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In Reply to: RE: Twas ever thus.... posted by Paul Eizik on March 20, 2015 at 08:40:14
That Mad piece meshes well with an old tutorial on 'How to become an Audiophile':
1. Cut a 1/2 inch hole in the bottom of a pants pocket.
2. Put the pants on.
3. Walk downtown to a toy store.
4. Buy a bag of marbles.
5. Pour the marbles into the pocket with the hole.
6. Start walking home.
7. When you've lost all of your marbles, congratulations! You are an Audiophile!
Follow Ups:
....it's worse. I saw a sire on the web that had several suggestions for tweaks to try, and they all ended with "...and see if you enjoy the music more" or something like this. One idea was to go around the listening room with a screwdriver and make sure all if the screws on the electrical outlet plates had their slots oriented in the horizontal position and you would "..see if you enjoy etc". If you eliminate Penn and Teller from the story, it's very unlikely that anyone could detect the difference in a controlled listening test. Now if you gave this guy with the tweak a lie detector test, it's plausible that he could pass it if he really believed it worked. Now if you gave the same guy another lie detector test while playing some music, then had him adjust all the slots, then gave him another test with the same music, it's plausible that he did enjoy the music more after performing this ritual. Now you might say "What if I rotate some of the screws when he's not looking, how come the guy can't tell?". Well it's simple, the guy never claimed he could hear the positions of the screws with a listening test, he claimed that he enjoyed the music more after he performed this ritual. There's a place for science here, but it's more in the realm of psychology than testing audio equipment. The placebo effect is real, has been extensively studied, and has shown to work at times even when the subject has been told of the placebo! Richard Feynman has said that there two things you have to remember with science: 1. You have to make sure that you are not fooling yourself; and 2. That you are easiest person to fool.
Paul
In the nursing field when placebos are given, the Lippincott manual states EMPHATICALLY that it is important the nurse believe the placebo given will work.
Positive thinking IS a force to be reckoned with and sometimes has determined whether a person lives or dies when faced with medical turmoil.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
There's a great deal more interest in the placebo effect in the medical field than in audio. I guess audio can't kill you outright, though it could bankrupt you, get you divorced, and then you might kill yourself. But a lack of medical insurance can do that too. On one hand in audio it's ignored by people who expect there's an audible difference in the position of the screw heads on outlet plates. On the other hand, any claimed audio effect that can't be explained with text book electrical theory is blamed on the placebo effect, which is also largely ignored by some of the same theorists as they believe they're immune to it.
Paul
eliminate the ego and you will find yourself"... Eastern Philosophy.
have been around long enough to know that hubris/ego/pride IS the underlying reason for so much pain and strife on this big blue marble.
and now the United states Army War college statement takes on an entirely different interpretation.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
Here's the latest 'tweak'. For only 1,200 Euro's! At that price, it has to work, right?
"On the other hand, any claimed audio effect that can't be explained with text book electrical theory is blamed on the placebo effect, which is also largely ignored by some of the same theorists as they believe they're immune to it."
There's more to it than that. Money is involved, and when a person spends money, they expect results - GOOD results - and are NOT going to accept BAD results.
Yes, a lot of money is involved, and people spending this money expect verification that it is well spent. This could likely start with a rave review in TAS. The reviewer and a friend could expect to be treated to a luxury dinner by the manufacturer, where the bill topped $800 for the appetizer and wine before the manufacturer's rep even arrived. The rep's corporate credit card may only go to $800, so he would have to pay the difference of the final $1500 tab with his personal credit card (a true story from Critics Corner here involving TAS's HP). Some reviewers could expect to have the review sample long term, as long as he needed, even 10 years or till his death. Some reviewers don't own any of the equipment in their system, or very little, it's all stuff sent to them for review. A rarely seen statement nowadays is: "I liked it so much I bought the review sample" (this would have indicated a rave review back in the days of Stereo Review). If you can't understand what you are supposed to be appreciating from the all too frequently mediocre sound from the over priced equipment which is the norm nowadays, the critics will help you understand what you are missing with esoteric concepts like PRaT (pace, rhythm and timing). Ethan Weiner, in the video at the beginning of this thread, pointed out that these terms already have musical meanings, and it would seem that they are characteristics of the performance rather than the reproduction equipment. In the hardware realm one would expect them to refer to time domain effects such as wow and flutter in the analogue domain, and jitter in the digital. Instead PRaT seems to be increasingly associated with a tendency for musical involvement or "toe tapping quality", which could mean a tilt towards the bass usually accompanied by a treble peak for "presence" as J.G. Holt observed rave speaker reviews usually had way back in '94. It seemed that the idea of an absolute sound reference with no colorations had gone out the window even by then. And what about the "sound stage" (the localization of the various instruments in the orchestra)? One critic in Stereophile was surprised that a live symphony orchestra did'nt image all that well from the not-so great seats compared to the seats he was used to getting as comps as a reviewer. So if you buy a recommended components system, the only reason to attend a live concert is to verify that your system sounds better than the actual absolute sound. I've heard speakers in the $30,000 range by Magico and Sonus Faber (in a well treated audio salon) which had narrow one seat sweet spots, where half of a symphony orchestra disappeared if you moved one seat to the right or left from the center. Would a live orchestra do this? Some Focal speakers in $20,000 range in the same room at another date did'nt do this, and they sounded better in my opinion. Due to the price differential I'm sure I'm in the minority in this regard. Audio equipment has two functions: the first is their obvious purpose to play music; the second is more of a jewelry function, which is to impress people. You don't have to look too hard for the placebo effect in audio, it starts with the price tag.
Paul
'You don't have to look too hard for the placebo effect in audio, it starts with the price tag.'
So very true!
> Money is involved, and when a person spends money, they expect results - GOOD results - and are NOT going to accept BAD results.
Of course, expectation bias will cause them to experience good results, whether they exist or not. The might even think that bad results are actually good results. Exotic cables with very high capacitance and/or inductance that cause high frequency losses are one example.
Very true. If there is really an audible difference, is it for the better (more accurate) or worse. Any change is usually touted as being 'better', whether it really is or not.
NOBODY is ever immune from placebo effect and expectation bias.
Indeed those who think they are immune are actually more easily fooled by them.
Greasing my nutsack with coconut oil increased my enjoyment of the music.
Tom Danley has told the story on this forum of putting the final touches on a mix, and finally noticing that the EQ bypass button had been pressed on the console, and the controls he was carefully adjusting were doing nothing. Everyone who has fooled around with audio stuff has stories like this, if they don't then they have'nt fooled around enough. Back in the late 70's I had a 4 track Teac R2R, and I later got a 2 chan. MXR noise reduction unit. I soon realized I needed another MXR, and I also finally got a third one too just to avoid constantly re-doing all the patch cords. These units had a trimmer pot controlling the output level on the back, which you adjusted with a screw driver. While fine tuning the output of the 3rd unit to one of the others with a stereo music source, I only noticed after some degree of fiddling that I was turning the pot on the wrong one! I had to put color coded tape on the front and back of each unit. Lessons like this are invaluable, as you have to constantly be on guard to not fool yourself, and that reproduced audio is an illusion, with you being the illusionist.
I'm slightly allergic to coconut, so I'll have to take your word on that tweak.
Paul
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