I got one worthwhile thing out of this string - I’ll be avoiding race car driving lessons in the Seattle area. Just like in other areas if my life, I’d rather go with a science based approach.
When are people going to wake up and realize listening is a skill?
Thirty years ago I realized my lifelong dream of owning a 911. This is a fast car and so first thing I did was join PCA to get some track experience in order to be able to drive safely at speed. Of course I already knew how to drive. I was a "good driver" much better than most, etc, etc.
PCA Driver Ed begins with several hours of classroom study. Track rules, safety, and some car control skills- braking, steering, throttle control. Yeah, yeah, whatever let's go!
Then at the track they put you in your car with an instructor and you head out onto the track driving so freaking slow, actually normal freeway driving speed but it seems slow because, race track. So we play follow the leader with the instructor pointing out cones. Braking cones, turn-in cone, apex cone, track out cone. Each turn is numbered 1 thru 9, and there's turn worker stations, and they have flags, and you need to be watching and know what they mean, because you screw up and that is it your day is done. One full 20 min session, all the excitement of a tour bus.
Bear with me. There's a connection here. Trust me.
It goes on like this all day until finally we are signed off to drive solo but then there is an accident, flat bed, that's it for the day.
Next time out I am so super confident instead of novice I sign up for Intermediate. Same cars, only the Intermediate drivers are supposed to somehow be better. Whatever.
So out I go and Holy Crap everyone is passing me! I am driving as fast as I possibly can and being passed by everyone! Not only that, if you have ever driven as fast as you possibly can then you know this means braking as late as you possibly can, cornering as fast as you can, all of it. Which without fear of police is pretty damn fast! So fast I am not at all used to it, and so by the end of 20 min am literally sweating and exhausted!
But I keep at it. Turns out all that classroom talk is about driving skills that are absolutely essential, not only to know but to be able to do. Threshold braking is braking right at the edge of lockup. Right at the very edge. Those cones are there for reference, to help you delay braking as long as possible. The turn-in cones are where you start turning, apex cone where you are right at the inside edge of the turn, track-out where you come out the other side. Do all this while at the very limit of traction and you are going very fast indeed. Without- and this is the essential part- without really trying to go fast.
Learn the skills, practice the techniques until you are able to execute smoothly, efficiently, and consistently, and you will be fast. Without ever really trying to go fast.
The connection here is, everyone thinks they hear just fine. Just like they think they drive just fine. In the classroom they talk about threshold braking, the late apex line, and controlling weight transfer with throttle. Just like here we talk about grain, glare, imaging and sound stage.
I left one part out. All the track rats, they all start out talking about horsepower, springs and spoilers, thinking these are what makes the car fast. They are, sort of. But really it is the driver. By the time I was an instructor myself it was easy to go out with those same Intermediate drivers and it was like the commute to work it was so easy. My car was the same. Only my skills were greater.
So when are people gonna wake up and realize listening is just like this? Nobody expects to become a really good golfer, tennis player or rock climber just by going out and doing it. Why are so many stuck talking watts? When are they gonna realize that is just like track rats talking hp?
PCA Driver Ed begins with several hours of classroom study. Track rules, safety, and some car control skills- braking, steering, throttle control. Yeah, yeah, whatever let's go!
Then at the track they put you in your car with an instructor and you head out onto the track driving so freaking slow, actually normal freeway driving speed but it seems slow because, race track. So we play follow the leader with the instructor pointing out cones. Braking cones, turn-in cone, apex cone, track out cone. Each turn is numbered 1 thru 9, and there's turn worker stations, and they have flags, and you need to be watching and know what they mean, because you screw up and that is it your day is done. One full 20 min session, all the excitement of a tour bus.
Bear with me. There's a connection here. Trust me.
It goes on like this all day until finally we are signed off to drive solo but then there is an accident, flat bed, that's it for the day.
Next time out I am so super confident instead of novice I sign up for Intermediate. Same cars, only the Intermediate drivers are supposed to somehow be better. Whatever.
