Standardized mental techniques / training for better listening?

[kemmler3D]

I think we would all agree that a large part of the high-end audio industry is based on perceived (but non-physical) improvements in sound quality. The placebo effect / expectation bias is so strong that you could argue that fighting it is one of the primary purposes of this site.

Let's take a step back and remember that in a sense, the improvements are real. People actually do hear things differently when they say they hear a difference. It's just that the improvement in sound takes place in the brain-ear part of the system, instead of in a piece of gear we can measure, review, spend money on, etc.

People often spend $20K on snake oil and report back that it was well worth the money. Well, that means the brain alone can deliver +$20K in sound quality for free! It seems like upgrading our listening practices could be the best price/performance upgrade imaginable.

I know that formal listening training exists - so for starters I'd love to collect links to any free resources on becoming a "trained listener" - possibly such a thread already exists.

I'd also be curious about any studies on mental techniques that are useful and effective while listening. Lots of people hear an improvement when they close their eyes - but I imagine this is only scratching the surface. (Inb4 "just smoke some weed" - okay, we got that one out of the way too.)

The goal here is to find techniques that reliably allow us to use "imaginary" improvements in sound quality to our advantage. Think of this as an effort to get the most out of our gear by listening to it "better". If we take a scientific approach to gear, it makes sense to take a scientific approach to listening, too.

e: Mods, I am an idiot and posted this in General Audio instead of the obvious choice Psychoacoustics... please move if you see this and get a chance.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

One of the things I've found useful is to become very familiar with how different distortions sound or appear (when looking at video solutions). It takes quite a lot of work to build up a mental database of these.

Assuming everything is level matched, being able to listen for errors can lead to better identification of one device over another.

 

[sq225917]

How about this.

Instead of trying to fool yourself into thinking your hifi sounds better due to an unspecified 'thing'. Why not train yourself into believing that your system's quality is invariant at all times?

If you don't believe in tweaks you can't be affected by un-tweeks. Right?

 

[JayGilb]

The goal here is to find techniques that reliably allow us to use "imaginary" improvements in sound quality to our advantage.

I noticed that writing a review on the perceived effects of a new piece of audio equipment is all that it takes. Shortly after reading the first review on a new Denafrips ladder dac,
others now had a new framework to reference for their review and didn't even need to break out their thesaurus to find new adjectives to "lift the veil".

 

[Chrispy]

You mean like this? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...lind-tests-and-listener-training-video.21026/

 

[kemmler3D]

One of the things I've found useful is to become very familiar with how different distortions sound or appear (when looking at video solutions). It takes quite a lot of work to build up a mental database of these.

Assuming everything is level matched, being able to listen for errors can lead to better identification of one device over another.

I agree with this, after years of messing around with audio in a DAW (adding distortion of all kinds on purpose) I think it's helped me notice the same effects in the real world. Compression and mild distortion aren't that obvious, unless you know exactly what they sound like. Same goes for FR, etc.

However, I'm thinking more about tactics to improve our enjoyment of audio, not necessarily listening more accurately / critically, if that makes sense.

How about this.

Instead of trying to fool yourself into thinking your hifi sounds better due to an unspecified 'thing'. Why not train yourself into believing that your system's quality is invariant at all times?

If you don't believe in tweaks you can't be affected by un-tweeks. Right?

I am not sure if I would enjoy my system more or less this way.

To put it in simpler words: I'm wondering if we can use the placebo effect (or similar psychological tricks) on ourselves for free, instead of paying money to get the placebo effect.

To put it another way: How do we get in the proper mindset to maximize our listening experience? I feel that this part of the "system" is totally informal and left to chance.

Maybe it is my dismal, plodding objectivist mind, but I am interested in whether there's any reliable non-equipment technique that relates to perceiving better sound.

Like maybe meditating beforehand? Some kind of listening exercise to stimulate the auditory cortex? Just wondering if anyone's heard of anything beyond anecdote.

You mean like this? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...lind-tests-and-listener-training-video.21026/

Yes, that's it! We can at least start there. But I am actually wondering whether critical listening improves or diminishes the perceived quality of sound...

 

[MrBrainwash]

@kemmler3D thank you for the topic. That's something I had in mind for some time.

If I find energy and time I will write my thoughts. For now I have two points.

1) If it comes to gear a lot of our experience is influenced by 'pricing effect' (you can search for the term on wiki). That's level of dopamine being affected by knowledge about the price. I guess if we want simulate this effect then we need find a way to increase level of dopamine release. How to do it is a question itself. I need to think about it.

