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Lack of high-end speaker reviews

Most of the data from Toole and Olive's testing say this is not true.

If we take that to be the case, then what are your thoughts on the conundrum I keep raising?

What applicability would what people hear in blind testing have to recommending what we should choose for sighted listening?

Unless there is some level of accuracy in sighted listening, whereby we apprehend the actual sonic differences found pleasant in blind listening, I can not see the connection. It would seem to recommend using sighted listening instead, since that is the use case that is actually closer to how you'll perceive the loudspeaker.




As in people rank very highly from sighted listening things they rank very poorly unsighted. I am making the presumption that unsighted we are judging only by sound, and sighted other factors not related to sound effect judgement.

We know people can acclimate to some significant differences in frequency response. Wasn't it you who said someone had a video projector with a purple blotch they didn't notice. I've seen similar things with all of our senses.

Yes, but I think we have to be careful in appealing to specific instances or anomalies to "prove the rule." We can point to optical illusions, but that doesn't argue that our sight is always unreliable. Likewise, while my pal surely adjusted to a projector that was failing slowly over time, I think there's little doubt that if he had the original correct image and then the purple blotch was flashed on and off the image, he'd perceive the difference, just as I did in not having gone through the acclimatization.

Similarly, it's not unreasonable to expect that if I set up an equalizer in my friend's system, and played with the knobs while he couldn't see what I was doing, that he'd still recognize changes in the sound. I mean, the reason I EQ sounds all the time, and the reason studio engineers even bother with EQ is that the changes they make will be perceptible to the listeners. We can adduce times when they are not, but certainly many times where they are (why do people care about, much less complain about, different masterings?)

So my issue isn't with whether we can acclimate to sound, which we can, or that we can't prefer one thing over the other in sighted listening but not in blind listening. It's whether we can ascribe ANY accuracy to sighted speaker listening, and if so what kind of inferences can or can not be justified in non-blinded conditions.

As I say, if you push the skepticism too far, you reach incoherence (and you start to losing explanatory power).
 
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crossover tweaked for two different European markets
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Do different markets have different taste in sound according to Harman?
 
... if you push the skepticism too far, you reach incoherence (and you start to lack explanatory power).
We all know who is pushing the scepticism too far.
 
We all know who is pushing the scepticism too far.

I think it's telling you keep avoiding this question.

It is not disputed that blind testing is the most reliable way of concluding what speakers sound like, and determining preferences strictly for sound.

The issue arises when we try to leverage the results of blind testing outside those test conditions - that is, using the results of blind testing to recommend which type of speakers will sound best in SIGHTED listening conditions, which are the conditions in which people actually use speakers!

This site uses the criteria arrived at in blind test studies to recommend "good" or "bad" speakers for sighted listening use cases.

And I'll pose it once again:

If we can only reliably perceive the sound characteristics of speakers in blind listening, then what use are blind test results for determining which speakers to use in sighted listening? How is it applicable at all?

I can explain how it's applicable. I'm waiting to see if you can.

(Hint: why do you think Harman bothered with the studies in the first place, and designed speakers based on blind listening preferences, if those preferences were not to some relevant degree translatable to sighted listening? And if you can percieve the real sonic characteristics of a Harman speaker in it's actual use case, sighted listening, you have to be careful how far to push skepticism about sighted listening).
 
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Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Do different markets have different taste in sound according to Harman?
No they don't. The company had assumed they do, then Toole came along and dispelled the notion.
 
You accused me of employing "egregious slight of hand"

Just as well it was slight, which can't really be egregious. Sleight of hand would be another matter. :)
 
:p
 
If we take that to be the case, then what are your thoughts on the conundrum I keep raising?

What applicability would what people hear in blind testing have to recommending what we should choose for sighted listening?

Unless there is some level of accuracy in sighted listening, whereby we apprehend the actual sonic differences found pleasant in blind listening, I can not see the connection. It would seem to recommend using sighted listening instead, since that is the use case that is actually closer to how you'll perceive the loudspeaker.
The applicability is design speakers from blind listening to be good instead of a crap shoot. Then, if bias otherwise effects speaker choice you have a good speaker. Why would you design what you know is a mediocre speaker and make up for it with other factors and consider that a good outcome? I've already implied if a speaker is bad enough you can hear it either way. Why push those limits? The situation certainly does not indicate to me this recommends sighted listening.

