As terminal as this phenomena is to better audio, I wonder where its threshold is. Or is it really general or universal?
I know it’s all been said before but this is madness ….
- Thread starter Sloop John B
- Start date
As terminal as this phenomena is to better audio, I wonder where its threshold is. Or is it really general or universal?
chiily
PFM Special Builder
Doesn't this then come around to the need to have a non biased system of measurement, were variables are in the most part made constants?
So, if one can make a mechanical ear to convert changes in air pressure to electrical signal, with the same response as an ear would, without the brain's meddling. Then to record that electrical signal, you would have a method of determining the impact or not if changes in cable, or whatever.
Then you land back in the objective's lap
ampedup
Lost in audio
Filian, all the questions you pose are probably answered by an individual's way of living with audio, whether hoodwinked or not.
For myself, it's a matter of degree: I can tell more differences between some amps and some speakers than most cables I've tried. So I don't bother to allow cables to become a factor in my listening. I can be more bothered to want to try different amps and speakers.
chiily
PFM Special Builder
Have you read the science behind what price of steak most buy in restaurants and how the menu writers can influence our choices. I'll see if I can find the reference.
I found this one https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/89/menu-psychology-the-science-behind-menu-engineering.html
Point two about the "decoy" is interesting.
In fact I believe that large food companies are quite adept at making us buy particular products or size of products. Certainly slapping a colourful "New Recipe" or whatever on the corner of washer power for example does boost sales, even if the formula hasn't changed.. the same is probably true for that "improved " cable or whatever.
mansr
Objectionist
And if that doesn't work, they can simply slap "Original!" on the boxes.
I don't imagine anyone would disagree that there's a din of advertising, nor would anyone reflexively look to ad copy editors for peak ethical principle, but coming back to the topic, do we have a threshold for when suggestibility kicks in somewhere in the auditory system such that we can time our music sessions for minimal interference? I would personally find it annoying if my internal tone control was always racing around the dial.
The inapplicability of The Measurements to either qualify or quantify sound aside, not as I see it. As I've asked up thread a few times, if I can't hear it right off, is there another condition under which I can hear it? Seems to me that if I'm that auditorily impaired I won't get a lot of renewed satisfaction from kit with superlative data hanging from its tag, will I?
ampedup
Lost in audio
You can safely assume that all your perceptions are firing differently from day to day, even presented with the same stimuli.
Perhaps the only way to ascertain the desirability/qualities of a newly inserted audio component is to live with it Monday to Friday and August to December and see if a reasonably straight line of agreeable listening experiences can be elicited over a time period during which you are changing, the room air changes, entropy engages, whatever.
westsea
Retirement present
This might help a little, but only in one specific area. David Robson has written a book called The Expectation Effect, it has been adapted for BBC in a series of talks on BBC sounds Radio 4. From my perspective, try The Prediction Machine talk first. It does focus on the visual, with an aside about hearing, however it does explain how the brain processes the information from our external sensors. To me quite revealing, but makes the whole approach infinitley more complex
( using the word infinite in the sense of more variables than we can count)
All I can say it helped my understanding, although it doesn't get into the reliability or capability of our expernal sensors!!!!
( using the word infinite in the sense of more variables than we can count)
All I can say it helped my understanding, although it doesn't get into the reliability or capability of our expernal sensors!!!!
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that any effect of cables or ‘foo’ is entirely down to suggestion, or expectation. According to the above, it would seem that the perception of the user is no less real to them. So they really are getting a better sounding system, according to their perception.
If so, then the only valid question is whether the improvement in perceived performance is worth the cost. If the improvements are commensurate with a £10k amp upgrade, say, then a price if £10k would be justifiable, whatever the item in question, surely?
If so, then the only valid question is whether the improvement in perceived performance is worth the cost. If the improvements are commensurate with a £10k amp upgrade, say, then a price if £10k would be justifiable, whatever the item in question, surely?
westsea
Retirement present
I'm not exacly sure what you mean.
Perhaps stating the obvious, measurements are simply tools which help support our decision making. From personal experience, my hearing and sight are impaired and have deteriorated with age. My approach is and has been to go for the big steps (as I see them) using the experience that is unique to me. The kit I now have is a mixture of DIY (speakers)and the best quality units I could afford, or justify. To me there is a point of diminishing returns in the broadest sense, a significant part of which is being able to recognise the point where you 'stop farting about and listen to the music'.
After 70 years of dabbling in music reproduction, graduating from wind up gramophones to CD's and streaming, I have found that adequate for purpose to be a good starting point on which to build.
BUT ...try for your affordable best, despite some naysayers, I continue to enjoy and appreaciate my Music at 84, and yes, I continue to tweak very occasionally
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
Precisely why unsighted comparisons are so valuable, first ascertain if there is any difference whatsoever between components.
