[Logistics]

I hope you guys can chime in on this issue I am having. I'm curious if my hearing is damaged... well, I think it's highly likely that my hearing is damaged in some way considering my entire working life has revolved primarily around restoring cars in a bodyshop, while disregarding hearing protection for the majority of that time. But what I'm really interested in knowing is if damage to my hearing may be causing me a discomfort, when listening to voice recordings. Now, the reason I don't just chalk it up to hearing damage is because I can't just listen to anyone's recorded voice on YouTube or some such place and feel this discomfort. It's only some recordings. I'll provide a link to a YouTube video I was just watching, where I suffer discomfort similar to that of hearing a noise that is too loud (where the noise just grates on your ears), but it feels this way even at very low volume, like the voice is attacking my ears. This keeps leading me to believe that the recordings are done improperly in some way in as much as some lack of filtering is present or some other such recording magic that only sound engineers are aware of.

I don't suffer this discomfort from ANY musical program material on any of my CD's. It is only ever spoken word on particular video's on YouTube and the like.

Here's the video I was just watching that causes me this discomfort:

NOTE: One thing I want to add is ONCE in a GREAT WHILE a track will have a sound, and it's typically an electronic music track, that I imagine is an inverted sound. Or at least that's how it feels. Sometimes, it feels like a combination of a sound, which has been inverted and it's presence in the recording will quickly fade from quiet to loud. And this causes the same discomfort to my ears. *shrug*

 

[bigshot]

Sounds fine to me.

 

[castleofargh]

I hope you guys can chime in on this issue I am having. I'm curious if my hearing is damaged... well, I think it's highly likely that my hearing is damaged in some way considering my entire working life has revolved primarily around restoring cars in a bodyshop, while disregarding hearing protection for the majority of that time. But what I'm really interested in knowing is if damage to my hearing may be causing me a discomfort, when listening to voice recordings. Now, the reason I don't just chalk it up to hearing damage is because I can't just listen to anyone's recorded voice on YouTube or some such place and feel this discomfort. It's only some recordings. I'll provide a link to a YouTube video I was just watching, where I suffer discomfort similar to that of hearing a noise that is too loud (where the noise just grates on your ears), but it feels this way even at very low volume, like the voice is attacking my ears. This keeps leading me to believe that the recordings are done improperly in some way in as much as some lack of filtering is present or some other such recording magic that only sound engineers are aware of.

I don't suffer this discomfort from ANY musical program material on any of my CD's. It is only ever spoken word on particular video's on YouTube and the like.

Here's the video I was just watching that causes me this discomfort:

NOTE: One thing I want to add is ONCE in a GREAT WHILE a track will have a sound, and it's typically an electronic music track, that I imagine is an inverted sound. Or at least that's how it feels. Sometimes, it feels like a combination of a sound, which has been inverted and it's presence in the recording will quickly fade from quiet to loud. And this causes the same discomfort to my ears. *shrug*

First comes the question of the playback system. Are your CDs passing through the same audio loop as a youtube video? Do you feel the same issues with a different headphone or that headphone EQed differently?
In my case, I'm overly sensitive to loud stuff in the 4 to 4.5kHz area(who said maniac? I heard you!). I don't know why, my hearing is mostly fine(for my age). But somehow it has come out as a pretty consistent factor when deciding if I enjoyed or not a specific track or headphone. Maybe you're also very sensitive to some particular range, maybe the signature of your headphone makes it louder right where you don't like it to be?

Another very likely possibility is dynamic compression. Voices in songs of many genres will be compressed, starting with applying a "de-esser", but it can obviously go beyond that.

 

[bigshot]

The jangle in Tom Petty songs do that to me.

 

[Logistics]

First comes the question of the playback system. Are your CDs passing through the same audio loop as a youtube video? Do you feel the same issues with a different headphone or that headphone EQed differently?
In my case, I'm overly sensitive to loud stuff in the 4 to 4.5kHz area(who said maniac? I heard you!). I don't know why, my hearing is mostly fine(for my age). But somehow it has come out as a pretty consistent factor when deciding if I enjoyed or not a specific track or headphone. Maybe you're also very sensitive to some particular range, maybe the signature of your headphone makes it louder right where you don't like it to be?

Another very likely possibility is dynamic compression. Voices in songs of many genres will be compressed, starting with applying a "de-esser", but it can obviously go beyond that.

Well, I rip all my CD's to my HDD so everything passes through to the same DAC and headphone amplifier. I'll try a different set of cans and report back.