What is Listening Fatigue?
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- In Audience-AV's first Tuesday Tech Talk, Lenny answers the question, what is listening fatigue? Check out Audience-av.com!
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Cables Ron uses from Audience:
Front Row Speaker Cables
AU24SX Speaker Cables, Interconnects and Power Cords
Review of the Audience cables that mentions listening fatigue! www.soundstage...
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](/img/n.gif)
This is so much a real thing that people don't know about. Glad that you're talking about it.
Great analogy.
Fatigue also comes from your speaker/amp set up. Say if your room is too basey, then you will get fatigued quickly, and the same with too much treble and it most certainly comes from not treating your room.
When I first set up my theatre room (average Australian small bedroom, 3.5 x 3.5metre square), the reverb from my 7.1 system was like being in a U-boat with the sonar ping hitting the back of my head or being hung over from 2 bottles of red from the night before, now that was fatiguing! The simple & cheap fix was to put up some of those foam square pads you buy on ebay (20 in all), which did the job perfect by placing them in different positions, they pretty much took away that echo ping and reduced it to a mear tap tat sound.
If you have a modern amp, make sure you let it do it's auto room EQ, it will get most things pretty spot on with only minor tweaking required.
Setting up you speaker position and volumes so they are even is also key and same goes for setting up your crossover point and speaker size (ie. small or large) on your amp.
I discover the extreme importance of playng around with these two things in one or two songs made a huge difference. At first one song was all distorted and breaking up in the low end base and was also comming out of the centre speaker more pronounced. By changing the centre speaker size from large to small told the amp that the speaker was not very good at base and therefore reduced the base component and sent it to the sub instaed, couple that with changing the crossover point, and before I knew it, the song no longer distorted and the base was comming from the correct locations. It was with my amasment that this special mixed version of the song had such utter low frequency that it hit me straight away, where as it would have taken me 30 or 40 other songs to listen to before figuring out this problem. The song was.. New Order - Restless (Agoria Remix).
By doing those, it means my room does not have too much base that it pounds my head, and it still has plenty of punch, and that it is not too high in treble either, it has an even smooth listening sound that is easy on the ear and thus allows a much longer listing time without the fatigue.
Once you have those down pat, the fatigue should almost be gone, unless you turn the volume up beyond your ears handling ability or your rooms' handling volume. Apart from that, get some music which doesn't sound crap and that is in your pleasure zone and you should be good to go.
I've listened to plenty of live music that gave me listening fatigue after ten minutes.
modern P.A. especially at rock concerts can be pretty brutal and high SPL to boot.
My Magnepans are the least fatiguing speakers I've ever heard. They only sound bad when they are fed with crap sounding source material. If it's a high quality source I can listen to them all day at a reasonable level.
@@darylloth3237 My first High end speakers I ever owned were MMGs. They are really revealing, but also yes not fatiguing at all. Perhaps maggies are a little colored, but not much with the right gear. They just need tons of power to perform their best.
Lenny is awesome - great topic nicely fleshed out - great stuff
Welcome to Audience-AV! Interesting perspective I haven’t thought about. Seems like maybe system synergy is the opposite of listening fatigue. Will look forward to your future tech talks.
Defenitly get listening fatigue from horn and metal dome tweeters. Soft dome silk tweeters are easy on the ears but always found them to lack detail so for me it’s the planar ribbon tweeters that give great extended detail without harshness.
Carl I’m sure that’s true case by case but that’s generally what I’ve experienced
I have studio monitors with soft dome silk twitters and they are quite detailed actually
Clickbait Pro good ones are but a silk planner, which is good for 30khz or more, gives you smooth detail that can not be picked up by the majority of domes. Again, I know there will be exceptions but generally they seem to be in a different league.
never thought of that but he is right
Throwing my hat into the ring as I have experienced listener fatigue myself and it does come when the treble, or worse the upper mids (3-5K or so range) get too forward. It's often made worse when the bass is lacking in dynamics and is just there. Thus, the sound I hear comes off voiced too high a system or recording that lacks dynamics and is woefully flat sounding is not fatiguing per se, but just annoying enough to not listen to it, or do so, and not enjoy it much.
To me, it's when 20 minutes in, your ears get tired and you simply go "ugh" and turn off the music. My system for a time was like that, now, not so much.
