What is "critical listening"?

Do both: listen "critically" at first, using my thinking mind to identify incongruities in how stereo sounds like sound I hear everyday, then, let go of "critical", analytic faculty and perceive musical meaning from deeper symmetry where desire to think about sound fades. Neither mode of perception is "lesser" than the other and both exist on a continuum of perception, so, in our experience, they are not separate (until we separate them by talkng about them). What "lessens" the ability to perceive is when one adheres to an assumption (thinking) that "critical" listening is the only valid means of deriving meaning from music, or, contra, that only trans-thinking listening is valid for saying what music is, or how good a stereo is. Each sight reveals different aspects of a stereo performance.

I think and listen, then I don't think and listen. There is no problem.

ASA: Ca va sens dire! Great to have you on this thread and your point is well made and taken!

To me, casual listening is plopping down in front of an unfamiliar system, listening to some unfamiliar music. And you're really not listening for anything in particular, maybe you're just taking a breather.

Critical listening would be listening to familiar music on a hopefully somewhat familiar system, listening for how a component handles specific nuances that you find, well..., critical.

Detlof! Head down, I can feel them rising over the hill!!

Pbb, are you laughing yet......?

Wonderful dialog! It makes me dig a bit deeper and realize that the two dimensions of "listening to music" and "listening to reproduction" can easily co-exist.

Think about all the dimensions you are absorbing in a live performance. The musicians interacting with one another and the audience, watching the musicians play the tools of their trade, listening to the acoustics of the environment and listening to the music itself. At home, there is the music, the environment and the reproduction. I take delight in noticing how well the sax or bass drum sounds. And I take delight in the music. Everything works together for me. Noticing the capabilities of my system goes hand in hand with enjoying the music itself, just as noticing the character of the musicians in a live performance goes hand in hand with the music. Critical listening goes beyond the appreciation of musical reproducion and is the focus on the reproduction for purposes of diagnosing a system.

In the most negative sense, critical listening can also be noticing the worst aspects of your system whenever you listen -- hopefully, that doesn't happen much. If it does, it's time to change the system, change your priorities or change your drink ;-) Great discussion all!