So out I go and Holy Crap everyone is passing me! I am driving as fast as I possibly can and being passed by everyone! Not only that, if you have ever driven as fast as you possibly can then you know this means braking as late as you possibly can, cornering as fast as you can, all of it. Which without fear of police is pretty damn fast! So fast I am not at all used to it, and so by the end of 20 min am literally sweating and exhausted!
But I keep at it. Turns out all that classroom talk is about driving skills that are absolutely essential, not only to know but to be able to do. Threshold braking is braking right at the edge of lockup. Right at the very edge. Those cones are there for reference, to help you delay braking as long as possible. The turn-in cones are where you start turning, apex cone where you are right at the inside edge of the turn, track-out where you come out the other side. Do all this while at the very limit of traction and you are going very fast indeed. Without- and this is the essential part- without really trying to go fast.
Learn the skills, practice the techniques until you are able to execute smoothly, efficiently, and consistently, and you will be fast. Without ever really trying to go fast.
The connection here is, everyone thinks they hear just fine. Just like they think they drive just fine. In the classroom they talk about threshold braking, the late apex line, and controlling weight transfer with throttle. Just like here we talk about grain, glare, imaging and sound stage.
I left one part out. All the track rats, they all start out talking about horsepower, springs and spoilers, thinking these are what makes the car fast. They are, sort of. But really it is the driver. By the time I was an instructor myself it was easy to go out with those same Intermediate drivers and it was like the commute to work it was so easy. My car was the same. Only my skills were greater.
So when are people gonna wake up and realize listening is just like this? Nobody expects to become a really good golfer, tennis player or rock climber just by going out and doing it. Why are so many stuck talking watts? When are they gonna realize that is just like track rats talking hp?
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So, is that why after eons of going on and on about " The Miller Carbon " , here on this site you (as was predicted), listed it for sale on a competing site and not the one that gave all that free "modern marketing" and lore you over stated... Its interesting that but for saving a few bucks someone with such self proclaimed listening skills could be so tone deaf ... |
middlemass: phasemonger wrote: Yup. And a diabolical sense of humor. Most delightful of all, there are those who totally get it. Then there are those so hopeless, no matter how many times I say "rent free" they just don’t get it. And some think Tarantino is the master of meta. https://youtu.be/V0iLXy8X5Zs?t=7 |
jw944ts, excellent post. The only comment I wish to make is Formula1 racing is most definitely a sport requiring superior physical conditioning. The only sport I can think of besides gladiatorial combat that punishes it's participants more is bicycle racing. Check out Max Verstappen's crash at Silverstone this year. 180 MPH straight into a barrier. He's OK!! What does a great wine taste like? I do not have words for it, like great wine I suppose. My linguistic talents are probably subpar. People come up with these flowery descriptions which I have tried to relate to without much luck. I know what I like. Are stereo's the same? What does the absolute sound sound like. Eyes closed, the speakers disappear leaving a creditable replica of real people and instruments in front of you in a space. The first time I heard it was an epiphany. Out of hundreds of systems I have heard it twice more. As jw suggests, not very common. I would never have known it existed had I not heard it. Unless you have been pithed you will know when you hear it. |
Just last night I got 24 hours burn in on a set of Mazda NOS rectifiers in my preamp. I am comparing them to a pair of NOS RCAs that were in it. The challenge at my develpomental listening stage is to unpack what I am hearing and what is missing compared to each other, and to a sunjective benchmark in my mind of what that piece of music should sound like. I think most of us are pretty good at pass/fail approval of a complete system. We can tell if an entire system sounds like music and if our feet start tapping. What I have been struggling with is figuring out what just happened when I add or change a componet. Last night with the new tubes the imaging was stunningly good, but some of the bass was reduced, and the soundstage was pushed back. Better, worse, a good trade? Maybe a few more days of burn in there will be more changes. I have been subject to "newness" bias, "it was expensive so it must be better" bias and especially "it's brighter so it's better" bias. Putting together a great sounding complete system from disparate brands does require listening skills. So yes, I agree with MC that listening is a skill that is developed. Thank god i'm geeting a tiny bit better at it. |
