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Listening skills: How do you learn to listen?

Double-entendre. 


Had a few experiences lately that together were a stark reminder of something known for a long time, because I lived it myself.  

In the beginning, or at any rate going back to about 1991, I was unable to hear any difference between different CD players and DACs. Even some amplifiers, they might not sound exactly the same but I was hard pressed to say why.  

This went on for a long time. Months. Many months. Like okay a year. Whatever. During which time I was driving around hitting all the Seattle/Portland area stores listening to everything I could find. About the only difference big enough to be sure of was receivers. They for sure are crap. But even there it was hard to say exactly in what way. Just the difference there was glaring enough it was obvious this is not the way to go. But that was about it.    

All during this time of course I was reading Stereophile and studying all the reviews and building up a vocabulary of audiophile terms. The problem, seen clearly as usual only in the rear view mirror, was not really being able to match up the terminology with what I was hearing. I had words, and sounds, but without meaning, having no real link or connection between them.  

One day after yet another frustrating trip to Definitive I came home and put on my XLO Test CD and was listening to the Michael Ruff track Poor Boy when it hit me, THIS IS THAT SOUND!!!  

What sound? Good question! The better high end gear is more full and round and liquid and less etched or grainy. Poor Boy is Sheffield, all tube, and so even though being played from CD through my grainy etched mid-fi the tubey magic came through enough to trigger the elusive connection. THIS is "that sound"!  

Once triggered, this realization grew and spread real fast. In no time at all it became easy to hear differences between all kinds of things. "No time at all" was probably months, but seemed like no time at all compared to how long I was going nowhere.  

What happened? There are a near infinite number of different sonic characteristics. Attack and decay, fundamental tone, harmonic, and timbre, those were a few of the early ones I was able to get a handle on- but the list goes on and on.  

Just to go by experience, reading reviews, and talking to other audiophiles it would seem most of us spend an awful lot of time concentrating real hard on our own little list of these terms. We have our personal audiophile checklist and dutifully run down the list. The list has its uses but no matter how extensive the list becomes it always remains a tiny little blip on the infinite list of all there is.  

So what brought this to mind is recently a couple guys, several in fact, heard some of the coolest most impressive stuff I know and said....meh. Not hearing it.  

This is not a case of they prefer something else. This is not hearing any difference whatsoever. At all. None. Nada. Zip.

Like me, back in the day, with CD.  

These are not noobs either. We're talking serious, seasoned, experienced audiophiles here.

I'm not even sure it comes down to what they are listening for. Like me in '91, hard to know what you're listening for until you know what you're listening for.  

Which comes first?
128x128millercarbon

Showing 4 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
The usual villians refused to stay on topic and so I had the discussion closed. There was useful information there so rather than have it removed I had it closed. This way the useful information remains for people to read and learn.

Certain people feel entitled to wreck any discussion and make it their own. No one in real life would barge in on a conversation the way they do. Even now after some of the worst have been banned, even now they still do not get it. Just move along. Please.

This discussion will continue for as long as it stays on topic. If they want to wreck it there will be another, and after a while then this approach will make it crystal clear they have no real desire to do anything but wreck productive conversation. They will by their own actions demonstrate the only course left is to ban them. If this happens it will be them doing it to themselves.

Bear in mind this is a last resort. Need I remind you of the letters these people have mailed trying to threaten and harass me even to the point of filing fraudulent charges against my x-ray license? They all know about this, and yet not a one of them has spoken out against it. So that shows just how aberrant they are.

Others are catching on to what is going on. Eventually enough people will speak up to put a stop to this. Put a stop to them. Until then, we will try this. Close discussion, thereby creating a record. Giving them all the rope they need, so to speak.

Meantime, I am genuinely curious how it is people learn to recognize new sounds. My hunch is even those who say they just sit and listen "to music" must eventually gradually somehow notice things like timbre, attack, decay, etc and that with certain components these sound more "right" than with others.

