Fatigue free listening

[Summit]

On 7/25/2020 at 9:57 AM, Rexp said:

Digititus, fatigue, glare, the feeling you just want to turn the music off after a while to give your ears a break. Now not everone suffers from this but its the biggest problem with digital playback for most folks. One way to alleviate the problem is to listen to lo-res, quite a few members prefer Spotify to Tidal/Qobuz for example. I've gone back to using the headphone out of my laptop rather than external DACs cos, although its lower res, it doesn't make my ears bleed. Any more solutions out there? 

 

It is important to understand the difference between symptoms and illness. Syndrome is a collective name for a number of symptoms that are typical of a particular disease, but which are not the disease itself. Irritation, listening fatigue and a decreased desire to listen to music in a sound system are symptoms that something is not right. I can not answer what causes the problems you have, but what I can do is tell you what I “know” about this.

 

First of all, it is important to identify and understand which things / devices are the ones that create the problems with listening fatigue. That is easier said than done, but in my opinion there is no other way.

 

What I want to say is that just because you hear the problem more clearly with your separate DAC does not automatically mean that it is the one that generates the listening fatigue you experience. It is possible that your DAC may just let you hear other shortcomings in the system. With that said, a DAC as well as an amplifier or a pair of headphones can all contribute to poor sound and listening fatigue.