And even at a moderately loud volume, it's not shouty, even handed and enjoyable as one, it's a dynamic sounding system with lots of bass grunt, something my system lacked in the past when it was run with a bottom feeding Sherwood BPC era receiver from the mid 90's and some vintage early 70's Sansui speakers, it was blary to start after I did a recap of two pairs of the Sansuis and the bass was always kind of lacking in detail and oomph, though before the recap of the crossover, they weren't blary much. The vintage ADS speakers I have now have dynamics, even handed sound and good, deep bass but it's taught and tuneful and detailed, which helps when listening to bright recordings to a great deal as that bass tames a potentially too hot treble on some recordings.
I don't know if there is a single, absolute, known cause of listening fatigue, but my theory that it is due to unheard distortion typically produced by a speaker's tweeter. Sitting at my computer, with very inexpensive Logitech speakers, I can get fatigue very quickly at a moderate volume level and close range distance. Having them play far away at their peak loudness, I'm fine. Some studio monitors I've heard can give me fatigue very quickly - others I'm fine. It just depends on the speakers and the distance. In my reference system, I can listen to anything, at any volume (within reason) and never get fatigue as long as it isn't compressed too much.
To put it a different way - people who think that a speaker is forward, or bright, are usually the same speakers that give me and, it seems, many others, fatigue. Just my thought - love your channel man!
i loved the way how i could understand a topic in only 3 minutes. keep it up. i only missed some more information. what can i do when i get listening fatigue when listening to my system? what frequency does effect listening fatigue the most?
Usually from 1khz-6khz and or any peaks especially in the higher frequency range.
Listening fatigue comes from two primary sources; 1) from the original recording and 2) the playback system. We cannot do much about issues in the original recording. However, we do have control over our playback system where using natural sounding gear will minimize listening fatigue and maximize enjoyment. Audio cables, for example, that achieve high frequency like turning up the treble knob probably contribute the greatest amount of listening fatigue more than other components. Particularly in high end audio, each component in a system should distant itself from any listening irritation by achieving a natural sound without having to extenuate and particular frequency. Coincidentally, a recent review (link below) of Audience Au24 SX cables in SoundStage magazine refers to this exact issue.
www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/921#most-read-equipment-reviews
The idea is to refine your system so that you are not experiencing fatigue in the first place. Listening fatigue is the result of distortion that originates in two ways primarily; 1) from the way a recording is made 2) from issues in the playback system. We cannot do much about an overly bright recording; however, we can seek gear that delivers a natural sound without accentuating any frequency. Apologies for tooting our own horn; however, coincidentally SountStage just published a review of Audience Au24 SX cables where the reviewer was pleasantly surprised to find some cables that allowed him to relax and enjoy the music.
www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/921#most-read-equipment-reviews
Yes. Thank you for this. I bought into the Klipsch Forte reviews from Kilpsch shill Steve G/Audiophilliac. OMG! 20 minutes and I was done. Actually PAINFUL to me. The “conversation analogy” is spot on. Hearing the horns was like listening to someone with a voice that is personally hard to tolerate. Traded the Klipsches for Andrew Jones Elac Navis ARF-51’s and am so happy and relieved. Hours of listening vs :20 minutes.
I also have final mixing responsibility for my Jam band. Same thing holds true for studio monitors and even worse headphones.
Finally as mentioned by someone else, I am also more sensitive to bad digital signals. On the flip side, I can listen to Vinyl all day long on my McIntosh analog equipment
Ronin Quinn most anything Klipsch is super forward. I listened to Forte III’s on a TUBE amp of all things you’d think warmth, damn demo guy was blowing me out of the room, way too forward, shouty, & bright!
that's why horns are used for honking! :)
i'll throw my hat into the ring as a former person who used to work in the industry. Listening fatigue is caused by a few things, That all effect the same system in the body and the hearing apparatus of the brain in tandem with the ear. What tends to happen is that odd order harmonics, Solid-state saturation and or gapped (oddly ordered and timed sampled audio) or jittered playback will typically cause your brain to have to work harder to govern order and harmony. The hypothalamus which is responsible for our perception of order tends to get fatigue through playback it has to interpolate artifacts or gaps for us. The more the brain has to do this the more you get fatigued because you brain is working overtime. This is why Digital music, harsh sounds, and just odd order harmonics in general can aggravate much of this. The soulution can be found in line conditioners since they prevent power supply saturation, lower noise, and hopefully prevent the system from going in to more cycles of feedback to get rid of distortion. Lowering jitter in any various ways can help. And even just finding gear that is more linear and in general especially tube gear can help.
