2. speakers
  3. 193579-20253

Maybe critical listening skills are bad?

In another thread about how to A/B compare speakers for a home I was thinking to myself, maybe the skills a reviewer may use to convey pros and cons of a speaker to readers is a bad skill to use when we evaluate hardware and gear?

I'm not against science, or nuance at all.  I was just thinking to myself, do I really want to spend hours A/B testing and scoring a speaker system I want to live with?

I do not actually.  I think listening for 2 days to a pair of speakers, and doing the same to another pair I need to focus first on what made me happy.  Could I listen to them for hours?  Was I drawn to spend more time with music or was I drawn to writing  minutiae down?

And how much does precise imaging really do for my enjoyment by the way?  I prefer to have a system that seems endless.  As if I'm focusing my eyes across a valley than to have palpable lung sounds in my living room.

Anyway, just a thought that maybe we as consumers need to use a different skill set when buying than reviewers do when selling.

erik_squires

Showing 2 responses by asvjerry

asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,898 posts
 

"Truth is not popular."

Way too true, and that in itself is even less so. Anything that malleable in the day to day light of day in the HO of any given scenario can create a memory of commonality fractured by view and expression given of an impression.

Reality in itself seems to have a slippery substance, right down to the quantum level...one can only hope ’this is where the Edge IS!"

But I’m beginning to doubt that as well.
Does that change how I listen and judge what I perceive from any given arrangement of items playing what may or not be sounds in a pattern I’m not personally familiar with?

Well, Maybe.
Is it engaging, skillful, can you dance to it? Does the gear make it sound like looking at a fishbowl or on the edge of a stage?

You can go with this....

...or you can get on with that.

Me?
I’m going to look @ moon red of bent light.

Dress warm.

asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,898 posts
 

@inagroove 
"Fertile ground?"  Wear your boots...no, not the 'on the town' pair, nooo....
...sometimes waders and shoulder-length rubber gloves seem to be advisable....

I've trended to align with @mahgister that ultimately The Room dictates what will occur within it, and care taken with that in mind and hand will determine if one's expenditures will yield the desired effects....

The fact that I've seemed to always have been doomed to that side trip in the rabbit hole hasn't stopped me from making the attempt to tame the dragon and make it purrr...

If not perfection (typ.? no....), at least to 'practical satisfaction'....because Reality Manipulation is a bitch.  Having adopted active room eq quite awhile ago, it helps but does not cure that gulf between 'There' and a mere reproduction of 'there'...

Long-term dipole and omni sort, I finally bet on 'Ignoring the Room', quite like a variant of HT surround with no screen other than one's audible version of one.

(...Yes, there is a screen, but that's beside the point but effected by....but...🤷‍♂️...)

One means is running a pair of calibrated mics to a pair of eq's in parallel and monitor in R/T....tweak to sweet....in the midst. 

A little extreme, but when running this, that, and assorted junque you wring out of it all what it can achieve and you like....

Works for me....only has to, actually.  ;)

More to discover