View Full Version : How to listen
TopBalcony
28-09-2012, 18:33
This is fun :) Sorry if posted before. I've not played with it for long, but suggests that more hf suggests air and transparency...(we probably already knew that)
http://seanolive.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/version-204-of-harman-how-to-listen-now.html
Stratmangler
28-09-2012, 21:49
I can't help but think that something titled "How To Listen" should be disregarded as being the patronising shite that is is.
I can't help but think that something titled "How To Listen" should be disregarded as being the patronising shite that is is.
It is training software.
I can't help but think that something titled "How To Listen" should be disregarded as being the patronising shite that is is.
I agree the title is off-putting but the bloke is a true boffin - ' Sean Olive is Director of Acoustic Research for Harman International'
Stratmangler
28-09-2012, 22:15
It is training software.
And it trains you to do what?
Beechwoods
28-09-2012, 22:18
To bore your mates down the pub with your amazing audio knowledge.
Stratmangler
28-09-2012, 22:19
To bore your mates down the pub with your amazing audio knowledge.
;)
And it trains you to do what?
It trains people to improve their critical listening abilities and identify common colourations associated with music playback. Whilst it is irrelevant for enjoying tunes it helps to understand what to look out for when demoing / evaluating recordings and kit.
The title is pretentious but I understand the aim of it...don't be so dismissive! ;)
Stratmangler
28-09-2012, 23:37
It trains people to improve their critical listening abilities and identify common colourations associated with music playback. Whilst it is irrelevant for enjoying tunes it helps to understand what to look out for when demoing / evaluating recordings and kit.
So this
To bore your mates down the pub with your amazing audio knowledge.
is spot on the money then :eyebrows:
...dunno I never talk to my mates about HiFi, they don't give a stuff. That's why I come on here. ;)
Stratmangler
29-09-2012, 10:16
The title is pretentious but I understand the aim of it...don't be so dismissive! ;)
The last time somebody tried to "train me how to listen" the person concerned didn't have an idea what decent music was :eyebrows:
Mind you, it was someone from Absolute Sounds at the first Whittlebury show.
I walked after around 5 minutes :D
chris@panteg
29-09-2012, 10:30
The last time somebody tried to "train me how to listen" the person concerned didn't have an idea what decent music was :eyebrows:
Mind you, it was someone from Absolute Sounds at the first Whittlebury show.
I walked after around 5 minutes :D
Hi Chris , have you ever been to a Linn dem ? Condescending springs to mind , I witnessed two Linn reps take the piss and humiliate a guy who claimed he could play the clarinet , after saying he felt the system failed to convey the instrument accurately .
Indeed, Chris (in reference to Absolute Sounds). There's nothing funnier/more ludicrous (delete as appropriate) than being lectured on how to do something 'properly' by someone who's obviously no better at it than you! :mental:
It trains people to improve their critical listening abilities and identify common colourations associated with music playback. Whilst it is irrelevant for enjoying tunes it helps to understand what to look out for when demoing / evaluating recordings and kit.
I dislike this type of 'training', as it encourages one to become absolutist and attribute particular aspects of coloration, present in some form in all equipment, as being automatically undesirable, when in fact disliking the effect (or otherwise), of said coloration, is often down subjective preference. It simply 'trains' you to judge good sound, based on someone else's preference and bias.
But then, some people will always need a form of 'expert's bible' to follow, as they're incapable of using their judgement and/or simply just don't trust their own ears....
Marco.
I've said this before, so please be patient with me here...
All my life, I've learned the lyrics of favourite songs and "sang along" with the music. Having the Linn "Tune Training" at Ivor T and Charlie Brennan's hands back in 1981 at the Linn factory dem room, actually HELPED me enjoy live music more, as well as getting a hang on systems of ALL price groups that basically "did it!"
Later on, I believe Linn were more into the rhythm side and i remember a mate who was working at Grahams, come in and "sell me" why the Arcam delta 60 amp was so good - because it presented the rhythm side so much better (it did, but to me was tuneless!!!!!!! - although I suspect that using purely Audioquest cables as imported by Arcam at the time may have sorted it)
I have a sneaky feeling that most of us who settle on a system, play music through it regularly and stay with it for years, often have the tunes and rhythm side well stitched up and it's those will ill-matched systems who just blindly throw money at a solution to no avail that are the unhappiest - IMO obviously. I've heard some lovely sounds from little Denon, TEAC or Onkyo micro systems with well matched cheapo speakers, set up carefully in an environment they like, the low price and basic crudeness of the sound taking a firm second place to the wonderful music coming out. In fairness to Ab Sounds, a very long standing system a colleague had (Micro Seiki CD-M100, Krell KRC3/KSA80 and Apogee Duetta Signatures) could sound utterly and wonderfully beguiling, the system itself completely disappearing on a well recorded album I remember. At a lower price, I find harbeth speakers and Croft amps do this with ease too, the harmonic "textures" of the instruments being played helping the emotional connection with the music. I'm sure Tannoy and SET lovers may feel the same way about their choices of components.