I suppose you have the same situation with single ended triode amps. We know what the good amplifier result is and we know SETs are fabulous designs if they only work in a somewhat flawed manner rather than a hugely flawed manner. Yet some people like them. Some of that is from sighted bias. Some of it is they are really bad enough they genuinely do sound very different. Users hold a similar opinion to what you are holding here. Sighted listening, bad design that I listen to and enjoy anyway. Etc etc. I'm not claiming you are holding out for bad designs, but I don't see how that is not a partial result with sighted only evaluations. We know for certainty what an amp or preamp should do. Yet people like some other designs anyway. I don't think we have anything like the same certainty for what a speaker should do. Instead a good hint and broad outlines of what is better rather than worse.

"So my issue isn't with whether we can acclimate to sound, which we can, or that we can't prefer one thing over the other in sighted listening but not in blind listening. It's whether we can ascribe ANY accuracy to sighted speaker listening, and if so what kind of inferences can or can not be justified in non-blinded conditions.

As I say, if you push the skepticism too far, you reach incoherence (and you start to losing explanatory power)."


I don't know if you do lose explanatory power. You lose any practical way to choose speakers. I don't think you'll get far telling people they should not listen to speakers instead buy only by the specs or you are foolish. At least for the time being we are not in a place where skepticism is too much, rather that it is not enough in general. I would say while there is some accuracy for sighted listening it is more limited than most think.

Think about what it would mean if we could figure out the best way the speaker should perform. I can now buy DACs, amps, most anything not a transducer without worrying about anything other than features, cost, appearance and reliability. Transparent sound quality is a given. If speakers should be developed to that level, there might be people who just want something different. Like SETs still have a market and are definitively not transparent or accurate. So what would you think if speakers as dependably perfect as amps were available. You wouldn't listen not because there is no accuracy to doing so, but because the component accuracy is beyond us and there is no need. Look at how much trouble we have convincing people the electronics don't sound different.
 
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And I'll pose it once again:

If we can only reliably perceive the sound characteristics of speakers in blind listening, then what use are blind test results for determining which speakers to use in sighted listening? How is it applicable at all?
Because sighted listening tests result in distorted results, as they are sighted and that affects impression. Blind test is more accurate as they are not influenced by the ’sight’ of the item. We are interested on the ‘sound’ of the item. Likewise, it’s more accurate to test without knowing the price.

What you seem to be saying is that if a speaker looks really pretty it will ‘actually’ sound better to the person listening to it while looking at it. No, it may perceivably sound better. Else, all a speaker designer needs to do is make a speaker that looks extremely handsome and pleasing on the eye (and throw a high price tag on it) and to hell with both the measurements and the blind listening test results. Of course, we know that sometimes this is exactly what happens, and by measuring and testing blindly we can call them out. ASR do the measurement challenge.
 
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Where is the evidence that sighted listening impressions are constant over time? If they survive changes in (date, location, emotional state, retrograde of Mercury) then sighted listening should be weighted. If not, then they are just an obfuscating factor.

Some time back I bought an integrated amp that just ... sounded wrong. Only on music that I was familiar with, it didn't bother me on new tracks I hadn't heard before. It still sounded wrong—on things I'd heard before—several months later, an impression that was as persistent as can be. I wasn't sure what was weirdest: the fact that the normal measurement suite (which I perused before purchase, of course) wasn't predictive, or that I had long-term memory for some sort of sonic signature.

Eventually got a different power amp and used the errant integrated as a DAC/pre-amp and with that combination my old music was good again. Never got to the bottom of it. I toyed with the idea of buying a (not-inexpensive) comparator box and doing the controlled testing thing, but fantastically enough the system was struck by lightning which killed everything on the LAN (never plug the blue wire into your audio gear, children). Insurance paid handsomely but I just bought a multi-channel DAC to replace it and kept the change.

