John Hartog wrote:
> There is probably a fairly narrow range of levels that work well for a ty=
pical home listening environment. The material has to be loud enough to be=
enjoyed over the background noise of the listening environment, and quiet =
enough not to be disturbing.
>
I posit that we are in an advantageous position regarding listening in this=
millennium, for the simple reason that the vast majority of end-users audi=
tion with headphones.
While these transducers are of varying quality, it is much easier to afford=
excellent headphones (a couple hundred clams) than good speakers plus room=
treatment (several thousand or tens of thousands of clams). Lately, consum=
ers have shown a willingness to spend the necessary money on good cans. Yes=
, unfortunately they are misguided and succumb to Dr. DRE or some such mark=
eting rubbish, but nonetheless the potential is there. Compare this to how =
many listeners (now or in the past) treat and isolate their rooms -- close =
to zero percent!
Besides fidelity, headphone listening provides larger dynamic range, exclud=
ing foreign sounds (depending on the headphone type of course). This gives =
nature recordists the latitude to be true to their source. By which I mean =
we do not have to use compression, amplitude boosting, etc. in order for li=
steners to actually hear the source material above their environment.
Thirdly, the difference between stereo and binaural listening translates in=
to the immersive experience consumers want from their media (film, game, mu=
sic) in the 21st century.
I would argue that the rise of headphone culture is directly responsible fo=
r the rise in interest in environmental recordings that we have seen in the=
last couple of decades. (In fact, this leads into my thesis work.)
-- Robin Parmar
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