Listening to Music: A How-to Guide
Listen here
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Listening comes naturally, doesn't it? Well sure, everyone with normal hearing can listen, but what do they hear? What I'm talking about is listening as a focused activity--as opposed listening where music serves as background to something else, reading, driving, running, working, or washing the dishes--active listening can be a lot more rewarding. You hear stuff in your favorite music, maybe rhythm guitar patterns, overdubbed vocals, or instruments you never knew were there can suddenly jump out of the mix. It's stuff the band may have put a huge effort into perfecting, that you only notice when you're really listening.
Bass drums and bass guitars can easily get lost when you're distracted, but they provide the very foundation of dance music and rock & roll. Paul McCartney's bass playing with the Beatles was amazing, and if you're really listening you'll hear every note. On acoustic jazz recordings you should be able to hear every pluck and slide.
Stereo imaging--the placement of instruments and vocals from left to right can be fascinating. Imaging is especially cool over headphones where it's all in your head. With speakers you can sometimes hear a sense of "space" surrounding each instrument. There might be spatial depth so some instruments sound like they're in front of other instruments. Over really good speakers you can almost "see" the musicians in front of the speakers.
The word "transparent" plays a key role in the audiophile lexicon and refers to the ability of components and speakers to disappear so you feel like you're hearing the original sound of the recording session. Of course, that's not literally true--transparency is a matter of degree. When everything's just right the heightened clarity lets you feel like you're getting closer to the true sound, and well, you feel closer to the music.
Just listening for these qualities will make you a better, more aware listener. One thing's for sure, the more you listen, the more you'll hear. And most importantly, you'll get more out of the music.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
You can spend a fortune or spend an average amount and nothing will sound the same to the reviewer or to the average listener.
Granted 90% of the people reading this blog are already doing that, but it's still a good concept for a lot of the "MP3 generation" who may or may not understand this.
In fact, the "mp3 generation" has really been cheated, because "lossy" formats just don't recreate the same experience as a vinyl record, or even a full "lossless" digital source. Listening to a lot of 128kbps mp3's is like listening to unadjusted Bose speakers for too long...your ear just gets tired (not to mention the fact that music is recorded with too much compression as it is)
Anyway, I think Steve is making a great point here, and people who are active listeners are going to find more interesting things in their music.
Then those of us that can't afford super high-end speakers might able to get an awesome listening experience with a set of good headphones and an amp.
Then again, this might just be garbage... I don't know the first thing when it comes to producing.
To really hear the difference in recordings, Binaural.com says you'll likely need headphones, suggesting IEM's, but I've recreated them with normal closed Sennheisers, so regular headphones would likely work enough to illustrate the difference. I'm sure a high quality stereo would be able to recreate it well, however.
There is more information available on Wikipedia.com (search for binaural), as well as a site with samples available, www.binaural.com which contain downloadable mp3s.
It's quite an interesting experience to sit with your eyes closed and listen to someone talk to you from the front, then the side, and then back.
took a dummy head and stuck two mics in the ears, and made his own
binaural head. It's an awesome room sound, and if you are in a great
recording space, it makes you feel like you are really there. It's one of those
things that we in the studio love, but the listener almost never gets to
experience. The biggest problem is that records you hear today
are rarely played all together. Most of the time, they play the drums (and
maybe bass) first, then overdub all the instruments one at a time after that. If
you listen to country, a lot of that is played by a band all at once (with a few
overdubs), but even then, the guitars are in an isolation booth, the piano is in
another booth, etc. Really, the drums are the only thing that we get to hear in
the room any more. I take that back, strings are an unforgettable experience
to be in the room with on a recording session. If you ever get a chance to
step into a string session to watch or listen, please do, it will change the way
you look at musicians and music for the rest of your life.
All that being said, setting up two mics in the room won't get you to hear the
group as a band any more. It's a great idea, but with how polished
everything is supposed to sound these days, getting a producer to put the
people in a circle and just play is very very hard. Everyone has to have their
isolation.
The 128 kbps bit rate removes so much of the music, you won't hear any nuances or subtleties.
It's too bad that you can't easily download the ubiquitous .wav file. It's full fidelity, free of DRMs and it plays EVERYWHERE on ANYTHING.
To this day, I buy CDs exclusively. I rip them into my media server as .wav files.
I can then play them anywhere (car, home, nightclub or outdoors) without proprietary entanglements.
Now, I can listen anywhere without fumbling with jewel cases.
- by veer01 January 13, 2008 4:38 PM PST
- I've got to be honest, since i bought my Microsoft Zune and my Brookstone Earbuds, im amazed i survived with my Sandisk Sansa. Even when I'm working out time just flies because of the details that i hear in the music. Keep in mind that i'm using 128k wma files here a lot of which i ri[pped from cd's at the slowest speeds and to be honest depending on the quality of the source even lower bitrate songs can sound great. I have numerous songs that sound the same as the recording on the original CD and audiophiles that i know even get fooled somtimes. As far as i can see, mp3 are useful but if ur serious about music, get aac or wma and a decent pair of logitechs or altec lancings if ur cheap. Compression isnt the only factor here.
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