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Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

Sal1950

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My god I wish this type of post was allowed at Head-fi.
Welcome to ASR my friend!
That's the reason I mainly quit posting at Head-Fi about 6 years ago. Owners/moderation team have no interest in science or truth, only in not pissing off the sponsors.
 

jtgofish

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It seems many types of cognitive bias are involved here:
All Starts with "implicit bias" (thinking the more expensive music device should sound better) then follows with "expectation bias" (Tendency interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions) then they come to ASR forums armed with many other cognitive bias like; "belief bias" (Tendency to evaluate the logical strength of an argument based on current belief), "framing" (Tendency to narrow the description of a situation in order to guide to a selected conclusion), "Overconfidence effect" aka Dunning–Kruger effect (Tendency to overly trust one's own capability to make correct decisions. People tended to overrate their abilities and skills as decision makers)
And finally they end up with "anchoring bias" (The inability of people to make appropriate adjustments from a starting point in response to a final answer)

and yes I got all these from Wikipedia, lol
Yes all that is true but there is also no evidence to support the hypothesis that measurements can in any way help people decide which component will be to their sonic preference .Or put simply what sounds best to them.What is the point of comparing devices based on these parameters if we cannot show that there is a correlation with how something might sound?
As somebody else said "I then have to conclude that in terms of helping me decide which component is to my preference -I CAN'T TRUST MEASUREMENTS"

And of course if people have an expectation that something might sound good because it has good measurements that will create expectation bias.
 

Emlin

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Yes all that is true but there is also no evidence to support the hypothesis that measurements can in any way help people decide which component will be to their sonic preference .Or put simply what sounds best to them.What is the point of comparing devices based on these parameters if we cannot show that there is a correlation with how something might sound?
As somebody else said "I then have to conclude that in terms of helping me decide which component is to my preference -I CAN'T TRUST MEASUREMENTS"

And of course if people have an expectation that something might sound good because it has good measurements that will create expectation bias.
Uh hzzzzzzzzzzz.....
 

Peluvius

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Yes all that is true but there is also no evidence to support the hypothesis that measurements can in any way help people decide which component will be to their sonic preference .Or put simply what sounds best to them.What is the point of comparing devices based on these parameters if we cannot show that there is a correlation with how something might sound?
As somebody else said "I then have to conclude that in terms of helping me decide which component is to my preference -I CAN'T TRUST MEASUREMENTS"

And of course if people have an expectation that something might sound good because it has good measurements that will create expectation bias.

The objective is a key variable. Hear it as it was intended to be heard or hear it with some type of personalised colouration.

Would you walk through an art gallery with a colour filter over your eyes? Maybe you would and that is fine, but very different to how I would do it.
 

Emlin

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The objective is a key variable. Hear it as it was intended to be heard or hear it with some type of personalised colouration.

Would you walk through an art gallery with a colour filter over your eyes? Maybe you would and that is fine, but very different to how I would do it.
But he clearly thinks that Picasso got it wrong and that his blue period should have been shocking pink.
 

Sal1950

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.What is the point of comparing devices based on these parameters if we cannot show that there is a correlation with how something might sound?
What makes you say that?
It's fairly simple to reasonably correlate how a speaker might sound from it's measurements.
The rest of modern electronics are pretty much solved problems and if designed with transparency in mind will be extremely difficult if not impossible to tell one from the other using the ears only and eyes closed methods.
OTOH many of todays components are engineered (voiced) to sound a certain way and those deviations can also be identified thru measurement.
 

BDWoody

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Yes all that is true but there is also no evidence to support the hypothesis that measurements can in any way help people decide which component will be to their sonic preference .

If my sonic preference is a signal that isn't noisy or distorted with a flat frequency response, (in other words I prefer High Fidelity), how do measurements not show me what I need to know?

How well do you understand them?
 

jtgofish

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If my sonic preference is a signal that isn't noisy or distorted with a flat frequency response, (in other words I prefer High Fidelity), how do measurements not show me what I need to know?

How well do you understand them?
How would you know that is what you prefer if you have not conducted comparisons [ideally unsighted ] with components that have less "perfect" measurements?
 

Sal1950

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How would you know that is what you prefer if you have not conducted comparisons [ideally unsighted ] with components that have less "perfect" measurements?
You could always add a DRC system to your rig and then play with various FR till you find out what you like.
 

jtgofish

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The objective is a key variable. Hear it as it was intended to be heard or hear it with some type of personalised colouration.

Would you walk through an art gallery with a colour filter over your eyes? Maybe you would and that is fine, but very different to how I would do it.
No but I would only want to view paintings lighted in a way which perfectly reflected the lighting in the studio of the artist at the time of painting.That might include lighting from animal fat candles or daylight in Amsterdam in the winter of 1642.Anything other than that would not be accurate.The specialised modern lighting they use today which tends to highlight colours and textures and depth is not what you want because it makes these paintings look better and more enjoyable than they really are.
 

Emlin

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No but I would only want to view paintings lighted in a way which perfectly reflected the lighting in the studio of the artist at the time of painting.That might include lighting from animal fat candles or daylight in Amsterdam in the winter of 1642.Anything other than that would not be accurate.The specialised modern lighting they use today which tends to highlight colours and textures and depth is not what you want because it makes these paintings look better and more enjoyable than they really are.
I suspect that your views are best appreciated from under a bridge, where they originated.
 

