"Harman How to Listen" A New Computer-based Listener Training Program

I've posted a new article on my audio blog about our new computer-based listener training program used for training Harman listeners.

We are considering making this available for free to audio recording engineers, audio students, audio reviewers, and the audio consumer to increase consumer awareness and appreciation for higher quality audio recording and reproduction.

Thanks. Already caught that myself and fixed it. I added "NOT" to add emphasis

Some of the training (spectral, distortion, dynamics) can be done on headphones but they must be accurate with good bass extension. The spatial attribute training needs to be done on a high quality multichannel playback system in a good listening room. That is why we built the Harman Reference Listening Rooms -- so that all Harman listeners can train under the exact same high-quality playback conditions. We'd be happy to sell you the equipment (and give you the room drawings) if you're interested in duplicating our training setup

I have found no strong positive correlation between a listeners' performance and whether or not they attend live music performances - or even play a musical instrument. In fact, musicians are often among the worse critical listeners until they've been adequately trained. This has been noted by other researchers including Jens Blauert, and Glenn Gould who had musicians and recording engineers listen for tape edits, and found most musicians were oblivious to the edits.

After all, most recorded music today is not performed in a concert hall but is electronically manufactured in a bedroom, garage or control room so there really is no such thing as a "reference". Floyd Toole talks a lot about this in the first chapters of his new book.

We use AKG K701's for Binaural Room Scanning playback- so I think they would suffice for training. The HD650's are good phones as well.

My home listening room is not a duplicate of the Reference Room-- I can't afford one either

All of our listeners are Harman employees who do the listening as part of their job. We pay them $15 Amazon or $15 Harman dollars every time they do a listening test,which takes about 20 minutes. If you are in town - you are welcome to come by and audition as a listener.

Hi Krabapple,

You're welcome to drop by and participate in a test, or try the "How to Listen" training software, which quickly tells us how much monopoly money you are worth

CBT? You want Constant Beam Technology?

Hi FileCat,

Sorry I missed you when you visited our listening labs, but as you said, I was in Shanghai teaching Floyd's CEDIA Multichannel Audio/Home Theatre Acoustics course.

I'm glad you had a good time, and were able to consistently rate the three speakers in the double-blind test.

Regarding the listener training software: we are working towards a public release in June for both Mac and Windows.

Estimated cost for the listener training software is free.

Interesting idea about a different version of training software aimed at consumers versus recording engineers/audio reviewers. Would the audio reviewer version be an easier version based on this listener performance data?

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Actually, the training software adapts to the listener's ability so it starts out easy and gets progressively more difficult as the listener's performance improves. In this way, experts, audio reviewers, and audio marketing/sales people alike can use it and not get easily frustrated at the beginning.

Another training option is this brand new book by Jason Corey that I just received. It includes some listener training software on a CD_ROM that runs on Mac or Windows, although the Mac software doesn't run due to some screw up by Focal press. The exercises are more aimed at training recording engineers/tonmeisters although anyone involved in sound evaluation would benefit from them.

We can arrange a special audiophile version of the training software just for you that costs $10k per license. This version will always tell you that you are correct -- even when you are wrong...