Ok I'm having trouble understanding something. Why is some equipment good sounding yet tough to listen too?

A bit of back-story I guess. My usual system is a Denon 2805 receiver, Rotel 1075 amp powering the front, centre and surround speakers, with the remaining back speakers powered by the Denon. the speakers are all polks, LSi7 fronts and 3xi's as surrounds. To my ears it sounds real nice and I could listen all day happilly.

lately I've been getting into the vintage audio scene a bit. It started with getting a turntable to play my old (and new to me flea market find) LP's.

Well I stumbled upon a nice Pioneer SX-890 receiver. Works real nice and sounds supprisingly good. Nice 70's solid state sound.

yet for some reason if I listen for any length of time my ears start to hurt. This isn't at any high volume either. just seems to make my ears all fatigued?

What gives here?

At first I thought it was the speakers I was using for the Pioneer, a pair of old Fisher floorstanders.

However, even using my polks gives the same feeling in my ears when listening. It sounds real nice, but...

What could be happening here? Any thoughts??

It's tiny eardrum gnomes. Their hammers are vicious. :(

Haha, just kidding.

Fatigue is usually caused by high-frequency distortion and/or general compression of the audio in order to achieve volume.

dvdchance - i've been struggling with this for a while. I would listen at volumes even below regular conversation and my ears would feel very irritated and fatigued afterwards. It would only happen with my system. I would watch a movie in a theater, at MUCH higher volumes and walk out fine.

I thought maybe it was the room at first, but i was not sure. I tried speakers, and even tried a Denon receiver to replace an older JVC and still little has changed.

I tried "cinema eq" on the Denon, and this seemed to help a little. Although this feature IMO really overdid it with controlling the high tones - and this ended up taking the excitement out of the soundtrack for me.

After a 3 week audition i returned the Denon. Overall i felt my JVC receiver produced a much more exciting sound. If i was to correct any problem i was having i wanted to do it without sacrificing my taste in sound, and overall i did not care for Denon's.

Back to the issue. I felt that the digital audio (on both receivers) seemed far too "sharp-sounding" for my ears, and far too bright in my room. After short listening periods, at low volumes i felt an annoying pain/ringing in my ears.

So after trying room treatments, receivers, and speaker changes, i was left thinking it was the room. As an experiment, I tried something new. I initially had all of my A/V equipment plugged into the wall out of the same circuit. I tried taking the receiver plug out, added an extension cord, and plugging it into a secluded outlet (one that had zero other appliances going into it - which could mean it was a free circuit).

Since i tried this i have had close to zero issues with ear fatigue. I'm not sure why this is, but the soundtracks now sound far less bright and harsh. I noticed it right away. I have been experimenting with this for 2 weeks now, and while i thought it may have been my imagination at first, the result is inarguable. For some reason, the receiver over extension cord to a free circuit produces a much smoother audio reproduction. It sounds different, but most importantly, my ears have not been bothered at all since.

I have heard that certain electrical accessories reduce noise. However, I do not think it is the extension cord in this case, i think it's more the fact that this new outlet is on its own circuit (as far as i can assume). All i know is that my the sound is far less harsh than before, and it much easier to listen to without any obvious distortion of the soundtrack. What i do know is that my ears have not been bothering me since I tried this.

At any rate, I just wanted to throw my alternate experience with this as food for thought.

Napeleon,

It's funny you mention about the power outlet. the receiver that is causing me the fatigue, the vintage pioneer, is on a different outlet not on my HT power strip but in my computers power strip. Same circuit though.

It's the avr for sure,
I used to also have denon avrs and I really liked them but I also used to have the same problemwith certain cds and dvds, so I wanted to get a newer avr and I auditioned other denons and it was still the same so as I was auditioning avrs I walked over to a salesman demonstrating a yamaha avr and I liked what i was hearing .
So sure enough I purchased the yamaha and replaced and sold my denon and I never had the problem of soundtracks and dvds being fatiguging to my ears.

