Listening Fatigue

I would say:

1) lack of proper room treatment causing brightness

2) bright sounding systems or components

3) CDs, many are recorded badly and are bright

Listening fatigue starts at the source and works its way towards your ears. A great source, good cableing, high quality amp and speakers that compliment your listening preferences and your pretty much guaranteed to have fatigueless listening. From my experience the source is where the battle is won or lost.

Every situation is different. I agree with all the posts but the culprit in anyone's system (including environment) can vary. Generally, for me, brightness is what causes fatigue and from my experience is normally due to a "hard" environment with few absorbtive materials (e.g., rugs, couches) or from a mismatch of speakers and amplifiers. Cabling can help alleviate that, but using cables as an equalizer may not provide the optimal solution (though it is cheaper than replacing speakers or amplifiers).

A bad source system is a nightmare. A bad cd is a nightmare. If either of those situations is there, forget about it. But, most source systems today that an audiophile would buy are pretty good.

I only experience listening fatigue when I play the "Best of Fingernails on the Chalkboard 2" SACD for more than an hour continuously.

Electronics and/or improper installation there of.