Anyway everyone knows Mercury rules technology, so never buy stuff when it's retrograde. Listening is fine. Worry more about the Moon affecting your listening moods. :p
 
Some time back I bought an integrated amp that just ... sounded wrong. Only on music that I was familiar with, it didn't bother me on new tracks I hadn't heard before. It still sounded wrong on things I'd heard before several months later, an impression that was as persistent as can be. I wasn't sure what was weirdest: the fact that measurements (which I perused before purchase, of course) wasn't predictive, or that I had long-term memory for some sort of sonic signature.
I'm half joking but what if it/you had swapped LR channels? That would've been perfect explanation
 
I'm half joking but what if it/you had swapped LR channels? That would've been perfect explanation

Fair anough: level, balance, polarity and phase issues were possibilities I did play around with to some degree. Also tried Sonarworks EQ and LP correction. And listened to L and R separately, measured and compared THD profiles, things like that. Yes, it’s possible that the amp was incorrectly wired to the speaker outputs but correctly wired to the pre-outs? I didn’t look inside for that. My conclusion was something odd in the power amp stage, but it remains a mystery.

My response to @Marquee Smith was more about the persistence of the sighted listening impressions that the whole episode involved.
 
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If we can only reliably perceive the sound characteristics of speakers in blind listening, then what use are blind test results for determining which speakers to use in sighted listening? How is it applicable at all?
As stated before, if the speaker is at least decent with no glaring problems then one's biases can make it sound good. This is exactly why the subjective reviews are the majority.

If that is enough for you then by all means go with it. I don't think anybody here is challenging the fact that if you have positive emotional reaction to a piece of equipment it will make you perceive it as better than you would when testing blind. And this perception is completely real: if you could measure the amount of enjoyment from the brain there would be no difference in imagined and real sound differences. Same applies to cables, DACs etc. Still, there are some that want to reduce the effect by starting with more or less well performing devices and then picking the one that gives them best emotional reaction. For some the best emotional reaction might come from having flawlessly measuring device, for some others the design or manufacturer might be it.

Disagreement begins when somebody tries to explain this phenomenon with some magical qualities that really exists outside of the individual listeners brain and can not be measured. If you go there you just need to show the proof, simple as that.
 
We are interested on the ‘sound’ of the item.
Ultimately, I am interested in long term, good quality and well perceived (essentially by me) information retrieval and presentation in a sighted listening environment.

That means that I have to consider both objective and my own subjective impressions. The objective tells me that the sound waves are good. The subjective tells me that I can live with and appreciate the results.

The problem with other people's subjective impressions is simply that I may not share them. However, I can be fairly sure that some subjective responses would be heard by me. We know this from the perception of major faults and setup issues, so if someone recognises a blown tweeter, that the channels are the wrong way round or that a speaker is wired out of phase, we can believe them when they write that down.
 
Ultimately, I am interested in long term, good quality and well perceived (essentially by me) information retrieval and presentation in a sighted listening environment.

That means that I have to consider both objective and my own subjective impressions. The objective tells me that the sound waves are good. The subjective tells me that I can live with and appreciate the results.

The problem with other people's subjective impressions is simply that I may not share them. However, I can be fairly sure that some subjective responses would be heard by me. We know this from the perception of major faults and setup issues, so if someone recognises a blown tweeter, that the channels are the wrong way round or that a speaker is wired out of phase, we can believe them when they write that down.

Yes I agree with this approach basically.

The last para describes something that sometimes gets a bit lost in the "sighted listening is biased" position. I described a sighted sonic characteristic above that even though unusual/unexpected was quite persistent through time and multiple comparisons. Other times I've had a subjective sonic impression that basically disappears on repeated listening. Obviously I'll give more weight to the former, and less to the latter, even though neither are confirmed by a fully controlled listening comparison.
 
...back to the conundrum I raised: What is the applicability of blind listening results to predicting what someone will hear in the SIGHTED conditions they will actually use the speaker? If it's no good for predicting what you'll hear in sighted listening, how can it be a useful criteria for buying speakers that you'll listen to sighted? One may as well buy via the method you'll be using when listening: Sighted listening.
...Now, my position is, I believe, a coherent one. The results of blind speaker listening tests ARE relevant, to some degree, to sighted listening. That's what makes them useful! But that is because sighted listening, while clearly not as reliable as blind testing, is at least reliable *enough* to apprehend the character of loudspeakers, so that you'd appreciate in sighted listening to some degree what was appreciated in blind testing.
...what are your thoughts on the conundrum I keep raising?
What applicability would what people hear in blind testing have to recommending what we should choose for sighted listening?
Unless there is some level of accuracy in sighted listening, whereby we apprehend the actual sonic differences found pleasant in blind listening, I can not see the connection. It would seem to recommend using sighted listening instead, since that is the use case that is actually closer to how you'll perceive the loudspeaker....
I think it's telling you keep avoiding this question...And I'll pose it once again: If we can only reliably perceive the sound characteristics of speakers in blind listening, then what use are blind test results for determining which speakers to use in sighted listening? How is it applicable at all?
I can explain how it's applicable. I'm waiting to see if you can.
(Hint: why do you think Harman bothered with the studies in the first place, and designed speakers based on blind listening preferences, if those preferences were not to some relevant degree translatable to sighted listening? And if you can percieve the real sonic characteristics of a Harman speaker in it's actual use case, sighted listening, you have to be careful how far to push skepticism about sighted listening).
Here is your argument in a nutshell:-

