[Atropos]

I wonder if you actually trained your ears by hearing to hifi headphones and comparing, or did you hear from beginning the difference between all the headphones?

For me its difficult to hear a difference between the HD650 and HD600 or just between headamps, sources or cables.

so were you guys always that good?

 

[apnk]

Well I believe I have trained my ears. At first i couldn't tell the difference between the px100's and the sr60's, but then when you switch back after a month or two its like night and day.

 

[Kirosia]

trained. But if you stop listening to a detailed phone for awhile, you start losing it. I remember I was using just the ksc-75 for weeks, then one day I got bored and used my senns. Went back to the ksc, heard things I hadn't heard (or remember hearing) before.

 

[manhattanproj]

so, basically, you will need more than one set of headphones to train your ears. there goes the cash

 

[Tachikoma]

I wouldn't use the word "train", lol. Its just that you never knew how much you were missing before you listened to high-end phones

 

[lini]

Atropos: I don't think listening to headphones has trained my ears - but it has certainly built up my experience regarding what to listen for and maybe also my vocabulary for describing what I hear...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[MarcusL]

I guess most people fail to learn that listening at loud volumes to "hear the details" are actually UNtraining their ears.

 

[fante7]

I've actually noticed that since I started listening to better headphones, my ability to determine the relative position of things from sound alone has improved.

 

[ScubaSteve87]

I think is has trained my ears. It has made me notice many more details and differences in sounds that I hear in everyday life. For example I'll be sitting in McDonlad's and music is playing over the speakers and I am thinking, "wow this has zero bass at all, just sounds like a drone". Before Headphones I would have never thought that

 

[Jmmmmm]

The past year of various hifi headphones has absolutely trained my ears. Before, I couldn't tell the difference between (very different) headphones very well at all, but now I can listen to something and picture its frequency graph fairly easily. It's not just recognition, but I can actually distinguish things I never thought were different before. I used to think these people were making stuff up, but now I see that the differences are very real.

 

[humanflyz]

Like other people have posted, I have learned to listen to the differences between different equipments. But I found out that you could only do this if you have other equipments to compare with. And after listening to different equipment, I have learned and refined my audio vocabulary so to speak. To me, a good analogy would be reading different books. When one is young or inexperienced, one can't really distinguish between good writing and bad writing. Or even if one could, it would be hard to express the perceived differences in clear, articulate terms. But after a while, when one has read enough books, one can start to appreciate the differences and start to discuss the differences more coherently and articulately.

 

[spraggih]

Definitively heard new things - if nothing than with headphone right on your ear you can hear more things.

There is a direct inverse relationship between "training" and cash. As training goes up, cash goes down.

 

[halcyon]

Absolutely.

Any perceptual skill can be honed through attentive use.

The more you listen, the more you hear and hence, the more you listen...

 

[fewtch]

Yes... but I can still watch VH-1 Classic in mono over two small TV speakers and enjoy the music. In fact that's where I do most of my pop/rock listening these days.

 

[pageman99]

Absolutely.

Critical listening to many different headphones is much like mastering a sport. Practise makes perfect. And perfect practise makes for perfect performance.

This forum helps by providing practical insights, and guideposts to subtle differences that might otherwise have been missed. Helping to achieve perfect practise if you will.

My point?

Many talk about the hardware blooming after an hour of warming up.

I agree, but I also believe our minds ability not only to hear, but to listen, also blooms. All that critical listening; practise, if you will, has resulted in enhanced perception when listening purely for pleasure. We can just disappear into the music. A mind expanding experience.

And that is the true beauty of what we do here, IMHO!