Keith
westsea
Retirement present
Sorry sir, the argument based on the supposition 'that the effect of cables is entirely down to expectation' is false. At best, it is only true in part.
Yes we do make decisions on cost and value, but in the end most of our decisions are emotional within our personal boundaries.
Perhaps I misunderstand you
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
The supposition isn't mine, I'm just running with the premise in the OP, and the general line of argument from the objective side and seeing where it might logically take us.
NickofWimbledon
pfm Member
Hi @westsea and @ampedup and @chilly – good to have some more voices!
From earlier in the thread, this stuff quickly gets impassioned, and it is easy to divert into (a) philosophical issues, (b) fussing over what we should mean by a single word and (c) what each other ‘really’ mean.
A few of us have already written vast swathes here (sorry about that), and I for one would be delighted to (a) let others get a word in edgeways and (b) hear some different views.
To try and get us roughly on the same page, it may be handy for us to understand where we each stand on this, with some specifics. For example: -
1. If the usually available measurements on two bits of kit (A and B) are exactly or almost exactly the same, can there ever be a consistent difference in what reaches the ear?
2. Are we all subject to many possible biases (not just expectation) that can change what we hear?
3. Is it possible/ useful/ necessary to make better long-term decisions by trying to allow for these biases (e.g. ‘blind’ testing)?
4. Even if we do not have all the measurements we need to analyse complex systems (including those in our heads) fully, should we pay more attention to those we do have?
5. Is what someone reports hearing ever useful guidance (apart from being a bias itself) to what anyone else will hear from the same bit of kit/ change?
6. To what extent is it meaningful to talk about A/B’s performance without focusing on listener-specific detail, the rest of the kit, the room, what music is played etc.?
7. If you lean toward the sceptical, would you say that (a) ‘a £5pm and a £500pm cable will be indistinguishable’ or (b) ‘£50pm and £500pm will sound exactly the same’, or (c) ‘possibly neither – it is not as simple as that’?
From pervious exchanges, I think I understand roughly where many early-posters here stand on all that. However, if you are willing, I’d certainly be interested to know where some more people think.
I am also interested in whether people think that those are the wrong questions (or just the same question 7 different ways).
From earlier in the thread, this stuff quickly gets impassioned, and it is easy to divert into (a) philosophical issues, (b) fussing over what we should mean by a single word and (c) what each other ‘really’ mean.
A few of us have already written vast swathes here (sorry about that), and I for one would be delighted to (a) let others get a word in edgeways and (b) hear some different views.
To try and get us roughly on the same page, it may be handy for us to understand where we each stand on this, with some specifics. For example: -
1. If the usually available measurements on two bits of kit (A and B) are exactly or almost exactly the same, can there ever be a consistent difference in what reaches the ear?
2. Are we all subject to many possible biases (not just expectation) that can change what we hear?
3. Is it possible/ useful/ necessary to make better long-term decisions by trying to allow for these biases (e.g. ‘blind’ testing)?
4. Even if we do not have all the measurements we need to analyse complex systems (including those in our heads) fully, should we pay more attention to those we do have?
5. Is what someone reports hearing ever useful guidance (apart from being a bias itself) to what anyone else will hear from the same bit of kit/ change?
6. To what extent is it meaningful to talk about A/B’s performance without focusing on listener-specific detail, the rest of the kit, the room, what music is played etc.?
7. If you lean toward the sceptical, would you say that (a) ‘a £5pm and a £500pm cable will be indistinguishable’ or (b) ‘£50pm and £500pm will sound exactly the same’, or (c) ‘possibly neither – it is not as simple as that’?
From pervious exchanges, I think I understand roughly where many early-posters here stand on all that. However, if you are willing, I’d certainly be interested to know where some more people think.
I am also interested in whether people think that those are the wrong questions (or just the same question 7 different ways).
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Someone can "beleive" all kinds of things. Sometimes their belief will be well-founded in reality, sometimes not. Sometimes we have good evidence that falsifies a belief, sometimes not (... possibly 'yet'). All depends on both the belief, our current state of knowledge of, and the reality.
The problem with a sweeping dismissal of what you describe as "expectation bias" is that this then implies no-one ever makes a mistake when the *attribute what they observe to a specific 'cause'*. Someone may easily hear a 'difference' but then may be wrong about the 'cause'.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
If you are human then you are subject to the various cognitive bias’ they are extremely powerful, to remove them the comparisons have to be level matched ( if necessary) and unsighted, to pay thousands of pounds for components that in reality do not improve performance is for me the definition of charlatanism.