@kfscoll, I don’t think mc’s relentless excuse-making limits to Tekton, it’s across the board on everything he owns. In case you missed it, @douglas_schroeder sums it accurately in one of his posts. “Some budget audiophiles and builders of average systems need to think they have advanced listening skills. They make a low to average rig, yet they want to pretend it's close to SOTA. Since they can't compete - for them it has to be a form of competition regarding performance relative to cost, etc. - on the basis of the system, they pretend their listening skills are inherently superior, or more developed. It's important to them to think they are doing audio in a superior fashion.” |
I don't understand why MC thinks it's his mission in life to be Tekton's chief apologist, but since he's taken up that mantle, I'll say this: If the best defense he can mount whenever a criticism is leveled at Tekton is to claim the critic "needs to learn to listen better," then that doesn't bode well for Tekton. My impression of Tekton has completely changed for the worse, almost entirely because of MC's constant, aggressive excuse-making. MC isn't doing Tekton any favors IMHO. |
@ozzy62 No. The speakers were the same as well, so was the amp. In this instance I was considering a pre amp. There was not a demo available. As previously stated, for the most part I demo in home. I have found that when spending 5 figures for equipment, most manufacturers or dealers will drop ship or let you demo components. In the latest case of my Sonus Faber Amati speakers that I just purchased, the components were identical so I took my cables in to assure a solid comparison. Never perfect but… |
I realised it was a skill when I went to audiologist who thought I was in the industry because I had trained the muscle in my ear, which tightens, to stay relaxed. They told me to just enjoy the music and stop trying so hard. And they let me fly home with a worbling ear. I was able to a ~9:15 at the ring in a rental Suzuki Swift.That was stressfully fun on a wet-leaf ridden track… |
Perhaps a kinder, middle of the 'road' idea here is that experience in listening goes a long way. The obvious analogy is driving; recognizing potential issues with road conditions, turns, other drivers etc. goes a long way. All of us benefit from things we experienced along the way. In audio, hearing many different approaches, components, cables and accessories all go a long way to filling our minds with musical experience. If you have not heard it, you just have not heard it. Is that a skill? Yes in the same way a master craftsman has the skills of many successes and failures. My system (to my ears) has benefited from others who suggested or allowed me to try this or that (+1 for Bill at GTT) and I 'learned' what I was missing. Am I a more skilled listener now? Perhaps, but experience has lead my ears to a better system |
“I just want to know what part of MC’s Jedi Listening Skills Training Program allowed him to know that Tekton speakers and Raven amps would be the best audio products he had ever heard WITHOUT having ever listened to them first????” Everything mc chooses to own is world’s greatest design ever built, add that to listening skills no one else seems to possess except him….Enough said! |
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The only time I jump on my kids with the phrase “ listening is a skill and listen to what people say” is when asking them a question or telling them to do something. Example I will ask my daughter how her injured elbow felt hitting at practice today (tennis)? She responds it was really hot today and practice was boring all we did was rotate through hitting stations. I then stop her and ask to “now please answer the question I asked”. In this hobby with music everyone is going to hear things different. 5 people will listen on same system to same song and all hear it different. To me that is fine. Yes I have gone out and bought my kids some nice powered bluetooth monitors for their rooms as it drove me nuts (pirate reference) when they listen through cell phone speakers. This is a system I would never use my self for a “serious” listening session but I quickly realized it does not matter and I don’t criticize others for their system of what they hear or how they listen. In the end it is all about one thing and one thing only. Enjoy the music any way you hear it. |
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Been doing this about 13 years now. If I cannot bring it home and demo it in my room I don’t buy it. In the case where a demo has not been available, I have taken my speaker cables with me to the dealer and tried to simulate my current set up. This is more difficult but better than “taking a chance” @MC - always enjoy your posts. BTW - just bought a Taycan 4s Turbo. A different experience than the 911, but love it!! |
