Digital Ear Fatigue

[DougMac]

I have some comments and a couple of questions that are sort of a follow on to the discussion regarding equalization. I'll start with a question, and in the spirit of the season, it is a question similar to "do you believe in Santa Claus?". The question is, do you believe in digital ear fatigue?

A couple of things spurred me to ask the question. I have been reading various articles written by vinyl advocates (many of whom also believe the earth is flat) stating that they suffer significant ear fatigue from CD's. One interesting article was somewhat more enlightened, they were big fans of SACD and felt it overcame all the limitations of regular CD's. They also felt that the significant decline in CD sales was at least in part due to digital ear fatigue. Rap gives me ear fatigue, but that's another discussion. They did say sales are down in all areas, including classical, which to my mind has gained the most from digital recording/playback. Most of the vinyl arguments have as much scientific basis as a Gary Gallo review, but I wonder if there is a germ of truth somewhere. My son thinks folks find the "sweet" harmonic distortions comforting, but hey, that's what VVA is for.

I also got to thinking about this after listening to two CD's, one created through my old sound card and one created through my newer one. I seem to experience less fatigue listening to the one created using the old card. If you do an A/B comparison, the newer card sounds better, at least over the short haul. Also, the newer card has better specs, including lower distortion. Yet, I seem to experience more fatigue, even at low listening levels. Is there a quality, perhaps the A/D converters, that isn't measured in specs but makes one card more listenable than another?

Doug

[Craig Maier]

Re: Digital Ear Fatigue

DougMac - - - sometimes, you really crack me up. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Thanks, I really needed to have a good belly laugh - - -it is good for the soul. My personal experience is that I get much more "Ear Fatigue" listening to vinyl with all its distortion, clicks, pops, hiss, compression, and rumble than I get when listening to CD's. The only good thing about vinyl mechanical recording is that the pain only lasts for about 20 minutes at a shot and then the needle lifts off the record. That is the time when it sounds the best to me. Keep in mind that a lot of late release vinyl was digitally mastered. So, those A/D sounds are on there plus the poor sound of vinyl. But, for those thinking that they have ear fatigue, Diamond Cut is thinking about developing a new line of "Digital Ear Fatigue" ear drops which will alleviate this problem. You will need to use these Ear Drops in conjunction with our patented Diamond Cut Ear Workout Plan to strengenthen up those Ear muscles so that this is no longer a significant problem. Again, thanks for this wonderful new product idea! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] That, in conjunction with our "Golden Ear 12AX7 based Hard Drive" will solve all your digital audio problems. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Brian]

Re: Digital Ear Fatigue

If you replace "CD" with "Bose Speaker" in this discussion I think you'll see the legitimacy of Doug's comments. Bose is one of the best selling speaker systems and loved by many for its sound -- but even Bose doesn't call them "accurate". Their patents even specify techniques for accentuating what an engineer would call harmonic distortion. I think Doug's on to something with the idea that many people find elevated levels of certain types of distortion pleasant to their ears. When I was a teenager, my first speaker system was by Bose -- then I went to work for a classical music station, got to hear real monitor speakers and haven't been able to stand the "Bose sound" ever since. If your ears haven't had the pleasure of being exposed/trained to "accurate" sound I can certainly see how they might prefer all kinds of interesting sounding acoustic artifacts.

[DougMac]

Bose Slogan

[ QUOTE ]
If you replace "CD" with "Bose Speaker" in this discussion I think you'll see the legitimacy of Doug's comments.

[/ QUOTE ]
Remember Bose's advertising slogan:
"No highs, no lows - it must be Bose!"

Doug

[Craig Maier]

Re: Bose Slogan

As a German Jew, I can tell you that "Bose" means "Bad" in German and Yiddish. The "o" should have had an "umlaut" upon it which I can not find on this bbs keyboard. "Bose" seems to be an appropriate name for their speakers in some peoples opinion(s). They are not my taste. We at (Diamond Cut Productions) use very expensive Studio Monitors including makes like JBL for our work here. JBL's design philosphy is very simple. Make the speakers have the maximum efficiency using the highest flux density (strongest) magnets, with the closest coupling between the voice coil and magnetic gap structure that is possible (meaning flat ribbon wire and close mechanical tolerences). By minimizing excursions whether they be mechanical or electrical results in more closeness to the "small signal model" of the system, resulting in greater linearity and less distortion. That means that a minimum of overall power is required to produce a specific sound pressure level in your listening area. The net result is a minumum level of distortion produced by the speakers and the power amplifier because of the minimized "dynamic swing" of the total system. JBL and other professional speaker companies use no marketing gimmicks; they just good "Electro-Mechanical Engineering Principals." BTW - we do not own stock in that company; I, Craig Maier, just prefer them (JBL) to all else - - - but clearly this is a matter of personal taste. I find these speakers to sound the closest to the actual performance. Most of the Professional Recording Studios that I have visited use two studio monitor speaker combinations. The first is almost always made by JBL (Harmond Kardon today I believe). The second includes two 4 inch, 1 dollar speakers mounted on plastic board baffles (simulating a cheap radio or TV) to make sure that the final sound mix does not overload cheap systems on the bass rides. No BS!

[Brian]

Re: Bose Slogan

I totally agree with your assessment of JBL speakers - but would add some of Electro Voice's Sentry systems also. And your mention of multiple monitors is most certainly not BS either. Many years ago I took over the recording studio of a media production house that was way in the red. The current engineer was big on recording music groups but the market wasn't Los Angeles. He produced some fine music tracks but all the paying business in the area was for broadcast, training videos/films and various multi-image/slide-tape formats. The first thing I did was get the audio playback hardware of each of the formats being produced locally. On a shelf just under the studio window we had a car radio, TV set, 16mm projector, classroom cassette recorder, PA speaker and a couple of other types of units -- it looked like a pawn shop but it really opened the producers eyes when we would A/B between our multi-thousand $$ reference speakers and what their audience would actually hear. In a few weeks we had 90% of the media production track business and the studio was firmly in the black from then on.

[Craig Maier]

Re: Bose Slogan

Brian,

You got it! Ah Mien!! Its still gotta sound decent on a 39 buck boom box too if you want to join the big boys in this pro audio field.