Napeleon,

It's funny you mention about the power outlet. the receiver that is causing me the fatigue, the vintage pioneer, is on a different outlet not on my HT power strip but in my computers power strip. Same circuit though.
A PC creates a lot of digital hash in the power supply that feeds back through the circuit. That's true of any digital component, like a CD or DVD player, but is particularly problematic with a PC on the same circuit with an audio system.

Noisy power is the #1 reason for the existence of power conditioning devices. They're essentially very robust noise filters, with the aim of reaching a clean 60hz cycle. Some do it better than others.

Try turning the PC off completely and listening again.

The Denon AVR687 -- which i briefly owned -- did not seem quite as fatiguing as much JVC did, but they both did neverthless. A lot of this has to do with the fact that i'm 8 to 10 feet away from each of the 5.1 speakers. But seriously folks, this fatigue should not be happening.

On a side note - i still think my 8 year-old JVC produces better sound IMO than the Denon. The Denon sounded a bit clearer, but I did not care for its bass at all. Comparing a scene in Matrix with identical calibration on both machines, the JVC provided far more impact and "punch."

Anyway, I've heard quite a few people recommending Yamaha's around here. Maybe it was just you Lou on several occassions :) but i do hear VERY favorable opinions based on the threads similar to these.

All in all, I am very curious why my JVC receiver is putting out this type of sound on a lone circuit. In an odd way, the sound resembles an EQ mode.... almost - in that there are controlled high's without taking away from the soundtracks impact.

I only bring it up because i've never read anything pertaining to this on here, nor did i know that an outlet could have this much impact on audio. But I think i have touched on something very large in regards to power sources and receivers. If we could narrow down why this is, it would be nice to purchase some kind of power accessory which I could plug the receiver into - so i can avoid having to extend the cord to the other end of room. It would also be nice to simplify why a lone circuit produces a far less fatiguing sountrack. Personally I think this is a major issue that can be overlooked by beginners.

dvdchance - i'm not an electrical expert, but based on trial-and-error changes in this effected changes in audio.

WOW, and here I always thought "audio fatigue" just something that "audiophiles' just made up to justify buying $100 a foot speaker wire.

Personally having owned many crappy stereos in my life I can't say my ears ever hurt after listening to any of them. Unless of course I had them cranked up to levels that would rival a Who concert.

Why is some equipment good sounding yet tough to listen too?

Excess content in the frequency range around 2 to 4 KHz will tire you out pretty quickly. Though in my experience, untreated echoes - bad room acoustics - are just as irritating.

--Ethan

Listener's fatigue is for real and not an audiophile excuse to spend $$$. Can be easily experienced with any non-D B&W or Wilson Audio speaker by cranking up the volume. Chief contributors IMHO are room and speakers.

The Denon AVR687 -- which i briefly owned -- did not seem quite as fatiguing as much JVC did, but they both did neverthless. A lot of this has to do with the fact that i'm 8 to 10 feet away from each of the 5.1 speakers. But seriously folks, this fatigue should not be happening.

On a side note - i still think my 8 year-old JVC produces better sound IMO than the Denon. The Denon sounded a bit clearer, but I did not care for its bass at all. Comparing a scene in Matrix with identical calibration on both machines, the JVC provided far more impact and "punch."
Denon products are more power-sensitive than some. With the AC filtered, they often sound like a completely different product.

My Denon PMA-2000mkIV-R integrated amp is radically different with or without power conditioning, plugged into the same wall outlet.

I did a bit of searching on hearing fatigue, looking for an accepted definition. I used mostly government and university sites. The term is often used but not defined. I think however that most of us take the term to mean listening that becomes unpleasant, but not as a result of excessive volume. Excessive high frequency and high distortion are usually cited.

Accepting that, we have the program material itself, a CD perhaps, the amplifier, the speakers and the ears. Could it be the CD? When we talk about this should we name the material and the source? Should we distinguish between an early analog transfer (often harsh) or a top quality full dynamic range Telarc or other top quality company, recording of a classical piano or soprano or whatever, or a CD of electronically generated drum and guitar sounds with deliberate high levels of distortion, and very small dynamic range?

