Very deep observation ! Thanks.

 I felt the same, once we lived through a ASC musical experience driven by THC you felt it always stored in our body memory ready to reveal to us again, even without THC, how the music content (visual in my case and derived from the music ) spoke to our consciousness as from a higher level of meaning.

I'm at point where my system can provide a SUSTAINING ASC experience, while the memories or lessons learned from using various mind altering substances can last a lifetime, they can't provide a 'natural' or sustaining ASC experience, they are 'manufactured' experiences in the sense they physically alter our brain chemistry. While it is true all ASC experiences result in brain chemistry changes, better for emotions/feelings to change it vs various physical substances.

I am glad you fare well on this health front ...

My best to you ...

Just got the results of my lung CT:  No trace of cancer, despite my best bad efforts to get the rot....  COPD is under some sort of control, yay....

What I mean to to ask was whether you view "sweetness of tone" as inherent to the violin and regard any stridency as an artifact of poor audio performance or whether you have deliberately configured your headphone system to present a "sweeter" tonality simply because it’s what you prefer, esthetically. 

Very good question! thanks.

I optimized my K340 (6 modifications ) in 6 months of experiments and thinking... I dont liked  it so much  after buying it , i experimented with it because i had no other choices after the selling of my house and my first dedicated room.

 One this is said i do not "reconfigured" the K340..

 The K340 has a dedicated cell for bass, a dedicated cell for highs frequencies..

I cannot reconfigure that without destructing his amazing properties linked to the right crossover point at 4,000 Hertz and to his dual acoustic chamber with 5 tuned resonators.

I only optimized it helping his working pieces to reach their peak potential...( --suppression of the protective thick grid, --right pads which is very important because the size of the pads and their acoustic properties are critical matter for the dual chamber optimal working,--equalization,--right amplification is critical,control of resonance and vibration with 2 different materials,-- a dac cleaner than warm )

Now when i spoke about the Highs as "honey" i was referring to exceptional recording of violin acoustically... (Tacet Vivaldi tube only recording for example )

With a bad recording i will not get this "flying" wings of angels with violin...

I had other recordings of violin way less spectacular...The highs are not as spectacular...They are only good without any stressing effect...

But i had none with stridency and stressful sound...

Stridency of violins result most of the times from the gear synergy or bad design in my experience...Or someimes but more rarely from  bad recordings i guess..

I remember the horrible highs of my planar Hifiman 400  driven by two dacs  and 2 amp very popular 10 years ago  which were strident and horrible, unnatural, especially badly driven...

Also my  low cost Stax presented unnatural highs... But not the Stax SR5 gold though which was good in tonality and timbre...Not as natural as the K340 at all though...

Naturalness of timbre is the most difficult factor to get right with headphone...

I never succeed with any of the three types of headphones  i owned (10 headphones) only the K340 did it for me, once i learned how to use this complex headphone, criticized once by reviewer who think that they can plug it on anything and call it job done..( they  described the integration of the 2 cells are unsuccessful. I know now why they experienced this )

i think AKG  discarded it  after few years because it was too costly to produce it and make big profit and too costly to optimize it and improve it... They created another flagship the K1000 (apparently no deep bass but good spatialization).

( Kennerton official few years ago say to me they do not go on with the idea to create a real good hybrid because of the ratio cost/profit for research and manufacturing  and the K340 is not a portable headphone  with a low impedence etc )

I had it for years and did not read him yet...

 Thanks to remind me i must die soon and then must read it sooner...

I am just beginning to read Oliver Sack's book Musicophilia - Tales of Music and the Brain.  I bet it would interest many participants in this thread.  If you have read it, I would be interested in your thoughts....

I know

  it seems a ridiculous set of metaphors, especially out of his context, but it was what i felt listening to  it when my optimization process was completed. 

Remember that i never enjoyed the high frequencies on any of my system as i enjoyed bass and deep bass. It was the first time in all my audio journey. 

And these metaphors conveyed my subjective feelings of this moment. Now i am a highs frequencies head in a way... I like violin much more...

