Recent content by BusDriver

Subjective measures to me is only useful as long as it could be controlled, could be reliably repeated, and could have statistics applied. Otherwise it would amount to anecdotes, and then whether or not your experiences align with them becomes a crapshoot. It's also worth mentioning that this...

Conspiracy theories are tempting narratives for the bored and unsatisfied to become the imagined hero in a struggle for good vs bad. It's also a great way for grifters to amass power and money without much repercussion. This creates a toxic mix. We should always be mindful of those in power, of...

Sorry for a few random thoughts: 1) Faults in aircraft design does not necessitate us to believe in magic carpets: This popped into my head after reading the "peer review is flawed" argument. I agree that it is, and I would support anyone who is working on solving issues involving peer review...

The $1500 bracket has a few big hitters. You already mentioned HD8XX, and since that isn't out yet, I can't say anything about it. However, HD800(S) has been recognized to have some of the biggest soundstage there is, and they are pretty detailed to boot. However, they trend towards bright, and...

I do biological/medical research and placebo is not such an amazing thing that causes physiological changes. In fact, it's mostly short-lived, and most prominent in pain perception. It does not "cure" anything, least of all cancer. It makes you feel better at most, for a short while. A lot of...

A placebo effect is an actual change in experience, yes, but it's a change in experience to a cause that's not there, thus it is also perceived change that is not there. In this case I'm treating the EQ change as an experimental condition, thus the actual effect would be the different between...

You're probably right; even if there's an effect it's probably too small to measure or matter. Just that with EQ evaluation, I think the proper control is listening to randomized EQ (blinded) with similar parameters instead of comparing to no EQ. I wonder if anybody has done that? I imagine it...

Wonderful news as I'm a pure headphone listener. While I understand the Harman target (well, maybe not totally) and the need for a target curve for EQ. I wonder how much increased enjoyment you experienced with EQ was placebo. We know that if we change anything in our audio system that we think...

Not off the top of my head. I found Horikawa after watching a Joshua Valour video talking about test tracks. I don't like everything on the video and I'm not trying to promote his channel, but at least I like this recommendation. Edit: Oh, and for big, expansive, electronic sound, I like...

So if you're not so sure when you listen blind, but know the difference when you see them. You're pretty much saying that sight alters your perception of sound? This is actually true since your senses all influence each other. However, as the products are primarily made to produce sound...

I only listen to headphones, and I don't really "test listen" as much as I should... I end up just enjoying myself and forgetting about comparisons in the end. However, I like Yosi Horikawa's work for testing if you can call it that. His music is a blend of binaural natural sounds and the 3D...

Hi everyone, long time lurker first time poster here. I'm a neuroscience researcher so even before going into the audiophile world I had some knowledge of the fallibility of human perception, cognition, and memory. From day 1 the wild prices and claims about random boutique gear raised multiple...