If, (a) sighted listening leads to terrible misevaluations of how much we actually like the sound waves themselves,
Then, (b) well that sucks, and makes it impracticably difficult to choose gear on the basis of sound waves themselves,
So, (c) sighted listening must be somewhat good at evaluating the sound waves themselves.

You can dress it up in a multitude of technicolour dreamcoat whataboutisms, but that’s about the extent of it.

And that is why your position is fundamentally denialistic. It almost comes across as a variety of God In The Gaps argumentativeness. You are going to ask a thousand questions in a thousand threads that you think are clever, and if every one of them isn’t answered to your personal satisfaction, then it’s (c). But, like GITG, it’s fundamentally illogical and presumptuous, and like GITG the correct answer is “we don’t know everything yet so can’t answer every question/whataboutism yet, but jumping from that fact to “a+b=c” is the least logical conclusion of all, and the most fundamentally flawed.”

Instead, current audio science is telling us, to your great disaffectedness, that:-
(A) sighted listening leads to terrible misevaluations of how much we actually like the sound waves themselves,
So (B) use controlled listening tests if we want to choose the gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer,
Or, (C) use a clever proxy for controlled listening tests, namely a specific suite of measurements plus interpretative guidelines that have been experimentally determined to apply to us all quite evenly and with sufficient confidence to be useful, and likely to lead to us choosing the gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer,
Or, (D) abandon the whole idea of choosing audio gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer, and choose gear using a method that is largely delusional but, but like all delusions, can lead to happiness…or hellishness.

Our choice. Basically, the red pill via B or C, or the blue pill via D. Turns out your conundrum doesn’t beg a solution, it begs a choice. I have previously proposed a hybrid option, where we shortlist gear from B or C, then go via D (sighted biased listening) to pick from the shortlist. That way, at least, our sighted choices are 'harmless' to the sound waves.

One of the nice things about choosing the red pill, is that it takes us closer to hearing the sound waves that the recording production team heard, and wanted us to experience as a result of their effort, creativity and skill. The blue pill loses sight of that.

PS I have already raised the conundrum myself and discussed it in past threads, and in discussions that you were definitely posting into, so I take it as disingenuous that you are 'waiting for my answer'. This is unnecessary rehash, driven by your denialism and wishful thinking on the one point where your skin in the game is hindering your acceptance of the lessons from audio science: that sighted listening is not a good way of learning about the sonic attributes of the sound waves themselves.
 
Well, it's no wonder you avoided this for so long.


A reminder: The issue I raise is not merely about "preference" but about "the accuracy in what we are perceiving."

Whenever I dare to describe the sonic characteristics of loudspeakers, you (and some others) often pop up to denigrate my doing so on the basis it was in sighted listening conditions, which...as you have just re-emphasized in this thread, are too inaccurate to be taken seriously. The implication being that bias so distorts our perception in sighted conditions, we can not be expected to accurately perceive the sound. Which is why any descriptions of sonic characteristics based on sighted listening are null and void.

THAT is the issue I'm addressing.

So....

Here is your argument in a nutshell:-

If, (a) sighted listening leads to terrible misevaluations of how much we actually like the sound waves themselves,
Then, (b) well that sucks, and makes it impracticably difficult to choose gear on the basis of sound waves themselves,
So, (c) sighted listening must be somewhat good at evaluating the sound waves themselves.

No that is a totally illogical formulation and not the question I asked, nor what I have argued. How do these things get so scrambled when you read them Newman?

Here is the issue, again:

A: IF speaker blind listening tests can not predict how we will perceive the sound of a loudspeaker in sighted conditions: what use is blind listening as a guide to selecting speakers for sighted listening?