The point is an audiophile system must gave high frequencies enjoyable to the most level possible as well as deep bass..

You quoted me wrong sns..

This is my text :

The gear pieces design quality and synergy cannot be replaced  but only compensated by acoustics controls, mechanical one mainly in my case and also equalization and tone control.

But on the other hand no piece of gear can replace acoustic control impact to gain natural timbre and sound spatial characteristics...

Everybody knows that the first thing to solve is gear design quality and synergy and this cannot be replaced by acoustics magic...

But AFTER  the buying is done, nothing replace acoustics controls , no upgrade will improve the system room  so much importantly and effectively ...Even for an upgrade evaluation it is better to have a good acoustics control of the room...

 I had insisted on this because the "disease" of audio is upgrading gear race...And acoustics ignorance...

THC  is not ,music as ASC, which is not acoustics...

If we kept all these conflated and confused we will go nowhere..

 We will reach only one simplistic  conclusion :

Pot and beers are great and solve all problems (after a new audio upgrade)

Music experience is a perpetual ASC : as a trance hypnosis, or a spiritual awakenings...

What we listen to affect us and our body and it is not just a matter of taste but a matter of education about music and about knowledge...

The way to suppress a stressful experience with our audio system is not a new ASC but  simple information about what matters in installation of audio system...

Acoustics basic knowledge (not a new ASC ) comes first, and acoustics is way more bigger than just room acoustic..

  Or we can listen our music without being bother by a sound quality that matter not much for  most of us for sure...

But for me and many others, a minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold is necessary to forget the system and enter in the music experience as ASC , not just an ASC as trance hypnosis but time to times a spiritual awakenings.

Music is already an ASC and cannot be unheard going deep in us...

Playing with sound parameters in a room imply an ASC...

Do you know the Barabar site in India ?

Nobody knows who did it, the precision is  impossible to replicate today, and the caves were probably used as an acoustic tool to create ASC...

This stunning  documentary is one of the best i had seen recently and say a lot :

BARABAR, THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF THE FUTURE

This 2 hours is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF6qv1CC5_4&t=3s

But if you want a short introduction :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGnA0ZrwEk

incredibly stunning poster to put on my, a bit expanded, lower stomach  part !

I want one ...

asvjerry

4,937 posts

05-05-2025 at 02:04pm 

Been in there long enough for kitty, too.... ;)

@mahgister 

Thanks for expanding on the topic of "perception as a creative act". 

Now, another question:

I knew my acoustical optimization of my AKG K340 hibryd was done well when i cranked up the highs  with tone controls and equalization because the violin sound  was enebriating like an angelic silk thread..

I’m confused. I know you are as aware as I am that a violin, in person, can sound very strident -- quite the opposite of "angelic".  So, why offer this as evidence of having optimized your headphones "well"? 

 

I’d just like to say, I find this thread a very stimulating discussion. Much more interesting than talking about gear, although I recognize that has its place. 

I like my K340 so much because being hybrid with a 4,000 Hertz crossover, the two cells work in the mids but the dynamic one from the deep bass higher and the other from the highs to the mids lower...They had an acoustic dual chamber inside then with 5 tuned Helmholtz resonators.The only headphone design as this.

Then the medium are so unique and natural...

It takes me 6 months of reading and experimenting to understand how they work even reading the patent created by Dr. Gorike their designer and founder of AKG a physicist by formation fascinated by acoustics not an engineer...

Why did i dislike all headphones so much , i tried all types, many dynamics, 2 planars et 2  electrostatic...

i dislike them because they sound unnatural generally the mids timbre is unrealistic and artificial... No deep bass  and no natural highs...And very important : no out of the head soundfield experience ( the K340 with many classical recording especially gave me that )

The bass and the Highs  are very limited on most headphone because a singular cellular membrane of any types work not so well to capture bass resonating in your body and highs celestials sweet as honey and seemingly  extended not appearing  with a  roll off ...( The fact that my hearing is not near my 20 dont change the idea and experience, only the perceived frequencies level where the high peaks and roll off)

 A violin played by a not so much great violonist on a not so much great violin yes may sound strident...

