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5 steps in developing hearing

I got this from a dealer years ago:

1. Only cares about bass.

2. Start hearing tonal balance like warmer, brighter etc. These are more the mass market type.

3. This is the hi-fi entry level listening. We talk about soundstaging imaging, detail etc. all those technical term that you read from the magazine. Everyone who comes to my place I will try to get them into this level. It is not too difficult once we show them the audiophile recording.

4. People start talking about PRAT. From level 3 to level 4 needs a little bit more experience and listening to more systems and live performance.

5. This is my ultimate level of search. It is the complete disappearance of the system. It is the directness of the system. A lot of technically superb systems fail in this area. We call them technically perfect musically dead. Getting from level 4 to level 5 is even more difficult.
This is the area that many of my customers come back to me telling me that how come they didn't get the same feeling when doing the audition in other dealer's demo regardless of price. They cannot explain it so they use 'feeling' as the term.

cdc
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,777 posts
 

This is not enough...Audio dealer sells gear...

Most dont know acoustics and anything about sound....

At best they had learned to define sound quality with the gear pieces changing as in a musical chair contest...😊

I know because it was what i believe before minimal acoustics study and experiments...

 

Try this:

Read the definition of "timbre" in acoustics... begin with wiki...

Then study what is a Helmholtz resonators...

Then seeing how complex it is really, buy an acoustics book...

Begin simple experiments...

It is fun and the cost for me was "peanuts" ...

Results: immersiveness an audiophile experience with low costs...

By the way "immersiveness" is not only a feeling it is also a well defined acoustic concepts which is related to specific acoustics parameters controls we can learn to modify... ( as reflections and reverberation time etc)

The audiophile vocabulary is related to the gear use and gear market ...

The acoustics vocabulary is related to the Ears/brain/system/room controls parameters...It is this vocabulary set of concepts that we must learn and which will exceed the audiophile vocabulary limitations...

The musical vocabulary is another one...

I apologize to the OP if i may sound a bit rude with the truth ...

 

 

ditusa's avatar
ditusa
2,160 posts
 

@immatthewj +1 ​​​

ghdprentice
8,080 posts
 

That’s a good way to look at it. 
 

While there are a few folks that go directly for the music and don’t get focused on details, slam at first. They are the exception. I certainly followed the steps.

czarivey
5,946 posts
 

5a. Start recognizing diminished chords from major-7 chords

5b. Start analyzing creative rhythms and harmonies

5c. Start discovering new artists

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,182 posts
 

1 start immersed in music

2 hope to reproduce it

start over

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