Cause of Listening Fatigue?

[DonR]

Do not worry little peons... Paul McGowan explains to you simpletons why Class D amps in particular are so fatiguing.... it's the output filter, stupid (and the inputs which should have ... TUBES!!!!).

Is there no end to this man's knowledge? and by end I mean basis.

 

[boogeroo]

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

i find i have eye reading or vision fatigue as well, not just words but images, up to a certain point of doom scrolling i get tired and nauseated and have to close my eyes a bit. Perhaps the same with listening fatigue, the neurons in the retinas/ears/brain probably has a finite capacity to process data and after prolonged use would require toilet breaks or downtime

 

[G|force]

Listening fatigue caused by any playback system(s) 1: SPL 2: Distortion 3: SPL+distortion.

 

[Jaxjax]

Do not worry little peons... Paul McGowan explains to you simpletons why Class D amps in particular are so fatiguing.... it's the output filter, stupid (and the inputs which should have ... TUBES!!!!).

Is there no end to this man's knowledge? and by end I mean basis.

I wonder what Stan would say of this sillyness Paul seems to spit about his youtube channel.

 

[Steven Holt]

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)

Many years ago I remember going over to my friend's house, he had a Pioneer 12XX receiver, a Thorens TT, and the Bose 901 speakers. Mike would put on some Floyd on the Thorens and we would listen for hours and hours, no fatigue at all. Of course, we were very, very stoned.

 

[Peterinvan]

It's mostly a function of SPL and frequency over time. Too much of some sounds is just too much sound, especially in and around our ear's natural resonant frequency range.

I find that listening above 75db induces fatigue very quickly. I walked out of a dealer’s soundroom the other night after three tracks (played on a $150,000 Wilson based system). He was playing vinyl at up to 84db (according to my iPhone app).

Here is what the CDC says about hearing damage…

Now, I have also found that my mood influences the type of music I want to listen to.

 

[mhardy6647]

oh.
since this thread's been reanimated.

Tied for #1 with Klipsch's "heritage" products...
this.
(OK -- these)

youch.

(sorry, fanbois)

 

[Waxx]

Listening fatigue caused by any playback system(s) 1: SPL 2: Distortion 3: SPL+distortion.

There is no real mystic about listening fatigue, that is true, but you forgot one word in you explenation, it's disharmonic distortion that causes is with spl. That is why class D amps need to be much cleaner of it than tube amps before it sounds good. Tube amps (and most transistor amps but in lesser degree) creates mainly harmonic distortion, where our ears have much less problems with. Rock guitar is all about harmonic distortion, and nobody has problems with it. Tube hifi amps do the same, but in a much more subtile way.

Class A and Class B do it also. Class D and digital amps only make disharmonic distortion. But as today they can bring it to a level low enough it does not matter anymore, class D sounds good when done well. And this is already since a while. The Philips/Hypex UcD was the first one that sound decent to me (and many), and the NCore made it sound good. Today, many do, even cheap ones. If class D would have the same ammount of distortion that a tube or some class A amp has, it sound sound terrible to everybody (hence the hard sound of early class D amps).

It's also the thing about the so called digital glare of the early digital audio devices (also long ago btw), that was disharmonic distortion due to the fact not everything was right yet with the technology of ad and da conversion. But that was soon fixed and even late 1980's digital devices sound still quiet good.

Today, disharmonic distortion that is to high in devices, of any topology, is bad design or build, not bad technical limits of the parts or the technology. Preferences for tube, class D or something else is pure subjective taste, with the conotation that clean (so class D in case of amps) is technical the best. But subjetivly, ... it's subjective.

 

[Chromatischism]

Class D and digital amps only make disharmonic distortion

Never heard of this. Source?

 

[Waxx]

This is absolute basic of sound synthesis and sound reproduction, i should not have to provide sources for this to explain the difference between harmonic and disharmonic distortion. But if you want the fulll science behind it, you need an AES subscription to find the articles and so. I'm not in the audio bussiness anymore so i don't have a AES subscription, but when i had i've read articles from Floyd Toole and others. If you have the subscription, you can find whole libaries about distortion analysis and the different types of distortions there.