But some top artist in Vivaldi Bach or Mozert plays so well that hearing their note tonal microdynamis on a very resolving system with a great acoustic, which is what the K340 gave me, i entered heaven...

Before the K340 i never even on my speakers (Tannoy) or the others less sophisticated one, i never enjoy violin as much... Often stridence, sibilance, acoustic stress at high volume... I was more a bass head in a way...

But with the K340 i cannot be tired of listening the Arte of violin by Locatelli which is almost violins only non stop for hours (3cd). On a bad system in a non controlled room it must be strident and very tiring...

On my K340 it is celestial syrup of the most ethereal kind...Like a set of  colors distillation at the limit of the visible spectrum flowing and flying ...

I own a CD of a Polish version of the 4 seasons of Vivaldi  on Tacet, "tube recording only", i cannot be tired of listening it, the violins and especially the solos with the deep bass of the cello create an altered state of consciousness..

the mark of a high end system, the ultimate after having natural timbre, deep bass, spatial localisation of all instruments with their holographic individual tonal volume in space, is the higher frequencies rainbow arc...

I never experienced it on speakers because my system was never "high-end" even in my extraordinary well controlled room.

But my actual system of choice even if i can use small speakers well embedded acoustically which i modified, my system of choice the only high end one i ever had (quality of gear design) is the K340 driven by the Sansui alpha...

The most difficult and the LAST factor  to get not only right but very good and celestial  is the higher range of frequencies on speakers but especially on headphone... The only headphone i know which is good is the K340... I am not frustrated at all because it will cost me a lot to beat them with speakers...

We would understand each other well , we had done similar things using different paths and solutions for different system in completely different room, but  we know the importance of acoustics control...

I  had used in a smaller room than you a big grid of distributed and localized Helmholtz resonators  (The cheapest one to experiment)...

 Schumann generators, which i used till today in my new system (only 2), are cherres on a cake...Positioning them is key...

They gave an "aura" to the sound volume in space and make the soundstaging more fluid...it was evident in my first dedicated larger room, when i put them off  one by one the "aura" vacillate and disappeared...

To reiterate, maximizing sound staging, imaging is extremely important for my ability to easily enter higher levels of ASC, immersion into the sound field meaning stimuli emanating from behind listening position is key.

I knew my acoustical optimization of my AKG K340 hibryd was done well when i cranked up the highs  with tone controls and equalization because the violin sound  was enebriating like an angelic silk thread...

 If a system dont gave enough bass or beautiful highs and medium  as natureal as possible the timbre of instrument, non amplified as amplified is distorted...

it is because of this acoustical stress that often people pick their gear piece upgrade to compensate, or some albums in spite of others less easy and natural to listen to...

The gear pieces design quality and synergy cannot be replaced  but only compensated by acoustics controls, mechanical one mainly in my case and also equalization and tone control.

But on the other hand no piece of gear can replace acoustic control impact to gain natural timbre and sound spatial characteristics...

On the other hand, I can think of at least one pretty persistent irritant for what I believe to be timbre issue, and that is massed violins, I’ve yet to experience a fully natural presentation/timbre via digital, vinyl reproduction sounds more like the real thing although digital has continually evolved here.

I will add that music is naturally, never mind acoustic and audio, an altered states of consciousness and the most universally used.

Speech is a musical gesture socially and individually synchronized with Nature... Each perception  may become creative and a dual survival strategies of isolation from Nature (society) and also participation to Nature on a higher level than immediate by creativity.

One of the most impactful and deep effect of  THC in concentrated form on me the few times i tried it listening music, was not so much  on my acoustic perception , which seems increased, but on the visual perception of the musical content meaning not as merely purely musical and auditory but as fractals and as a movie given to be seen...

 Even without THC i "see" music way more than i am able to "hear" it, because i am not a musician anyway and not musically educated as a player like stuartk, i interpreted naturally music as a visual  abstract story... think about fractals and metamorphosis of forms..

