Cause of Listening Fatigue?

[goat76]

One can get listening fatigue from certain headphones even with well made recordings so it does not seem to be related to 'dynamic compression' only.

There are obviously more reasons for listening fatigue like resonances, too wonky frequency response, distortion, mental things and listening level to name but a few.

This time it's not about dynamic compression, Andrew Scheps theory is about data compression. I think you should take the time to watch his presentation, I find it interesting.

 

[mhardy6647]

Listening fatigue= Klipsch

That's a pretty good working definition -- especially the "heritage" Klipsch loudspeakers.
I speak from bitter experience, as an erstwhile owner of vintage (1974) Cornwalls.

 

[redhermes]

Research indicates that compression of music can cause listening fatigue more easily compared to lossless or high-rez

Do you happen to have the references to this research? This would help to validate Scheps' theory. Thx.

 

[Grooved]

It's also linked to your general fatigue, because if you're tired, there chances that your listening fatigue will come faster than if you were listening the same thing and being not tired at all.

 

[Duckeenie]

That doesn't explain why i can go to parties (mostly dub soundsystem dances) and concerts (can be everything for me) where the music is extreme loud (often +100dB for dub dances, so earplugs are needed), and don't get ear fatigue, and has problems with listening to certain speakers at 80dB or even less after a hour or so.

I personally think it has multiple reasons, inbalance in sound where the treble is too much (like Kiplish speakers) is certainly a factor. Non harmonic distortion also, just like digital clipping of sound. And there may be more factors. But scientific research on that is probally the most needed research for audio reproductioin these days. That is the biggest issue now for me when listening to systems and i would love to know the origin of it.

It could also just be that you are too distracted by all the girls and alcohol at a party to pay attention to listening fatigue.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Do you happen to have the references to this research? This would help to validate Scheps' theory. Thx.

That would be of some interest, as it suggest there are factors related directly to quality, other than spl, that affect listening fatigue.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

That doesn't explain why i can go to parties (mostly dub soundsystem dances) and concerts (can be everything for me) where the music is extreme loud (often +100dB for dub dances, so earplugs are needed), and don't get ear fatigue, and has problems with listening to certain speakers at 80dB or even less after a hour or so.

I personally think it has multiple reasons, inbalance in sound where the treble is too much (like Kiplish speakers) is certainly a factor. Non harmonic distortion also, just like digital clipping of sound. And there may be more factors. But scientific research on that is probally the most needed research for audio reproductioin these days. That is the biggest issue now for me when listening to systems and i would love to know the origin of it.

I will not dismiss the possibility that certain aspects of sound quality also can have an effect on listening fatigue. It is just that SPL comes up at the top of the list here. Preference for earplugs is a clue.

Valid testing for listening fatigue is expensive. It will take a lot of time and effort to get the data required for a statistically valid conclusion. Because each data sample both requires a lot of time - the listener must listen for some time before fatigue sets in - and each data sample will have a very high degree of uncertainty, requiring more samples.

 

[sq225917]

Here's the correct answer. It's two words put together to mean whatever the person saying wishes it mean. It's not an Si unit, it doesn't have a definition. It means different things to different people and different things at different times to the same person.

I much prefer " turn this shit off it sounds awful" and " I've had enough, let's go to the pub".

 

[Owl]

That's why it is important to listen to equipment over a period of time. Some days are better than others, and of course, fatigue in general effects how everything is interpreted. I'm convinced that it takes two hours for my old NAD amp to warm up, along with a few adult beverages.

 

[audiophile]

Cause of listening fatigue?
Too much SINAD + a poorly-recorded digital source material

 

[Soandso]

In a 2017 report ("Various Aspects of Auditory Fatigue Caused by Listening to Loud Music") electroencephalograms demonstrated long listening fatigues the brain's event related electropotential for arousal leading to a reduction in attention. The fatigue changes attention and then altered attention changes brain processing of music heard.

See Gunel, et al (2018) " Effects of exogenous auditory attention on temporal and spectral resolution" is available on-line as free full text. It develops the concept that attention is integral to the beneficial role of masking and parsing the stream of music being listened to.