And how do you suggest you go about doing this? As a musician, I can tell you how and it's not just by listening, it's by training your ears at a piano or an ear training app in most of your cases. Ya wanna be a better listener? Get Earpeggio or Functional Ear Trainer for your phone and stick with it. You can play any note or a chord and I can tell you what it is. Try doing that and it'll make you an ultimate listener. |
this discussion, if you remove some of the arrogance and criticism, is actually quite thought provoking. Some good points have been made, but some of the analogy falls a bit short. In most sports(and I guess car racing is a sport, to a degree), there are absolute measurements, objective, of who wins, who is the fastest/strongest, etc. A participant can have fine shoes, a fine racket, the best suspension/engine, and even the most beautiful /perfect technique, but not be a winner or the best. The perception on home reproduced sound certainly does have objective things that can be described, and experience does garner our ability to pick those things out and have the vocabulary to describe them, but at the end of the day, the experience still is subjective, and one individual can enjoy one type of "sound" that differs from another listeners preference. Perhaps oenophilia is a better analogy....Perhaps this all goes back to Harry Pearson's "absolute sound", the truly live experience. Some recordings and systems approach this, and those are limited, IMHO, to certain types of music and venues. Otherwise, our systems do well to "remind us" of the live experience.....Some of our participants are more or less confident/arrogant/opinionated than others...that is what you call "personality" |
Just stop and think for a moment why this thread exists at all. It's sole purpose is to try to counteract the other currently running thread with a similar title. Why anyone, ever, gets so invested in one brand to go to these lengths, beats me. Especially one that's clearly mediocre. But let's also remember that the OP, thanks to his sixth and seventh senses, knew beforehand that the speakers he'd ordered were going to sound fabulous. And guess what, they did! But not so supercalifragilisticexpialidociously fabulous that they didn't benefit from a multitude of after-market home-made tweaks, which incontestably turned them up to 11. |
@phasemonger & @cdamiller5 Very happy to read your posts, as I was thinking about this yesterday. Anyone who is (or was) a musician, and there are many in the Audiogon community including myself, is aware of listening as a skill. It’s taught in a musician’s first month of training, and refined over subsequent years.
Listening skills required to play in an ensemble or band readily transfer to listening skills helpful for evaluating an audio system. The OP has this advantage, as he was also a student musician. French horn, as I recall. Listening skills required in other professions also apply. Heavy mechanic comes to mind. Physician. Pilot. Therapist.
So, as far as the Audiogon community is concerned, the answer to when, is often now. |
Enjoyed the post MC. Listening is a learned skill either by reading about it, listening to what others experience or by your own experience. Being a musician really helps as well. It is unfortunate some people cannot get past their own financial situation. Using a sports car/driving analogy is relevant. Saying you drive or own a Porsche is not bloviating or bragging or whatever, just another life experience. |
When I was in music school in college, we spent an enormous amount of time on ear training and building listening skills. We learned and practiced very specific techniques to hear deeply into the music - instrumentation, intonation, timing, counterpoint, harmony, timbre, etc. By the end of those classes most of us could reliably transcribe a simple to moderately complex piece, and speak in detail about what was happening in the music. I don’t enjoy music any more than I did before all that training. I loved music before, and I love it now. I sure do hear a lot more than I did before, and that’s pretty cool. It definitely helps me evaluate changes I try with my system. I’m new to hifi and I have a very modest system. And I love it! Experimenting with tweaks is fun, and I’m slowly up leveling over time. Thanks to this forum, I’m slowly learning enough to think about my next meaningful upgrades. About MC: I’ve learned a lot from his posts and tried many of his recommendations. Most of what I’ve tried from him has made a BIG difference in sound quality for me. For some reason I don’t hear the arrogance in his tone others hear. I hear exuberance and passion, and abrupt replies to those who dismiss his experience. As for MC inventing electricity and being the World’s Most Interesting Man, read up on Multipotentials and the “Rainforest Mind.” Some people really are like that. I think it’s great. Being new new to hifi, I’m still a bit confused by the intense and nasty criticism I see on this and other forums. My post here will likely be shredded by somebody. In the work I do, people just don’t act that way. We laugh along with big exuberant personalities, take what’s good, and move on. I think it’s cool MC drives a Porsche and used his learning curve to illustrate learning to listen analytically. It seemed like a pretty decent analogy to me. I’d love to be the porcupine prick sitting inside a Porsche! When I finally buy my Porsche, maybe this year, I think I’ll get a vanity plate that says “Prick.” That’s good! |