In some case , Bruckner 5 th symphony for example, i see a continuous story about man death and the afterlife...the vast geometry of the last mvt tell the story taking one by one all the thema of the first three movement recapitulating them, the first time i heard it i was strucked by a revelation, the final very long fugue is almost vision..

I appreciated very much your posts and experience...

I am retired and i did a set of intense experiments in acoustic 7 day /7 for 2 years... I tuned 100 Helmholtz resonators and learned about the importance of their  localization in the room and the way i must used them to modify the pressures zones of the room to my liking...

At the end the soundfield was like surrounding me and each tone was a volume in space, in an opera i could see the singer singing and walking in all my room near or far from me.

i adjusted mechanically my resonators of various size from a straw to 8 feet with big volume because like you i learned how to feel  the sound wave zone of pressure and the comb filtering induced by the geometry of my room and his size.

I l;earned how to localize the many devices i used, not only resonators, but a balance between diffusion/absorbtion/reflective panels (homemade) and devices.

it was a trip because each evening the music became more and more alive, and with a process of trials and errors i reach an optimal level...

i am pretty sure you understand me...

Thanks for your interesting testimony...

No doubt gross timbre inaccuracies would induce stress. I believe more marginal timbre inaccuracies aren’t a major concern for most. How often do most of us listen to non amplified or non sound reinforced music? I presume most of us generally hear live music where the instruments are both amplified and sound reinforcement is being used. In general I much prefer my home system sound to live concerts, sound quality superior and I can control my environment.

 

 In speaking to environment I’d posit our listening room settings have a great influence on our ability to enter into ASC. By this I don’t mean acoustic room products, rather the esthetics of the room, also time of day, I much more enjoy night time listening, my room completely blacked out, and I have various light shows I can enable to fit the mood. Complete quiet also best, the lower the ambient noise levels the better, 30db vs 50db is a very meaningful difference for hearing the lower level info and/or quiet passages, especially important for classical.

 

Speaking of acoustic control, I spent years analyzing how different room treatments affected the sound. As part of this I learned to visualize sound waves, from this I began to hear how sound waves excited the molecular structure of my listening space. Taking these visualization helped me to hear how my entire room (over 30’ L), mostly the space behind listening position affected the sound. As an aside, my first visualization of molecular space came from LSD trips out in nature, what in all likelihood was pollen in the air lit by moonlight was perceived as something far more meaningful. With LSD one loses all perception of time, I recall starting trips at perhaps 7pm, the sun could be rising and I’d be sitting in one place the whole time, its like one single thought consumed me that entire time, I never recall any perception of repetition.

 

I like the reference to boredom, no doubt ASC cannot be accompanied by boredom. Repetition can easily induce boredom, two reasons why I like the robot picking the music, one is its mostly completely random, surprise displaces boredom, two I don’t have the need to interrupt the ’flow’, with me having to choose the music I have to consciously make the choice, this takes away from the ’flow.’

"Each perception can be a creative act" ... I’m going to have to muse on that one!

Perception may be a robotic act of recognition by the "robotic ego"  as in recognizing a known store on a known road...

Perception can be too an act of creative imagination who use apparent randomness to extract a known or new pattern...

 Do you remember your first book with figures to put colors on but only after using the numbers associated to a point  to form a figure ? Do you remember your amazement to see order born from apparent  chaos because of a hidden  road map linking all points with numbers?

I remember it as if it was yesterday...

 All our perceptions are most of the times a mix of the robotic ego actions and of the creative imagination...

 We dont perceive "things" which   we had not created or participated to in some way, but we can recognize  also known pattern as if in a sleepwalking state with very low creativity...Each perception may be a door to ecstasy but life will be unlivable if we were stuck on a trip...

Musical perception and  acoustical perception may be such acts of imaginative creative perception...

People with low understanding of the working mind can call them illusion, placebos, hallucinations, it is not even wrong... But truth ask for more study and more involvement in our own thinking perception than accusing our perceptions of lies...

