The Jniac
Member
It quite noticeable if you tried the ER4SR in a A/B test.
That is not quite what I meant. What I meant was that people would likely not notice that the extra bass in the ER4-XR is the result of a wide but weak peak in the lower mids.
That first bit is more a result of cognitive dissonance than expectation bias, while the rest reflects cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias (expectation bias is a type of confimation bias, but tends to be more a thing in experimental design, whereas confirmation bias is used more generally to refer to a cognitive bias that causes people to selectively pay attention to and recall things that support their views). The placebo effect is a pretty likely contributor as well, given how many praised the bass LCD-series yet were unimpressed by headphones like some of the Hifiman stuff or some of the recent high-end dynamics that manage similar bass extension. The placebo effect is completely distinct from the biases mentioned above, because rather than being a cognitive effect, it involves completely unconscious distortions of perceptions. Basically, placebo effects (and nocebo effects, which are basically placebos but instead of detecting something that is not there, one fails to detect something that is. It is usually used in medicine to explain why people will show no response to a treatment for no apparent reason) involve what we hear, smell, taste, etc. being altered before the information reaches our consciousness. Yes, I realise that I am being pedantic here, but I think that it is important to make these distinctions, especially here, where science and objectivity are central pillars.Expection bias seems very strong with planar/Estat fans. Many are trying to downplay that Open back Stax's are junk for bass, LCD gimp the mids/highs to give impression of big bass. But then lash out when the ER4SR has +10.5db more at 20Hz, Then run too get the KSE1200(£1200) or mod/EQ them which is bit stupid for a £1600. When the Stax L300LTD & L700 has the less bass than any Grado headphone.