Expectation Bias

[fas42]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

Well... the room (alas) is actually part of the setup. Did you ever put your gear in a bathroom? Did the illusion stay the same?

 

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Great system in a 'bad' room, of course. If you can listen to a live instrument in that space, without, er, losing your sanity, then good reproduction won't have a problem.

 

 

Last time I checked, only those who wanted some reinforcement of their efforts with vocal chords went with the bathroom thing, .

[Confused]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

Last time I checked, only those who wanted some reinforcement of their efforts with vocal chords went with the bathroom thing, .

I do not understand. How does being in the bathroom provide reinforcement of their efforts with vocal chords?

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Confused said:

I do not understand. How does being in the bathroom provide reinforcement of their efforts with vocal chords?

 

Lots of reverb, fattening the voice ...

[Confused]

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Lots of reverb, fattening the voice ...

The integrity of the presentation of my voice is such that it is unaffected by the room.  

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

If you have never experienced the illusion being so powerful that where you listen to a speaker is completely irrelevant, then you won't ever fully understand. And that's why I find so many high end rigs of no interest - they are quite incapable of doing this.

 

The more ambitious the speakers (i.e. better resolution, better frequency response, less distortion, etc...) the easier it is to "fuck up" with careless setup. I don't doubt that you can get very satisfying sound from Edifier Bookshelf speakers (S2000 ?), and that's great. I get very satisfying sound from my PortaPro headphones hooked up to my phone. But it's not the same experience as listening to music in my living room, and I would not do with either one. 

 

With more ambitious speakers (than Edifiers), room interaction and acoustics are probably more critical (but the rewards are there), and that could explain your viewpoint.

 

 

 

 

[Racerxnet]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Lots of reverb, fattening the voice ...

That only reenforces the fact that the room is a part of the replay chain. Change the room and you change the sound heard, ie the sound characteristics have changed. 

[botrytis]

Frank doesn't understand that room interactions are one of the issues all audiophiles deal with. Whether treated or not is another issue. An amazing sounding audio system can be deterred by a bad room and a mediocre system can sound decent, if the room is dealt with properly.

 

He thinks it is all part and parcel of the audio chain itself, that is only 1 part of the equation.

 

 

[kumakuma]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The brain most certainly does - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect. But it requires the playback system data to have sufficient integrity, so that the stream of music from the speakers constantly forms a coherent sound source. The brain hears, a) the sound data of the recording, b) any completely extraneous sounds in the listening space, and c) the reaction of the listening space to the sound data being projected into the room. It's quite easy to discard b), but c) could be the tricky one. IME, there's a quite sharp cutoff point, where the information in a) is able to dominate, and the brain can quite easily ignore c) ; the latter "doesn't make sense!", with good enough playback, and is rejected by the listening ear/brain as being irrelevant.

 

Frank,

 

I think things are a lot simpler than this.

 

Essentially, if something is bothering us on a conscious level while we are listening to music, we're not going to be able to lose ourselves into the music.

 

What this impediment to "the magic" is will vary greatly from person to person.

 

For you, it's "a lack of integrity" and "distortion".

 

For me, it's poor recording quality and certain types of music.

 

These things may not bother others, such as my daughter, who can enjoy music I consider to be absolute crap on the shitty sound system in her car.

 

Bottom line.

 

You've come up with an explanation for how your brain operates but I don't believe that it's a universal explanation of how everyone's brain operates.

[botrytis]

37 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Frank,

 

I think things are a lot simpler than this.

 

Essentially, if something is bothering us on a conscious level while we are listening to music, we're not going to be able to lose ourselves into the music.

 

What this impediment to "the magic" is will vary greatly from person to person.

 

For you, it's "a lack of integrity" and "distortion".

 

For me, it's poor recording quality and certain types of music.

 

These things may not bother others, such as my daughter, who can enjoy music I consider to be absolute crap on the shitty sound system in her car.

 

Bottom line.