Alternatively:

B: IF speaker blind listening tests CAN predict how we will perceive the sound of a loudspeaker in sighted conditions: What EXPLAINS that predictability?


Your reply avoided those issues.

For A, if the results of blind testing - and the preferred measurement suite/curve derived from such tests - have no predictive relationship with sighted listening, then it seems you've reduced the relevance of the blind test data to mere academic interest. Like chasing ever decreasing SINAD numbers that you'll never hear anyway. So it's like "I'll just buy the speaker because I know it passed some studies, even though I'll never hear the sound quality anyway." Now, clearly that is NOT the approach people on this site are taking in regards to loudspeakers. People are clearly evaluating which loudspeakers to buy on the premise that the measurements will, in fact, predict what they perceive in their actual use case: sighted listening.

Further: How would you explain the actions of Harman Kardon, well known for employing blind testing in order to guide their speaker designs? They know their speakers are used by customers in sighted listening conditions. Yet they spent all that money and effort in seeking blind test results for speaker preferences. This was clearly on the assumption that the results of the blind listening tests would translate to sighted listening: that the particular sonic characteristics heard in blind listening would also be perceived in sighted listening. If sighted listening so distorted perception of the sound as to be wholly unreliable, then there would be no predictive quality between the blind testing and sighted listening, rendering their whole project irrational. Do you think Harman Kardon engaged in irrational research for their product?

This all speaks to "B."

If the results of blind listening CAN predict how we will perceive the sound in sighted conditions, what would best explain that...other than that sighted listening IS, to a relevant degree, accurate enough to perceive the "real sound waves?" What other option can you give us?

But if sighted listening is at least accurate enough to perceive the "real sound waves" of a Harmon or other loudspeaker, then it makes sense to temper the level of skepticism aimed at sighted listening. It can't be "THAT" inaccurate all the time. And so a discussion of when it's reasonable to accept sighted listening impressions, as I often bring up, is entirely apt and not some "GOTCHA AGAINST THE SCIENCE."

So on to how you didn't answer this issue....


Instead, current audio science is telling us, to your great disaffectedness, that:-
(A) sighted listening leads to terrible misevaluations of how much we actually like the sound waves themselves,
So (B) use controlled listening tests if we want to choose the gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer,

Hold on: "most prefer?" You mean "most prefer" under blind listening conditions right? What about what we'll hear under the actual sighted conditions for our loudspeaker? If your sighted listening is totally inaccurate, then you will not hear the "sound you prefer" in your sighted listening! So there is no connection between the relevance of the "sound you prefer" blinded vs how you'll actually use the speaker.

See how you aren't answering this problem?

Or, (C) use a clever proxy for controlled listening tests, namely a specific suite of measurements plus interpretative guidelines that have been experimentally determined to apply to us all quite evenly and with sufficient confidence to be useful, and likely to lead to us choosing the gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer,

Which contains the same unanswered questions. Will the "clever proxy" predict how you will perceive the speaker in sighted conditions...or not? And if it will, if your sighted listening tracks with measurement...wouldn't that imply your sighted listening has some accuracy?

Or, (D) abandon the whole idea of choosing audio gear that produces sound waves themselves that we most prefer, and choose gear using a method that is largely delusional but, but like all delusions, can lead to happiness…or hellishness.

Which is a bunch of gobbledygook that doesn't address the issue.


Our choice. Basically, the red pill via B or C, or the blue pill via D. Turns out your conundrum doesn’t beg a solution, it begs a choice. I have previously proposed a hybrid option, where we shortlist gear from B or C, then go via D (sighted biased listening) to pick from the shortlist. That way, at least, our sighted choices are 'harmless' to the sound waves.

All of which presumes the translation of the criteria to our perception in sighted conditions! Which only makes sense if sighted conditions allow some level of "actually perceiving the sound correctly."

Remember: it's not merely about The Sound Waves - what matters is What We Perceive, whether we percieve the sound waves with any relevant accuracy!

One of the nice things about choosing the red pill, is that it takes us closer to hearing the sound waves that the recording production team heard, and wanted us to experience as a result of their effort, creativity and skill. The blue pill loses sight of that.

But...under sighted conditions? That is how you use your speakers, right? If you don't accurately perceive the sound in your sighted conditions, how would you ever have a chance to accurately percieve what the recording production team heard?

