Is Audiophiledom a confidence game?

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, marce said:

We were talking about John Swenson, he's not a standard member, he has designed some gear, please try and stay on track Alex...

 

The bulk of participants in this nasty thread would demand proof from their own mother !

 It's not just John Swenson that you guys demand proof from. It's virtually every C.A. member who makes a subjective claim that you guys believe is impossible. This is often followed by calling the poster/s delusional.

[crenca]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The bulk of participants in this nasty thread would demand proof from their own mother !

 It's not just John Swenson that you guys demand proof from. It's virtually every C.A. member who makes a subjective claim that you guys believe is impossible. This is often followed by calling the poster/s delusional.

 

"nasty thread"...reminds me of something.."nasty nasty nasty thread"

 

You should work on this post a bit, find a meter, and write a song...it has a poetic quality.

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The bulk of participants in this nasty thread would demand proof from their own mother !

 It's not just John Swenson that you guys demand proof from. It's virtually every C.A. member who makes a subjective claim that you guys believe is impossible. This is often followed by calling the poster/s delusional.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=POIDH

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

Did he measure the properties of the resulting sound waves?

 

No, he determined that they sounded different by listening to them. A novel concept to many on this forum.

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

 

.

[kumakuma]

41 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The bulk of participants in this nasty thread would demand proof from their own mother !

 It's not just John Swenson that you guys demand proof from. It's virtually every C.A. member who makes a subjective claim that you guys believe is impossible. This is often followed by calling the poster/s delusional.

 

Yup, there's a lot of bad hombres here at CA and they need to go back to where they came from.

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

John is well aware of the technical explanations. He is also interested in promoting the idea that that his designs have been perfected down to the last detail.

 

That was not the tenor of his comments at all. Rather, his point was that measurements tell only part of the story. Kevin Hayes of VAC expressed similar views. The correlation between measurements and sound quality is hardly an exact science.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, marce said:

I do remember this, have you any links please, I would like to re-look at it. I am aware that there are differences in USB cables and in any digital transmission. And on another thread did put forth some information regarding EMC issues etc. Even though I am doubtful of well engineered system showing differences in cables I am still looking at all the evidence, as I said on the other thread noise could account for the differences but no firm conclusion. In fact I put up quite a long proposal, giving some effects that could have an effect, it was ignored by many, but other short post's were jumped on by the believers and I was ravaged, as if I had fallen in a pit full of Chihuahua's.

Unlike you my scope and other kit is in a landfill site, when we last moved some boxes got mixed up! and got dumped

Gordon found some audiophile USB cable offerings didn't meet USB spec.  Some did.  Of course inexpensive cables did.  He also says they sound different from each other, but that is from sighted subjective evaluation of them.  He has written that he gives up determining why they sound different as any measurements he has made show no reason for it.  He has some gear not commonly available to carry out extensive measurements.  

 

So the big elephant to me is the sighted evaluation.  We know for certain those are always suspect.  

[Allan F]

9 minutes ago, esldude said:

So the big elephant to me is the sighted evaluation.  We know for certain those are always suspect.  

 

As are many dbt's.

[lucretius]

18 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Not all would agree that the burden falls to disproving an assertion. It would depend on the nature of the claim and in general IMO who is making the claim.IMO it should fall to the "claimant". The "claimant" being the manufacturer of say cables etc,  or in the case of the audiophile reporting a perception, the person claiming it is impossible. It is a debatable area I agree.

 

Regarding the case of an audiophile reporting a perception – a listening report, we know:

·         Perception is sometimes unreliable.

·         Our previous experiences and attitudes will impact how we interpret and hear the next event.

·         Expectation impacts on our perceptual system by biasing perception towards reporting the expected signal.

·         The listener is more likely to point out a false difference than to point out no difference when in fact one exists. [Signal detection theory]

 

We don’t know:

·         The sincerity of the listening report (but should presume it is sincere unless there’s reason not to)

·         The reliability of listener’s sense perception

·         The ability of the listener to correctly articulate what he heard into a language that others can understand.

 

What would be valuable to others (to me at least):

·         Clear and distinct perception testimony.

·         Repeatability by other independent listeners.

·         Elimination or reduction of bias as much as possible.

·         Measurements that correlate with the listening report.

 

[Speed Racer]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Yup, there's a lot of bad hombres here at CA and they need to go back to where they came from.

 

I love Internet police!

[kumakuma]

8 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I love Internet police!

 

 

[Ralf11]

One thing we do have is a plausible mechanism by which USB and/or Ethernet cables could degrade SQ.

 

Testing would be nice and a DBL study is easy -- you guys could do it at a show, or a club meeting in a large city.

 

If I used such cables and a fix to the hypothesized problem were cheap & easy I'd implement it right away.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

As are many dbt's.

You can argue against DBTs all you want, but if DBTs are biased then how could a sighted test be any more valid?

[Allan F]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

Expectation impacts on our perceptual system by biasing perception towards reporting the expected signal.

 

Not if one starts out with no pre-conceived notion. Furthermore, expectation bias works both ways. If one is convinced that there is no difference, it won't be heard notwithstanding that it actually exists.

 

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

Repeatability by other independent listeners.

 

Something that is frequently reported on this forum.

 

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

Measurements that correlate with the listening report.

 

Which assumes that what is heard is measurable, which may or may not be the case.

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Allan F said:

Not if one starts out with no pre-conceived notion.

Not possible.

[Allan F]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

Not possible.

In your opinion.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

As are many dbt's.

Some dbt's are suspect.  Sighted uncontrolled evaluations are always suspect. 

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, Allan F said:

In your opinion.

No in point of fact. 

 

No one who is human is immune to such things.  That is not an opinion. 

 

Those who say one can be immune sound like a mark in the confidence game. 

[Allan F]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

No in point of fact. 

 

No one who is human is immune to such things.  NO ONE!  That is not an opinion. 

 

In your opinion. It just doesn't make sense that one will always have an expectation of a particular result. Open minds do exist, notwithstanding your view to the contrary.

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, Allan F said:

Open minds do exist, notwithstanding your view to the contrary.

True. And open minds don't hear a difference between Ethernet cables

 

[Ralf11]

7 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

In your opinion. It just doesn't make sense that one will always have an expectation of a particular result. Open minds do exist, notwithstanding your view to the contrary.

 

It is not just his opinion, and there are thousands of studies on the matter.

 

Now, it might be that some minds are sufficiently open to reduce the effect to a level where it could be counteracted by some other effect, but...

 

... how would you determine that?

[Ralf11]

 

[Allan F]

15 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

True. And open minds don't hear a difference between Ethernet cables

 

But they may, not will, hear a difference between USB cables, interconnect cables, speaker cables, and power cables.

[pkane2001]

5 minutes ago, Allan F said:

But they may, not will, hear a difference between USB cables, interconnect cables, speaker cables, and power cables.

 

Nah. I know this from personal experience