 

You've come up with an explanation for how your brain operates but I don't believe that it's a universal explanation of how everyone's brain operates.

 

It is not even with a brain that has a chemical imbalance, that is really what mental illness is really, it is various things that can cause it. It is the balance between all the interconnections in the brain that goes off (one possible cause out of many and some still not understood).

 

A recent paper, I read in Psychology was interesting People underestimate the time enjoyed just thinking....

 

This is Frank's fault, he overthinks everything. We all do it, but Frank has a D.Sc. in it (Doctor of Science - in some EU countries this is a step above a Ph.D. as one has to have expertise knowledge in more than one field of study. My Post Doc advisor, at the University of Georgia, had both a Ph.D. and a D.Sc. He was Swedish too.

 

Well, back on point, this is what Frank does. Not everything HAS to have an explanation. The Mona Lisa, we know Da Vinci's style, and this is one classic expressions of him. Can't things just be?

 

Sorry, Saturday morning coffee philosophical thoughts. 🤣

[kumakuma]

16 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

This is Frank's fault, he overthinks everything.

 

 

I think it's more a variation of Maslow's law of the instrument:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument

[botrytis]

[botrytis]

If you can't laugh at yourself, then how can you laugh at anybody else? I think people see the human side of you when you do that.

Payne Stewart

 

words to live buy.

[Confused]

Regarding the room treatment debate, I am currently using convolution filters created with Focus Fidelity Filter Designer (FFFD) . With my system and my ears, the results are excellent. The other thing with room correction convolution filters is that it is really easy to turn them on and off, and instantly hear any changes to sound quality. 

 

Furthermore, the effect of the convolution filters is measurable with software like REW or similar. This allows the subjective changes to be corelated with actual measured data. This is both interesting and highly informative.

 

As for Frank, I know that he dismisses any kind of room correction as "fiddling with frequencies" or something like that, and would state that I need to improve the integrity of my rig then I would not need such sticking plasters. This perhaps ignores the fact that that for me FFFD subjectively moves my system to one where I can happily listen to almost any recording, which curiously is one of Franks aims.

 

For the above, I use FrankFilter (FF). This is similar to an audio convolution filter, but in this case it reverses the meaning of anything that Frank posts. Some examples:

 

The room does not matter if a rig is properly sorted = the room is very important for any decent audio system

 

This where I see most audiophiles getting things very back to front = Many audiophiles are very knowledgeable and competent

 

Wilson Audio speakers sound like poo = Wilson Audio speakers can sound quite good

 

I need to turn off FrankFilter if I actually want to reply to one of Franks posts, but most of the time I leave it activated and I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything he posts.

 

One thing, I am a little fed up with many interesting threads descending into a debate about Franks method. As it happens, I think the topic of expectation bias is a very interesting topic that deserves to be explored further. For this reason, tomorrow I plan to post something that is actually on topic, and hopefully though provoking.

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

For me, it's poor recording quality and certain types of music

 

I can predict Frank's next post: `if you don't like poor recording quality it's because your system is not competent." 😁

[Confused]

Just now, hopkins said:

 

I can predict Frank's next post: `if you don't like poor recording quality it's because your system is not competent." 😁

Just use FF.

[Confused]

7 hours ago, hopkins said:

Here is an interesting read illustrating the differences between live music and home reproduction: http://www.moultonlabs.com/images/pdfs/loudspeaker_as_musical_instrument.pdf

Most of it is pretty basic, but it is a good recap.

This was quite a good read, and some sections actually on topic for an expectation bias thread.

[kumakuma]

4 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

I can predict Frank's next post: `if you don't like poor recording quality it's because your system is not competent." 😁

 

Unfortunately, you're probably right... 😭

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

9 minutes ago, Confused said:

This was quite a good read, and some sections actually on topic for an expectation bias thread.

