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Listener fatigue: what does it really mean?

Okay, so I used to think that listener fatigue meant that your ears just kind of got tired from listening to speakers that were overly bright. I don't have a good understanding of the make up of an ear, but I believe there are muscles in an ear that, I guess, expand and contract while we listen to music and I figured that's what it meant to have listener fatigue. Now, I'm thinking that listener fatigue is maybe more than your ears just getting tired but actually, your whole body getting tired and feeling drained. I experienced this time and time again listening to my paradigm studio's. They are somewhat bright and provide quite a bit of detail in my oppinion, so I'm wondering if, since there was such a great amount of detail coming through, that it was physically draining because I'm sitting there analyzing everything that's coming through the speakers. I would wake up and first thing in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and start listening to music (my daily routine) and 20-30 minutes later start nodding off and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I've been sitting here this morning listening to my new vandersteen's for two hours and can't get enough. I feel like I could listen all day and that I'm almost energized from listening vs. drained.

Soooo, what are your oppinions about what listener fatigue is and why it's caused?
b_limo
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
I would second Brauser's suggestion that you may simply have the volume up too high. A great many audiophiles love to listen at a very high volume level, which will definitely lead to listening fatigue much quicker than listening at reasonable levels. I posted a thread several months back about volume levels and hearing loss, you might want to search for that under my moniker and check it out.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Soooo, what are your oppinions about what listener fatigue is and why it's caused?

I feel listening fatigue is a mental and/or emotional sense of being, not so much a physical issue with the ears. I find it most commonly occurs with me when my system has taken a turn towards a more resolving, clinical, analytical type of sound. Detail, detail everywhere, mental stimulation overload leads me towards shorter and shorter listening sessions. Sometimes leading me to not firing up the rig at all. The mind is burning up trying to take in all of this information and detail.

The cure is to remove the gear, cables, etc. that led to this hyper-detail sound in the first place and replace them with more musical pieces.
b_limo's avatar
b_limo OP
2,289 posts
 
It's funny that I think I might be a detail freak. I love detail, but I'm not so sure that I prefer "dry" and "clinical" and I think that's actually slightly what I have. I think Jmcgrogan hit the nail on the head when he said that it's stimulation overload that sometimes leads to listener fatigue.

So this leads me to another question: can you have all the "juicy" detail, and yet have a warm sound too? I really enjoy pinpoint imaging and detail but I'm wondering now if a "musical" sound backs off the detail and pinpoint imaging that I've grown to love. I see how people can collect enough gear for two or three nice systems and end up keeping it all. It's like having the truck for camping, the sports car for track days and canyon carving, and then the luxury seden for cruising.
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,687 posts
 
B, quit over analyzing this stuff. You will soon grow tired of listening and start doing something really lame, like watching Dancing With the Stars.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Over drive your amp even just a little bit and those low distortion figures will increase exponentially in some cases. In any case it's going to be distortion that causes fatigue. Usually when it's turned up loud. Odd order harmonics and IMD typically.
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