Moondrop Chu II IEM Review

[muza_1]

If you read the article or the latest literature on the topic, you will see that placebo effect has been mainly disproven as a real phenomenon beyond regression to the mean.

Then why you can spend hours equalizing and listen how the sound changes just to realize that the EQ was off.
Or thinking how good are the headphones you are listening just to notice you are wearing a totally different one.

I don't know about studies but this are real examples of placebo (or whatever the effect is called) that had happened at least once to everyone in the hobby or to professionals in music production.

EDIT: It's not that farfetched that the same happens when using an expensive, hyped or well marketed product and end up thinking it's better than it really is, perception is way too easy to fool.

 

[tomtoo]

A golfer for 19$ ???

If this goes on, golfing will get a sport for the poor.

 

[GGroch]

My theory (personal speculation) is that the resolution of a driver plays a crucial role. Very subtle echo and reverb effects can lead to the impression of "soundstage" and not all drivers are equal in terms of their ability to flesh out these little details in the music.....

Interesting. How does "resolution" differ from frequency response? If an IEM is accurate to 22,000 Hz, then it is capable of reacting quickly enough, (with sufficient resolution) to reproduce everything in a recording below that frequency, right? If the subtle echo and reverb effects are in the recording, and within the human hearing range, they would be reproduced.

How our ears determine location in real life is established science, having to do with relative loudness between ears, delay, and frequency changes. All of those things are either in the recording, or not.

I could accept that IEMs that emphasize certain frequencies may seem more "spacious" or airy than others...but that means they are either more or less accurate to the recording, right?

 

[InfiniteJester]

Then why you can spend hours equalizing and listen how the sound changes just to realize that the EQ was off.
Or thinking how good are the headphones you are listening just to notice you are wearing a totally different one.

I don't know about studies but this are real examples of placebo (or whatever the effect is called) that had happened at least once to everyone in the hobby or to professionals in music production.

EDIT: It's not that farfetched that the same happens when using an expensive, hyped or well marketed product and end up thinking it's better than it really is, perception is way too easy to fool.

Didn't all those things immediately regressed to the mean according to your own description?

I thought we believed in science:

We argue that most improvements attributed to the placebo effect are actually instances of statistical regression.

How much of the placebo 'effect' is really statistical regression? - PubMed

Statistical regression to the mean predicts that patients selected for abnormalcy will, on the average, tend to improve. We argue that most improvements attributed to the placebo effect are actually instances of statistical regression. First, whereas older clinical trials susceptible to...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The investigators, Dr. Asbjorn Hrobjartsson and Dr. Peter C. Gotzsche analyzed 114 published studies involving about 7,500 patients with 40 different conditions. They found no support for the common notion that about a third of patients will improve if they are given a dummy pill and told it is real. Their paper appears today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Both authors are with the University of Copenhagen and the Nordic Cochran Center, an international organization of medical researchers who review randomized clinical trials.

Researchers Debunk Placebo Effect, Saying It's Only a Myth (Published 2001)

In a new report that is being met with a mixture of astonishment and, sometimes, disbelief, two researchers say that the placebo effect is a myth.

www.nytimes.com

No Placebo Effect beyond Regression to the Mean

No Placebo Effect beyond Regression to the Mean on the Six Minute Walk Test in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Trials

In drug studies, patients are often included when the disease activity is high. This will make any treatment appear to lessen disease activity, although the improvement is biased by selection. This effect is known as regression towards the mean (RTM). We aimed at investigating drug trials in...

www.mdpi.com

The placebo response is a myth. It does not exist in reality, and continuing to name it is hindering the optimal application of science to healing in medicine.

The Myth of the Placebo Response - PMC

The placebo response is a myth. It does not exist in reality, and continuing to name it is hindering the optimal application of science to healing in medicine. On the surface, it is obvious that, when defined as a biological response to an inert ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Placebo effect, as with other cognitive biases as listed in Thinking Fast and Slow are mainly the product of bad science or fraud. Just take a look at the replication crisis and the many scandals from Harvard.

Several years later, it has become clear that the implicit priming literature is not trustworthy and that many of the claims in Kahneman’s Chapter 4 are not based on solid empirical foundations (Schimmack, Heene, & Kesavan, 2017). Kahneman acknowledged this in a comment on our work (Kahneman, 2017).

Like everybody else in 2011, Kahneman trusted individual studies to be robust and replicable because they presented a statistically significant result. In hindsight it is clear that this is not the case. Narrative literature reviews of individual studies reflect scientists’ intuitions (Fast Thinking, System 1) as much or more than empirical findings. Readers of “Thinking: Fast and Slow” should read the book as a subjective account by an eminent psychologists, rather than an objective summary of scientific evidence. Moreover, ten years have passed and if Kahneman wrote a second edition, it would be very different from the first one. Chapters 3 and 4 would probably just be scrubbed from the book. But that is science. It does make progress, even if progress is often painfully slow in the softer sciences.

