What exactly is critical listening? Who does it?

the concept of doing ’critical listening’ is simply listening with some sort of specific discovery in mind. as opposed to listening just to listen and enjoy the music, enjoy the musical journey, and having your mind free of the need to discover something. this to me brings the highest level of musical experience from my system.

some of this comes down to semantics. if you are comparing performances, or maybe drum solos, or vocalists, in some ways that is critical listening. OTOH my viewpoint is that is more non critical listening in an audiophile sense.

OTOH if you are listening for some aspect of the sound, or how gear performs, or how the room sounds, those type objectives push it to critical listening. and this type listening can become fatiguing and is less pleasurable. not to say that i don’t still enjoy intense critical listening. it can be fun especially if i get a question answered about something significant. so it’s useful to know how to do that too. 

while listening our minds are going to wander and all sorts of musical or sonic things might come to mind. but my viewpoint is that if we start our session without an agenda, and just let the music happen, that is non critical listening and the place i want to be most of the time. and non critical listening ends up revealing the most truth about my system since my mind is the most open to what the music is really doing.

it's very important to be silly and obsessive and escape into our hobby madness. let go. find your happy place. just don't take yourself too seriously.

we have a large degree of semantic disagreement on this thread.

my viewpoint.....

critical listening = listening with some sort of discovery in mind.

non-critical listening = focused listening without distractions.

i think the cautionary aspect of being in a critical listening headspace is simply that our conscious mind is basically distracted by the processing going on, and the sensory reaction to the music is restricted. and expectation bias is very real.

so it’s important to understand the difference for finding the highest truth about our systems.

i know for myself personally i find the deepest most meaningful feedback about where my system is from non-critical listening.....where i am just listening without any specific agenda. it’s when the full wonder of the music seems to happen. where the music is driving my mind, not any mental baggage i’ve brought to the session.

how is the music making me feel? 

sometimes what can start as critical listening evolves into non critical listening as i get caught up in the music, but other times hard to free up my mind. better to start away from those agendas. if i get a new piece of gear i’m curious about it might take a few days or a week to escape the gear focus. but i know it’s important to get there.

YMMV.

here is what Webster says about the word ’Critical’ for sure NOT where i want my head for the majority of my listening.

crit·i·cal

/ˈkridək(ə)l/

adjective

1. 1.

   expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgments.

   "he was critical of many U.S. welfare programs"

2. 2.

   expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work of literature, music, or art.

   "she never won the critical acclaim she sought"

I think non-critical listening is what most people do with blue tooth speakers on the patio, Spotify on the soundbar while they are cleaning, and listening to music in the car

@ozzy62 

if you can’t get to the neutral floating ’zen’ state unless you wear headphones out on your deck in the sun, then you have work to do on your system and viewpoint.

no offense intended and i’ll bet you can get there just fine if you think about it.....or  don't think about it. :-)

there is a right time for critical listening. sometimes we need answers. especially to set up a phono cartridge, or dial in speaker or listening position placement. or many more obvious sonic questions. we need to develop the listening skills to understand what we are hearing. have good references. and no reason not to enjoy that part. it's part of the hobby and system development.

but we also need to be able to get away from that type listening and just let the music happen and disconnect too.

My biggest issue is with the claim listening purely for the music is the highest/best mode or goal of the audiophile. How can this be when the very essence of this hobby/obsession is sound quality. So now we’re supposed to ignore sound quality and transcend into this blissful world where sound quality is of no consequence. There must be something seriously wrong with the sound quality of one’s system if listening to it causes stress, discomfort. 

@sns 

critical listening is a tool. not the goal.

in 2004 i built a dedicated room, professionally designed, with lots of built in diffusion. it took me 11 more years and lots of effort to get the room and system to where i was satisfied in 2015. the process involved lots of critical listening. but even through that process, there was plenty of times when i just sat down to listen to music and had no change or issue that i was thinking about. many times during these casual listening sessions, things would come to mind, or i would hear something, to think about. and the process of letting the music speak to me first, and not being in that critical mind set, yielded the most profound results. i came to trust all my senses to guide me. i learned to trust how i was feeling. and not just my conscious mind about what i was listening to. even to the point of realizing i was not in the mood to listen. i needed to go do something else to get to the right headspace.

everyone is different. but this is what worked for me.

if i am in a very aggressive critical listening mode, where i have a specific thing i’m investigating, i tell my wife not to disturb me. i need to concentrate fully to get to the bottom of something. so there are degrees of critical listening, and it’s a learned thing. and i respect it, and it can be very satisfying too. i’m not anti-critical listening.

and any time i'm listening my spidey sense is activated to recognize some audible niggle that needs attention. i am sensitive to how things should sound and am in touch with my left brain enough to be aware. but i'm not actually actively listening for something that may or may not be there and i don't want my brain power to be used for that. i trust my experience to manage it.

now i’m retired, my system building time is over for now, and there are few reasons now to listen critically. but say, i downsize and need to set up a new room. then i’ll have to travel down that same road again.