We think also  with our senses... A blind can think and recreate with imagination  the world pattern and densities with echo-localization...

i takes acoustics as seriously meaningful as music...The two activities imply ASC... A flow state of creativity like in any art... Listening is an art which create meanings...

Great post thanks.

In this case audiophilia is an affliction in which, just like other addictive drugs,  tolerance may be reached which means even greater amounts/better equipment needed to maintain the high.

 

Now, the above contingent on what are the goals for any particular audiophile, perhaps the equipment itself brings about certain levels of ASC. No doubt humans can lust after material objects, think about how many humanize these objects, men often give their cars women’s names. My neighbor has males names for my cars.

It is not the gear pieces who gave me ASC.

It was music rendition translated in an  acoustically relatively correct manner...

"timbre" is not only the sound corresponding to a know non electrically amplified instrument, even if in many case it is for sure. It is more complex.

Timbre inform us about the vibrating sound source state, be it a MooG synthetiser or a Yoruba drum...

Timbre is also not only a tonal color microdynamics varying in space but it is through the deformation or distortion of information caused by any stereo listening a dynamical "volume" in space which also create an ASC by his mere existance not as a mere localized noise in Nature but as an artificial "sphere" of  artful meaning in our room if all is acoustically under control.

Acoustics parameters also not only the music content can create a strong ASC especially their convergence.

Consumers in a race to upgrade are not in an ASC but are perturbed by the boredom caused by their lack of  acoustic control over their experience of music from which they evade by purchasing easy "solutions"...

Cannabis is relaxing and can make the "flowing state " easier for a musician...

But in some case it can be handicapping as for Chet Baker....Heroin is not pot...

Interesting article thanks...

https://www.leafly.com/news/lifestyle/louis-armstrong-and-cannabis

Some quotes from Louis Armstrong on the utility of "gage" in his musical career.

I will go further, if listening music is not already an altered state of consciousness for you, you have a big problem...It is a kind of deafness which also is in the neurological litterature...

Even speech sound and musicality can induce an altered state of consciousness( hypnosis or chorus singing etc )

Even just listening to music for some people is sufficient to induce altered states of consciousness. No stimulants are needed.

Thanks for this interesting article .

This is well documented in the scientific literature. Here is just one example of a book on the subject - Herbert, R. (2011). Everyday Music Listening: Absorption, Dissociation and Trancing. Aldershot, Ashgate.

@mahgister 

Music absorption or immersion cannot coexist with a state of acoustic stress or dissatisfaction...

I can’t argue with this but I’m confused about how "absorption" relates to "altered states as related to what @hilde45  stated at the beginning of the thread:

Ok, this is not a question about relaxing, but about listening to evaluate how the system (or a piece of gear is sounding). 

In other words, can one evaluate a system’s sonics while in an altered state that is not absorption? 

First: all is a question here about "attention" as in a focus centered state (details), or in a surrounding encompassing mode(whole) and in a relaxed moving balance  state between these 2 polarities (whole and detail).

Second : a critical listening of sound can suddenly appear because out of the perfect optimal balance between modes of attention, something stress our sense and perception of the optimal relation between sound as acoustic experience and music as pure meaning; a disturbed attention focus suddenly critically on sound, forgetting musical meaning (the meaning of Bruckner last 5th symphony for example as a perfect image of near death we can see with our mind eyes if something dont disturb our concentration of attention)

Third: Ecstasy, an altered state of mind as meaning perception through an optimal balance between sound manifestation of the music content cannot exist in a critical mode of attention focussing unilaterally on some negative acoustic aspect of the sound vehicle.

Four: this is why i said that an optimal acoustic control of the system /room/ears help us to reach an altered state of perception through this optimal balance where we can forget at the ultimate limit everything save pure meanings expressed as the unity of sound and music as ONE meaning...

 a remark : Attention can be "divided" or can work in two modes simultaneously, only in the "state of flow" when consciousness is relaxed and work out of any stress.

Then yes i can listen critically in an altered state at the express condition to be out of any kind of stress, acoustic stress or any other...