The amplification stage. The very best tube amplifiers at the end of the tube era had distortion levels at about 1%, but 5% was not uncommon. As sold state developed we saw amplifiers that had distortion at full power over the full range of <.1% or <.01%, and some of <.001%.

Most of today's AVR's aren't that good, but still claim a specification that should be inaudible. But some give specs at 1kHZ and not for a specific power level across a stated range.

Good speakers generally have fairly low distortion levels at the mid and higher frequencies--inaudible unless overdriven. And generally a speaker with dynamic drivers, ordinary cross-overs, and in the 4 to 8 ohm range will respond in the same way to a NAD, or Denon, or Yamaha.

I have older ears that do fatigue. I am not a big soprano or violin fan, but I have an older very early CD that just pains my ears at a few points. It is an analog transfer and with a rising response curve. I have a direct to disc recording of the same piece--marvelous, smooth no pain. I have a late CD with a mostly digital recording chain and a light hand in the booth- a sort of digital direct--superb.

Do I hear any difference playing these back via a 100 watts/channel AVR vs a good preamp and 2 channel 100 watts/channel power amp? Maybe at least at high volume levels, but that is I think the AVR running out of headroom.

Do I hear or have I ever heard difference related to the outlet used? Never. If there was one I would first suspect voltage drop, and second poor construction of the amplifier if it could not reject power line noise. We live in a very noise environment these days, but decent equipment will reject it.

It has been demonstrated more than once in double blind testing that solid state amplifiers designed to produce flat, low distortion power across the audio spectrum do not sound different from one another under matched conditions. Any difference that you do hear refects a response curve difference, a distortion level difference, a head room difference, etc.

So my hypothesis is this. That the most likely cause of hearing fatigue is the program material itself. Recorded music of the last several decades, especially popular music, is heavily processed (often in the analog domain), includes instruments that have inherently high levels of distortion, and is recorded with a minimal dynamic range.

The second most likely cause is people are listening to these recordings at a much higher average power level than they realize.

My fallback hypothesis is that the shape of your ear and ear canal, condition of the inner ear, etc., cause some sounds to be unpleasant and fatiguing to hear no matter what.

The corollary is that power line stuff, if it can be heard, reflects bad design.

Excess content in the frequency range around 2 to 4 KHz will tire you out pretty quickly. Though in my experience, untreated echoes - bad room acoustics - are just as irritating.

--Ethan

That's an interesting comment, because I've noticed that some of the high notes on piano recordings are slightly painful to listen to on my car stereo, even at what I consider to be a very moderate volume level. However, I don't get that sensation when listening to the same CDs in my living room (approx. 2500 cu.ft.).

When I say "some of the high notes are slightly painful to listen to" I am talking about a very specific effect: listening to those high notes, in the car only, feels like something is "pinging" on my ears. That seems consistent with what Ethan is saying: the highest octave of the piano is (approximately) 2.1 kHz to 4.2 kHz, and piano tones have a strong harmonic content, so fundamental notes in the octave or two below will also produce a lot of energy in that range. Further, there may be resonances - "untreated echoes" - in that frequency range in the car cabin. While the living room should be large enough to produce a fairly "smooth" reverberent sound field in the same frequency range.

This is an interesting thread that I hope more people will contribute too.

Ever since I switched from vinyl to CD, some years ago, I have noticed that I get ear fatigue after listening to music for only a short period of time. I read somewhere that this is caused by the amount of compression that is used when making a CD.

I have seen (unfortunately, I don’t own one) that some of the new receivers have a “de-compression” feature that used DSP technology. Has anyone ever tried this feature and does it help?

I haven’t been able to enjoy recorded music for years. Won’t someone please help?

Thanks,
Yeto

Very interesting comments all. Thanks.

I posted much the same question on a vintage Pioneer forum. I've gotten responses that vintage Pioneer equipment of that era were considered "bright".

