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The Great Cable and Interconnect Swindle: An Etiology


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2 minutes ago, jabbr said:


Well yes, but I was not addressing a particular experiment, rather a report of a get together in which sound perceptions were reported as different. I extended that from perhaps 4 people to 1000. 
 

Previously I used the term “placebo effect” but that was met with hostility from some parts. People also don’t react well to the term “expectation bias”.

 

I would like to use the general term “bias” like the electrical bias applied to a transistor, to mean a force that pushes, in this case perception, in one direction or another. 
 

Has anyone met someone or had personal experience with synesthesia? In that case a color may evoke or modulate a sound as might touch, likewise a sound might evoke a color. 
 

Id say that all perceptions are real. If we are interested in explaining perceptions then yes you want to identify the force pushing the perception in one direction or the other. 

I do have a bias towards using/assuming 'normal' settings on the decoder, where they are sometimes wrong.  (I mean, when I write 'normal', I intend to imply the 'most commonly correct'.)  After listening with 'bad' settings, my hearing accomodates the error, then results end up  with what seems to me -- a PERFECT result that actually sounds like hell.  (More often than not, my taste preference is towards extreme brightness, which further dulls my hearing.)   Hearing appears to have a variant of 'AGC', which does have both advantages and disadvantages when working with recordings.

 

SO, the bias that recently affects me is two layered, that is a normally correct setting, which happens to be wrong, creating some kind of 'bad sound'.  Then, my hearing accomodates the 'bad sound', therefore I end up seeming to be the fool or crackpot when I demo the result.

 

IF there was a good way of objectively measuring 'accuracy' of the decode, without having a good, but still defective, reference, I would use it.   Useful objective measurements result in a lot less wasted effort than trying to make a subjective determination or even direct comparison.  Biases and accomodation encourage all kinds of mistakes.  I have to continually remind myself of this error source.  I just got burnt yesterday by the syndrome of accomodation (a kind of AGC inside in human hearing.)

 

John

 

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11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

If Frank actually believes that he can make poor recordings sound like good recordings just by “messing around”, then he is actually ahead of the rest of us because he’s able to hear around lousy source material. I certainly can’t do that!

I agree with the sentiments, because very intelligent and well educated people have been trying to 'fix' recordings at least back to the time of the Radiotron Designers Handbook, and even before.  IMO, it is best, if one is going to try to 'fix' a recording, to try to fix the impairments one at a time.  Each impairment has very specific characteristics -- spectrum of a tick or pop, tape hiss is different than its vinyl brethren of various kinds of 'rumble' or 'vinyl surface noise'.  Each one has different characteristics, and even an adaptive general purpose FFT spectral technique misses the mark for most specific impairments.  (perhaps the FFT technique might be a last finishing polish to a recording, but must be used very carefully.)  Admittedly, the general techniques are getting better and better, but they become tricky when considering the side effects of the 'repairs' create worse problems.   All of this doesn't even consider stereo imaging issues (time distortions)...

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'messing around' will not do much to substantively improve the objective characteristics of a recording:  VERY INTELLIGENT people have been trying to do it for years, and with varying results.  Generically 'messing around' in a non-scientific way would be on the level of Edison's experiments:  once the technology becomes sophisticated at all, then ad-hoc playing around becomes ineffective.  Edison was smart enough to partially recognize this, and start hiring competent people, and have them operate on his general ideas.   Edison had a general good idea about power transmission, but DC would have been a botch.  An exquisitely competent genius in electricity and applications of electro magnetics was needed.  Of course, Edison's ego, arrogance and attitude caused him to lose Tesla.

 

I am sure that Edison was very satisfied with his own concepts, but was misguided probably by his ego.  We are ALL easily misguided by our egos - just have to realize that fact.  Once we fully recognize and respect the fact  that 'genius' doesn't come around very often, then we realize that working smart and VERY diligently  is the way that most of us get things done.   Invention doesn't come easy...    Sadly, US patent laws have been too generous naming the results of 'messing around'  as 'inventions'.

 

John

 

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