Some budget audiophiles and builders of average systems need to think they have advanced listening skills. They make a low to average rig, yet they want to pretend it's close to SOTA. Since they can't compete - for them it has to be a form of competition regarding performance relative to cost, etc. - on the basis of the system, they pretend their listening skills are inherently superior, or more developed. It's important to them to think they are doing audio in a superior fashion. These people think their skills are so great that they inhibit betterment of the system. It's one example why I state that the greatest impediment to advancing an audio system is the audiophile. System performance is independent of listening skills. To suggest that all audiophiles need to be in competition, to navigate the hobby like a racer is self-serving and irrelevant to the bulk of hobbyists. The post is ironic coming from someone who has spent inordinate time talking about tweaks. Tweakers, who use poor system building methods, need to think their listening skills are extreme. :) |
I’m still waiting for you to start. I don’t understand: you are the cheapest guy in audio by buying really low but claiming they are the best. So I’m assuming you purchased a used gremlin and taking it out on a Porsche track day but thinking you are going faster than all the porsches on the track because you updated the gremlins springs so it handles better. please don’t insult the Porsche brand, it’s not you |
@tomic601 - much of what I learned was through a shared experience. It is good to have a guide, or soul-mate with whom you can share and learn. The real beauty of this hobby/pursuit is to advance one's understanding and share that with others. There is so much we don't know, leave aside the "why" of the technical stuff, the music alone is enough to keep one occupied full time. We are, as a group, however disparate in taste or predilections, so fortunate to have the time and opportunity to experience reproduced sound at a high level. Without getting all cosmic about it, we are graced to enjoy this pursuit. Live every day as if it is your last. (Except when driving). :) |
1-The greatest F1 driver of all time has become so primarily by braking as late into corners as his skill and physics allow, which give him a real advantage over his competition as few can do the same. 2-There are musicians (and even "regular" folk) that have perfect pitch. When they judge live music, or reproduced music, their parameters are different than most. 3-There is a 10,000 hour rule that proposes that to become proficient at a task requires a minimum amount of practice/learning. 4-As humans age, especially men, they lose the ability to hear certain frequencies they could ascertain in years past. Some of these men still master and remaster recordings and don't realize their hearing has changed. Driving, like listening, is a skill. Some choose to pursue it further than others. There are thousands of people who think Bose 501’s were great speakers and there are those who’ve heard them, compared them to better ones, and disagree. That disagreement is only useful to those who can hear the differences. Those who can’t claim those who can are wrong. Driving and listening skills decline with age. Most of us never have to take a performance car level driving test to keep our licenses nor get our hearing checked to validate what we "know" we hear in our systems, at concerts etc. |
My real audio soul mate and sensei spends a lot of time with Joe Harley ( see Tone Poet, Blue Note, Audioquest Records ) . Your point Bill about Holt is well taken. They push each other while enjoying each other, the journey and the music. best to you Bill, I always enjoy your writing, musings and the Reggae |
Wow, fascinating post... MC the expert race car driving instructor... What's next? dekay- clearly, this is no ordinary man... https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/files/2018/04/bostonia_995x664_dos-equis-man-jonathan-goldsmith-Shot_03_... Highlights: 1. He once won the Tour-de-France, but was disqualified for riding a unicycle 2. When in Rome, they do as HE does 3.His feet don’t get blisters, but his shoes do 4.He can speak Russian… in French 5.He lives vicariously through himself |
All I wanna do is bang on de drum all day “ Todd R start there, make them work way thru microphone selection…with serious discussion about WHY EQ , gain at various places in the chain. Etc to get to us, most already have tools, a home studio, and a ( self ) producer mindset… I am the simple stereo pair dude, so I fade to black …. But it comes in handy later |