A Meta-Scientific Perspective on “Thinking: Fast and Slow

2011 was an important year in the history of psychology, especially social psychology. First, it became apparent that one social psychologist had faked results for dozens of publications ( Second, …

replicationindex.com

Replication crisis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Harvard Professor Under Scrutiny for Alleged Data Fraud - By Evan Nesterak - Behavioral Scientist

Francesca Gino is under scrutiny for allegedly fabricating data in at least four studies. Here’s what we know and the questions that remain unanswered.

behavioralscientist.org

The Mind of a Con Man (Published 2013)

Diederik Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist, perpetrated an audacious academic fraud by making up studies that told the world what it wanted to hear about human nature.

www.nytimes.com

You can get confused and wrong momentarily, but your judgement will regress to the mean pretty fast.

There is little empirical evidence showing that biases produce recurring or consistent errors in real-world decision making.

Biases are likely to aid decision making more often than they are to hurt it.

The problem is that most evidence from real-world settings or using real-world problems shows that people are not plagued by systematic reasoning errors at all.

Most Cognitive Biases Probably Don’t Cause Errors

Most cognitive biases do not produce consistent and recurring errors.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[muza_1]

Didn't all those things immediately regressed to the mean according to your own description?

Yes you are right, English is not my native language so I didn't fully understood the term "regression to the mean" but yes once the effect wears off or when you realize is placebo you return to the mean (unless you don't want to, lots of examples in the hobby), I realized now that I am referring more to perception than to placebo (which plays a part) and it might just be more powerful (when trying to sell you something) than placebo, but I think in the context (IEMs) is a combination of both* that make someone think expensive is better (it has to be, I mean it is expensive for a reason). But in the end neither has to last long, just long enough for you to hit the "Buy" button.

*There is also the difficulty to measure even with the same tools, and fit which is not always took in account but it can affect the sound in significant ways.

 

[SteveL]

Yes you are right, English is not my native language so I didn't fully understood the term "regression to the mean" but yes once the effect wears off or when you realize is placebo you return to the mean (unless you don't want to, lots of examples in the hobby), I realized now that I am referring more to perception than to placebo (which plays a part) and it might just be more powerful (when trying to sell you something) than placebo, but I think in the context (IEMs) is a combination of both* that make someone think expensive is better (it has to be, I mean it is expensive for a reason). But in the end neither has to last long, just long enough for you to hit the "Buy" button.

*There is also the difficulty to measure even with the same tools, and fit which is not always took in account but it can affect the sound in significant ways.

Oh, there's plenty of reason for people to actively maintain their baseless perception long after spending the money. Nobody enjoys realizing that they spent $500 for what they could have gotten for $20, and the natural human tendency is to continue to insist- sometimes quite stridently, look at the Susvara thread- that the more expensive thing really is better. The whole audiophile industry is built on that. My understanding is that counteracting that effect is what this site is all about.

 

[InfiniteJester]

Yes you are right, English is not my native language so I didn't fully understood the term "regression to the mean" but yes once the effect wears off or when you realize is placebo you return to the mean (unless you don't want to, lots of examples in the hobby), I realized now that I am referring more to perception than to placebo (which plays a part) and it might just be more powerful (when trying to sell you something) than placebo, but I think in the context (IEMs) is a combination of both* that make someone think expensive is better (it has to be, I mean it is expensive for a reason). But in the end neither has to last long, just long enough for you to hit the "Buy" button.

*There is also the difficulty to measure even with the same tools, and fit which is not always took in account but it can affect the sound in significant ways.

I also struggle with English a lot. Spanish is my main language.

Yes. Obviously we fall for the hype or we don't like a particular product for design reasons or guilt over expending money on a whim. But I feel that my judgement tends to stabilize with time and end up being clear after a good number of prolonged sessions of listening.

I think that fit is the reason why Zero:2 and Kiwi Ears Quintet sound awful to me. I'm reasonably big and those two IEMs seem to be too small for my ears. But Kefine Delci and EW200 are also very small and I get a really good sound from them.

All my favorite IEMs have metal shells. I have speculated about possible reflections in the inside walls creating spaciousness or something, I don't know. Maybe that would appear on THD or group delay measurements, but the MP145 performs very well in those regards and sound very open. Maybe is incidental. I don't really know.

 

[markanini]

Is tradition or something formally taught to axiomatically assume that if someone presents unproven statements of fact: it must be a result of bias, or some other error of perception? It seems so common, yet so circular and unselfaware.

