But above all - if you believe there is a difference, you will hear a difference, even if there isn't any difference in the actual sound wave.
I've had enough of this. That is simply not true. I can prove it.
Some time ago I borrowed some equipment to prove a point that I'd long been theorising about. I expected that compressed soundtracks sounded better when they were decoded by the processor rather than the player. It was a longstanding obsession, and I'd heard other people's listening impressions (about which I was somewhat sceptical) but I had never heard it for myself.
Then the opportunity came and the anticipation was overbearing. However, in a sighted, level-matched comparison I couldn't hear any difference. Everyone else must have been imagining it, or I must be deaf, or my understanding of audio electroncis wasn't as good as I thought it was. I had nailed my colours to the mast, and this was embarassing, but I immediately wrote about what I heard. On this ocassion the expectation bias (nothing to do with shiney or expensive) was overwhelming, but try as I might, player and processing decoding sounded just the same to me.
Right, some impressions. There's a great deal to say, and I won't be able to do it all at once. I've had the golden opportunity to answer a lot of questions, many of which relate to the Denon DVD 3800BD. For the purpose of this thread, though, I'll just consider it as a good HD MC audio...
www.avforums.com
As it happened, I had made a mistake and unwittingly compared the same things. It was a dummy control test that I didn't realise I had set myself. #I was expecting to hear a significant difference, but there was none, and that was what I heard. I then fixed and repeated the test and did hear the difference I was expecting (processor decoding did sound better).
I'm only speaking for myself there, and I'm sure that cognitive bias does have a significant influence on sighted listening, but not in this instance.
This is why my signature says I didn't imagine what I heard.