And there is a lot of research about the kind of distortion in class D amps, also outside the AES libary: https://www.researchgate.net/public...udio_amplifier_using_pulse_density_modulation

But there are also medical studies like this one below that shows the importance of harmonic distortion for our hearing in general, so why this is that we don't mind them, and why that is not the case with discharmonic distortions. Our ear even creates harmonic distortion is claimed in that article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02540-0

The practical use of harmonic distortion is done every time an electric guitar, piano or origan or a synthesiser is used because they all use harmonic distortion as one of the tools to create their sound. And even acoustic instruments use this principe to create overtones. That kind of distortion is also in older audio equipment and is the so called warmth of those. And nobody really cared about it untill recently some people started to react rather extreme to an other extreme, the snake oil extreme, and declare a war on all kind of distortions. This without looking at the real effects of it and all who see a use of distortions are put in the snake oil side by them. And this site has many of those, altough Amir is not really one of them. Because he probally knows that some modern digital audio technology like dithering or Dolby (Atmos and older tech) use distortion in the right ammounts to make their system work, so controlled and right dosed distortion is not bad...

 

[Sokel]

This is absolute basic of sound synthesis and sound reproduction, i should not have to provide sources for this to explain the difference between harmonic and disharmonic distortion.

There are great debates in music (if I translate the term correctly) about the instruments that produce disharmonics (along with the others),mostly oriental ones.
In middle ages music that contained disharmonics was under the term "diabolus in musica".
Some even consider near consonance as disharmonic and they may be right as the small difference between the two tones (identical in amplitude) are combined and produce chaotic patterns (a little like two organs playing the same with one of them badly tuned).

 

[Waxx]

There are great debates in music (if I translate the term correctly) about the instruments that produce disharmonics (along with the others),mostly oriental ones.
In middle ages music that contained disharmonics was under the term "diabolus in musica".
Some even consider near consonance as disharmonic and they may be right as the small difference between the two tones (identical in amplitude) are combined and produce chaotic patterns (a little like two organs playing the same with one of them badly tuned).

That was more a discussion about types of scales. We in the western world, and big parts of Africa and Asia also, use Heptatonic octave repeating scales, but in some asian cultures they use total different scales, that sound disharmonic to us. But there is still a logic that can be learned to sound harmonic in those scales, and people from there (mainly indochina, southern china and parts of India) need to adapt to our scales just like we need to do with theirs.

 

[Sokel]

That was more a discussion about types of scales. We in the western world, and big parts of Africa and Asia also, use Heptatonic octave repeating scales, but in some asian cultures they use total different scales, that sound disharmonic to us. But there is still a logic that can be learned to sound harmonic in those scales, and people from there (mainly indochina, southern china and parts of India) need to adapt to our scales just like we need to do with theirs.

I'll never forget the (alternative) use of (mostly fretless but wind too) instruments in South Korea when I visited,from otherwise classical musicians.
Music is amazing.

 

[fpitas]

oh.
since this thread's been reanimated.

Tied for #1 with Klipsch's "heritage" products...
this.
(OK -- these)

youch.

(sorry, fanbois)

I've still never heard Klipsch, nor those. I wonder if some EQ TLC would fix either. The measured response from some of those old Klipsch looks downright scary.

 

[Waxx]

I've still never heard Klipsch, nor those. I wonder if some EQ TLC would fix either. The measured response from some of those old Klipsch looks downright scary.

I've used Kiplishorns in a private party of the owner of those, but with added subs and a lot of dsp eq to make them sound good. And the end result was great.

But those bullet tweeters are absolute horrific shit. No eq can correct the distortion they make, because that is what mostly comes out, distortion. Even worse than misalligned piezo tweeters do and that is already horrific. If you need high power tweeters, use good compression drivers in good horns, they are by far better.

 

[fpitas]

I've used Kiplishorns in a private party of the owner of those, but with added subs and a lot of dsp eq to make them sound good. And the end result was great.

But those bullet tweeters are absolute horrific shit. No eq can correct the distortion they make, because that is what mostly comes out, distortion. Even worse than misalligned piezo tweeters do and that is already horrific. If you need high power tweeters, use good compression drivers in good horns, they are by far better.

My TD-2002s do a good job, to well above my hearing; no worries.

 

[Killingbeans]

Class D and digital amps only make disharmonic distortion.

Are you sure you really mean 'only' and not 'also'? I can't imagine a practical nonlinearity that would avoid causing harmonics

 

[SiDee]

It's a fascinating area, here are my....thoughts. We build a real time model of the world in our brains that is continually being updated by our senses. This is where our consciousness resides. We do not perceive raw data only. Everything is processed. As is often the way with nature, we seek to do this with the minimum resources, so the model is constantly referenced to our memory to save horsepower. By the time we are fully developed a lot of our perception is comparative, what's changed, rather than raw what is. We look for patterns in our perception that are familiar to inform us. Our brains are extremely good at this.