2) This course might be helpful to find a clues about how to enhence our experience during music listening.

https://coursera.org/learn/music-as-biology

 

[lisgotan]

However, I'm thinking more about tactics to improve our enjoyment of audio, not necessarily listening more accurately / critically, if that makes sense.

If you have your favourtie songs/artists/music, then ask yourself if you have any form of training or deploy any tactics to analyse the song/music to make the decision, or you simply listen and just use your own feelings to decide?

So, in short, its not possible to train yourself to improve your enjoyment of audio. Training only improves you ability to pick out and understand acoustic effects (someone mentioned how distortion sound like). The more you try to "train" yourself to discern and understand those effects or imperfections, the more the opposite effect will happen instead. Because you will hae the tendency to listen focus and pick on these imperfections than listening to the muisc...

For someone who really loves the song/music, the equipment used to play it actually doesnt matter.

 

[lisgotan]

How about this.

Instead of trying to fool yourself into thinking your hifi sounds better due to an unspecified 'thing'. Why not train yourself into believing that your system's quality is invariant at all times?

If you don't believe in tweaks you can't be affected by un-tweeks. Right?

Ask yourself, does your hifi sounds better because it has a measured SINAD of 110 or because it sounds better? If you are listening to another wiht SINAD of 60, does it sound worse or its worse because you saw that the SINAD is 60?

Have you ever come across a party/gathering where the songs played sound horrible (you can hear distortion, compression blah blah) but people are so happily singing and even dancing? They simply loves the songs/music and is a joy listening? In trains/buses where environment is noisy, do you see people tapping their hands/feet or even swaying their bodies while listening to their songs/music? Do you think its because of the song their listening to or because of the incredible gears they are using?

So, bottomline is that the most important factor is the music itself, not the gear used.

 

[kongwee]

There is some listening app for EQing. For pros but you can do it for hobby, and quite a lot of people with DAW anyway.

 

[kemmler3D]

So, bottomline is that the most important factor is the music itself, not the gear used.

This is orthogonal to what I have in mind. The idea is whether we can intentionally use cognitive biases like expectation bias or placebo effect to get more our of our listening time. This would be independent of gear OR music.

 

[Capitol C]

I think that if you don't have an objective standard for comparison, there is nothing to train for. Live unamplified music is an objective standard but it isn't what most people prefer. If it is what you like, the best thing to do is to go to concerts and listen critically for comparison to your set up at home. If you prefer the great majority of music, which is played on instruments with electronic stages and though amps, mics, and speakers that are part of the tone creation, then why bother with training? In either case, why not just sit down, turn on the music, and enjoy it?

 

[Chrispy]

This is orthogonal to what I have in mind. The idea is whether we can intentionally use cognitive biases like expectation bias or placebo effect to get more our of our listening time. This would be independent of gear OR music.

So the amount of expectation bias/placebo effect needs to be at a higher level than already exists in audio? Or somehow spun around 180 degrees or something? Hmmm...

I'd say reduction of these two factors would be a better way to go. Stop reading the silly audio mags/blogs/fora/advertising/subjective claims to start?

 

[kemmler3D]

So the amount of expectation bias/placebo effect needs to be at a higher level than already exists in audio?

Well, not exactly. What I'm saying is - when you sit down to listen to your existing system - is there something you can repeatably do to focus, set a certain expectation, or even improve the performance of your auditory "circuits" to get more out of the experience?

The common example is to simply close one's eyes while listening, to focus on the music better. Many people report better listening experiences with eyes closed.

But what else can we do like that?

Could there be a set of standard practices for "best mental listening posture" or whatever you want to call it?

We know how to train people for critical listening. But can we train or prime ourselves for enjoyable listening? This is my overall question.

 

[Chrispy]

Well, not exactly. What I'm saying is - when you sit down to listen to your existing system - is there something you can repeatably do to focus, set a certain expectation, or even improve the performance of your auditory "circuits" to get more out of the experience?

The common example is to simply close one's eyes while listening, to focus on the music better. Many people report better listening experiences with eyes closed.

But what else can we do like that?

Could there be a set of standard practices for "best mental listening posture" or whatever you want to call it?

We know how to train people for critical listening. But can we train or prime ourselves for enjoyable listening? This is my overall question.

Starting with something you actually want to listen to, eliminating distractions, having a nice relaxing drink/smoke/edible, closing eyes perhaps (or reading something interesting about the music or its production) and sitting in a comfortable seat that doesn't interfere with the sound waves....sure, that all works for me but nothing new there. I'm interested in where this can go....but can't think of any "training" I'd want/need beyond this level of appreciation.....