If not i enter in state where i lose the "flow state" of meaningful perception...

 Each perception can be a creative act, a stress, or a boring process by habit, or a loss of control in a way or another with some substances...

In a simpler way : if the system/room is optimal for our ears/brain we enter in an altered state, a musical ecstasy..

If not, we need a beer to forget our imperfect acoustic experience...Or we need another acoustics experiment around an acoustic concept to improve the system/room...

If i am happy with my system it is already an altered uncritical state of satisfaction (in spite of my consciousness of my gear limitation because the system work optimally)

and to this question :

In other words, can one evaluate a system's sonics while in an altered state that is not absorption? 

The answer is no. I cannot evaluate my system stoned as a rock, or drunk and drunken. Why ? Because acoustics critical analysis is like thinking and seeing with his ears, i cannot when my mind is darken by the fumes...

Very interesting post thanks.

I am thinking that musical absorption is better description of what we audiophiles do than critical listening.

 Music absorption or immersion cannot coexist with a state of acoustic stress or dissatisfaction...

This is why to be put in an altered states of joy listening music Timbre perception must be optimal because it help a lot to make the union of the listener with the sound and then with the musical content affecting the body ONE experience.

Then if we do not lose our tendency to "critical listening" we cannot enter into the altered states without help (pot,beer, and friends)

It is why owning a system/room touching the  minimal acoustical threshold of satisfaction matter a lot... Acoustics, it is my opinion, matter more here than the gear price...

I forgot to say to our "text sarcastic corrector" that this poem:

Instead, a koan:

The words all flow,
Yet meaning hides in the prose,
Mind in tangled knot.

 This poem Is not a Koan, because a koan in zen practice is always a "non sensical question"  given by the master to the pupil to remove the mind from his habitual limits or ratio...

Our friend here has written a "hai-ku", a traditional 3 lines poem determined by a syllabes count,  which he conflated with a koan in his hurry to mock my post about acoustics and answer my koan by a bad poetry of his own...

 But what i wrote myself  above is an acoustic Koan :

What is the sound of a bell ringing in a cage with no air ?

A koan is often a question impossible to answer...

The bad haiku written above is only a sarcasm directed to me...

 The "corrector" is then corrected....

An interesting deep scientific discovery about "timbre" meaning for music evaluation and perception :

«The mathematical rules for creating musical harmony may be more malleable than thought.

Western music theory traditionally holds that chords sound most pleasant when they contain notes separated by certain intervals (SN: 5/9/23). Namely, intervals where the notes’ frequencies have simple ratios — like 2:1 (an octave) or 3:2 (a fifth).

But new research reveals that people’s actual preferred harmonies depend on the timbre of the notes. Timbre is the distinct flavor of sound produced by specific instruments — the reason that the same note played at the same volume sounds different on the piano, guitar or gong.»

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/timbre-harmony-music-scales-culture

 All this demonstrate how much acoustics perception of timbre determine the way we will lived through the musical performance a positive "altered states" or a negative "altered states" of experience. Critical listening instead of ecstasy.

Now if we forgot sarcasms and  ad hominem attacks in poetical form or not,

 We can say using science that "critical state" of listening in audio and music is determined by evaluation of "timbre" micro-dynamics and meanings...

 It is why my point about acoustics and "altered states"  is not just  about beers and pot...

 Here an interesting article about that...

https://www.mcgill.ca/mpcl/files/mpcl/wang_2021_frontpsychol.pdf

«Timbre is one of the psychophysical cues that has a great impact on affect perception, although, it has not been the subject of much cross-cultural research. Our aim is to investigate the influence of timbre on the perception of affect conveyed by Western and Chinese classical music using a cross-cultural approach...

 The
results show that the important acoustic features for valence and energy arousal are similar, which are related mostly to spectral variation, the shape of the temporal envelope,and the dynamic range. The important acoustic features for tension arousal describe the shape of the spectral envelope, noisiness, and the shape of the temporal envelope. The explanation for the similarity of perceived affect ratings between instruments is the similar acoustic features that were caused by the physical characteristics of specific instruments and performing techniques.»

