Human beliefs sure are weird. Why is it so difficult to get audiophiles to accept the existence of perceptual bias?

[Blumlein 88]

I have lots of personal data, some of it blind.

Maybe an area of life where lots of testing is blind.

 

[Ron Texas]

Actually, the alcohol does get into the inner ear, specifically into the endolymph of the inner ear's scala media (not shown in the diagram).

That moisturizing is best done by ingesting the alcohol and having it delivered in the bloodstream.

 

[digicidal]

That moisturizing is best done by ingesting the alcohol and having it delivered in the bloodstream.

And conducting blind testing just requires a larger quantity than usual.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

That moisturizing is best done by ingesting the alcohol and having it delivered in the bloodstream.

That is the recommended procedure.

 

[Ron Texas]

That is the recommended procedure.

Yeah, buddy, Doc.

 

[yuki900]

Has anyone ever found it funny when a reviewer is offended when there stuff is questioned?. There one who on Reddit that does this, Where he gave a user a wall of text how objectives are assholes. Because yeah I'm not gonna read stuff by a dude who can't handle when objective data proves his opinions wrong.

Like how very poor coherency is on hybrid IEM's.

 

[bigguyca]

That video brings up another issue with subjective reviews... in that they almost always conveniently forget application. Although this can be a factor in objective analysis as well. Say there's an amp that has lower noise to 50W but then it rises sharply, and another that's not as clean but maintains that level to 200W - if you have sensitive speakers and listen at low volume, the first should be subjectively better... but for a different application not nearly as good as the second one.

In the case of the cars... I doubt anyone would prefer (if offered for free) a busted rally car over an exotic supercar... unless their commute is through 2 feet of snow - then suddenly the former becomes the only viable choice.

So many subjective reviews would be less offensive if every statement were followed with the words "For me in my system" - but so often they instead use definitive statements which are seldom accurate and never universal. That's even before you consider that they're often talking about things that cannot be a universally definitive criteria at all (i.e. a 65 year old talking about the fantastic high frequency entension).

Only a very poorly designed power amplifier would have a sharply rising S/N ratio with power output. Normally all the flavors of distortion rise as a fraction of signal level with increasing output level at the power output levels you mention, but noise does not.

 

[bigguyca]

Why is so much time spent on this forum and others discussing and criticizing subjective reviewers? Not just because he's here, but Kal is the only subjective-type reviewer that I like. I do like John Atkinson’s measurements, anyway… I just skip all the rest, why waste the time? These subjective reviewers are controlling a person who spends time really feeling a dislike for them. Hasn't anyone here learned that in life?

At times, someone in a forum will worry if the stationary banner at the bottom of their TV screen is going to burn in to their OLED TV. This likely means the person watches one of the pundit-laden cable channels and spends much of their day worried or frankly hating one politician or another. No matter your politics, does that seem a healthy and productive way to spend time? This sort of forum thread seems very similar.

 

[ahofer]

Why is so much time spent on this forum and others discussing and criticizing subjective reviewers?.

Imagine if the energy of all these manufacturers and critics were turned towards more objective endeavors than bling and magic.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Imagine if the energy of all these manufacturers and critics were turned towards more objective endeavors than bling and magic.

Then 98% of them die....

 

[egellings]

Biological creatures suffer from lack of precise repeatability.

 

[watchnerd]

Cognitive bias prevents us from perceiving perceptual bias.

 

[BDWoody]

 

[Snarfie]

Cognitive bias prevents us from perceiving perceptual bias.

I all ready have a difficulty to comprehend the word Cognitive.

"The term cognition comes from the Latin word cognoscere, which means knowing or knowing. Depending on the context, it can stand for knowledge, a belief, mind, the ability to learn, remember and exchange knowledge, and so on."

 

[Julf]

I all ready have a difficulty to comprehend the word Cognitive.

"The term cognition comes from the Latin word cognoscere, which means knowing or knowing. Depending on the context, it can stand for knowledge, a belief, mind, the ability to learn, remember and exchange knowledge, and so on."

"A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality."

 

[Snarfie]

"A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality."

Exactly

 

[Soniclife]

My expectation bias is that this has already been posted in this thread.
https://yourbias.is/

 

[dasdoing]

I feel like confirmation bias plays a big role, too

 

[egellings]

I think the whole thing hinges on the fact that you can't know what a listener is really hearing, since all you have to go on is a description of the perceived sound quality by the listener. Now if there were a little jack on the back of our heads that we could connect to test instrumentation, or better yet, if we could connect ourselves up to someone else's ears and listen through them using those whimsical little jacks and the cable of choice, then maybe we could know for sure.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I think the whole thing hinges on the fact that you can't know what a listener is really hearing, since all you have to go on is a description of the perceived sound quality by the listener. Now if there were a little jack on the back of our heads that we could connect to test instrumentation, or better yet, if we could connect ourselves up to someone else's ears and listen through them using those whimsical little jacks and the cable of choice, then maybe we could know for sure.

When it gets to the science of biology rather than physics one has to accept multiple tests and statistics, which is why nobody working on this sort of thing waited for, or tried to invent devices like this
There have been enough tests and statistical analyses there of to have a high degree of confidence in the things like the equal loudness curves and frequency sensitivity, ie what humans can actually hear.
I find it hard to believe every hifi equipment enthusiast is a statistical outlier.