 

[kiwifi]

They say that the secret to happiness is to have low expectations, that way you won't be disappointed.

If our attitude when listening is to be "pleasantly surprised" by what we hear, then our enjoyment will be higher than if we are constantly looking for imperfections that need to be "corrected"

 

[lisgotan]

Well, not exactly. What I'm saying is - when you sit down to listen to your existing system - is there something you can repeatably do to focus, set a certain expectation, or even improve the performance of your auditory "circuits" to get more out of the experience?

The common example is to simply close one's eyes while listening, to focus on the music better. Many people report better listening experiences with eyes closed.

But what else can we do like that?

Could there be a set of standard practices for "best mental listening posture" or whatever you want to call it?

We know how to train people for critical listening. But can we train or prime ourselves for enjoyable listening? This is my overall question.

Closing your eye does improve your focus on hearing. However it does NOT necessary improve your listening experience and level of enjoyment.

As I have mentioned earlier, this is highly dependent on what you hear. Try focusing and "enjoy" your boss shouting at you or even your wife nagging at you. If these are indeed music to your ears, you already achieve "godlike" level.

We should be the ones asking you for advice instead.

 

[lisgotan]

Starting with something you actually want to listen to, eliminating distractions, having a nice relaxing drink/smoke/edible, closing eyes perhaps (or reading something interesting about the music or its production) and sitting in a comfortable seat that doesn't interfere with the sound waves....sure, that all works for me but nothing new there. I'm interested in where this can go....but can't think of any "training" I'd want/need beyond this level of appreciation.....

No training of any form is ever required. I am 100% sure nobody went through any training in order to have their favourite singers or songs (nothing for dislikes too).

Training does improves a person's ability to pick out these audio cue or effects and understand what they are. Someone who knows about electronic circuit and equipment design may even know if this is caused by a hardware design. Sound engineer may know if this is caused by recording or mixing etc..

However, can having this knowledge improve ones level of enjoyment?? I can't answer that. It's possible to have better appreciation of a well recorded song, good audio equipment and room. But this is something up to the individual.

Having said that, it is possible to alter ones mental condition to get the person to like/dislike something. Military service is a form of mental conditioning. But not about improving level of enjoyment.

 

[kemmler3D]

As I have mentioned earlier, this is highly dependent on what you hear. Try focusing and "enjoy" your boss shouting at you or even your wife nagging at you.

If listening to your system reminds you of this kind of aural experience, I recommend a speaker upgrade

that all works for me but nothing new there. I'm interested in where this can go....but can't think of any "training" I'd want/need beyond this level of appreciation.....

Agreed - we have a well-established, general, intuitive sense of listening well vs. listening casually.

But going back to the audiophool phenomenon, people can experience $1000+ "worth" of audible improvement from something like an AC filter that literally does nothing. I would say being happy about spending $1000 demands a relatively significant improvement. And they hear it - they really do hear it.

But we now know for certain that it's their minds producing the improvement, not the AC filter. So there must be some shortcut to having that experience without spending the $1000.

So I say... what more can we do to get our minds working like that? It might be interesting to run some casual experiments on this. Say we try repeating some kind of mantra before turning on the music, like "Today my system sounds better than it ever has before. My ears hear better than ever before..." and then rate our subjective experiences from 1 to 10.

It sounds dumb, but so does the placebo effect, and it's single-handedly keeping PS Audio and many others in business, so...

 

[Chrispy]

If listening to your system reminds you of this kind of aural experience, I recommend a speaker upgrade


Agreed - we have a well-established, general, intuitive sense of listening well vs. listening casually.

But going back to the audiophool phenomenon, people can experience $1000+ "worth" of audible improvement from something like an AC filter that literally does nothing. I would say being happy about spending $1000 demands a relatively significant improvement. And they hear it - they really do hear it.

But we now know for certain that it's their minds producing the improvement, not the AC filter. So there must be some shortcut to having that experience without spending the $1000.

So I say... what more can we do to get our minds working like that? It might be interesting to run some casual experiments on this. Say we try repeating some kind of mantra before turning on the music, like "Today my system sounds better than it ever has before. My ears hear better than ever before..." and then rate our subjective experiences from 1 to 10.

It sounds dumb, but so does the placebo effect, and it's single-handedly keeping PS Audio and many others in business, so...

Power of suggestion.....we need some hypnotists perhaps? Or something to get rid of the audiophool type "learning" so much of this expectation stuff is based on?