But, how? How did the sounds and the words that describe the sounds become linked and one in their mind? My hunch, another one, it is like my experience and like ghdprentice, after a long long time suddenly one day, AHA! Eureka!

But it is only a hunch. Hence the discussion. May it stay on topic....


millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Your name is on the letter. Mapman’s name is on the letter.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
ghdprentice-
Getting in is hard. In the late ‘70s when I got captivated by high end audio. One of the things was listening to a set of Acoustat 2 + 2s. The sound was awesome. I probably could not tell you why. It triggered purchases, reading, talking and listening. But lots of times I couldn’t identify the variable. But every few years I would finally get one. I got a used preamp. I was listening to it, thinking how good it was, and suddenly I remember my face turning red as I suddenly realized it was grainy… I had read about this, but never experienced it. It went back. After that grain was easy for me to detect.

Good one. Beautiful. Thanks.   

You had the concept "grain" but it was just a word. Then suddenly one day listening to that preamp you made the connection. Now it is made you can hear grain and know it is grain. Very similar experience to mine. Thanks! 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
hilde45-
I love this topic, OP. Well chosen and set up.

Here are a couple questions I'm especially interested in hearing your take on. These are earnest questions.

1. When you initially were trying to hear more, what was the reason? What motivated you to develop your listening acumen?
I love music. Reviewers and others were talking about things I couldn't hear. Even though I couldn't hear them, I was determined to have really good music at home and wanted this so bad I would do just about anything. Plus I often had the vague sense of some things begin better, but in a way that was more a feeling than anything that could be put into words. So there was the motivation to understand something new.  

2. As you were initially listening around to try to hear more, you say you only heard differences between "receivers." But you were listening to different kinds of speakers -- did the big differences between speakers contribute to your eventual "aha" moment? (I'm wondering because sometimes there are multiple things at work in effectuating a change, and only later, in retrospect, do I realize the subordinate factors at work).
No, the speakers and stuff had nothing to do with it. Receivers just sounded so distorted it was easy to write them off. Now being better at it I would say they are grainy, etched, congested, flat, and so on. But back then it was just they sounded bad. No matter what speakers. No matter what else.    

The harsh part of this was I started out totally sold on the idea of building a Home Theater around a "good" AVR! I was NOT looking for stereo! I just wanted the classic good sounding HT that is good for music. Because I love both. It was a real hard lesson to learn, that AVR is such a wasteland of dreck. Real hard. But it is such a wasteland of dreck that this was the first thing I was easily and reliably able to hear!  

3. Around the time you developed your initial, stable checklist of audiophile terms to listen for, how did that affect your ability to listen for pleasure? Were you simply in critical listening mode all the time? Did you already possess an "off switch" for the critical way of listening or was that something you figured out later?
Oh man this is a good one! In the beginning this turned me into the classic audiophile playing his "reference" CDs listening for this and that. Analytical listening got so bad that at one point I was turning my speakers over listening to compare stainless steel, mild steel, and brass studs. The studs that hold the Cones on the speakers. The studs inside the Cones. And hearing the difference. Another time listening to the Reference Recording From the Age of Swing I noticed the Radio Shack Bulk Tape Eraser improvement faded out after about 10 min. You have to be listening awfully close to the cymbals to pick that one up. Especially when no one is talking or even thinking about such a thing. But there it is.  

So yeah, serious case of audiophilia nervosa. The cure it turns out is tubes and turntables. Well, sorta. There is a bit more to it.  

4. In the case of the seasoned audiophiles who couldn't hear a difference in what sounded to you like impressive gear, did you find out what in particular *they* listen for -- and could you hear it? Or was there no difference in that case for you?

All I know is they said don't hear nuttin. My response was pretty much this thread: there are a lot of things people can hear that we haven't yet learned to hear.    

Thus the question: How do you do it? How do you learn to hear what you don't know how to hear??
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