An audio system can be thought of as an illusion generator. We as audiophiles strive to generate a perfect illusion of reproduced sound. Of course the sound field we experience from an audio system differs hugely to that experienced natively. Virtually every aspect is altered. The visual and aural influence of the room, the lack of spatial information, the alteration of harmonic information through dissonant distortion mechanisms etc all add up to an imperfect facsimile of the experience of witnessing the performance for real.

I think that the brain actually has to work quite hard to overcome the referenced imperfections in the illusion and eventually it lets you know that it's had enough trying to make sense of the imperfect illusion. You then really have to remove yourself from that environment, or switch it off. I know myself that every day naturally occurring sound is rarely fatiguing. For me the lower distortion a system has, the longer I can listen to it for. I also know that the nature of some distortion mechanisms are more fatiguing than others. For example, odd order harmonic (naturally dissonant) distortion from a system is more fatiguing than even order (naturally cognisant). Each of us will have a different tolerance to fatigue triggers as we are all individuals that are the sum of our experience.

 

[fpitas]

It's a fascinating area, here are my....thoughts. We build a real time model of the world in our brains that is continually being updated by our senses. This is where our consciousness resides. We do not perceive raw data only. Everything is processed. As is often the way with nature, we seek to do this with the minimum resources, so the model is constantly referenced to our memory to save horsepower. By the time we are fully developed a lot of our perception is comparative, what's changed, rather than raw what is. We look for patterns in our perception that are familiar to inform us. Our brains are extremely good at this.

An audio system can be thought of as an illusion generator. We as audiophiles strive to generate a perfect illusion of reproduced sound. Of course the sound field we experience from an audio system differs hugely to that experienced natively. Virtually every aspect is altered. The visual and aural influence of the room, the lack of spatial information, the alteration of harmonic information through dissonant distortion mechanisms etc all add up to an imperfect facsimile of the experience of witnessing the performance for real.

I think that the brain actually has to work quite hard to overcome the referenced imperfections in the illusion and eventually it lets you know that it's had enough trying to make sense of the imperfect illusion. You then really have to remove yourself from that environment, or switch it off. I know myself that every day naturally occurring sound is rarely fatiguing. For me the lower distortion a system has, the longer I can listen to it for. I also know that the nature of some distortion mechanisms are more fatiguing than others. For example, odd order harmonic (naturally dissonant) distortion from a system is more fatiguing than even order (naturally cognisant). Each of us will have a different tolerance to fatigue triggers as we are all individuals that are the sum of our experience.

Having subjected myself to goofed up crossovers on my sonic journey, I agree with you that the brain tries to sort things out into a sensible pattern, and gets tired quickly if there's a lot of heavy lifting.

 

[Waxx]

It's a fascinating area, here are my....thoughts. We build a real time model of the world in our brains that is continually being updated by our senses. This is where our consciousness resides. We do not perceive raw data only. Everything is processed. As is often the way with nature, we seek to do this with the minimum resources, so the model is constantly referenced to our memory to save horsepower. By the time we are fully developed a lot of our perception is comparative, what's changed, rather than raw what is. We look for patterns in our perception that are familiar to inform us. Our brains are extremely good at this.

An audio system can be thought of as an illusion generator. We as audiophiles strive to generate a perfect illusion of reproduced sound. Of course the sound field we experience from an audio system differs hugely to that experienced natively. Virtually every aspect is altered. The visual and aural influence of the room, the lack of spatial information, the alteration of harmonic information through dissonant distortion mechanisms etc all add up to an imperfect facsimile of the experience of witnessing the performance for real.

I think that the brain actually has to work quite hard to overcome the referenced imperfections in the illusion and eventually it lets you know that it's had enough trying to make sense of the imperfect illusion. You then really have to remove yourself from that environment, or switch it off. I know myself that every day naturally occurring sound is rarely fatiguing. For me the lower distortion a system has, the longer I can listen to it for. I also know that the nature of some distortion mechanisms are more fatiguing than others. For example, odd order harmonic (naturally dissonant) distortion from a system is more fatiguing than even order (naturally cognisant). Each of us will have a different tolerance to fatigue triggers as we are all individuals that are the sum of our experience.

That is a point i want to make. This site is about "true to the source", and i don't mind (something like this is needed in the ocean of snake oil). But not everybody is into that. True to the source is good for technical point, but if the source is already an illusion of an event, why not alter that illusion a bit if you like it more that way?

The answer to that question is by definition subjective, and not really the scope of this site. But some of the hardcore objectives should think about that in a lot of the sometimes uselless discussions on this forum about objectivity and subjective taste. That does not validate snake oil at all, because that alteration of the illusion can also be done scientifically and controlled and almost never has to cost a fortune...