Psychology of Listening: the Environment Impact.

[00:00:01][music] >> Hey y'all.

[00:00:05]Well, today I want to talk about something that really has kind of come up out of building this new listening room.

[00:00:13]And that's the psychology behind in-depth listening is what I guess you could call it or you know, that whole feeling you get when you just really fall into the music and your whole being is focused on listening to and enjoying the music.

[00:00:37]And I feel like that there is some environmental things that contribute to being able to do that. And I put a poll on the channel and the results aren't surprising. I asked what time of the day do you find yourself just really falling into the music and just almost getting into a trance listening to it.

[00:01:03]And so far the vast majority of people are saying at night and I think there's a reason for that. And I'm not talking about you folks that play background music during the day and have it playing in different rooms in your house and you're kind of wandering around and you're doing other things and you're not really focused on the music when you're going and intentionally sitting down with the prime focus of your whole being being listening to the music.

[00:01:31]And people do it at night.

[00:01:35]Seems like and I know I do. And I know to me music sounds different when I'm listening to it at night.

[00:01:43]A lot of audiophiles seen them say like they they turn the lights down and they or they turn off, you know, most of the lights in the room or the house when they're going to be listening to music like this and maybe have just some dim lighting over by the equipment rack or like I've got this little overhead little light on my turntable. And even if I'm streaming or not listening to the turntable, that's kind of where the dim lighting is in that area.

[00:02:15]But I think what's going on is and this is a known biological function of the human brain that when you deprive one of your senses of input which in this case it's your vision, which is one of our primary senses that takes up the vast majority of our brain's processing power to deal with as far as a sensory input kind of thing that it heightens the ability for us to hear things.

[00:02:52]And it makes our hearing more sensitive because the brain shifts all those resources that it normally uses for vision into your audio or your listening.

[00:03:08]And again, this isn't something I'm just making up.

[00:03:12]This is a known biological function of the human brain.

[00:03:18]And it's you know, the synapses and these pathways in our brain get rerouted when there's sensory deprivation on one of our senses. And I think that's what's going on with people enjoying listening to music or it sounds more engaging at night and alcohol might be part of it for some folks, but I don't drink and so that's not it for me.

[00:03:51]And if it's in the wintertime, I can listen to music at 6:00 and get that same feeling because it's dark outside earlier. But like in the summer, I normally don't start listening to music until later in the evening. And it really, I think, is because I enjoy listening to music when the room's dim.

[00:04:18]And with my current listening room, I've got windows all over the place and sliding glass doors near the side of the room and everything, the room's pretty bright during the daytime. And so, you know, unless I put up some you know, light-blocking curtains all over the place, that's not going to be the you know, it's going to be bright in the room.

[00:04:39]And I think there's still something about knowing that it's daylight that our brain just kind of gets into this whole different kind of mindset than it does in the evening when our brain's trained to relax when there's no daylight. And so, part of the reason for putting this video out there is I've had a bunch of comments about my listening room saying, "OMG, you got to have windows. You can't build that room without windows. You'll panic. It'll be claustrophobic. You'll freak out." It's like, you know, maybe some people would, but I don't know how you guys survive like in the vast majority of buildings, there are going to be rooms that don't have windows in them. And do panic when you go into those rooms?

[00:05:30]If the room's really small, like a closet or something, I can understand that. But this is going to be a 15 by 23-ft room, let's say.

[00:05:43]It's not going to be cramped in there.

[00:05:46]And there's not going to be anything in there but a stereo system. So, it's going to be plenty of room.

[00:05:52]And there's going to be some sort of custom lighting that's going to hopefully have kind of like a glow effect on the walls. So, it will simulate kind of dusk.

[00:06:06]If that makes sense.

[00:06:08]And normally when I'm listening to music, I have my eyes closed. And so, as far as putting like artwork up or having windows to look out of, to me that would just be a distraction from the music. And that's not what this room is designed for.

[00:06:27]And if I want to sit and look at a window or something, which I don't know, I don't ever do that anyway, I would get my house and the listening room that I'm going to leave in my house, the current one, I'm not changing that. And so, I'm going to have a smaller room that's more like your traditional living room or den kind of environment, and then I'm going to have this larger dedicated listening room.

[00:06:55]So, another thing that I want to touch on in this video is there's been quite a few comments about oh, the stuff you're doing, that's all just soundproofing. And unless you're going to be playing the music at club level volume, and you're going to have your neighbors complaining, it's totally unnecessary, and just put some insulation on the wall with one layer of sheetrock, and it'll be fine. Don't waste your money, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:07:24]And I stopped and thought about how much money a lot of audiophiles spend on trying to reduce the noise floor in their equipment.

[00:07:39]And people spend $20,000 on amplifier that is quiet. It has a dark background and just the endless money people spend on digital streaming solutions and just they're worried about the difference between a noise floor of -140 dBs and -150 dBs.

[00:08:05]Okay?

[00:08:07]I don't know if you guys have ever measured the noise floor in your listening room, but in my house it's about 40 dBs at its quietest even if there's no refrigerator or AC running or any other appliance running.