You have not at all produced a coherent answer...which I think is due to either not understanding the issue, or just being so worried about being "trapped" and giving any credence to sighted listening, that you'll bend over backwards to avoid the problem.
 
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Yes I agree with this approach basically.

The last para describes something that sometimes gets a bit lost in the "sighted listening is biased" position. I described a sighted sonic characteristic above that even though unusual/unexpected was quite persistent through time and multiple comparisons. Other times I've had a subjective sonic impression that basically disappears on repeated listening. Obviously I'll give more weight to the former, and less to the latter, even though neither are confirmed by a fully controlled listening comparison.

I have a similar approach.

For the informal scenario in which I listen to my system, I basically look at the persistence of an impression and it's plausibility.

So I had the impression when changing music servers that perhaps the sound got a little more bright or brittle. This was too implausible from what I know, and a blind test showed I couldn't tell between the servers. That impression, which was on the "is it there or not?" level quickly vanished.

Likewise, recently I had to re-cable a bit and had to return some super expensive blingy XLR cables I'd been using which were loaned to me (only because I needed some cables, not that I cared they were ultra high end). I replaced them with some $40 Audiblast cables from Amazon, with the assumption there'd be no change in sound. But right after swapping in the cheaper cables I had a sort of impression "did something change? Does it sound a little different, maybe a little more forward with the cheaper cables?"
It was a very hard to grasp "am I imagining this?" impression, but at first seemed almost distinct. This of course is not unexpected - it's how our brains work, as even Amir points out he "hears" cable differences sighted even though he knows from the measurements the signal hasn't changed at all. I found the impression of a sonic change faded pretty quickly, and soon it was obvious that everything sounded exactly as it always has...no change in character, "detail," timbre or anything. As predicted by cable theory.

On the other hand I have my tube amps of over 20 years. Unlike the hard to grasp "is it there?" impressions above, I have had a very strong and distinct impression of the sound character that is always there, never fades, and in every sighted comparison I've done with solid state amps over the years, that impression remained exactly the same and persistent. Since it was at least plausible that a tube amp can interact in ways to audibly affect sound, for my own informal purposes of enjoying my system, I just accepted (knowing I could be wrong!) the impressions. I only got around to blind testing just my tube preamp against my solid state preamp a while back, and the distinct impressions of it's character I had in all my previous sighted comparisons remained in the blind comparisons.
 
Here is the issue, again:

A: IF speaker blind listening tests can not predict how we will perceive the sound of a loudspeaker in sighted conditions: what use is blind listening as a guide to selecting speakers for sighted listening?

Alternatively:

B: IF speaker blind listening tests CAN predict how we will perceive the sound of a loudspeaker in sighted conditions: What EXPLAINS that predictability?
I think it mostly boils down to one's desire to have their opinions led either by the "baggage" of various biases and preconceptions, or to have them led by an honest and (mostly) unbiased/uncolored evaluation of...whatever it is; in this case, of course, speakers.

Anyway, this is reminding me of a speaker audition experience I had ages ago. Back in the early 90s, my dad and I were wandering through a local town and decided to stop into the Bose store. Almost immediately, an associate grabbed our attention and asked if we wanted to attend a brief speaker demo that was about to begin. We agreed and were led into an isolated room that contained several rows of chairs as well as a dozen or so other customers. Shortly after we entered, everyone took a seat, and we were greeted with some fairly large speakers hanging from the front wall. The associate proceeded to spin up a handful of music tracks, which were played quite loudly. I can't attest to the speakers' tonality (or lack thereof) at this point, but I remember thinking that the speakers sounded suitably large and lively and were enjoyable to listen to. After a couple of minutes, with music still playing, the associate stepped up to the front of the room and began removing the speakers from the wall. It was at this point that we all realized that these weren't speakers at all, but simply empty enclosures that had been camouflaging the real speakers, which turned out to be little bitty Bose Cubes. Everyone predictably ooh'd and ahh'd and shortly after that the demo was over.

Eventually my dad and I left the store and resumed our journey around town. A few hours later, I returned to the store. I wanted to listen to the demo again, this time armed with the knowledge of what was really going on. The same demo tracks were played again at presumably the same volume, and, suddenly, I could "hear" the smallness of the true speakers. They sounded more strained and distorted now. Did anything really change, other than my own biases and preconceptions? Nope. I might have happily taken these speakers home during the first audition, not so much the second.
 
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