It was suggested to reduce the treble from the 12 o'clock "flat" setting. I am now at the 10 o'clock posistion.

I changed the AC outlet from my PC's power strip to my HT strip.

I'm now thinking the biggest culprit is my room acoustics. Wood floors and all.

Probably the auto setup on the Denon does a much better job with the room then I can do with just bass and ttreble settings.

Even though I'm not listening at any loud volume, could it be the extra power the rotel amp gives? i remember listening to the Denon before I got the Rotel, and it also was a bit straining to listen for long periods of time. But that was mainly just at a high volume though.

While I'm sure the source material plays a role, I'm playing known music. mostly LP's to be exact. Thats what started me even interested in vintage equipment. I started playing my old LP's again on my regular setup.

A particularly glaring example is the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour LP.

Listening on the Denon it sounds nice, very pleasant.

On the vintage Pio, some songs are downright painful to listen to, ie Blue Jay Way and baby You're a Rich man.

As has been said, harshness in the low treble will cause fatigue. Such harshness can be produced by resonance, or speakers, or amplifiers, or anything else that can cause THD in that particular region. A generally high THD across the spectrum will cause fatigue, too; much more so than an unbalanced frequency response.

Aaand where I was going with this: "vintage" transistor gear is sometimes built with a non-flat gain structure (because silicon sucked back then); this causes not insignificant amounts of harmonic distortion and intermodulation. In fact, the same kind of distortion has been said to contribute to the "tube sound" (because tubes are not linear), but the difference between tubes and transistors is that tubes are symmetrically nonlinear, whereas transistors at the time were asymmetrically nonlinear.

Now, if you have bad power, and perhaps the capacitors in that 30 year old power supply aren't doing too well, then that will just make things worse. Try getting a balanced power supply to treat that part (that, and re-condition the PS inside the old receiver)

I'd like to add my $.02 in here, but from a physiological standpoint. The human ear anatomy can withstand large exponential changes in volume, but at some point high volumes can cause the little hair shaped nerves that generate the actual electrical signal the brain perceives as sound to bend over and stay bent. That causes a hearing loss.

Well, evolution has provided us humans with a sort of protection against the two types of sound that cause such damage to the ear's nervous system--sudden loud sounds (imagine a hammer pounding on metal or gunshots) and less intense but solid state sounds (imagine being around a jet engine or a constantly running electrical motor). That protection comes about as a reflex "jerk" of a muscle connected to one of the 3 bones that transmit the sound from the eardrum to the nerve center. When the ear perceives sound at a certain level, it causes this muscle to contract and that dislocates the bone chain, reducing the amount of sound transmitted throught to the nerve center. Problem is, even though this is a reflex action it takes a while and some of very sharp loud sounds (the hammer) get through before the reflex effectively damps the sound. Steady state sounds (the jet engine) tend to cause the muscle to contract and then attemp to maintain the dislocation, tiring it out pretty quickly and it involuntarily relaxes, allowing excess sound through to the nerve center. Both inadequacies in this "Stapedial Reflex" contribute to hearing loss and, implicitly, fatigue.

Some equipment produces more spurious harmonic distortion and that occurs in a frequency range where the stapedius reflex isn't very active, so electronics can be a contributing factor. The type of electronics makes a big difference--solid state equipment creates a sharp distortion to the sound wave, whereas Class A "rounded off" the clipped sound wave, sounding less distorted.

The biggest culprit, though, is the room, IMHO. Some rooms are so reflective that they have "slap echos" and others simply emphasize sound reinforcements that can make sound seem "harsh" or "strident" and over time this can have the same fatiguing effect.

Put all these things together, and it makes a pretty good case for turning it down when it stops sounding clean.

I know. I grew up in the midwest driving a tractor and shooting firearms. We didn't know about hearing protection back then. Your ears get worse with age, just like your eyes--a phenomenon knows as presbycousis. The older you get, the more worn out that stapedius muscle is and the more damaged your nerve center gets, so it gets easier to get fatigued.

