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5 steps in developing hearing

I got this from a dealer years ago:

1. Only cares about bass.

2. Start hearing tonal balance like warmer, brighter etc. These are more the mass market type.

3. This is the hi-fi entry level listening. We talk about soundstaging imaging, detail etc. all those technical term that you read from the magazine. Everyone who comes to my place I will try to get them into this level. It is not too difficult once we show them the audiophile recording.

4. People start talking about PRAT. From level 3 to level 4 needs a little bit more experience and listening to more systems and live performance.

5. This is my ultimate level of search. It is the complete disappearance of the system. It is the directness of the system. A lot of technically superb systems fail in this area. We call them technically perfect musically dead. Getting from level 4 to level 5 is even more difficult.
This is the area that many of my customers come back to me telling me that how come they didn't get the same feeling when doing the audition in other dealer's demo regardless of price. They cannot explain it so they use 'feeling' as the term.

cdc

Showing 1 response by kennyc

kennyc
1,779 posts
 

Maybe misery enjoys company, but I’ve always guessed that reported PRaT was a perception that the beat subjectively seemed more noticeable to the reviewer but is something I’m not yet familiar with.  Odd to think that changing components can change this “beat/rhythm” perception.  
 

The OP did state that PRaT requires more experience to various systems and live music in which I lack- I only briefly demoed for sonics only to determine if I’m interested in purchasing, and rarely go to live music except recently attended several symphonies (Itzhak Perlman, Yoyo Ma) 

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