Joe Bloggs
Sponsor: HiByMember of the Trade: EFO Technologies Co, YanYin TechnologyHis Porta Corda walked the Green Mile
I just found out that my auditory loop lasts for only about 30s. This means that I can only hold 30s of music in my working memory reliably to compare with the same music played out of a different system.
Now, this may be acceptable with testing earphones (where you pull off one pair, put on another pair and immediately notice the difference; at worst you just need to rewind 30s), less so with auditioning amps (pull out one amp, plug in another, pull out headphone plug, plug into another) but how the heck can I audition sources with a memory like that??
For example, as an experiment I just practised comparing my Senn HD580 and Sony EX70 EREQ playing Ghost of the Navigator (song) by Iron Maiden. Playing through 4 min. of music, I thought at the end that the EX70 (EREQ!) reproduced the cymbals particularly well. Noting the track position (4:15-5:15) I switched over to the HD580 and listened to the same part again--and damned if the HD580 didn't have louder cymbals and it's own unique (and very good) musical interpretation of said cymbals!
The problem is, with extended listening, I may be paying attention to one thing at a track position in the first listen and another thing at the same track position in the next listen--and I can't compare anything!
I'd just end up thinking that a setup was better at reproducing that part of the music I was paying attention to when I was listening to that setup.
I see 3 possible 'solutions' to my problem in auditioning sources:
1. Stick only with players that the salesman can fast forward!
(it seems that very few players can do this without a remote control, and they *never* have the remote controls with them
)
2. Stick with auditioning only the first 30 seconds of any track. This sucks because the first 30s of a track is unlikely to contain much audition-worthy material.
3. Burn CDs with track marks thrown in all over the place, so a 10-track CD becomes a 100-track CD and I can jump to any place I want. Doable, but lots of hard work, and I'll be stuck listening to CDRs.
Any better ideas?
(you can tell I'm in a bad mood tonight
)
Now, this may be acceptable with testing earphones (where you pull off one pair, put on another pair and immediately notice the difference; at worst you just need to rewind 30s), less so with auditioning amps (pull out one amp, plug in another, pull out headphone plug, plug into another) but how the heck can I audition sources with a memory like that??
For example, as an experiment I just practised comparing my Senn HD580 and Sony EX70 EREQ playing Ghost of the Navigator (song) by Iron Maiden. Playing through 4 min. of music, I thought at the end that the EX70 (EREQ!) reproduced the cymbals particularly well. Noting the track position (4:15-5:15) I switched over to the HD580 and listened to the same part again--and damned if the HD580 didn't have louder cymbals and it's own unique (and very good) musical interpretation of said cymbals!
The problem is, with extended listening, I may be paying attention to one thing at a track position in the first listen and another thing at the same track position in the next listen--and I can't compare anything!
I see 3 possible 'solutions' to my problem in auditioning sources:
1. Stick only with players that the salesman can fast forward!
2. Stick with auditioning only the first 30 seconds of any track. This sucks because the first 30s of a track is unlikely to contain much audition-worthy material.
3. Burn CDs with track marks thrown in all over the place, so a 10-track CD becomes a 100-track CD and I can jump to any place I want. Doable, but lots of hard work, and I'll be stuck listening to CDRs.
Any better ideas?
(you can tell I'm in a bad mood tonight
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