Like Roseanne Roseanna Danna said, "If it isn't one thing, it's another".

Bottom line--take hearing protection with you when you know you'll expose your ears to dangerous sound levels (concerts, drag races, etc) and you'll extend the time you have before this fatigue becomes a real significant factor in your life. For years I've been wearing heariing protectors when I mow the lawn and it's amazing how much less fatigued I feel at the end of that pleasant task.

Doug

solid state equipment creates a sharp distortion to the sound wave, whereas Class A "rounded off" the clipped sound wave, sounding less distorted.

I liked your post, except for this one sentence which I think is confusing. I only want to add that you can build Class A solid-state amplifiers, too -- it has to do with how standby current is handled. Simplified: in a Class A amplifier, the job of the driver is to shift a constant current between an internal load, and the external (speaker) load. Thus, the current draw is high, and consistent, and there is no "build-up" time necessary for sharp transients.

The soft-vs-harsh harmonics are generally accepted to come from the symmetry of tube distorsion (generating mainly odd order harnomics), and the asymmetry of older silicon devices (generating even order harmonics).

Well, found my problem.

In a real round-about way it was the Pioneer lol

To make room for the Pioneer I had to move some stuff around in my media room.

Where before my PC was mostly covered with misc stuff, like books, dvd's even 3 board games, now it's free and clear.

And very, very noisy in an shrill, ear irritating way.

I guess I never really noticed it before since I was focusing on the Pioneer and turning it on before I booted up my PC.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to give my problem some thought.

Volume
Echo/reverberation
distortion
poor frequency response

Those are the main things that come to mind for me. Distortion and room reverberation is probably the biggest IMO (second to too much volume).

I've scanned these forums a number of times over the years but this thread finally motivated me to make an account. I think it may be enjoyable spending some time here.

I'll do my best to express my thoughts from a scientific perspective and note when I'm offering opinion.

VerDugliness wrote a good post with some valuable points. My main comment regarding the reference to the acoustic reflex would be the acceptance that it plays an active role in protecting the auditory system. This is an often speculated role of the reflex but one that is not well substantiated. It should also be noted that the tension applied to the ossicular chain is transient and is often clinically tracked through reflex decay curves.

It could be the case that the ambient noise caused by your computer was the source of fatigue. If you had focused your attention on the source signal and this PC noise was a distration the added effort of divided attention may have resulted in increased fatigue.

Without the addition of the PC factor my speculation would have been that you were seeing increased peak SPL levels with your new equipment. This or the change to LP resulted in a change in the signal configuration that you were used to hearing.

I suppose that I did not address the issue of listening fatigue. There really is not a specific answer to what causes fatigue. It's going to an individual effect but one generalization can be made that any factor than increases listening effort will also increase your listening fatigue. Thus, it's going to depend on what you find aurally taxing.

As mentioned there are many factors that play into this. It's up to you to find those factors and try to optimize your listening situation. There are always some assumptions that can be made regarding poor room acoustics, ambient noise levels, and overall listening levels and their negative effects. These have all been mentioned in previous posts :)

So far, I really haven't solved the problem totally. What I have done to pretty much buffer that frequency is pull the PC a foot or so from the wall. I had the back with the noisy fan back against a wall. I also placed a few album jackets on top of the pc and they overhang the back by the fan. I guess this does enough to diffuse the sound.

I can still hear the PC's fan when it's on, but now it doesn't bother my ears.

What is distortion? This seems to be the only factor in audio fatigue which i cannot explain. I understand volume levels, room acoustics and jumpy trebles, but what is, and what causes distortion?

My issues, which seems to match some others here - is that soundtracks even at around 50 db's sometimes come across as so smooth and sharp that they really infiltrate the eardrums, and cause a ringing. This is just regular conversational-level sound, not anything too loud. I think a large part is the small room, and the fact that i'm sitting an average of 8-9 feet from each speaker. This does not happen for me in theaters, and has not happened as much since i switched to a different power source in the room - but it is still there.