 What is called in this article "tension arousal" perception is an "altered states" of perception of music  in which we can reach a level of ectasy.

This is why "timbre" perception parameters in a system /room matter so much in audio and music.

 But i can take a beer or a bit of pot time to time...

The goal with a good acoustics condition and a beer is to eliminate the unwanted "critical listenings" attitude when listening music to immerse ourselves in it...

Sigh. Wrong again. Ok, I give up.

Instead, a koan:

The words all flow,
Yet meaning hides in the prose,
Mind in tangled knot.

And a limerick:

There once was a poster online,
Whose temper was awfully inclined
To flare at a tweet,
Then stomp tiny feet,
And call his profundity divine.
 

Yes, you were wrong again...

Because you insinuated  that i had claimed that my system was without defects nor limitations..

I explained why this is false...

 Acoustics do not replace  high end gear...

it only optimized  piece of gear this is why the concept of acoustic balance matter over price...You cannot replace acoustics basics with more costly gear upgrade... Design of gear and acoustics are 2 different matter... It is common place fact...Suggesting that i claimed the opposite is "bad faith"...You cannot replace better designed gear improvement by acoustics improvement...

To save your face now you throw me sarcasms and innuendos as usual..

I called that  "petty mind"...

A poem for you  :

A  deep acoustic Koan for my friend asvjerry:

What is the sound of a bell ringing in a cage with no air ?

A clue for the meditation:

A wave is not necessarily a perceived sound and a perceived sound is not a mere wave in the air. The vibrating sound source is the qualia we perceive as a meaningful information about the vibrating sound source state itself which is not only frequencies but a recognized vibrating physical qualia. We tap a fruit to know if it is ripe or not.

Sound is meaning.Not just waves.

I dont need pot or beer to forget the limitations of my low cost system. It work optimally and i enjoy it fully as the result of my creative  acoustics experiments...

I’m very glad for you. If it works optimally and you enjoy it fully then I don’t suppose it really has any limitations. That’s wonderful! And low cost!

No you are wrong here.

If we do not enjoy any given  system, most of the times it is not so much because it is a bad system "per se" ,or because it is a too much low cost one. 

The main reason why we enter "critical listening" mode , unable to enter in musical enjoyment, bothered by the sound, it is because a suddenly too much apparent defect break the necessary balance of acoustics factors and parameters.

Then your ironical supposition about the absence of limitations of my system  is wrong.... 

My low cost system as most system under the top very costly  High end has  his many  specifics set of limitations, but because of the optimization of all three working factors, mechanical,electrical and especially acoustical, the balance i had is near the  optimal, then no limitation act suddenly  as disruptor of the musical pleasure triggering  an unwanted critical listening mode...

This is why acoustics gave us " altered musical consciousness" with Pot or without pot or beer...

@mahgister ....sounds like my ’reality’, whatever it is...not much on candles ’n such.....*G*

Buy a salt lamp for the color orange,it increase our perception of music by associating a light climax between day and light and make music "colors"  best seen this way for me..  it is perhaps only self conditioning hypnosis...

Also i observed an effect on sound when near my gear but it is also perhaps only an aspect of my "tin foil hat" personality..

"Critical listening" as suggested by the OP  as i understood it, can be related to our evaluation of the system/room sound or can be put aside by the use of beer and pot to simply enjoy music...

This critical  passive listening can interfer and be an impediment to our enjoyment of music indeed...

But there is also an active listening, using acoustics concepts and parameters, which help us to reach musical ecstasy (with beer or without beer).

I dont need pot or beer to forget the limitations of my low cost system. It work optimally and i enjoy it fully as the result of my creative  acoustics experiments...

Time to time i had used THC to increase my subjective experience of music, but this had no relation to my system sound. I used it 2 or 3 times a year listening Bach, Liszt,Bruckner and Philip Glass opera. the last time.

Beers,Pot,thc,Mushrooms, will modify your interpretation of music perception , not the objective quality of sound perception. only acoustics can do this.