Have you heard of high fiber intake being required for good bowel health? This study shows otherwise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786 Were the participants responding favorably to a no-fiber diet affected by bias right until the the study was was concluded?

In the same way I wonder if discussion focusing more on attribution rather than perception would be more fruitful related to headphone and IEM impressions.

 

[muza_1]

Spanish is my main language.

Same.

I think that fit is the reason why Zero:2 and Kiwi Ears Quintet sound awful to me. I'm reasonably big and those two IEMs seem to be too small for my ears. But Kefine Delci and EW200 are also very small and I get a really good sound from them.

It happened to me with the Zero:2 and Zero: RED after some time I realized that I didn't enjoy the sound as much as I thought.
I suspect that a part from frequency response fit* might play a big part (but you have to like the tonality fist).
*Fit for me me includes, seal, effects of type and design of nozzle (and IEM), tips (I used to think that as long as you got a good seal nothing mattered but as it turns out it matters) and comfort.

All my favorite IEMs have metal shells. I have speculated about possible reflections in the inside walls creating spaciousness or something, I don't know. Maybe that would appear on THD or group delay measurements, but the MP145 performs very well in those regards and sound very open. Maybe is incidental. I don't really know.

I think the material is not that influential as long as is sturdy enough but I also think that for spaciousness has to be something else at play other than FR, to me the Trio are a very spacious IEM and the Hydro no so much and they were "supposed" to be because the tech and deign, they where more extended, brighter and with the almost the same overall response (in certain configurations) but they were not.


On a side note.
I fished the Chu II out of the drawer and tried them with Amir EQ and different ones based on other measurements and I noticed that they respond well to EQ changes unlike some other IEMs i have.
Is there any studies or at least measurements to check how different IEMs react to EQ and if the same stimuli result in the same change for different IEMs or different designs?

 

[SteveL]

Is tradition or something formally taught to axiomatically assume that if someone presents unproven statements of fact: it must be a result of bias, or some other error of perception? It seems so common, yet so circular and unselfaware.

Have you heard of high fiber intake being required for good bowel health? This study shows otherwise: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786 Were the participants responding favorably to a no-fiber diet biased right until the the study was was concluded?

It is a simple fact that you DON'T KNOW whether or not your perception is reliable unless you have additional evidence. Optical illusions are a very simple and educational example of that. I am a retired forensic DNA expert. One of the major effects of the development of DNA testing has been to reveal how remarkably untrustworthy eyewitness "evidence" is.

 

[markanini]

It is a simple fact that you DON'T KNOW whether or not your perception is reliable unless you have additional evidence. Optical illusions are a very simple and educational example of that.

Ok, but why start and end with perception if it's known to not be reliable?

EDIT: Ninja edit....

 

[Frank2]

Interesting. How does "resolution" differ from frequency response? If an IEM is accurate to 22,000 Hz, then it is capable of reacting quickly enough, (with sufficient resolution) to reproduce everything in a recording below that frequency, right? If the subtle echo and reverb effects are in the recording, and within the human hearing range, they would be reproduced.

Human hearing is accurate to a certain frequency as well and hence capable of 'reacting quickly enough' up to that frequency. And yet it will mask softer sounds in the context of louder sounds of similar frequency. I think the key to understand this is the dissipation of resonances in a mechanical system:
If a relatively loud sound results in an excitation of mechanical resonances that need to be damped, much softer sounds of the same frequency as these resonances will get lost (will 'drown') in these resonances during the damping period. I think this effect could be responsible for the fact that some speakers seem to flesh out more details than others.
Yes, frequency response plays a role here as well, but a dynamic mechanical system like a driver is characterized by more than just distortion, directivity, and frequency response, which are all measurements on a long time scale. It also has to deal with dissipating its mechanical energy, which is an effect on a much smaller time scale.
(Like I said, this is speculation, but I do tend to hear resolution differences between drivers and they do not always seem frequency response related)

 

[InfiniteJester]

It is a simple fact that you DON'T KNOW whether or not your perception is reliable unless you have additional evidence. Optical illusions are a very simple and educational example of that.

I have never liked the analogy of optical illusions and biases.

But, all in all, optical illusions are necessary to correctly perceive things.

Imagine being able to perceive just stains of paint instead of perspective and Plato.

Soundstage is a psychoacoustic effect, like masking and many others, but they are as "real" as perspective in Raphael's work, I don't think that it is guaranteed as a perfect analogy to being wrong about something, even though the cognitive mechanisms behind the alleged biases is what allow us to think in the first place.

A system is not necessarily as good as its worst possible outcomes.

 

[SteveL]

Ok, but why start and end with perception if it's known to not be reliable?

