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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
ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice OP
9,530 posts
 

Think back on my systems. I realize they often lend themselves of a way of listening. I used to have a system I called my "reference system", because it was so good at highlighting the venue and nuances of the mastering. Ambience would hit you in the face and each instrument was isolated and analytically and somewhat sterilely presented for examination. I would get bored listening to it after one album, and I would go do something else. 

This just wasn’t obvious to me until I upgraded my headphone system to the wonderful Woo 300B headphone amp with Takatsuki 300B tubes. This system became so musically powerful and natural sounding, it quickly inspired me to turn on my main system to continue listening. I literally had the blood drain out of my face and upper body as I was confronted with a dry cardboard like sound, filled with sterile sounds striped of warmth and natural sound. I remember the disappointment I experienced from this amazing $70K collection of electronics (worth far more than both my cars at the time). I had spent decades putting it together. 

I am condensing a few different epiphanies into one to make my point. 

That was the turning point. Over the next 15 years I completely turned around my main system to where it is today. I really have a difficult time listening to my system for more than a few seconds... the music draws me over and I forget about listening to the system. 

So, thinking about it... your system also pushes you to naturally listen in a certain way. 

dr-hooves's avatar
dr-hooves
57 posts
 

I do need to add this for Clarity, each part in the audio chain overwrites the next until the Power Amplifier does its job.

There are simply (when listening), 2 types of power amplifier.

1. The Line Value Amplifier which is incapable of altering the data supplied from the previous piece of equipment and so listening tests are born along with Constant device change.

2. Large Current Power Amplifiers these are the boys who "hatch" the sound quality and provide detail and timing unheard otherwise, such as the Jungson JA-100, the Czech KR, not so much the Krell of old. With these there is no discussion available as the music reigns.

I spent my whole hobby time from the age of 13 until 58 before I discovered this.

The only other thing is that Power Cables set U free, Speaker Cables Constrict and Signal Cables are Constants.

Oh and Tables, plinths, platforms and Isolators are there strictly to deal with transformer oscillation and nothing else.

That is all of Hi-Fi and it's mystery.

I am available for lunch.

jrareform's avatar
jrareform
208 posts
 

Lots of good comments here.  This reminds me of the different factors that go in to listening to music as a whole.  There's the beauty and emotional impact.  Then there's the cerebral part where the details sound interesting and are pleasing because they are exciting. 

Emotional impact can be lost when evaluating systems because we are typically listening with very familiar content for subtle changes usually especially with most cable changes.  This type of listening can get annoying and take away from the music.  This is why they call it the audiophile diseasecheeky

It's super important to not spend too much time evaluating equipment and more important allowing yourself to connect emotionally to the music.  Evaluate and move on.

As a side note to make things easier for A/B sessions - I typically first listen for "realness" - as in did this piece of equipment help me bring the reality of the performance or sound closer to me.  And then I determine whether it detracts or is "too much of a good thing" when certain recordings are rendered lifeless or distracting and whether I feel like going down a rabbit hole to attenuate the system to fix the new issues.

Enjoy the music!

stuartk
4,089 posts
 

@ghdprentice 

So, thinking about it... your system also pushes you to naturally listen in a certain way

Yes. So it’s important to be cognizant of which "way" of listening you prefer when buying gear/upgrading, no?

This is something each person must discover for him/herself.  

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice OP
9,530 posts
 

@stuartk 

Yes, and it changes over time. I have a friend that got into high end audio about three years ago. His system sounded great. Then he put a huge amount of effort into it and suddenly it sounded like one of those cars full of subwoofers. Bass slapped you in the face... bass lines vibrated the room. I remember going through that stage as well. Nothing real about it... but sounds cool. So you play a lot of Marcus Miller and Stanley Clark. Then you try something else and the bass tilt has harmed the reproduction. So it is likely a moving target.... at least for most along the path. 

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