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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
Here's an observation I thought I'd share and see what others think.
I work from home and typically have music playing in the background throughout the day from my system which is some way behind me. So we're talking about music that is not particularly high volume (I find it otherwise too distracting for my work) and coming from speakers angled away from me and playing into the other end of the room in which I work. My main music collection is a combination of uncompressed WAV and Apple Lossless tracks ripped into iTunes. I can happily work all day having this playing in the background. Occasionally, for a change or to check out some music or artist, I'll listen to internet radio stations or, recently, Spotify, through the same system. For the former I'll choose as high a rate as possible (typically 128k). Spotify apparently uses 160k. So it's not unduly compressed stuff. What I've found is that whilst the music sounds superficially OK, after an hour or two I feel on edge and on the verge of feeling a bit ill. It's a difficult sensation to describe, but I find there comes a point where I just have to turn off the music or revert to my iTunes collection whereupon it's an almost immediate "ahh that's better" feeling. I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... :-) --- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:
I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-) I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your mood than the encoding scheme used. My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music— something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at that moment. Of course you feel better! It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music. bob |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:
Here's an observation I thought I'd share and see what others think. I work from home and typically have music playing in the background throughout the day from my system which is some way behind me. *So we're talking about music that is not particularly high volume (I find it otherwise too distracting for my work) and coming from speakers angled away from me and playing into the other end of the room in which I work. My main music collection is a combination of uncompressed WAV and Apple Lossless tracks ripped into iTunes. *I can happily work all day having this playing in the background. Occasionally, for a change or to check out some music or artist, I'll listen to internet radio stations or, recently, Spotify, through the same system. *For the former I'll choose as high a rate as possible (typically 128k). *Spotify apparently uses 160k. *So it's not unduly compressed stuff. * What I've found is that whilst the music sounds superficially OK, after an hour or two I feel on edge and on the verge of feeling a bit ill. *It's a difficult sensation to describe, but I find there comes a point where I just have to turn off the music or revert to my iTunes collection whereupon it's an almost immediate "ahh that's better" feeling. I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-) --- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site:http://www.mgateway.com Because it's internet radio, there are several external factors that may be affecting the sound, not just compression. The source of the audio might be questionable. Maybe it was not a good source even before the compression. The encoder that makes the MP3 stream may be only so so as well. When I used to experiment with several MP3 encoders I found that only 2 could really make a great sounding MP3, LAME and the MP3 encoder within CoolEdit 2K. For example, the MP3 encoder within iTunes is terrible. Avoid it. iTunes has a great AAC encoder so its built in MP3 encoder is redundant. CD |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote:
snip I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-) [quoted sig deleted -- deb] You might try taking some of your lossless files and compressing them to perhaps 128 kbs and set up identical play lists for the compressed and lossless files. Then have somebody randomly select one of the play lists each day for several weeks and see if you can tell the difference. Many people in this news group might be very interested in the results of such a test. |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Rob Tweed wrote:
I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... :-) My bet would be the former. Listener fatigue is a real phenomenom. -- Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On 17 Aug 2009 15:47:29 GMT, bob wrote:
On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote: I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-) I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your mood than the encoding scheme used. My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music— something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at that moment. Of course you feel better! It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music. bob Of course you may be right, but on the other hand, the last couple of times this has occurred, I've been checking out new tracks from artists I already listen to, so it's familiar stuff and stuff I wanted to hear and would normally enjoy listening to. "Gut feel" tells me there's something related to the sound rather than it being related to the content. Interestingly I get no such problems listening to recordings I've made of the BBC Proms which are 192k MP2 streams broadcast over the terrestrial digital TV network here in the UK. -- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Listening fatigue or my imagination?
On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:47:29 -0700, bob wrote
(in article ): On Aug 17, 8:44*am, Rob Tweed wrote: I can only assume it's either a consequence of the compression, or of course maybe it's just my imagination...... *:-) I'd guess neither. You're ignoring the most important and obvious variable—the music itself. Surely that has a greater effect on your mood than the encoding scheme used. My guess is that what you become "fatigued" of is the music that the Internet radio station is playing. So you switch to your own music— something you like, and more importantly something you've chosen at that moment. Of course you feel better! It isn't always about the audio. Sometimes it's about the music. bob But, ostensibly, wouldn't he be listening to music HE LIKES both from his own collection and from the internet radio feeds? I'm certainly not going to listen to an internet radio station that plays music that I don't like, even (or especially) as background. So, perhaps it is the compression, after all because I too get listening fatigue after a while with internet radio, even "stations" like Radio Switzerland from Zurich, which has a classical music format (and 128KB/s data rate) that I like. I find I can only listen to it for an hour or so at a time before I get start getting edgy and annoyed, and have to switch it off or go to FM or my own music collection. |
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