 

[Bjorn]

What we do know for certain is that low inteligibillity or a noisy environment or hearing loss where it's difficult to understand the lyrics causes listening fatigue faster. As for compressed audio, I have only seen or heard about references to studies that indicate listening fatigue. But no definite evidence.

For example:

we could show that the pattern of brain activation related to processing degradations consciously can also be detected in trials which are not reported as degraded on a subjective level. ... we assume that cognitive load and fatigue might increase when being exposed to small degradations for a long period of time

Analyzing Speech Quality Perception Using Electroencephalography

Common speech quality evaluation methods rely on self-reported opinions after perceiving test stimuli. Whereas these methods-when carefully applied-provide valid and reliable quality indices, they provide little insight into the processes underlying perception and judgment. In this paper, we...

ieeexplore.ieee.org

Guinea pigs:

To find out whether compressed sounds are a danger to hearing, researchers made 90 guinea pigs listen to music for several hours. The latter have a very similar hearing system to humans. One part of the panel was given music with a compressed dynamic range, while the other half of the guinea pigs listened to music without compression. The playlist was very diverse, with pop, classical and electronic music to cover all tastes and to not bias the experience with a single genre.

Subsequently, an ENT examination revealed auditory fatigue that lasted for more than 48 hours for the guinea pigs having listened to compressed music. None of the guinea pigs suffered hearing loss or irreversible damage, but the protective muscles inside the ear were weakened. Professor Paul Avan who led the research explains this result by the absence of silence in the compressed sounds. There are no more variations, no more pauses, not even a millisecond of silence. The auditory system is continuously stimulated and has no time to recover. It is like looking at a fixed spot without blinking.

No indication of listening fatigue directly, but MP3 was found to trigger more negative emotions which again may potentially lead to listening fatigue over time.

A new study by the Audio Engineering Library has found MP3s and other forms of compression have a serious impact on the "timbral and emotional characteristics" of music.

As reported by What Hi-Fi, the research tested a range of compressed files against 10 emotional characteristics and found negative ones such as sad, shy and scary were increased, while positive characteristics such as happy, calm, comic and romantic were reduced.

AES E-Library » The Effects of MP3 Compression on Perceived Emotional Characteristics in Musical Instruments

Musical instrument sounds have distinct timbral and emotional characteristics that can change when audio processing is applied. This paper investigates the effects of MP3 compression on the emotional characteristics of eight sustained instrument sounds using listening tests. The experimental...

www.aes.org

As mentioned previously here, a research on listening fatigue is challenging because it requires a time of span and other aspects could come into play.
There are a good number who claim that listening to hirez instead of redbook makes them able to listen longer without fatigue, but proving this in a study would be demanding.

 

[Chromatischism]

There are a good number who claim that listening to hirez instead of redbook makes them able to listen longer without fatigue, but proving this in a study would be demanding.

And that is especially problematic, because there is their own personal enjoyment of knowing they are listening to "unadulterated" music that will provide its own satisfaction and bias their feelings. The only way to do the test is blinded.

 

[killdozzer]

Listening fatigue= Klipsch

At least someone gets it!

 

[killdozzer]

The glassy midrange of digital....obviously.

No such thing.

 

[killdozzer]

New member here, with a question about listening fatigue.

I was watching a YouTube video (link below) where Andrew Scheps, a well known recording engineer, gave a talk at Google on audio quality.

At one point he theorizes that listening fatigue is caused by lossy compressed audio that sounds the same to the brain, but is missing information. The brain then “fills in” the missing parts. As a result, listening to audio that is lossy compressed is tiring, where as live and/or uncompressed music is not.

Could this be the case? How could it be falsified? Do any of the audio testing technique consider the effects of extended listening? Thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

Link: Scheps Talk

Without diving deep into the matter, I'd almost bet it isn't lossy. Or, at least it's not what he says - if you're listening to a new material, your brain wouldn't know he'd have to fill anything in since he can't know somethings missing. I really think the theory is dubious.

That aside, I've only experienced fatigue from speakers with pronounced sound signature, recordings with the same or ringing listening rooms. I've never experienced fatigue from a good production and accurate speakers. I can spend whole day listening to those.

Although, one notice, sound signature I got used to and listened for some time will cause less fatigue than changing to a new kind of sound signature.