Peluvius

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No but I would only want to view paintings lighted in a way which perfectly reflected the lighting in the studio of the artist at the time of painting.That might include lighting from animal fat candles or daylight in Amsterdam in the winter of 1642.Anything other than that would not be accurate.The specialised modern lighting they use today which tends to highlight colours and textures and depth is not what you want because it makes these paintings look better and more enjoyable than they really are.

I think that is a great point and consistent with the theme although I generally love the high CRI lighting used & have used this type of lighting for my home spaces as well (there is that personal preference creeping in). You just never really know exactly how it sounded when it was recorded unless you were there I guess.

To extrapolate on this, I would think that it is better to use a high CRI consistently rather than look at all the paintings using an animal fat candle light (whatever that may look like) wouldn't it?
 

jtgofish

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I think that is a great point and consistent with the theme although I generally love the high CRI lighting used & have used this type of lighting for my home spaces as well (there is that personal preference creeping in). You just never really know exactly how it sounded when it was recorded unless you were there I guess.

To extrapolate on this, I would think that it is better to use a high CRI consistently rather than look at all the paintings using an animal fat candle light (whatever that may look like) wouldn't it?
So you think some slight highlighting or embellishment and deviation "strictly accurate"might be lead to greater enjoyment and appreciation?
That is a pretty radical concept.Except of course it isn't!
 

Peluvius

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So you think some slight highlighting or embellishment and deviation "strictly accurate"might be lead to greater enjoyment and appreciation?
That is a pretty radical concept.Except of course it isn't!

But we are not talking about highlighting and embellishment, we are talking about accuracy and precision. We are specifically talking about a hypothetical situation in which we have learned that an artist used animal fat candles to light his studio and this had a bearing on the colours he/she intended to reflect in the work. In that case my preference would be to re-create the CRI & colour temperature of that light to see what was intended to be seen. Very specific and not applicable to other artwork or artists.

If your preference is to view all art work using that specific lighting condition then that is your choice.
 

SIY

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So you think some slight highlighting or embellishment and deviation "strictly accurate"might be lead to greater enjoyment and appreciation?
That is a pretty radical concept.Except of course it isn't!
That's why on the eighth day, God invented EQ.
 

jtgofish

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That's why on the eighth day, God invented EQ.
Except frequency response is only a small variable.I agree it might be of some help but it is only a small part of the total picture.I have used EQ and have never been convinced that it helps improve overall sound quality.Of course in some rooms [really bad rooms] it probably would but that has not been my experience.Plenty of friends have tried it but they have all given up on it.Auto EQ seems to consistantly make things sound worse.
 

pkane

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Except frequency response is only a small variable.I agree it might be of some help but it is only a small part of the total picture.I have used EQ and have never been convinced that it helps improve overall sound quality.Of course in some rooms [really bad rooms] it probably would but that has not been my experience.Plenty of friends have tried it but they have all given up on it.Auto EQ seems to consistantly make things sound worse.
Please list some of the other major variables, preferably based on something more substantial than the opinions of ‘plenty of friends’.
 

Mnyb

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Please list some of the other major variables, preferably based on something more substantial than the opinions of ‘plenty of friends’.
+1 fr response is actually the dominant variable and the single most important one as we as humans easily pick up variations here if they are in the wrong place ? ( did I understand the research here ). It should be a solved issue in electronics ( unless you buy some fringe high end ).

In acoustics it’s harder then the question gets to be “which fr response” as research have shown than some speakers take to eq very well and others don’t due to directivity errors . And personal taste is a factor here as speaker and rooms never get to inaudible levels of issues and always have some residual character , but it’s still mostly about managing fr response in some way .
 

Killingbeans

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Yes all that is true but there is also no evidence to support the hypothesis that measurements can in any way help people decide which component will be to their sonic preference .Or put simply what sounds best to them.What is the point of comparing devices based on these parameters if we cannot show that there is a correlation with how something might sound?
As somebody else said "I then have to conclude that in terms of helping me decide which component is to my preference -I CAN'T TRUST MEASUREMENTS"

Just because you can't correlate every nuance, doesn't mean all and any correlation goes out the window.

I'm pretty sure nobody enjoys a dominant standing wave in a room, or an amplifier that's forced into hard clipping.

Some things are just universally repulsive... like the taste of toothpaste+ orange juice. We are individuals, but we are not that individual.

IMO, the real question is at what point the line between objective performance and personal taste becomes fuzzy.

I suspect a lot of the reason why the correlation seems to be non existent is due to mental burn-in. If you subject youself to something mildly offensive for long enough, your brain can easily begin to perceive it as the new "correct". Once you remove the offensive component/effect, the brain will perceive it as "wong". Ironically the correct sound becomes offensive. It takes a new round of mental burn-in to make the brain accept normality. Most people don't like the idea of going through that agony, or they simply aren't aware of what's happening and interpret the experience as an idicator of personal taste.

And of course if people have an expectation that something might sound good because it has good measurements that will create expectation bias.

Absolutely true. Bias haunts us all, no matter what side of "the fence" we are on.
 

SIY

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Just because you can't correlate every nuance, doesn't mean all and any correlation goes out the window.
Once you put in basic controls so that evaluation is done by sound alone and look at the important (to the ear) variables, the correlation between measurements and sound is excellent.
 
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