What is listening fatigue and where does it really come from?

[caesar]

Is this an audiophile-invented term for them to make themselves to feel better about their gear, or is this a real phenomena? I see people wear their crappy little headphones all day and they are not complaining.

So is it really caused by the gear? By certain frequencies? Volume levels? Or is it caused by over-listening, since we can realistically focus only for so long?

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I think its a real phenomenon and I get it whenever I'm exposed to overly bright or piercing sounds. It could be why I am so much more of a mid-range lover than I am a high-frequency hound. Metal-domed tweeters have a tendency to induce listener fatigue to my ears. Additionally, I do think that extensive and excessive loud music is also a big contributing factor for me.

Regarding over-listening and focus...I don't think it has anything to do with that at all. I can listen to my setup all day without any kind of fatigue whatsoever...other than the soreness my ass feels from sitting in a chair for too long. Haha!

 

[LL21]

Definitely real...the question about other people using $1 headphones is whether they are sensitive to it. I would say, no different than watching VHS tape today vs DVD, where your eyes would not tolerate VHS today compared to DVD (try it...its hilarious how grainy VHS is)...i think once you've been exposed to high-end properly done, you become more sensitive to it.

Lets face it, eat crap food your whole life...and it dont seem so bad. Eat well, and suddenly crap food seems inedible.

As for my own experience, i have tried putting in new cables...and leaving them there for days while my original is in for retermination or something. Smokes...you can immediately tell the difference...not by the 5 minutes here or there...but by the fact, that i tend not to turn the system on in themorning when getting ready, i tend not to come home and switch it on right away...or worse...dont switch it on at all if i am expecting to go out in about an hour. i think its because i intuitively know without realizing it, i tire of it and its not got the purity i soak up when the system is right.

Whereas, when my system as i like it is all in tact (no repairs, loaners, demos, etc)...its on first thing in the am while i get ready...first thing on after work, last thing before dropping into bed. And i specifically make sure i never infinite repeat any album so i ensure i get to listen to as many albums as i can in a single day...because i want to listen to them all on the system.

 

[flez007]

I remember my time with the Avantgarde Uno speakers, ultra-resolving, dynamic, fast ... but could not stand more than an hour listening, I beleive it had to do with sound preassure...

 

[LL21]

Hi...i started out by typing that i would have thought with lower volume that your explanation would not apply...until i realized by the time i finished writing...i was about to conclude the same thing! somehow horns seem to send music to you through a sort of pressurized delivery...even at lower volumes. That pressurizes delivery gets tiring to my ears. Hey - i am sure i am going to get all manner of flack...but it is just how i heard it. And the setup was pretty SOTA by Audio Exotics in Hong Kong...these guys really know what they are doing. Cessaro horns. Zanden, Tron and Troy electronics...

 

[fas42]

Easy as pie to explain. And you know what's coming: too much low level, high frequency distortion being spat out of the speakers, and your ear/brain can only take so much of trying to digest it before calling it a day. If you put on a difficult recording and it sounds pretty mediocre then your system is producing this muck whether you can pick it otherwise or not, playing your "good" recordings; here it is largely disguised because the system seems to sound so good. But this disturbing quality is still there, and your ear/brain does a good job ignoring it for quite some significant time, until finally the mental muscle doing the heavy lifting of filtering out this unwanted addition has had enough, and then you have it, listening fatigue.

Frank

 

[MylesBAstor]

Is this an audiophile-invented term for them to make themselves to feel better about their gear, or is this a real phenomena? I see people wear their crappy little headphones all day and they are not complaining.

So is it really caused by the gear? By certain frequencies? Volume levels? Or is it caused by over-listening, since we can realistically focus only for so long?

See Sony CDP101 Can be distortion, frequency aberrations, phasiness, etc. I think it also varies from individual to individual. For me, it's upper midrange brightness that often is distortion interpreted by the brain as a frequency aberration.

 

[fas42]

See Sony CDP101 Can be distortion, frequency aberrations, phasiness, etc. I think it also varies from individual to individual. For me, it's upper midrange brightness that often is distortion interpreted by the brain as a frequency aberration.

Exactly. So people deaden the sound by colouring the output using cables, etc, etc. And then complain that digital is lifeless. You're going round and round in circles, until you take the bull by the horns, and acknowledge that distortion, not frequency response abberations, is the problem, and sort that out ...

Roger says that digital sounds "second hand", analogue is "fresh". I'm afraid, Roger, you still haven't fully conquered the interference/distortion problem for you to say that, sorry!! :-()

Frank

 

[Whatmore]

I see people wear their crappy little headphones all day and they are not complaining.

That's because they aren't listening to Snorah Jones or Spanish Harlem on their iPods

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Too much of just about anything can make people tired. Get enough of it, you'd probably suffer from sex fatigue. The simplicity of that, however, will not deter audiophiles from declaring "listening fatigue" to be a very specific disease of that which they do not prefer, which is immediately cured by that which they are invested in. For reference, see Frank's posts - any of them, really - in which all problems pour forth from the same well of low level high frequency distortion which can be eliminated, making even your clock radio sound like Steve's Lamm/Wilson system, by any number of mysterious methods involving solder, concrete blocks and unplugging all the hair dryers from your neighborhood's power grid.

Tim

 

[Rupunzell]

One factor is lack of resolution. The human brain has the ability to "fill in" or re-create missing information or extract information hidden in noise. This requires energy to extract or fill in the missing information. The amount of energy required is one source of listening fatigue.

The common solution to the lack of resolution problem is to smoosh it all out with the belief this will make it all better. This approach results in a boring listening experience and due to the lack of information, the listener soon loses interest in the music. One other common approach to this same problem is to create a visceral sonic experience to over whelm the senses, this could work for a short time, then over stimulation sets in causing a different set of problems.