If we're talking about audio, in the end you like what you like and that's fine. The trouble comes when people make what they insist are objective judgments based only on their subjective perceptions, usually in the service of insisting that the more expensive thing must be better.

 

[tonybarrett]

This shows again the superiority of Chinese engineering

IMV, it’s really the manufacturing supply chain (and implicit state subsidies) that are China’s comparative advantage rather than the engineering. Passive transducers aren’t bleeding edge and Harmon frequency response aligned speakers are niche. China actually has way too many engineers and the graduate unemployment rate, skewed toward STEM, is above 20%. The nation has no choice but to wean itself off trying to sustain weakening growth with declining investment returns in manufacturing, and pay workers sufficiently to create a consumer-led economy like the rich nations of the world.

 

[SteveL]

I have never liked the analogy of optical illusions and biases.

But, all in all, optical illusions are necessary to correctly perceive things.

View attachment 375713

Imagine being able to perceive just stains of paint instead of perspective and Plato.

Soundstage is a psychoacoustic effect, like masking and many others, but they are as "real" as perspective in Raphael's work, I don't think that it is guaranteed as a perfect analogy to being wrong about something, even though the cognitive mechanisms behind the alleged biases is what allow us to think in the first place.

A system is not necessarily as good as its worst possible outcomes.

Imagine someone who had never seen or heard of a painting using perspective. They might think they can reach into that apparent depth, or alternatively if they're unfamiliar with the whole phenomenon of realistic paintings they might indeed just see an arrangement of paint on a canvas. The part you're missing is that YOU KNOW what kind of thing you're looking at and this knowledge guides your perception. The problem is that something you think you know, but that isn't actually the case, can do the same thing.

 

[markanini]

If we're talking about audio, in the end you like what you like and that's fine. The trouble comes when people make what they insist are objective judgments based only on their subjective perceptions, usually in the service of insisting that the more expensive thing must be better.

I replied before your edit. I think you missed the scope of my question. You response was to a question like "Can we trust our perceptions to always give us an accurate view of reality?" and giving a number of examples. BTW the issue of the untrustworthy witness is specific how memory works. It's an aspect of perception but not the entirety of perception.

Let me put my question differently. Given that perception is unreliable, can you use it to explain statements of fact without introducing your own bias? Is that not circular?

 

[SteveL]

I replied before your edit. I think you missed the scope of my question. You response was to a question like "Can we trust our perceptions to always give us an accurate view of reality?" and giving a number of examples. BTW the issue of the untrustworthy witness is specific how memory works. It's an aspect of perception but not the entirety of perception.

Let me put my question differently. Given that perception is unreliable, can you use it to explain statements of fact without introducing your own bias? Is that not circular?

I am a trained scientist and a trained forensic scientist. Making a factual claim based only on my perception is something I am very highly conditioned not to do. And there are many sources of error besides bias. Stating preferences is fine, claiming that they're objectively correct without bringing objective evidence is not. Again, that's what this forum is about.

 

[GGroch]

Human hearing is accurate to a certain frequency as well and hence capable of 'reacting quickly enough' up to that frequency....I think the key to understand this is the dissipation of resonances in a mechanical system:
If a relatively loud sound results in an excitation of mechanical resonances that need to be damped, much softer sounds of the same frequency as these resonances will get lost (will 'drown') in these resonances during the damping period. I think this effect could be responsible for the fact that some speakers seem to flesh out more details than others.
.....

Intriguing. Though it runs up against my closely held cognitive biases **

Sound reproduction is a mature science. A characteristic like spaciousness/soundstage that can certainly be heard, would almost certainly have been measured.
Group delay and distortion measurements should reveal any problematic mechanical resonances. Both distortion and group delay on the Chu are extremely low.

**Cognitive Bias = Our brains pre-existing map of how things are based on experience.
Our perceptions (seeing, hearing) and actions (buying it, running away) are always based on a combination of limited sensory input judged against our experience based biases.
For the most part that is a very good thing. It helps us act quickly and mostly correctly. But perception is not reality. SteveL is absolutely right.

Making a factual claim based only on my perception is something I am very highly conditioned not to do. And there are many sources of error besides bias. Stating preferences is fine, claiming that they're objectively correct without bringing objective evidence is not. Again, that's what this forum is about.

 

[markanini]

I am a trained scientist and a trained forensic scientist. Making a factual claim based only on my perception is something I am very highly conditioned not to do. And there are many sources of error besides bias. Stating preferences is fine, claiming that they're objectively correct without bringing objective evidence is not. Again, that's what this forum is about.

If you are trained then you should be able to take on my question and not side step it. Especially not by taking it personal, as it's a general question in nature.