Jeremy I used to be in the industry, there are several amps that go past 100khz in bandwidth. I have gotten listening fatigue a lot personally. the video from audience is spot on.
Jeremy first in my original post I mentioned odd order harmonics. They are different than high order harmonics, but related. High order harmonics are harmonics of fundamental frequencies that are a high multiple so... the 12th order harmonic of 10,000Hz is 120kHz. This is why 100kHz or more systems are important. To capture the harmonic distribution of the music correctly. Odd order harmonics are any multiple of a harmonic that is odd...1,3,5,7,9..erc. Solid state tends to over emphasize odd order harmonics due to its topology this over emphasis is extremely painful at times if at high SPL and is displeasing to our brain and can sound like “shattering glass” if you train your ear to hone in on how the saturation artifact sounds. It’s what happens when solid-state over saturates or is poorly designed.
@Jeremy you are conflating things I have said, I never said a harmonic was a by product of bandwidth. I said ODD order harmonics are over emphasized by solid-state. This has been scientifically proven. By the way I have no problem with solid-state devices, but they have to be engineered correctly. The bandwidth issue is a RELATED issue. if you have low bandwidth you will get ringing artifacts that can cause an over emphasis of odd, or non linear harmonics. it also causes phase shift. This is called the Gibbs Phenomenon. Look it up. It's been known about in physics and engineering for over 100 years. I never said once that solid-state creates new harmonics or anything like that. In fact what I did say was that it is based on fundamental frequencies and that the bandwidth is needed to PRESERVE the original harmonic distribution. This is exacerbated by many...not all solid-state devices needing high amounts of negative feedback which is basically a filtering system. That filtering exacerbates the ringing and phase coherency of the signal. Now, getting to you bashing tubes. Every person who claims they have more distortion is only half right. There is a great video on UA-cam that Larry Ho from Light Harmonic/LH Labs where he shows in Audio Precision 2 software what type of harmonic distortion tubes create. It tends to be only in lower frequencies. Actually tubes are quite linear in upper frequencies, where as solid-state again tends to have more upper frequency distortion, due to saturation, both topoligies have their advantages and disadvantages. Good engineers know that, and don't bash one over the other, and engineer around each of their flaws. When solid-state saturates it does over emphasize ddd order harmonics and basically destroys even order. Mosfets do as well, which are noted for having more even order emphasis. We are not talking about creation, but preservation. Here is an article about the even vs. odd order issues from a physics journal website explaining guitar amps., and why musicians prefer tube guitar amps. it is for the same reason psycho-acoustically, distortion aside. phys.org/news/2017-02-physics-musicians-valve-amps.html
It's great you build amps in your basement or garage as a hobby, it doesn't make you an expert by any means. Nor am I claiming to be one. I try not to make arguments based on authority or troll people who share their experience. If you can cite science or research, like an IEEE spectrum article, be my guest. Meanwhile i just want to help people understand some of the experiences I have had as it relates to the topic of "Listening Fatigue."
@Jeremy Again I cited sources, you are more than welcome to. It's easy to make Ad hominem attacks on the internet without anything to back it up. There are plenty of IEEE spectrum articles about the modern applications for tubes. Also how does your company "model transistors" don't you just use them? There are plenty of very sophisticated engineering companies that still use and engineer both products...or even *GASP hybridize the two together.. In fact Korg only a few years ago created the NU-TUBE, which is a wafer thin vacuum tube. It has some very promising applications to replace op-amps in certain applications. Unfortunately most of the engineers I have met in the industry are far more open minded about these things. I would argue that to shun one type of technology over another, or to use the typical trope of "tubes have more distortion..so you are fooled into liking more distortion" is more of the decades old mind set. Ironically enough you say the tubes are better mindset is from the 70's that;'s when engineers en masse started to stop using tubes before they could really analyze harmonics in a real time FFT or advanced scoping in the 80's and 90's. Also you have basically bashed tubes that's clear. I cited nothing from the 70's because I wasn't even born yet. This is based off of modern experience with modern products. When you listen to music like progressive death metal like I do you will hear solid-state saturate trust me and I have heard even the most expensive gear do it. There are plenty of modern devices of both topologies that are thoroughly modern and create exceptional sound if you know how to engineer for them.
Paper is the mother of tone, known for there non fatiguing sound. Combine that with a flat frequency response and it will be very smooth.