It's this latter "tune thang" that makes some manufacturers and DIY fans tweak with fancy components I think, the artful substitution of a stock part for a carefully selected alternative just giving their products an "edge" in the way the music comes out.
So please don't knock the "how to listen" brigade. Done right, this recognition of whats in the music will stay with you for life and be totally independant of the gear you use. It'll just help you put together something enjoyable and very long lasting. The fact that so many men are tone deaf anyway doesn't help of course :lol:
But at the end of the day, the ONLY ears that matter are your own, therefore it's those that should remain as the arbiter for judging what sounds good and what doesn't, not those belonging to someone else, especially when in the guide there are too many unconsidered variables.
The ability of a system to accurately portray tunes and rhythms ('musicality') has always been more important to me than the 'usual' more prosaic hi-fi considerations, and that desire has been naturally instilled in me from birth. I didn't need anyone to teach me it!
In over 25 years of owning and assembling quality hi-fi systems, I've gotten by just fine, without being trained by anyone on 'how to listen', without it doing me any harm, and if I'm around for the next 25 years, that situation shall remain ;)
YMMV.
Marco.
One's ears change every day, but being able to hum a tune through a well matched system should work every time... It's not always "teaching" either, just confirming what you already knew in a lot of cases - a form of acknowledging formally what you do subconsciously, if you see what I mean...
One's ears change every day...
Maybe what yours hear does, noticeably, but what mine hear don't, and seems pretty consistent. It must be a nightmare otherwise... You have my sympathy. In any case, how will a guide help, explaining 'how to listen', if what your ears are hearing changes daily? :scratch:
..but being able to hum a tune through a well matched system should work every time...
Indeed - there, we are in agreement! :)
Marco.
Methinks the point of the s/w is being missed. Its aim, as I read it, is not to train people to identify what is a good sound or not in a biased fashion like the Linn tune demos of old but to train the listener to more reliably identify traits or artifacts in sound reproduction...I don't think the intention is to make a brain washed sale...
Beechwoods
29-09-2012, 15:52
I imagine its useful if you're going into production or mixing, or equipment design, but not as an end user of produced music.
Methinks the point of the s/w is being missed. Its aim, as I read it, is not to train people to identify what is a good sound or not in a biased fashion like the Linn tune demos of old but to train the listener to more reliably identify traits or artifacts in sound reproduction...I don't think the intention is to make a brain washed sale...
I agree, Neal, and that's how I took it, but the point still remains that no-one should need 'trained' on what constitutes as a "good sound", as it's entirely subjective. What if the so called 'expert guide' tells you that a certain type of coloration is 'bad/wrong', yet to your ears, is pleasing to listen to? Who's 'right' - the guide or your own ears? ;)
The problem is that few people have faith in their own judgement, and so need telling by an 'expert' what is supposedly right or wrong, best or worst in audio, and also in reference to many other things. It's quite sad, really... :rolleyes:
Marco.
TopBalcony
29-09-2012, 17:00
Methinks the point of the s/w is being missed. Its aim, as I read it, is not to train people to identify what is a good sound or not in a biased fashion like the Linn tune demos of old but to train the listener to more reliably identify traits or artifacts in sound reproduction...I don't think the intention is to make a brain washed sale...
Exactly...that's why I thought it was interesting and posted the link.
Marco, if an avid reader goes to college to study English Lit, does that depreciate his enjoyment of novels?
Hi John,
No, it shoudn't, and neither should it influence which novels he or she considered as 'good', despite the technical merit attributed to supposedly the 'best' ones, as judged by the so-called 'cognoscenti'! ;)
There have been plenty of books and films I've enjoyed, despite them being panned by the 'experts', and so I'm entirely comfortable living by my own standards of judgement.
Thanks for posting the link, though. It was indeed interesting.
Marco.
Looks like a helpful tool to me.
If you don't know what certain distortions sound like then you won't necessarily know when certain, fixable things are wrong and you'll just be unsatisfied with your system, thinking it is just bad synergy (perhaps the idea of "synergy" is used when people don't have an experienced ear - I don't have one) or a component not as good as people say etc.
There's a CD set out there somewhere which aims to train people's ears to hear certain distortions and anomalies too.
One's ears change every day, but being able to hum a tune through a well matched system should work every time... It's not always "teaching" either, just confirming what you already knew in a lot of cases - a form of acknowledging formally what you do subconsciously, if you see what I mean...
What do you mean by humming a tune?
When I listen I'm quiet else I'd be drowning out the system with my own singing!
Even if quietly humming, surely you will be masking the system and replacing nuances with you're own sound? Masking for example the timbre of the clarinet?
My test is normally to quieten my mind and try to work out if it instinctively feels real, even if it is a kind of made up electroinic sound (does it have the bite the raw synth would have, for example - obviously some guess work there).
In that sense, music I don't know is better as my mind won't be filling in the gaps with that which is expected - something which the brain is so good at doing.
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