Calibration

Well, it has been a while, but I am back. Again.

Anyhoo. This week I attended a meeting of my local audio society. The presentation was by a man who was a teacher at a technical college who taught in their Sound Arts program. Part of what he taught was critical listening skills. He brought along an ear training program and put is through a few of its tests. As an aside, I did very well which was nice to discover.

However, this sparked a bit of a discussion about how an audiophile goes about calibrating his or her ears. I have heard many audiophiles say that you need to "go out and hear live music". Which is not bad advice, but lets investigate the practicality. For example, tickets for Beethoven's Triple Concerto on March 7th at the San Francisco Symphony start at $37. For each ticket. So if you and a friend want to go you are looking at at least $74. For a beginning audiophile with not much disposable income that is not too piratical to do too often. There are definitely cheaper options, but even at half that price it is hard to do to frequently. And what if you do not like symphonies or choral music or even jazz that much. How many rock and roll shows have you seen where the music is not heavily processed? This all just leads me to wonder where to go to find live music to listen to to calibrate my ears. I saw a live performance the other day, the group was just a piano and a drum kit, but it was very closely miked which kinda killed the "real"-ness of it. Is there anything out there?