Spend the time, effort and funds on genuine improvements that can be substantiated subjectively and by measurement.
Keith
Spend the time, effort and funds on genuine improvements that can be substantiated subjectively and by measurement.
Keith
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
1) Some changes of cable may/will/can produce an audible alteration in the result. The obvious example being choice of cable for going between a MM cartridge and an RIAA input because cable capacitance is a vital factor in the behaviour in many cases. Simiarly, if you choose a long enough length of high inductance speaker cable then that may cause an audible change that is speaker-dependent as well as cable length dependent. etc. So the devil is in the details.
2) "Correct" for me means when I listen at home it sounds like what I heard at the venue when it was recorded. Given that stereo itself is imperfect, and are room acoustics, I have to settle for a close approach of some kind. When it comes to a cable, I'd say 'correct' is that what gets presented to the load is as close as possible to what the source applied to the input end. Indeally, being like using a cable of near-zero length.
3) Your third observation/claim is problematic due to your use of terms, etc. Human hearing isn't perfect, so there will be levels of change we won't reliably be able to hear. In addition, perception varies with time and exposure. So simply hearing (or not hearing) a 'difference' isn't inevitably correct as a judgement on the existence (or not) of a genuine 'difference'. Nor does it always correctly identify the 'cause' of any acual 'difference'.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I'm going to attempt to boil one side of the argument (as I read it) down to its essence and where that seems to leave us:
Measurements tell us that most electronics beyond a pretty basic level of design are essentially competent and blameless, bar a few outliers. So there is not much to choose between electronic sources and amplifiers, so spending above a notional threshold where this competence can be taken as a given, is not justified by the performance.
Measurements tell us that, once above a nominal cost threshold, all cables measure similarly and will be sufficient, so spending any budget beyond that necessary for a basically functional cable is unwarranted by the performance.
This seems to rule out any spending beyond, effectively, budget equipment and eliminates any justification for upper or high end equipment on performance grounds. Spending beyond these modest requirements is therefore only justifiable on other grounds, such as functionality, aesthetics, build quality, reliability, etc.
It's a very utilitarian approach, though not really a Utilitarian one. Utilitarianism does seem to take into account other aspects such as pleasure and happiness, and good to others (such as for example, creating employment for providers and makers of goods).
The corollary to all this is that any perceived benefit beyond what the measurements imply is argued to be down to, as Keith suggests, 'cognitive biases'. (Not necessarily 'expectation bias', which is a misapplied term for a quite specific form of experimental bias but it's crept into the objectivist lexicon so we're stuck with it, and its meaning in this context is generally understood so hey-ho).
Where this takes us isn't clear. It certainly takes a lot of the joy out of the hifi using experience, and replaces it with something like resigned satisfaction. Given that the whole point is the pursuit of pleasure and emotional feedback, that feels like it should run counter to the whole point of hifi ownership.
Measurements tell us that most electronics beyond a pretty basic level of design are essentially competent and blameless, bar a few outliers. So there is not much to choose between electronic sources and amplifiers, so spending above a notional threshold where this competence can be taken as a given, is not justified by the performance.
Measurements tell us that, once above a nominal cost threshold, all cables measure similarly and will be sufficient, so spending any budget beyond that necessary for a basically functional cable is unwarranted by the performance.
This seems to rule out any spending beyond, effectively, budget equipment and eliminates any justification for upper or high end equipment on performance grounds. Spending beyond these modest requirements is therefore only justifiable on other grounds, such as functionality, aesthetics, build quality, reliability, etc.
It's a very utilitarian approach, though not really a Utilitarian one. Utilitarianism does seem to take into account other aspects such as pleasure and happiness, and good to others (such as for example, creating employment for providers and makers of goods).
The corollary to all this is that any perceived benefit beyond what the measurements imply is argued to be down to, as Keith suggests, 'cognitive biases'. (Not necessarily 'expectation bias', which is a misapplied term for a quite specific form of experimental bias but it's crept into the objectivist lexicon so we're stuck with it, and its meaning in this context is generally understood so hey-ho).
Where this takes us isn't clear. It certainly takes a lot of the joy out of the hifi using experience, and replaces it with something like resigned satisfaction. Given that the whole point is the pursuit of pleasure and emotional feedback, that feels like it should run counter to the whole point of hifi ownership.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
My situation tends to be, erm, different to that.
I tend to 'hear a difference' whenever I play something I've played before on the same system at the same level. I'm not surprised because human hearing varies with time and recent exposure as well as your precise location in a room. The surprise would be if I listened carefully and *didn't* hear any changes from what I *recall*. (Recall also being questionable here, of course.) My personal reaction is then to spend money on more music, not a boojum. 8-]