Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

[pkane]

Is there a study that shows the impact our brain has on our hearing? I'm actually wondering how big it is.

Inverse correlation to the brain size of the subject

 

[BluesDaddy]

Is there a study that shows the impact our brain has on our hearing? I'm actually wondering how big it is.

The whole field of pyscho-acoustics.

 

[Mart68]

I've had the experience of listening to my system one day and it sounds amazingly good. A week later, listen again and it sounds sh!tty. And I didn't change anything. What's up with this??? Is it all in my head? Or did something change? Some invisible characteristic of the physical space in the room? Maybe my electricity provider switched me from hydro to nuclear? Or is placebo really this influential?

can be psychological or physical. If you've been in a noisy environment for a while and then you go to listen it won't sound as good as normal until your ears adjust. Which can take a couple of hours. Either way the difference is with us.

 

[Robin L]

I've had the experience of listening to my system one day and it sounds amazingly good. A week later, listen again and it sounds sh!tty. And I didn't change anything. What's up with this??? Is it all in my head? Or did something change? Some invisible characteristic of the physical space in the room? Maybe my electricity provider switched me from hydro to nuclear? Or is placebo really this influential?

 

[egellings]

I suspect it's a listener caused phenomenon, and not equipment caused if the equipment is operating normally. Mood is a big determiner.

 

[Inner Space]

I suspect it's a listener caused phenomenon, and not equipment caused if the equipment is operating normally. Mood is a big determiner.

Audio performance's two predominant factors both have "oo" in the middle - room and mood. Nothing can make up for a bad either.

 

[richard12511]

Is there a study that shows the impact our brain has on our hearing? I'm actually wondering how big it is.

Me too. I could easily see it being a bigger factor than the speakers themselves. It's certainly more important than any electronic components.

 

[Skeptischism]

Congratulations again! I've just put you on ignore. Since you must have the last word and refute everything I say, HAVE AT IT!!!

Sorry, Blues Daddy, but I did not join this forum to be incessantly heckled by someone obsessed with rubbing my fur the wrong way. My most expedient solution seemed to be to simply switch off.

Just a heads up, the block doesnt seem to have stuck. You may want to check your settings, for your own peace of mind

Either that, or it works differently here than other forums? Is blocking only one way here and you cant see this, but I can see your posts? That seems problematic ...

 

[BluesDaddy]

Either that, or it works differently here than other forums? Is blocking only one way here and you cant see this, but I can see your posts? That seems problematic ...

Yes, it's not a "block", it just doesn't show the comments to the person who put you on the ignore list. Unless you ignore him as well, you'll still see his comments/posts.

 

[Skeptischism]

Cool, ok, well I guess that's a win win. I dont feel the need to block, just because someone has a strikingly different approach to me. I hope Anton can find, or remember why exactly he joined and perhaps ponder exactly why he was so profoundly affected by me telling him about myself. Since it appears that was the last straw ...

a side-note. I speak with some experience with the brain topic. My dearly departed mother taught a rather successful 'Drawing on the right side of the brain' class, based on the book of the same name, for nearly 10 years and it was the source of boundless creativity. It was more about teaching people to look at things differently and draw the negative space, draw what they see, rather than what they imagine things should look like, more so than engaging the 'right side' of the brain. We discussed it at great length. I sat the course more than once. I completely disagree with the premise. It makes no sense.

 

[richard12511]

Where did you pluck those statistics from? I suspect 99% out of thin air.Or 99.9% somewhere the sun does not shine.

I think it's possible you missed some of the intended facetious humor(why I took it to a 1/10th precision) . I tried my best to make it clear that 100% of those figures were a product of my brain, which means they're 99.9% accurate. Rereading it now, I could have made it more clear.

That said, I would be interested to see just how much impact placebo has in comparison to the speakers, though. Perhaps an experiment where a really gorgeous(B&W 801D4 or high end Sonus Faber?) speaker is swapped for an ordinary looking Infinity Bookshelf, but really, it's a pair of hidden speakers + optimized subs playing the whole time. I'd be curious to see how much scores would change. That could then be compared to how much the score changes when the sound actually changes. I'd be super curious.

So much for all the years that Hi Fi Choice conducted group blindfold auditioning tests on amplifiers and CD players and managed to hear substantial, repeatable and consistent differences.I still have a CD player from a 1995 group blindfold test that was found to sound really good and it still sounds really good compared to the average CD player or DAC.

I think this is actually kinda tangential to my point. My point is not that different components or speakers don't sound different, but that those differences are possibly smaller than the brain generated differences.

 

[egellings]

I've read subjective sighted reviews & opinions of so-called cable sound differences, and I have to laugh at the reviewers who gush at the YUGE sound differences between 2 different, electrically competent speaker cables, when in fact, the sonic differences, if any, are inaudibly small.

 

[Harmonie]

I've had the experience of listening to my system one day and it sounds amazingly good. A week later, listen again and it sounds sh!tty. And I didn't change anything. What's up with this??? Is it all in my head? Or did something change? Some invisible characteristic of the physical space in the room? Maybe my electricity provider switched me from hydro to nuclear? Or is placebo really this influential?

Did you measure the dust?
It's well known that some days the dust is charged with electrons that conducts the sound waves differently than other days.

I just launched a special audiophile clean room (class 100) for that purpose.

I will launch it for just 9.990$ for the next 30 days.
Then the regular price of 19.999$ will naturally apply.

