What is "critical listening"?

Cheers, 6c!

Critical listening would be for me a left brain activity,
as opposed to the right brained activity of just enjoying the music.

...You never know when the left brain is going to pop up and say: "hey wait a minute that sounded unatural or whatever ..."

My 2c :)

Josh: in my case the "left brain activity" calms down when I'm "vibrating" to the music. Then, it doesn't come up!

Here's a philosophical question. To get a good stereo you have to listen critically. After purchasing, the experts give the advise to "turn off" the critical listening and just sit back and enjoy the music.
Bit if you have picked a system by the method of critical listening and one which sounds good when listened to critically, how can you do this? It's a "critical listening system", not an "enjoy the music system" after all.

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When I plop down in my listening chair to enjoy a recording, there is no critical listening if everything sounds perfect. If I hear something that's a little "unperfect", the critical listening kicks in automatically. If nothing calls attention to itself that's unpleasant, no critical listening occurs.
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