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Listening and evaluating equipment and systems.

I have found that listening to music is far more complex than simply hearing sound. A quick audition can reveal whether a system is bright, dull, thin, congested, or initially impressive. It tells us much less about whether it allows us to live with music… to relax into a performance, follow its structure, and keep discovering something in familiar recordings.

Critical listening can be useful, but it can also mislead. When we focus the mind’s ear on one sound… a drum strike, cymbal, vocal phrase, or bass note… much of the rest of the music recedes from awareness. If that sound is intermittent, we are only sampling brief fragments while other instruments are entering, fading, sustaining, and interacting. A speaker is never reproducing one isolated sound. Everything happening at once affects the whole presentation.

Music is a gestalt… rhythm, tone, dynamics, timing, space, harmony, and emotional intent occurring together. A system may impress by spotlighting details, yet prove less convincing over hours or days of actual listening. Another may seem less spectacular at first, but preserve the natural flow and wholeness of a performance more successfully.

The better test is to stop moving attention from one audiophile cue to another. Play complete albums over days or weeks and let the music direct your attention. A few minutes of analysis may identify a trait. Extended, undirected listening will tell you whether the system is truly right.

ghdprentice
kennyc
3,107 posts
 

@ghdprentice 

I have found that listening to music is far more complex than simply hearing sound.

I definitely have had a lot of white knuckle sessions trying to make decisions….

Seems your opening thread can be interpreted as either PAST experiences or CURRENT experiences, followed by advice.

I was under the impression you were done with your audio chain to a place you find great satisfaction. 
 

Extended, undirected listening will tell you whether the system is truly right.

I disagree with this claim as universal as music perception can vary and I’ve seen quite a few instances where an OP claims they didn’t know their system was lacking until they installed a component that improved sonic performance. While your advice can be helpful to many, the “will” is interpreted as universal truth for all.

pindac's avatar
pindac
4,100 posts
 

I am moved on from the what I refer to as an intense analytical listening attitude. If a particular recording is replayed on a regular occasion, not much will remain concealed to the listener; the extended periods used for listening will enable new information to become focused on. 

My listening has evolved into keeping the experience of replaying recorded music as an enjoyment, which is an ideal accompaniment to periods set aside to be entertained using an audio system to create a musical encounter.

I do evaluate, but this is to decide if the replayed recording was able to create the perception that the Artist and Sound Engineers' influences on the recording were seemingly a good mimic of what was being engineered into the recording. For me, there is satisfaction found when the notion forms, the recording being heard is creating the impression that the structure perceived within the end sound is as per the design for recording at the studio.

    

 

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice OP
9,530 posts
 

@kennyc 

My white knuckle sessions were in the first twenty or thirty years of being an audiophile while trying to make a decision on a piece of equipment that was very expensive for my financial situation and listening as attentively trying to discern a nuance in some sound. 

Over the last twenty years I have known the field and my musical intent so well that it has been easy and the resultant component has done exactly what I expected and added to the system sound exactly as I expected... so it has been just fun. 

I typically have upgraded every 5 to 7 years. In between just enjoying the music. My system has now been completely stable and I am completely happy with it for the last five years. No plans on changing it. 

All generalized advice is typically applicable to many people not all. I thought might a bit too weak. 

Post removed 
kevemaher's avatar
kevemaher
435 posts
 

I listen critically.

But sometimes I want some music background while I do other things.

So I turn my Tuner on (remember them?) and listen to a classical station through my system.

I don't stream because that requires intervention by the listener. I prefer to take the music as it comes.

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