 

[Glint]

These days I've taken to simply cutting/sloping off everything past 16KHz, aside from some other very mild EQ, I've found it makes things far easier to just 'sink in' to. It's like the music is quieter, but still the same volume?

 

[MattHooper]

What we do know for certain is that low inteligibillity or a noisy environment or hearing loss where it's difficult to understand the lyrics causes listening fatigue faster. As for compressed audio, I have only seen or heard about references to studies that indicate listening fatigue. But no definite evidence.

For example:

Analyzing Speech Quality Perception Using Electroencephalography

Common speech quality evaluation methods rely on self-reported opinions after perceiving test stimuli. Whereas these methods-when carefully applied-provide valid and reliable quality indices, they provide little insight into the processes underlying perception and judgment. In this paper, we...

ieeexplore.ieee.org

Guinea pigs:



No indication of listening fatigue directly, but MP3 was found to trigger more negative emotions which again may potentially lead to listening fatigue over time.

AES E-Library » The Effects of MP3 Compression on Perceived Emotional Characteristics in Musical Instruments

Musical instrument sounds have distinct timbral and emotional characteristics that can change when audio processing is applied. This paper investigates the effects of MP3 compression on the emotional characteristics of eight sustained instrument sounds using listening tests. The experimental...

www.aes.org

As mentioned previously here, a research on listening fatigue is challenging because it requires a time of span and other aspects could come into play.
There are a good number who claim that listening to hirez instead of redbook makes them able to listen longer without fatigue, but proving this in a study would be demanding.

Perhaps those studies accounted for such variables but...

I have a hard time believing mp3s or compression causes listener fatigue per se. It seems to me the variety of ways people have listened to music over the years utterly swamps what small differences there would be with an mp3 vs uncompressed files. I mean, people used to listen to crappy old radio stations on crappy old radios, for hours. Teenagers listened endlessly to the Beatles on their crappy turntables. My sons listen on their laptop. People listen with crap earbuds. I haven't seen much mention of "listener fatigue" from all that.

 

[MattHooper]

No such thing.

Dude, don't you know digital doesn't even give you the whole waveform! It's missing part of the music and it cuts off the top, leading to a glassy midrange!!!

That's why vinyl sounds more natural!!!

*(inhales from hookah pipe)

 

[Neuro]

"Listening fatigue" is a subjective experience secondary to many causes.

-Physiological:
High volume can cause a transient decrease in sensitivity to certain frequencies and listening fatigue.

Various Aspects of Auditory Fatigue Caused by Listening to Loud Music

This chapter presents results of research on influence of auditory fatigue on some aspects of listening condition measured among various groups of listeners. Three experiments have been carried out. The aim of the first one was to find the influence of the kind of headphones used by young people...

www.intechopen.com

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ry_Fatigue

-Psychologically:
People with impaired hearing and children born deaf now hearing with cochlear implants have increased listening fatigue.
Listening to reproduced music via suboptimal speakers results in increased listening fatigue.
Listening to low-coded music, such as MP3, increases listening fatigue.
Listening to non-engaging music causes listening fatigue.

Deaf people have increased "listening fatigue".
Deaf people "hear" through sign language and lip-reading.

Concentration fatigue is a familiar term in the Deaf community. Some people who are deaf or Hard of Hearing experience this as a side effect of their hearing loss. Trying to concentrate, watching signing, lipreading and listening to speech and sound can be exhausting, especially over long periods of time. Some people who have a hearing loss have to pay extra attention to visual cues, which ‘fill in the gaps’, of what they did not hear. A good example is lipreading. Concentrating on lipreading, sign language and body language cues puts strain on the brain, which means the body is working extra hard.

Concentration fatigue | Deafblind UK

In her latest blog, Deaf advocate and Deafblind UK Outreach Officer Louise Goldsmith finds out more about concentration fatigue and its impact on people living with hearing loss. Concentration fatigue

deafblind.org.uk

It is probably the cognitive attention that determines the "listening fatigue". Interpreting the sounds of a cochlear implant is extremely demanding and requires complete concentration. Previous experience is crucial for understanding.
It is also cognitive difficult to fill in what is missing in the MP3 flow.

It seems to be the secondary psychological cognitive analysis in the frontal lobes and not the quality of the primary sensory signal source in the brain that causes fatigue.