wine you can attend classes, learn all about grapes and soil and effect of climate. And how it shows up in the finished product. Perhaps folks with brick & morter stores would do well to have comparative listening nights, showcasing solid state vs SET amps, for example, or copper vs silver cables. But who is going to showcase the extremes, a store owner isn't going to do something that would reflect poorly on a line he/she is carrying.

Maybe I'm just having anxiety... I am very close to being able to reassemble my rig now the acoustic remodel is just days from completion. Like buying speakers with a several month waiting period, there is the nagging question "did I make the right choice". With the room remodel, its not like you can post it on Audiogon.

 

[NorthStar]

Maybe it's the ? journey that counts.

 

[Gregadd]

I also think it is important to note two things.
Sean Olive suguests trained listeners and neophytes reach similar results. Trained listeners are just faster.
The point about listening fatigue can't be over emphasised. At this point most of the nasty distortions have been dealt with. But before you buy try to listen to the music you like under relaxed conditions.

 

[microstrip]

I also think it is important to note two things.
Sean Olive suguests trained listeners and neophytes reach similar results. Trained listeners are just faster.
The point about listening fatigue can't be over emphasised. At this point most of the nasty distortions have been dealt with. But before you buy try to listen to the music you like under relaxed conditions.

The tests and results you refer only apply to loudspeakers, where differences are large. It seems to me it was not the objective of the original poster. The referred expression, "golden ear", is usually also applied to small differences, such as electronics, cables and tweaks.

 

[Ken Newton]

Thank you all for the great responses. The question was not only for myself, but in a general sense for any of us who wish to avoid spending our hard earned $$ on a component that fails to deliver...With wine, if I blow $50 on a bottle that turns out to suck, I'm bummed. If its really not to my liking I've been known to pour it down the sink. Life is too short to drink wine I don't like. But this crazy audio hobby, with cables that cost thousands of dollars, isolation footers at nearly $1k a pop, racks that start at five figures and go up... etc., etc. making a bad purchase can hurt, and make a person gun-shy too.

Another tip for while your gaining experience is to try and only purchase gear which is likely to hold a high resale value. In addition, seek good used gear. I have purchased used name brand gear and later resold it for more than I had paid. I gained the knowledge that it didn't produce the sound character to satisfy me, yet that didn't lessen it's value to someone else. That way, when experience informs you that you're ready to move on to different gear, you may be faced with only a minor, if any, financial loss. This usually means that you will avoid gear from less known brands, which, unfortunately, may sometimes result in missing out on some satisfying gear.

Regarding the anxiety producing nature of this process, there is that. It's natural to wish to stop consuming time and money, and simply arrive at the end of the learning process, to forget the gear and get fully back to the music. However, there is the fun of new discovery to be experienced on your learning journey. That feeling of finding new clues leading to some lost diamond mine. Just because you may have more yet to learn doesn't mean you can't enjoy the fruits of your what you have already learned along the way. It's a quest and can be appraoched as an audio adventure, to use the name of a defunct audiophile magazine.

 

[Gregadd]

The tests and results you refer only apply to loudspeakers, where differences are large. It seems to me it was not the objective of the original poster. The referred expression, "golden ear", is usually also applied to small differences, such as electronics, cables and tweaks.

I am not aware that Sean made any attempt to limit his results to speakers. Certainly the protocol for detecting small differences vs large can be different.

 

[microstrip]

I am not aware that Sean made any attempt to limit his results to speakers. Certainly the protocol for detecting small differences vs large can be different.

It is not the question of trying to limit - as far as I know the referred Harman listening tests rely in the fact than "small differences" do not affect the results of speaker tests and that these small differences did not prove to be audible. They used good quality source and electronics, and admit that all decently designed electronics sounds similar. IMHO you are not expected to use a method that denies something to study it!