[00:08:26]Just the ambient noise from being in an urban area and the interstate that's half a mile or a mile away and just cars driving on the roads around you and that sort of thing. And not to mention that some of my neighbors that are just obsessed with cranking up their leaf blowers. There'll be times of the day that maybe I want to listen to some music and I have to wait for them to finish doing their leaf blowing or cutting their grass or whatever to be able to listen to the music cuz the noise floor in the house goes up to you know, 50 55 sometimes 60 dBs depending on how loud their leaf blowers are. And being able to build a room that you could get you know, let's say at worst case it it drops 20 dBs and I bet it'll be even quieter than that. That that's going to be more of a noise floor improvement than any amount of money that you could spend on audio gear trying to reduce the noise floor.

[00:09:32]And so it just seems kind of wild to me that on one hand audiophiles are super focused on lowering the noise floor of their equipment but then the noise floor in the room nobody cares about.

[00:09:53]And comment below what you think about that.

[00:09:56]I mean, I can't imagine that once you get in a really quiet room that you wouldn't notice the difference in how the music sounds.

[00:10:08]Not having to all that ambient noise to deal with.

[00:10:12]And I'm pretty sure you're going to start hearing stuff in the recordings that you've never heard before.

[00:10:17]Those are some of the reasons that I'm really interested in trying to get this room quiet. And I did learn some interesting stuff too about that a room is only as quiet as the weakest link. Which in the vast majority of rooms is the door and windows are even worse. It's almost like if you're going to put a bunch of windows in a listening room, then don't bother with doing a bunch of soundproofing on the walls because it's not going to make any difference because you're going to hear the noise coming through the windows.

[00:10:56]And the same's true as the door that most doors don't get anywhere close to what the walls are in a dedicated listening room that's built out that way. And so, I'm going to be doing some stuff investigating different options on the door into the room and trying to figure that out. And the other thing too is part of this wall construction stuff is trying to lower the resonant frequency of the walls so that they're not ringing in an audible range, which normal wall construction does.

[00:11:39]And not only does it reflect that sound, it's amplifying it. Go research what resonant frequency does. That a small amount of input, you get a big input back. So, it's basically amplifying the frequencies that the wall resonates at.

[00:11:58]So, that's one of the things that I'm trying to work with my engineer team on is coming up with a construction technique that has low resonant frequency, but that's not crazy expensive to build, and that would also allow the strength to be able to like surface mount some of the things like lighting and possibly even the electrical outlets to avoid putting holes or penetrating the wall any more than we absolutely have to.

[00:12:34]And could save a ton of money not having to have buy all these putty pads for the electrical outlets and stuff like that to try to limit the noise that's coming through the electrical boxes. And again, the whole HVAC system has got to be designed with this in mind. And that's another thing that several people have noted, and you know, everybody's different, right?

[00:12:58]Some people love like opening the windows up in their house, like letting in the fresh air.

[00:13:04]I've lived here 40 years, and I can't think of but two or three times that I've opened the windows in my house. I just don't like letting pollen, dirt, noise, all that stuff into my house. And if I do want to do that, I've got like a sunroom with windows that I can open up and close off the rest of the house that it's just in that one little room that's turned it kind of into a screen porch that if I want that peeling, but I'm not worried at all about this room not having windows to open up to let the air in and you're not going to play the music with the windows open either.

[00:13:46]And so or I wouldn't where I live. Maybe if you live out in the country it's a different story, but anyway so I understand some people hey, you build your listening room absolutely put a dozen windows in it if that makes you happy, but I'm kind of explaining why I think that not having windows in this room is going to lengthen the time of the day that I can go out there and just really enjoy listening to music because it's going to simulate that dusk night time kind of feeling which by doing that sensory deprivation thing cuz even if you close your eyes when it's bright inside a room the light comes through your eyelids and you can tell that it's light in the room and it's not dark in the room.

[00:14:42]Anyway building this room has kind of spurred on a lot of thoughts about this whole audio thing and what we're doing and what we're not doing and what we're focused on and what we're not focused on and I understand you know, a lot of folks have very limited budget and you know, if your system or your whole investment that you can put into audio that you're willing to is you know, a thousand dollars or a few thousand dollars or whatever and I get that, you know, but I'm kind of at the point where I was considering investing in some higher end gear and I realized that my room was really the limit, not the gear.

[00:15:26]And I don't think until I get the room really sorted out, it just doesn't make sense to get any better gear than what I've got. Anyway, I just thought I'd share some of these ideas and thought processes I've been going through as I've been designing this room and honestly, your questions, while I may not agree with what you're saying, really did make me think deeper about you know, why is it that I think this room would be better with no windows psychologically?

[00:16:00]Cuz I can just envision being in that space and I've been in some home theater type environments that and people don't get claustrophobic and freak out when they're in a home theater and none of those have windows in them.

[00:16:15]And I've been in some home theater type spaces listening to music and while I've learned that those chairs, you know, the high back leather chairs and stuff they always put in those rooms, it's really bad for audio, that it does give you that feeling of being in I don't know, just being there and maybe part of it is that most of the clubs and stuff that I've gone to and listened to live music, it was always at night. And so it it brings about that feeling of it being you know, a special event kind of thing when it's at night, I guess, is part of it, too.

[00:16:55]And again, let me know your thoughts, whether you think I'm crazy. Hey, I probably am, but this is fun anyway, right? And so thanks for your support of the channel, thanks for you folks that are subscribers, Patreon supporters, members, have made donations and that sort of thing. This is a fun new 300 B amp I'm building for a customer and this is kind of the direction I'm going in on my higher end 300 B amps, but anyway, this is fun. Hope you're enjoying it, too. Until the next video, have a nice day.

[00:17:31]>> [music]