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I want to discuss 'Listening Fatigue' before moving on to other topics.IMO there are mainly two types of listening fatigue- short term and long term.Short Term:The cause of short term fatigue can be distortion. The recording, poor source, over driven amp, speakers, you simply don't like the music, mental fatigue from active listening. Listening time can be anywhere from 1 to 4 hours of active listening.Long Term:Assuming you have a good low distortion stereo system. Long Term fatigue sets in after many hours of extended active listening.In my case I thought I was going deaf. I had lost interest in active listening and took a break from active listening for a few weeks. I only played music at low volume in the background. Comments?
Very timely post, I found Quboz is a little two bright in my system and listening fatigue set in. I tried redbook and hirez tracks, just too much micro detail and it gets fatiguing. That never happened to me with Tidal or even Spotify.
Hey! I love listening to music on my system, I love to just sit in a dimmed light, a glass of red wine and my MacBook Pro and just listen to music. I usually like to listen to music in the evening usually between 7PM to 11PM. Although, when I do that after work I tend to fall asleep after a long day of work. So, my best time is on my days off when I'm fully rested a night before. But unfortunately I don't have much time lately to actually sit and listen Buddy
I don't know how else to explain it...and indeed the explanation may only work for me but I seem to respond to the sound of a system in one of two ways. Either I am listening to a system that is putting on a show or I am listening to a system that pulls me in. I think the adage is true that the characteristic of a component that is immediately striking is the same characteristic that will drive you crazy over extended listening. I think much of this listening fatigue must affect us in a subtle, almost subliminal way.
I suspect Jitter Distortion is all about xover in a multi way loudspeaker.
What??? I know you're a fan of single driver speakers, but is there anything to support this claim?
Having listened to a lot of different systems over 30 years I have come to some conclusions:1) Two types of distortion cause most fatigue: Harmonic Distortion and Jitter Distortion2) When either of these are high, it is almost impossible to talk to another person when the music is playing at any volume3) When distortion is high, my tinnitus in one ear starts to buzz. I must back-down on the volume.Since I have been able to reduce jitter to unprecedented levels I have literally had no tinnitus attacks and I can listen to music at glass-breaking levels without fatigue. I can even have the volume fairly loud and easily talk over it to another person.Based on my experience, it is more of a source issue than a speaker issue. Some systems with poor active preamps may also exacerbate the situation.I do agree on the massively compressed recordings. Just try to listen to Bruno Mars albums...