You are in direct contact with non-interpreted reality. You can hear sounds objectively and then interpret them. That’s not how my brain/mind work. I guess we’re built differently. Everything I hear is interpreted. The question (for me not you) is how to make sure my interpretations are not stuck in a rut.

 You forget that there exist 2 contextual  meanings of the word biases and interpretation here.

The first context is conscious use of substance(beers &drugs) to create an acoustically distorted subjective experience of music and sound...

The second context is conscious use of acoustic condition to modify your own perception and interpretation of sound and music...

I do not hear sound objectively as you claimed i use objective acoustic concepts and parameter to modify my subjective interpretation of sound and music...(ASW/LV ratio is objective concepts and parameters which we can use to control or not the system/ears/room, it refer also to a modified or altered conscious experience of sound )

Everything we hear is interpreted consciously and unconsciously , saying this is a common place evident fact, but acting on our conscious experience of this interpretation and biases using acoustics or beer are two different factors...

I only add to the ,beer,pot,mushroom, common place factors a less known factor...

Acoustics is also an altered state of consciousness as music is in itself, with beers and pot or without...

Observe that my opinion about acoustics experience and controls "as an altered state of consciousness" wed together the subjective interpretation in and with perception and the objective aspect of perception  into one  relatively communicable experience.

Acoustics? That absolutely makes no sense in the context of this conversation,

You are right. Acoustic wall panels had no place in a conversation about altered states and critical listening...

But if you dare to google search acoustics as science you will learn what it is... Try it.

But perhaps the only way you ever used to alter your consciousness state, listening music, was beer ?

I am not in this situation sorry. Many others are like me. Then before deciding what can be said in a thread inform yourself.

Beers,Pot,thc,Mushrooms, will modify your interpretation of music perception , not the objective quality of sound perception.

only acoustics can do this.

I used acoustics parameters controls by my ears  as a tuning instrument to reach ectasy...It is not perfect... It is optimal for me....It cost me nothing...

Acoustics is not just mere  panels on walls.There is concepts to put at play and devices we can control.

Drugs of any kind are fun but , acoustics is the best drugs with no negative effects...

Understanding what we hears is like a blind person  using echo-localization, it is freedom from the jail of marketing and a way to become creative...

Consumers suffer from "altered states" of consciousness often, under the effect of marketing...

They believe that changing a good dac for another good one "an upgrade" they will hear more differences in sound  than  putting a piece of shungite on the dac or a quartz on the connector...Or putting a Shumann generator near one...

I dont believe marketing...

My altered state comes from listening music  after i had tuned the room  acoustics parameters among others  "incredible" feat  ( a dude here even doubted that i could tune a bunch of Helmholtz resonator by ears so much ignorant he was in mechanical acoustics and i was able to  locate them at the right spot to modify the pressures zone...)

 Acoustics experiments are like THC effect : addictive...

 And yes i use shungite, quartz, Schumann generators, and Helmholtz resonators, the improvement resulting from that is way over most dac upgrade...

The difference between most good dac on some price level for an average system are minute difference.

By the way no dac  sound the same put on different gear and room. More than that they dont sound the same if the system in which they are is treated and controlled or not...

Music alter the consciousness state, it is why music has nothing to do with taste, chose carefully the music you will listen to... Suspend your innate or acquired taste and explore other part of your consciousness...

Learn acoustics and read sound as we read a book...

My headphone listening  are increased in focus in the dark with salt lamp to create atmosphere (orange color) but eyes opened....

I "see" music....

The rare occasion i take THC i can see music also exactly like a movie with abstracts dynamics...

Sound  (acceptable S.Q.) disappear to let music spoke in geometrical fractals patterns...

If i take nothing i "see" patterns also but in a less concrete way...

I always prefer if the headphone or the speakers are good  acoustically listening with eyes opened because i see better the patterns, or the instruments...

Now i had an acceptable sound quality level satisfaction, sound does not distract me from music... That was my goal in my audio journey, not reaching the best system which is out of my budget but the optimal acoustic level with what i own...