If one looks at an Ansel Adams original B&W print (or any high resolution image), one of the attractions to these images is the resolution or information contained in the image. The eye/brain is drawn into the image by fine details, contrast range and ...

Is this an audiophile-invented term for them to make themselves to feel better about their gear, or is this a real phenomena? I see people wear their crappy little headphones all day and they are not complaining.

So is it really caused by the gear? By certain frequencies? Volume levels? Or is it caused by over-listening, since we can realistically focus only for so long?

 

[LL21]

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

One factor is lack of resolution. The human brain has the ability to "fill in" or re-create missing information or extract information hidden in noise. This requires energy to extract or fill in the missing information. The amount of energy required is one source of listening fatigue.

The common solution to the lack of resolution problem is to smoosh it all out with the belief this will make it all better. This approach results in a boring listening experience and due to the lack of information, the listener soon loses interest in the music. One other common approach to this same problem is to create a visceral sonic experience to over whelm the senses, this could work for a short time, then over stimulation sets in causing a different set of problems.

Interesting theory. Do you have a source or is it your own? If it's your own do you have any existing/related data that led you to such a theory?

Tim

 

[Kal Rubinson]

One factor is lack of resolution. The human brain has the ability to "fill in" or re-create missing information or extract information hidden in noise. This requires energy to extract or fill in the missing information. The amount of energy required is one source of listening fatigue.

From what I know of energy use in the brain, I doubt this. Many of us exert our brains strenuously for long periods without fatigue. Sometimes, it is stimulating.

Do you have any reference for this inference?

Kal

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

From what I know of energy use in the brain, I doubt this. Many of us exert our brains strenuously for long periods without fatigue. Sometimes, it is stimulating.

Do you have any reference for this inference?

Kal

And I'd be interested in any references to this, which I assume is theory, though it wasn't stated as such:

One factor is lack of resolution. The human brain has the ability to "fill in" or re-create missing information or extract information hidden in noise.

I'm aware of our ability to hear/see partially complete images, and re-construct, from memory, what we think they should look/sound like. That is quite different from the brain actualy re-creating missing information or extracting information from below the noise floor. Can't say I've seen anything about that. I'd love to see a source.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

Some people just listen too loud, too often. Too much of a good thing........

 

[fas42]

One factor is lack of resolution. The human brain has the ability to "fill in" or re-create missing information or extract information hidden in noise. This requires energy to extract or fill in the missing information. The amount of energy required is one source of listening fatigue.

The common solution to the lack of resolution problem is to smoosh it all out with the belief this will make it all better. This approach results in a boring listening experience and due to the lack of information, the listener soon loses interest in the music. One other common approach to this same problem is to create a visceral sonic experience to over whelm the senses, this could work for a short time, then over stimulation sets in causing a different set of problems.




If one looks at an Ansel Adams original B&W print (or any high resolution image), one of the attractions to these images is the resolution or information contained in the image. The eye/brain is drawn into the image by fine details, contrast range and ...

Your last analogy is excellent, that's exactly what the fine tuning of system that I talk of achieves: finer and finer detail is revealed so that extremely modest systems become captivating to listen to, even on "terrible" recordings. However, the downside is that when people typically do things to increase the level of detail, it also accentuates the level of distortion being contributed by the system itself, that which is apart from the recording. For want of a better word, the "style" of the distortion of a hifi system is very different from the the type of distortion on a poor recording, and there can be a major "clash", an analogy is having both too much sugar AND salt in some food. Nothing normally can be done about the distortion embedded in the recording, so then you expend all, absolutely all your efforts on minimising the extra distortion generated unnecessarily in playback. And my experience is that this philosophy can be immensely rewarding ...

What I will disagree strongly with is your saying that there is a lack of information: it is completely the opposite situation, there is TOO much information, the real "data" of the recording, plus the usually negative tonal enhancement by the the playback system.

Frank

 

[ack]

Fatigue has taken a number of forms for me... some examples:

• Lack of dynamic contrasts - e.g. trumpets sounding like harmonicas, compressed voices
• Fake bass - e.g. a big heavy thump for a bass drum, which should start with a high-pitched sound; contrabass where each string sounds as a single note (due to lack of resolution)
• Unrealistic voices - too large or too small; distorted choruses; compressed dynamics
• Lack of resolution - struggling to hear what I think I just heard or should have heard - boring, rounded sound
• Shrieking tweeters - dynamic, ribbon and many other types
• Astoundingly wrong tone or timbre - e.g. cymbals that sound like spray cans

All of the above are the result of a combination of lack of resolution, a variety of distortions, and inadequate power & control. When something sounds right, listening is extremely tranquil, pleasurable, engaging, impressive, addictive.

 

[fas42]

Fatigue has taken a number of forms for me... some examples:

...

All of the above are the result of a combination of lack of resolution, a variety of distortions, and inadequate power & control. When something sounds right, listening is extremely tranquil, pleasurable, engaging, impressive, addictive.

Big tick from me: I would emphasise human voices, always a dead giveaway. Unless it's been put through some distortion unit for a specific effect, there are key attributes that should always shine through, a quality of realness, which you have absolutely no trouble picking as being correct. Reproduction of new wave music frequently has a hard time here, system has to be in tip top shape not to mangle the vocal contributions badly, because it's stressing trying to handle the size and complexity of the soundscape ...

Frank

 

[kach22i]

CD-R's played with a 900 watt solid state amp though dynamic loudspeakers with diamond tweeters.

I'll take my vinyl LP's, tube amp and electrostatic speakers over that stuff any day of the week.