More on Developing Your Critical Listening Skills
Audiophiles have rarely had anything remotely like a coach — someone with the kind of expertise one gains from years of hands-on experience — to guide them.
They are, with few exceptions, self-taught, and that turns out to be a lot harder than it looks.
For the last few years I’ve been sharing some ideas and methods with Robert Brook as he’s gone about pursuing better audio, and I am happy to report that he has achieved tremendous success. Better yet, he has shared a great deal of that knowledge on his blog.
He put in the work, stayed focused, and it paid off for him in a dramatic improvement to his enjoyment of recorded music.
He did so by approaching the various problems he encountered scientifically, methodically and carefully, mostly along these three fronts:
- Improving his equipment,
- Teaching himself how to do a better job of dialing in his turntable setup, and
- Learning how to do rigorous shootouts for his favorite albums.
Maybe We Do Need an Audio Coach
If someone were to offer his services as an audio coach, I know of no one better suited to the task.
In other words, the title of this piece may be true for most audiophiles under most circumstances, but is clearly in error in one particular:
If you have someone like Robert to help you — a guy who has been getting his audio hands dirty for years and has nothing to sell you — the benefits could very well turn out to be dramatic, even life-changing.
Getting from good to great typically takes a decade or more. With Robert’s help you could easily cut that time in half. Just do what he does. His success is beyond question. He hears what we hear.
What to Do
Figuring out what to do can seem to take forever — at least it did in my case, with me starting out in 1975 and not really achieving higher levels of reproduction until about 2007 — but once you know what works, you can get that project going immediately.
Aaron B. has been doing good work and making progress along these lines as well.
Gaining Expertise
The piece I wrote back in 2006 was entitled thoughts on becoming an expert listener. A few of the ideas found therein:
Experts are made, not born, which means that virtually anyone can acquire the skills to become an expert listener.
But more importantly, the efforts required to reach that expert level explain why many audiophiles have not managed to acquire the necessary skills.
You must actively approach this hobby with the intention to improve, not passively approach it with the goal of enjoyment.
That fundamental difference in attitude and effort results in very different skill levels over time.
A good record is an education for me too. This is not only how I’ve managed to learn about the pressing in question; it’s the same process that allows me to make improvements in the sound of the stereo. It’s learning how to identify what is right and what is wrong with the sound of any pressing — the same process that helps me recognize whether any change to the stereo makes it sound better or worse, and to try and figure out by how much and in what way.
Further Reading