Does listening fatigue go away???

fascinating question...'had to comment.

many years ago I had owned what should have been a good mid-range system, Krell (KSA) and other pwr amps, Apogee Duetta Signatures, various preamps including some solid state, some tube, various CD/digital front ends... old PS audio ultralink etc.etc.

while the system sounded quite good overall, out of 1000 or so CDs, probably 100 sounded good, 900 sounded like crap and I had a hard time listening more than a couple hours without fatigue. I don't want to say my ears hurt as that would be a vast exaggeration, but the overall harshness on most recordings could loosely be described as causing physically annoying.

Years later, and for the last few, I'm listening to an entirely different system, probably only slightly more expensive, but 10s of thousands of dollars more enjoyable.

Strangely, as my hearing has "evolved" :) I'm now more annoyed by harsh sounding systems.

At this point I never (and I mean never, even after marathon hours of listening) get that that "pain-in-the-ears" of the past. There are times when I feel like listening to music more or less of course.

Strangely enough, many older CDs that were very un-enjoyable are now quite good. (same old CDs now ripped to WAV or FLAC and stored on NAS)

some things never change, there remain good, bad and pitiful recordings just like always.

The only thing really having changed is me finally learning what sound I wanted and not taking no for an answer in thinking I could not get it, that along with 10+ years more of experimenting with components, room treatments, cables, etc.etc.. etc.

Hi Chazro, my definition is: anything that prematurely causes your mind to wander during a listening stint, or otherwise causes you to begin to wonder what's on TV. As such, probably a pretty common issue, I'm guessing.

"To be honest, the entire system is fairly new, probably no more than 30 hours?”

Daimbert, I think that your concerns are premature. IME, instability is to be expected with a new system. Your components haven’t broken in yet; and I personally, have never been able to fully tweak a system within that time frame. Give it closer to 150 hours, IMO.

Different things cause listening fatigue for different people. There's no universal answer as to what's causing your's.

People get carried away with cables. I definitely hear differences in them, but none that ever transformed a system by any means. Mogami makes very good stuff, so it's not like you've got something butchering the signal, emphasizing or cutting something, etc.

I think there's a little bit of burn in in amps and digital sources, but very little IMO. If it doesn't sound right after a day or two, I don't think it ever will. I'm a firm believer in warming up stuff though. My old Theta DAC would sound awful when it was cold. Very harsh and distorted in the highs. If it was unplugged for more than a few days (no power button), it would take almost a full day to sound right again. I've never heard it to that extent with any other component. My integrated amp (Bryston B60) takes about 45 minutes of playing from a cold start for the magic to happen. Once the knobs are warm, the music flows.

I'd say leave your gear on for a day or two without turning it off. It doesn't need to play constantly.

It could also very well be that the increased clarity from the preamp has shown you a flaw elsewhere in the system.

Have you played around with the volume level of the speakers, or more importantly the Squeezebox? Perhaps one of them is causing an imbalance. Not sure if the Squeezebox outputs bit perfect at 100% volume or somewhere less than that. If its less than that, it could be adding bits to go louder. Alternatively, perhaps the Quads are being a bit overdriven by the preamp, and the Quads need to be turned down just a tad.

Last thought... Have you played with speaker placement? Perhaps the increased clarity has shown a flaw in that.

Just some thoughts. I'd start with fiddling around with the volume adjustments. If all else fails, borrow some gear to swap in and out.

Please take two vinyl albums and call me in the morning