 

He's got a few articles on the topic, for example this one: http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/some_reminiscing/

And another: http://www.moultonlabs.com/weblog/more/wacky_world_of_blind_testing

[fas42]

11 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

The more ambitious the speakers (i.e. better resolution, better frequency response, less distortion, etc...) the easier it is to "fuck up" with careless setup. I don't doubt that you can get very satisfying sound from Edifier Bookshelf speakers (S2000 ?), and that's great. I get very satisfying sound from my PortaPro headphones hooked up to my phone. But it's not the same experience as listening to music in my living room, and I would not do with either one. 

 

Listening in the living room? The point of competent SQ is that you listen throughout the house - that is, you can set the volume such that the music flows through to every part; and it sounds good from the other end of the building, and, at that same volume, it also sounds good a foot in front of the speakers. Which is precisely what happens if a live musician plays an instrument in your home .

 

11 hours ago, hopkins said:

With more ambitious speakers (than Edifiers), room interaction and acoustics are probably more critical (but the rewards are there), and that could explain your viewpoint.

 

 

Not really. What does happen, especially in prior years, with ambitious systems is that they become more susceptible to emphasising defects in the chain, and, for me, they are then quite unlistenable to - they often sound like a somewhat better PA system, and sometimes they are worse, .

 

People have a terribly hard time coming to grips with the fact that the speakers, and system, are a 'window' into the contents of the recording - the latter sets the limits of what it will sound like; a million dollar speaker won't sound a million dollars, it should sound like the recording.

[fas42]

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

Essentially, if something is bothering us on a conscious level while we are listening to music, we're not going to be able to lose ourselves into the music.

 

Yes.

 

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

What this impediment to "the magic" is will vary greatly from person to person.

 

Yes.

 

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

For you, it's "a lack of integrity" and "distortion".

 

For me, it's poor recording quality and certain types of music.

 

The trouble here is, how does one evaluate "poor recording quality"?

 

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

These things may not bother others, such as my daughter, who can enjoy music I consider to be absolute crap on the shitty sound system in her car.

 

Bottom line.

 

You've come up with an explanation for how your brain operates but I don't believe that it's a universal explanation of how everyone's brain operates.

 

What I'm after is the sensation in the brain when you listen to the live music. As in, zero PA nonsense in the picture. Anyone who has no trouble distinguishing live music, from the reproduction of the same music event, I would suggest has a brain that is sensitive enough to the difference.

[botrytis]

 

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Listening in the living room? The point of competent SQ is that you listen throughout the house - that is, you can set the volume such that the music flows through to every part; and it sounds good from the other end of the building, and, at that same volume, it also sounds good a foot in front of the speakers. Which is precisely what happens if a live musician plays an instrument in your home .

 

 

Not really. What does happen, especially in prior years, with ambitious systems is that they become more susceptible to emphasising defects in the chain, and, for me, they are then quite unlistenable to - they often sound like a somewhat better PA system, and sometimes they are worse, .

 

People have a terribly hard time coming to grips with the fact that the speakers, and system, are a 'window' into the contents of the recording - the latter sets the limits of what it will sound like; a million dollar speaker won't sound a million dollars, it should sound like the recording.

FRANK - stop. You are just burying yourself further. You have already have shown you do not know what you are doing.

[botrytis]

Here is a horrible living room. Run Frank run....

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Here is a horrible living room. Run Frank run....

 

What's the problem with it?

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

What's the problem with it?

 

There are no stacks of old newspapers on top of the speakers, how good could it be?

 

[fas42]

23 hours ago, fas42 said:

Okay, let's do a role call ... who here has a system that can do the mono replay trick; that is, the soundstage remains completely disconnected from the speakers, irrespective of how far left or right of the centre of the two speakers you are?

 

Okay, close to 24 hours since this was posted - and no posts responding ... this tells me everything I need to know, .

 

The Edifiers have gradually been pushed to a point where they are about 95% there; the illusion holds, depending on how happy the DVD player is, to within a foot or so ...