 

[danadam]

I just launched a special audiophile clean room (class 100) for that purpose.

Phew, I thought you were going to sell the dust

 

[artnoi]

I have not visited this forum in years, so I think I will rant out something that has always been cooking in my head that I can't express elsewhere.

I wish my fellow countrymen (Thailand) knew about ASR (and understand what's being discussed here). After reading this forum, I bought myself a Topping D10, a Khadas Tone Board, a JDS Atom, and I am done with my audio journey (I use HD600 and Etymotic ER4SR and I'm very impressed by the latter that I think it's my endgame). I no longer need any "upgrades", unless it's a pair Genelec of monitors, and the source components to go with the speakers, like balanced equipment bc that's what I currently don't have.

I have to thanks Ethan Winer for exposing the ugly truth of audiophile world to my eyes 3-4 years ago, roughly a year before I knew about ASR. I tried to warn them Thais on many forums and Facebook groups, but they just wouldn't listen, and branded me as an outcast.

2-3 years ago they (Thais) all believed digital cables always have the audible effects on the final audio output. Now, roughly half of them know better that digital cables don't and can't possibly color the sound. But 95% of them still think analog cables (even short ones like headphone cables) and super clean AC power, do change sound quality. And cable-making is viewed as a craft here, in fact, many people do it for a living. Very few of them understand the objectivity in audio, so when I present them with graphs that say cables don't do anything, they simply say the difference is so subtle it's undetectable by machines but they can somehow hear it.

They even have weird believe like expensive high-end gears will reveal more problems in the system, which contradicts my view that better gears should be more resilient and tolerant. They think if a power cable doesn’t make a difference in your system, then your system is not good enough, etc.

Last week there was a Facebook post from an audiophile supplier selling a 1-meter audiophile Ethernet cable for $300, and the IT people began exposing this stupidity. Those IT people also introduced DBT and many other objective comcepts and test methods to try to debunk audiophile myths, but the Thai audio community still didn't buy the concepts, citing that audio stuff must only be evaluated with listening tests.

A famous Thai tech YouTuber even held an event offering a prize to those who can distinguish sound from godly Ethernet cable. Unfortunately, the test was not true DBT, so a golden-eared audiophile won the prize and that boosted the morale among cable believers. Those believers are now celebrating their victory by boasting their superhuman hearing and super-expensive nonsense gears.

One of them being Fidelizer's frontman, who now goes on re-introducing all of the BS such as how different methods of copying digital files can affect sound quality, or, how files on the same medium but sitting on different directories (folders) can sound different. And yes, he IS a programmer with a CS degree. Thankfully the Fidelizer man is being met with doubts and is being ridiculed by both the IT guys and the mentioned YouTuber. The Fidelizer frontman will soon consult a "CISCO-best-certificate-certified" guy (I don't know what that is either) to try to prove that expensive Ethernet cables will indeed color the audio. All this just to prove he has Superman's hearing, I guess.

It seems like anything that is expensive or has (to my view) questionable engineering is always cool and good for the Thai audio community. It's like they are listening with their eyes and thoughts, consumed in their confirmation bias. A dark gear would sound "dark", and a gear covered in metal will sound "sharp", yata yata yata. When discussing with them, it's not about the technicals anymore, it's more like religious discussion, and those who think different about their narrative are not only standard fools, but fools with bad ears.

I know this applies to every country, but it seems much worse in Thailand. Elsewhere, I noticed younger generations in other places are becoming more skeptical about audiophile mindset, but not here in Thailand, where the seniors are always right. And because English literacy and critical thinking is very bad in Thailand, there is no way they will be able to comprehend any useful information from this forum.

PS. A popular retailer Munkonggadget (the same one trying to sell $300 Ethernet cable) has very close ties to Audio-GD, so unfortunately most Thai audio enthusiaists think Audio-GD is indeed audio god.

 

[Daverich4]

2-3 years ago they (Thais) all believed digital cables always have the audible effects on the final audio output. Now, roughly half of them know better that digital cables don't and can't possibly color the sound. But 95% of them still think analog cables (even short ones like headphone cables) and super clean AC power, do change sound quality.

Do you happen to have any links to the source of your numbers? I’m curious how they came up with those percentages. Thanks.

 

[CSG]

I suspect it's a listener caused phenomenon, and not equipment caused if the equipment is operating normally. Mood is a big determiner.

Agree completely. The equipment is the equipment; it doesn't have moods. Well, maybe except tube gear...

 

[artnoi]

Do you happen to have any links to the source of your numbers? I’m curious how they came up with those percentages. Thanks.

Numbers are just my biased estimates

 

[Killingbeans]

Very few of them understand the objectivity in audio, so when I present them with graphs that say cables don't do anything, they simply say the difference is so subtle it's undetectable by machines but they can somehow hear it.

That's the paradox: You can't make people stop believing by presenting logic and evidence.

Trying to force self awareness upon people throws you straight into a minefield of emotions. Sudden deviation from an established belief system gives feelings of fear and confusion triggering the fight-or-flight responce, rather than self reflection.

When you have peace and comfort, reevaluating your worldview requires a lot of energy. Questioning others is easy. Questioning yourself is hard work.

 

[atsmusic]

Judging by the number of second hand cables I see for sale, I believe that any perceived benefit is short-lived.

I think they are upgrading. cable manufacturers come out with "improved models" all the time.