You're probably listening too loud


After many years of being a professional musician and spending hundreds of hours in the recording studios on both sides of the glass, I believe that most listeners undermine the pleasure of the listening experience by listening too loud and deadening their ears.

As a resident of NYC, there are a million things here that make the ears shut down, just the way pupils close up in bright light. People screaming, trucks, subways, city noise. Your ears keep closing up. Then you go home and try to listen on the hifi, but your ears are still f'kd up to get to the point. Try this experiment.

Hopefully, you can all have some degree of quiet when you can sit down and listen. Start with a record or CD of acoustic music with some inner detail and tonality. I like to use the Naim CD with Forcione and Hayden, or the piano/bass CD with Taylor/Hayden. Just simple, relaxing music. Real instruments doin' real things.

Start by sitting back and leaving the volume just a little lower than you find comfortable. Just like you want to turn it up a bit, but leave it down. Sit back and relax. I would bet that in 7-10 minutes, that "too low" volume is going to sound much louder. That's because you're ears have opened up. Now, without changing anything, that same volume is going to sound right. Step out of the room for a second, but don't talk with anybody. Just go get a glass of water and come back - now, that same volume is going to sound louder than you thought.

Sit back down and listen for a minute or two - now, just the slightest nudge of the volume control upwards will make the sound come alive - the bass will be fuller and the rest of the spectrum will be more detailed and vibrant.

Try it - every professional recording engineer knows that loud listening destroys the subtleties in your hearing. Plus, lower volumes mean no or less amplifier clipping, drivers driven within their limits and ears that are open to receive what the music has to offer.

Most of all - have fun.
chayro
I'm not advocating compression, which is without doubt a type of distortion, but I'm just thinking that one benefit of compression is that it makes things less challenging for the ear to decode, which would result in less fatigue perhaps than otherwise.

I'm just struggling to think of compression as a primary cause of fatigue. I'm thinking, all other aspects of distortion aside, that compression does result in less fatigue in general since there is less impact on the ears as a result.

Geez, I never thought I be out here defending a considered blight on good sound like compression..........
with many rock and other popular recordings distortion is introduced both intentionally

You bet it is. Nearly everything is compressed which naturally adds odd harmonic distortion (square wave is all odd harmonics). The terrible masking that occurs in most restaurants, bars and commuter's cars (the target market for much of what is produced) means that compression is pretty standard. Drums almost never sound even remotely like the real thing. Some of the stuff produced for nightclubs and the movies generally seems better due to the target market being equipped with better systems and an environment for listening.
BTW - odd harmonics somehow tells our ears/brain that it is loud - so adding compression can make something sound subjectively much louder. This is why the teenage daughter with the tiny PC speakers cranked can sound unbearably loud (distorted) whilst massive speakers in a dedicated system can sound effortless even at 20 db SPL higher levels. Audio perception is a weird thing.
Jimjoyce25, your comment is bizarre - a player of any acoustic instrument is VERY aware of exactly how loudly they are playing at all times, in all types of rooms, if they are at all competent. Where do you think we practice????
Learsfool,
Good for you to chime in. I could not agree more.
High SPLs by the way do certainly not make for listener's fatigue, not even for female ears, if you have built up a system which can take it. Anyone who says to the contrary, probably, I would surmise, does not know what is possible, always given the right software of course.