Ear fatigue and frequency range

[Moh]

What frequencies cause ear fatigue. I thought the tweeter sounds bright/fatiguing so I decreased the trebble. But I found the Highs to sound a bit  softer when I increased 16kHz on the EQ. Does this make any sense or is it a placebo effect.

[garyrc]

On 4/12/2022 at 10:46 PM, Moh said:

What frequencies cause ear fatigue. I thought the tweeter sounds bright/fatiguing so I decreased the trebble. But I found the Highs to sound a bit  softer when I increased 16kHz on the EQ. Does this make any sense or is it a placebo effect.

• @Moh
• You may have been turning down the upper 1/3 or so of the frequency spectrum with the treble control (typically, they have their greatest effect at the top, making their over-use, to cut, result in dull sound), but turning up the 16KHz slider may have restored the much needed "air" and "richness" at the very top, increasing the gentle beauty of the music.   The overtones are magic.  To qualify as an overtone, a tone needs to be part of the harmonic series above the fundamental frequency of a given note.  The highest note on the piano has a fundamental of 4,186 Hz.   Even a piccolo or a violin doesn't normally have higher fundamentals.  A range called "presence" runs from about 4KHz to 8KHz, and usually sounds great.  The highest range is 8KHz to 20KHz, and is often called "brilliance"  or "air."
• IMO, providing that the speakers are fairly well balanced (or made that  way with EQ), most ear fatigue, especially with IM distortion, centers on about 2KHz, and ranges between about 800Hz and 3.5KHz.  The "BBC dip" that they built into some of their speakers is around 2KHz, and helped make for lovely sounding speakers that (in my experience) did not cause listening fatigue, and were not harsh, despite some horrible recordings they dealt with in the 1950s and 1960s. 
• Audyssey, too, for their Audyssey Reference choice, provided "midrange compensation"  which was a subtle cut/dip (a bit more than a 2 dB cut) at 2KHz, or a bit higher.  Chris Kyriakakis, their co-founder, and the CTO for years, said he never heard a speaker/room combination that was not improved by it.  Many users on the Audyssey forum begged to differ, though, and as soon as there was an app available to remove it, while still retaining Reference's Very High frequency roll-off, they did so.  Some of those users have "golden ears" loudspeakers, which cost a great deal of money, and are designed to have veiled response in the usual range of living rooms, so, for them, the dip would be a double dip.  Klipsch speakers are not veiled!   They are not "laid back."  They tend to be "up front."  So are many JBLs, Altecs, Electro-Voice, and speakers with midrange and treble horns.  To me, with a good recording, and a full orchestra, they tend to sound like the orchestra would from about the 10th row, not the back of the hall.
• Speaking of recordings, they vary so much that they, and listening rooms, are the variables that make the largest difference in the sound.

[garyrc]

@Moh

 One more thing relative to my post above.  I cited "quality of the recording" as one of the two most important factors in avoiding harshness and ear fatigue, at least over all of my Klipsch speakers, and my previous JBLs, as well.  Format does seem to make a difference.  Engineering of the recording, of course, is terrifically important.  See Chris A's many posts on recording companies sometimes deliberately making recordings with limited bass, compressed dynamic range, and sometimes screechy mids and highs, as part of the industry's "Loudness Wars."  He may have written some recent posts on the subject, but I remember starting with his "The Missing Octave." 

 

Format-wise, here is what Meridian thinks.  I would agree with most of it, but I think they rated reel-to reel way too low;  some of the best recordings I've heard were 1st generation on Crown 1/2 track (i.e., not 1/4 track) at 15 ips, or Ampex 1/2 track at 15 ips (or even 3rd or 4th generation 35 mm Magnetic film, running at 22.5 ips, I think) but that's not on Meridian's chart). I also think they rated ordinary CDs too high.

 

[Moh]

Thanks you this I find very interesting. GARYRC ,You are a wealth of good information.

[Chief bonehead]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:46 AM, Moh said:

What frequencies cause ear fatigue. I thought the tweeter sounds bright/fatiguing so I decreased the trebble. But I found the Highs to sound a bit  softer when I increased 16kHz on the EQ. Does this make any sense or is it a placebo effect.

Distortion 

[ODS123]

Real, live unamplified music causes fatigue - just ask the guy sitting next to the trumpet player .  So why shouldn't audio that strives to accurately reproduce the live listening experience?

 

We evolved as a species hearing nothing louder than a babbling brook or ocean waves.  So why do people expect to listen to music at 90db for hours without it grating on their nerves?  

 

If your audio system never causes listening fatigue then it isn't very accurate.  

 

This is why I gravitate toward integrated amps that have tone controls.  ..When they highs start to grate, a little turn to the left solves the problem.

[garyrc]

3 hours ago, ODS123 said:

Real, live unamplified music causes fatigue - just ask the guy sitting next to the trumpet player

... or directly in front of.

 

3 hours ago, ODS123 said:

We evolved as a species hearing nothing louder than a babbling brook or ocean waves

and thunder and volcanoes, and earthquakes, and animal roars, and pachydermic trumpeting, and some guy beating on a hollow log.

 

But I'm with you.  When our orchestra played The Great Gate of Kiev (Kyiv), Fanfare for the Common Man, Slaughter on 10th Avenue, etc., or the the end of a Mahler or Beethoven symphony, there was some harshness and fatigue ... we peeled the paint off the walls.  But there was also effortless power, and bass that hit us in the chest, belly, and feet.  I can get fairly close with my Klipschorns, and could not with my old JBL 030 system ... and there is a big difference between about the same amount of fatigue as there is live, and the greater, subjectively different, kind of fatigue that comes with an unplayable CD or with my old JBL.  Now that's distortion!

[Wrench]

You could opt for another set of speakers for a relaxed laid back experience and the Klipsch for a Live experience.  I have various sets myself.  From panel to line array.

[VDS]

On 4/13/2022 at 4:44 AM, garyrc said:

IMO, providing that the speakers are fairly well balanced (or made that  way with EQ), most ear fatigue, especially with IM distortion, centers on about 2KHz, and ranges between about 800Hz and 3.5KHz.  The "BBC dip" that they built into some of their speakers is around 2KHz, and helped make for lovely sounding speakers that (in my experience) did not cause listening fatigue, and were not harsh, despite some horrible recordings they dealt with in the 1950s and 1960s. 

I would agree, using X console I have found 1500-3000hz to be a little harsh.  Removing the harshness would be best, but EQing it down a few DB is helpful.