by James Wallace Harris 1/29/26
I’ve come up with 5 reasons why I’m hearing more details in my music listening. And none of them is because I’ve bought better equipment. Some of those reasons might sound a bit woo-woo, but who knows.
I woke up early yesterday morning with the urge to hear music. I wasn’t ready to get up. The only headphones on my bedstand were a cheap pair of Bluetooth headphones I use for audiobooks. I put them on and loaded my standard Spotify playlist.
“My River” by Kristin Diable came on. It sounded amazing. For weeks, my den and bedroom stereos have sounded much better than ever. What’s going on? I’m talking a dramatic night-and-day difference on these headphones. Were my ears improving?
1 -Physiological?
Weeks ago, I stopped taking a drug I’d had been taking for years. When I asked my doctor about my chronic stuffy nose, she mentioned that sinus congestion was a side effect of that drug. Slowly, over recent weeks, I feel myself breathing more through my nose. Could this also have affected my hearing?
The only problem with this theory is that I don’t remember hearing music like this before I took the drug. Nor do I remember a decline in hearing after I started taking the drug.
2 – Time of Day?
As I lay there in the dark listening to music, all the instruments were clear and distinct. I heard little guitar riffs and drum fills I’d never noticed before. Could I have been dreaming? Diable’s voice was so multi-textured.
I do love listening to music on headphones while I sleep because sometimes I achieve a state of consciousness between sleep and awake, and I feel like I’m floating inside the music. But I was awake this morning.
I think I always hear music better late at night or early in the morning when I’m using headphones. Yesterday morning was special. It felt like a peak event. This morning, I played music again at the same time, and the music was equally vivid.
However, this doesn’t explain why music sounds better at other times during the day. Not quite as impressive as the headphones this morning, but I’ve been noticing a definite improvement in staging and fidelity.
3 – Focus?
The other day, I read an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s new book titled “How to Have a Don’t-Know Mind.” It was from the last chapter of A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness, due out next month. That chapter was about staying at a Zen Buddhist retreat, where he learned that shutting off his mind led to greater powers of awareness. He spent days in a “cave” with few distractions, forcing him to slow his racing thoughts.
Was listening to music in the dark before it was time to get up, a time when my mind was inactive, letting me hear more?
Audiophiles claim to hear greater details in music than average listeners. Is that just the ability to focus? I remember back in the 1960s, and how smoking pot made music sound great. I quit getting high over fifty years ago, but I remember that I decided then that pot didn’t enhance music, but altered time and concentration. I’ve always tried to pay close attention while listening. I don’t like using music as background noise.
4 – Sense of Time
I remember getting a friend high, one who was an avid music listener, and he exclaimed that he heard things in his favorite songs he never heard before. We theorized that it might be because pot distorted our sense of time. When time slows down, we hear more.
That altered sense of time could explain why music sounds better when I’m sleeping or just waking up. But it doesn’t explain why my daytime listening also improved. Not as much, but noticeable. Maybe during the day, I’m relaxing more, focusing on the music more, slowing time down.
Maybe I should train my mind to meditate on music and shut out everything else.
5 – Technology
I was awake when Kristin Diable’s voice sounded so rich and alluring. I wasn’t in a dream state, where music sounds unbelievable. Audiophiles talk about headphones and speakers needing a burn-in period. I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of audiobooks with the Earfun headphones, but only a few hours of music. Could they have reached a burn-in stage for music?
And I haven’t listened to these headphones since Spotify switched to CD-quality streaming. That could be another factor.
But then why were the Klipsch and Polk speakers also sounding much better, too?
Conclusion
Later in the day, the music still sounded good on those headphones, but not as impressive as when I was in bed before sunrise. I tried those headphones again this morning at the same time, and wow, oh, wow.
The first song I heard was “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a piano piece, and I thought I could discern the separate notes in chords. Every instrument sounded so distinct. I could place each spatially, and I was aware of the duration of notes. It had to be an altered sense of time.
Then I listened to “Me & Magdalena” by The Monkees. Before now, I thought only Mike sang it, but this time I could hear both Mike and Micky.
And I’m sure some people have always been able to hear such details. Even though I’ve been crazy about music since 1962, and have spent many tens of thousands of hours listening to it, I’m probably still learn how to listen. Still learning to distinguish the components that make up a gestalt.
Before I publish this, I’ve thought of one more reason. I’m getting old and retreating from the world. Music has become a refuge. I get more pleasure from listening to music than doing anything else. I wonder if the Williamson effect is taking hold of me. I had a friend named Williamson who, before he died, lost interest in his many passions, one by one. The last time I talked to him, he said listening to Duane Allman and Benny Goodman were the only things he cared about. I’ve wondered if he got down to just one before he died. Or even none.
My list of favorite things is dwindling. It’s still in the dozens, though, so I have a ways to go.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 