what causes listening fatigue?

[drarthurwells]

Too much negative feedback used in an amp can give me a headache, or at least a feeling of irritation.

Amps with zero global negative feedback in the output stage sound most natural to me - all othe rfactors being equal..

 

[Comfy]

There are two cans that haven't yet produced me any fatigue at all, despite the multi-hour listening sessions:
Sennheiser HD650 and Koss PortaPro.

All of the others I've owned (Grado, AKG, Beyerdynamic) I can only listen for a couple of hours at a time, before my ears need a rest.
I would say it's the "forward" treble that produces this, more than any other particular characteristic.

 

[drarthurwells]

Originally Posted by humanflyz :
One of the biggest causes of listening fatigue is the inability of headphones to produce a realistic stereo soundstage. Your mind has to work harder to try to compensate for the unrealistic soundstage and imaging that headphones produce. After a while, it becomes fatiguing, and that's why some people can't live without cross-feed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jirams /img/forum/go_quote.gif Very well put - I really agree with that - without xfeed I am knackered very quickly. It is only since using xfeed that I get real pleasure from 'phone listening

Crossfeed induces interaural phase distortion that blurs tone edges and expands the tone image - muddies tone imaging but the softening of tone edges (details) reduces the bad effect of harshness in the source. Can be hard to detect the harshness in the source until you get a better source without the harshness.

 

[edstrelow]

Check out some basic psycho-acoustics. There are a couple of well-known phenomena relating to a rise in threshold or a loss of sensitivity to frequencies after short or long-term exposure to either very loud or continuous drone-type sounds such as one would get with a speaker or phone with bad spikes in frequency regions.

Google "temporary threshold shift" or "adaptation"

One I came up with was:

http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handb...old_Shift.html

What I am saying is that you lose sensitivity to the frequencies you have been overdosed on. Part of the subjective effect is a perception of tiredness in the ears.

 

[goorackerelite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif Check out some basic psycho-acoustics. There are a couple of well-known phenomena relating to a rise in threshold or a loss of sensitivity to frequencies after short or long-term exposure to either very loud or continuous drone-type sounds such as one would get with a speaker or phone with bad spikes in frequency regions. Google "temporary threshold shift" or "adaptation" One I came up with was: http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handb...old_Shift.html What I am saying is that you lose sensitivity to the frequencies you have been overdosed on. Part of the subjective effect is a perception of tiredness in the ears.

thanks for the link, learned alot from that page.

 

[dulath]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wrong thread, mate.

Yeah, what the hell? I was wondering why my reply didn't go though. I must have had two threads opened and replied to the wrong one.

 

[chesebert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by goorackerelite /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know that by listening to phones that harsh harsh highs, or boomy lows and rough mids, or high volumes, or moderate ones at an extended time can lead to fatigue. But how does one recognize it? and what are other causes of this fatigue? Whats the long term/short term effect of this listening fatigue?

unnatural reproduction of sound, whether due to resonnance, refelction, or bad amplification (odd order harmonics), and last not least bad recording.

You will find you can listen to real instruments without fatigue. there is a reason for that.

 

[jirams]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drarthurwells /img/forum/go_quote.gif Originally Posted by humanflyz : One of the biggest causes of listening fatigue is the inability of headphones to produce a realistic stereo soundstage. Your mind has to work harder to try to compensate for the unrealistic soundstage and imaging that headphones produce. After a while, it becomes fatiguing, and that's why some people can't live without cross-feed. Crossfeed induces interaural phase distortion that blurs tone edges and expands the tone image - muddies tone imaging but the softening of tone edges (details) reduces the bad effect of harshness in the source. Can be hard to detect the harshness in the source until you get a better source without the harshness.

Guess I am stuck then as I can't afford a better source than my Meridian 506 24bit CD source

 

[rifleman]

Personally, I find I get fatigued the most because of a physically uncomfortable fit. Some phones I've owned have been slightly tight one way or the other, not enough to noticed initially, but eventually the pressure gets to me. Kind of like chinese water torture - it starts almost unnoticeable, but gets quite difficult after a while.

Just make sure your phones are comfy, and you'll probably find a lot less fatigue.

 

[krrm]

Looks like we all have different reasons for fatigue, I get fatigued very easily by mp3's at low bitrates, like 128 kb/s. Have to turn down the volume quite low if I want to listen to it for more than a few minutes. I think the problem is worse with Beyer DT770 than with Beyer DT880.