This is why I'm learning to build my own speakers so I can learn to tweak them to my own personal listing enjoyment I built a pair almost perfect for my ears 91 dB sensitive on the 8 inch woofer 800 Hz down
86db sensitive on the midrange 1000-4000hz
91 on my tweeters
I've learned from playing guitar to scoop my mids out for tone that's not tough on your ears so I'm trying to build speakers with that same thing I'm getting close.
My daughter was in my room listing to my speakers she said it's like being in the studio with the artist but at high volumes it's still slightly fatiguing.
The problem with loving music regardless of the system(at least I find) ..is..mind set. You may think it is music listening time because of that love ......Alas .. this day it is not .....So shut er down and grab a book......revisit that album again tomorrow. Happens to me about once every other month. Silence can be golden.and refreshing. :)
Ken Lane 👍👍👍👍👍
I use minidsp 2x4hd dac to eq a high Q sharp spike going down at the 11000 hz range. Works great can listen to music for days on end with no fatigue . Have bic high sensitivity bookshelf speakers with an ice power 50x2 amp board. Very nice sound
Seems I can listen a lot longer with my tower hi fi speakers than I can at a desk with near field monitors. With 3 27" video screens side by side I am finding it challenging to get a good position for my audio monitors. I have the audio monitors upside down with the tweeters just above my 27" video screens.
Fatigue is also an issue as ears age and if there are other hearing defects.
For example, allergies keep my ears filled with fluid and brittle overly digital sound, or sharp sounding highs hurt.
That’s why I need great sounding speakers at modest levels.
Listen to very good records with high dynamic. Attention to harsh speakers.
I also listen to moderate level with compressed music.
Correct basses according to your room...
It doesn't have to be that bad to be a deal breaker
Ron it does vary from person to person, I remember you listened to the KLH Kendall’s at AXPONA last year, I remember you said top end was a little hot, I own the Kendall’s and while your evaluation may be true, it’s only hot when pushed, I’m a low level listener for the most part, but if you push the Kendall’s they can be overly bright on SS, but I’ve had 12 hour listening sessions on the weekends spinning LP’s and CD’s with no problem.
Good topic again thanks!! It’s very real, but also subjective based on tastes and dare I say your listening constitution. I have a new high end system (have about 3 going at any one time) where, though I would not describe the high frequencies as outright harsh, there is simply too much information through them! So the rest of the sound (not lacking in bass or midrange expression) is utterly defined by the high frequencies. I have found this just about acceptable on some smooth music types of Jazz and so on, but after a week of listening to many genres my ears were hurting, popping and whistling! I have had other modern systems like this as well so I much prefer a more neutral sounding presentation where the music comes together as a whole and nothing shouts for attention. It seems vintage gear does this well but it’s hard to find some with great bass and transparency. They tend to be a bit monotonal(?) and flabby in the bass. Some modern gear does offer a more neutral sound and I’ve found a nice tube-solid state hybrid from Unison Research that does this quite well I think. It was a long journey before I understood what I liked and even longer to find the right kind of amp. With speakers it was much easier.
Many cables are pitched on the upside, like turning up a treble control to achieve high frequency. Ouch!
Treble -0- bass -0- ! I want to here the purity of the amp ,and the synergy to many of my Speaker/amp combos ,ohh Yeah the 530s voice coil is huge for a 5 inch woofer no wonder their efficiency is low but they Hit hard for 5 inches LMAO 😆The JBL compression driver for a tweeter, helps out alot also compared to regular conventional tweeter , but more exspensive !
Tee-Jay The Stereo-Bargain-File multifistakatak countdwn😎👍
@@roquesoprano913 trying to get a day off ! Most likely this friday ! 😆 MULTI-FI-STACK-ATTACK!!
Tee-Jay The Stereo-Bargain-File exclnt!!!!😎✌️
More interested on what the causes are.
I have Ménière’s disease, an audiofile’s nightmare. Listening fatigue happens pretty quickly with today’s hifi systems.
If Rick Rubin would quit bricking the Chili Peppers tracking and mastering this wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
One size does not fit all -- of course, there are some speakers that are geared for rock heads, who have blown out their ears a long time ago. Those who value their ears and have taken care of them do not like speakers that are so tilted up on the high end. Personally, I also find an over-bloated chest voice in the lower mids, also offensive as the extremely hot highs.
Listening fatigue has an easy remedy- throw away your CDs and buy a turntable.
Well said CDs = GARBAGE
Same with cars if you purchase Kia you probably drive not often , but if you buy a Lamborghini you will want to ride as long and fast as possible
@Cliff Moore 🤣
@Cliff Moore Could've used a E-bike to do that, I'm over cars