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Critical listening and altered states

Ok, this is not a question about relaxing, but about listening to evaluate how the system (or a piece of gear is sounding).

What, in your experience, are the pluses and minuses of altering your state of mind for listening? This can include anything you've used to affect your everyday state of mind, from coffee, beer, scotch, tobacco, to much stronger — and psychoactive, dissociative — additives.

What do you gain by altering your consciousness in terms of what you notice, attend to, linger on, etc?
What causes more details to emerge?
What allows you to stick with a thread or, alternately, make new connections?

Or perhaps you like to keep all those things *out* of your listening; if that's you, please say a bit about why.

hilde45
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,645 posts
 
Too bad the streaming versions of Anna Netrebko, Sempre Libera distort terribly. Sounds like she is clipping her mic. Not sure, but not playable at moderately loud levels. First time I have heard this sort of popping/fluttering distortion when streaming. Both Tidal and Qobuz have the same issue with this recording. 
curlyhifi
159 posts
 
When first starting my journey in pursuit of audio excellence tone controls were tabu. I have always stayed on course with that philosophy. The sound in a good system does not need to be altered nor does my listening ability.
pauly
1,012 posts
 
"Drugs, gamblin’, sex, traveling, anything that is a problem in someone else’s life, is a problem in everyone’s life.. EXCEPT the person in denial.."

All that weed is clouding your sense of reality old boy.
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mikelavigne
2,243 posts
 
@grannyring

Too bad the streaming versions of Anna Netrebko, Sempre Libera distort terribly. Sounds like she is clipping her mic. Not sure, but not playable at moderately loud levels. First time I have heard this sort of popping/fluttering distortion when streaming. Both Tidal and Qobuz have the same issue with this recording.

tonight when i get home i will try the Tidal and Quboz versions of that cut and compare them to my dsd and 24/88 files and report back. i don’t recall those artifacts from the streaming versions, but it’s been awhile since i listened to them.

if you can download the file, it’s a worthy recording to own if you like the music.

i’ve been using this cut as a reference for over 10 (maybe 15) years now. initially it was the SACD disc that i used. i would listen to both the dsd and redbook layers. then later i got the 24/88 file and found it was clearly better as it was the native file. then when i got my MSB Select II (a bit-perfect dac) the native file was even better by a larger margin.

none of those versions ever had distortion like the clipping you are describing. it was more levels of clarity and degrees of delicacy.
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