Honestly I'm starting to give more thought to power issues myself. But for a different reason.

Maybe it's just my imagination like my gf says it is, but I think I've heard on a few occasions and from different speakers or devices a short 3 or 4 second long llow pitch hum come from them even when shut off but plugged in. I know I've heard some sound a few times from my clock radio by the bed, and I'm sure I heard the same sound in my living room from the speaker i was sitting next too.

I think I've heard on a few occasions and from different speakers or devices a short 3 or 4 second long llow pitch hum come from them even when shut off but plugged in. I know I've heard some sound a few times from my clock radio by the bed, and I'm sure I heard the same sound in my living room from the speaker i was sitting next too.

It's not your imagination. I had the problem with an A/R powered speaker system. Something in the built in power supply was causing an intermittent "hum" or "buzz" from the speakers. It was only noticable during times that the speakers were not creating sound; otherwise, it was masked by the sound.

Another source of this phenomenon is cell phones. I work in an office where the phones are IP (Internet Protocol) based, and if I don't move my cell phone some distance from the phone I get an intermittent "buzzing" or "humming" sound from the IP phone (which has a "speaker phone" function). Move my cell phone further from the phone and the hum goes away. I've noticed it in portable cassette tape recorders.

Try moving your cell phone various distances from the equipment and see if it makes a difference. If it does, it might just be fun to play with the GF a bit--get close to the equipment and make it hum, then discretely move away and ask her if it is her imagination, too. Unfortunately, there's no way to predict when the cell phone will induce this effect--it doesn't seem to be related to receiving a call or making a call, but in my example it is definitely effected by distance between the cell phone and the electronics.

Doug

What is distortion? This seems to be the only factor in audio fatigue which i cannot explain. I understand volume levels, room acoustics and jumpy trebles, but what is, and what causes distortion?

Essentially distortion is any change to the waveform induced by the equipment. In the 60's and early 70's a lot of audible distortion was caused by electronics. However, engineers quickly devised various amp circuitry that reduced the distortion below the level of audibility. Now, you would think that would be the end to the issue, but the equipment most susceptible to inducing distortion into the sound is the speaker.

Modern speaker designs are getting much better, though. In my opinion, the most common cause of distortion is overdriving the amplifier. Modern rock music has very little dynamic range--you're lucky to get 30 dB dynamic range in rock, but classical and jazz music offers much more dynamic range.

Amp power was specified at one time in "dBw", or decibels relative to one watt output. Power requirements increase exponentially with increases in volume, and a 100 watt amplifier is only able to provide 20 dB more volume than a one watt amp, so a 100 watt amp would be rated as a "20 dBw" amp. A 200 watt amp is rated as a "23 dBw" amp, since to increase the volume by 3 dB requires twice as many watts.

So, take for example that jazz album with 50 dB dynamic range or more. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have to turn up the volume. What occurs then is that it might take one watt to create that quiet section at a volume you can hear, but what happens when the 20 dBw amp has to create that loud dynamic that is 50 dB louder? It can't. When an amp can't accurately create the waveform, it doesn't mean it doesn't put out any sound. It tries but since it doesn't have enough power it puts out a waveform that is different from the waveform that it was trying to create--essentially, distorting that waveform. That distortion burns out speakers and makes sound "tiring", or fatiguing, the factor we're discussing here.

Not many people run amps of 200 watts/channel RMS, so in my opinion a major cause of distortion is overdriving the amp. Bottom line, if it doesn't sound clean, turn it down and see if that makes a big difference. You can never have too much power, particularly if you crave high SPL's. If you need louder sound, think about choosing speakers with higher efficiency ratings. The older Klipschorn corner-horn speakers were incredibly efficient, putting out over 100 dB with only 1 watt input at 1 meter. Add a 20 dBw amp to those speakers and you can achieve SPL's that will guarantee hearing loss, but that same amp/speaker combination will create clean, undistorted sound at lower volumes and that will not fatigue the ears.

Doug