Expectation Bias

[kumakuma]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

If people realise what can be achieved, then they will put the pressure on manufacturers to come up with the goods - multiple voices are always more effective than one ... QED.

 

So after 12 years, tens of thousands of posts, and thousands of alienated fellow audiophiles, how do you feel your campaign is going?

 

As far as I can tell, you haven't made a single convert to your cause in the 5+ years since you've joined this forum.

 

Certainly no critical mass of folks "putting the pressure on manufacturers to come up with the goods".

 

In looking at this situation, I can't help but be reminded of the wisdom of Einstein's words.

 

 

[botrytis]

https://www.soundacousticsolutions.com/blog/2017/08/01/basic-acoustic-concepts-series-part-one/

 

Frank needs to understand basics as he seems to be lacking basic knowledge.

[fas42]

9 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

So after 12 years, tens of thousands of posts, and thousands of alienated fellow audiophiles, how do you feel your campaign is going?

 

Alienated? That's what usually happens when people who don't hop on the train of conventional wisdom speak up; there has been a steady, now and again, posting by people on all the audio forums remarking on some audio system behaviour that they've come across, which confirms what I keep mentioning. Of course, these posts are barely commented upon, or completely ignored - they don't fit the pattern, and so fall through the cracks. Also reminds me of the last audio show - the one room which had the best SQ in it was empty; and the one that was packed had classic "hifi" sound; loud, bass thumping, classy PA signature - the sort of thing people are comfortable with, .

 

9 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

As far as I can tell, you haven't made a single convert to your cause in the 5+ years since you've joined this forum.

 

Certainly no critical mass of folks "putting the pressure on manufacturers to come up with the goods".

 

In looking at this situation, I can't help but be reminded of the wisdom of Einstein's words.

 

 

 

Some things take time ...

 

I like keeping touch with how thinking is going - in spite of the slow progress, most certainly there has been movement - as evidenced by the fact that highly capable stuff is now available, at remarkably low prices; this was completely absent, even a decade ago. Asia is where the action is, has taken over from the West - they'll put the first true "giant killer", in terms of competency, on the market.

[fas42]

8 hours ago, botrytis said:

https://www.soundacousticsolutions.com/blog/2017/08/01/basic-acoustic-concepts-series-part-one/

 

Frank needs to understand basics as he seems to be lacking basic knowledge.

 

Ah, the ol' "simple mechanical explanation is the whole story" line - if only the human organism could be reduced to a bullet point list of features and behaviours in all areas, eh ...

[botrytis]

One can actually, Frank.

[fas42]

David Karmeli is one of the few chaps who understands what the journey is intending to reach - this thread is a good introduction into his world, https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/david-karmelis-natural-sound-in-utah.32411/.

 

If I had had plenty of money to play with this sort of stuff earlier, it's highly likely I would have ended in a very similar place to where he is ...

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, botrytis said:

One can actually, Frank.

 

With your brain, I could very well imagine that is the case, .

[kumakuma]

34 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Alienated? That's what usually happens when people who don't hop on the train of conventional wisdom speak up; there has been a steady, now and again, posting by people on all the audio forums remarking on some audio system behaviour that they've come across, which confirms what I keep mentioning. Of course, these posts are barely commented upon, or completely ignored - they don't fit the pattern, and so fall through the cracks. Also reminds me of the last audio show - the one room which had the best SQ in it was empty; and the one that was packed had classic "hifi" sound; loud, bass thumping, classy PA signature - the sort of thing people are comfortable with, .

 

 

Some things take time ...

 

I like keeping touch with how thinking is going - in spite of the slow progress, most certainly there has been movement - as evidenced by the fact that highly capable stuff is now available, at remarkably low prices; this was completely absent, even a decade ago. Asia is where the action is, has taken over from the West - they'll put the first true "giant killer", in terms of competency, on the market.

 

You didn't answer my question.

 

Do you think the thousands and thousands of hours you have spent posting your ideas to this forum to have been a good use of your time?

 

It seems to me to be the least efficient way possible to affect change in the audio industry.

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

You didn't answer my question.

 

Do you think the thousands and thousands of hours you have spent posting your ideas to this forum to have been a good use of your time?

 

It seems to me to be the least efficient way possible to affect change in the audio industry.

 

And other forums, too ... yes!

 

I'm not a youngie - if I was a fired up twenty something, I would be running around, starting up companies; all that sort of stuff. What I'm doing here suits me; dropping breadcrumbs for others to follow the trail, when and if they should choose to do so.

[botrytis]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And other forums, too ... yes!

 

I'm not a youngie - if I was a fired up twenty something, I would be running around, starting up companies; all that sort of stuff. What I'm doing here suits me; dropping breadcrumbs for others to follow the trail, when and if they should choose to do so.

 

Sure Frank, sure, sure. Trying to follow the M-QAnon way of making money?

 

There is nothing to follow - it is all nonsense. The stuff that I gathered, like the rest, are just ridiculous that you talk about, honestly.

[fas42]

18 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Sure Frank, sure, sure. Trying to follow the M-QAnon way of making money?

 

There is nothing to follow - it is all nonsense. The stuff that I gathered, like the rest, are just ridiculous that you talk about, honestly.

 

The trail that most audiophiles follow:

• Most recordings are just OK, or mediocre. Only a special few are really worthy of being played on the best systems
• The best systems just keep getting better and better, the more money is poured in
• Only extreme levels of fiddling with the room can extract the best from a system or recordings, because playback of recordings is such a flawed, fragile mechanism

 

The trail I follow:

• All recordings are treasures, of creations by musicians. The aim is to extract the best out of each one, by doing the least damage in the replay
• A system merely has to be sufficiently accurate, to extract an acceptable reproduction. More money may or may not help; and flaws in the links of the playback chain normally do enough damage to undermine the ability of the setup to give a reasonable account of what's on the recording
• Any reasonable listening area is fine. A well sorted chain extracts enough information, of sufficient integrity, for the ear/brain to be drawn into the world of the recording. Unfortunately, the history of the audio game has made this much harder than it needs to be, because not enough research has been done to understand things better

 

Now, I wonder which trail would look more "ridiculous!" to someone who has no interest in audio ...

 

 

[Allan F]

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The trail I follow:

• All recordings are treasures, of creations by musicians. The aim is to extract the best out of each one, by doing the least damage in the replay
• A system merely has to be sufficiently accurate, to extract an acceptable reproduction. More money may or may not help; and flaws in the links of the playback chain normally do enough damage to undermine the ability of the setup to give a reasonable account of what's on the recording
• Any reasonable listening area is fine. A well sorted chain extracts enough information, of sufficient integrity, for the ear/brain to be drawn into the world of the recording. Unfortunately, the history of the audio game has made this much harder than it needs to be, because not enough research has been done to understand things better.

 

Your description of "the trail" is so full of vague subjective qualifiers that it's impossible to derive any meaningful standard from it. Examples: "sufficiently accurate", "acceptable reproduction", "reasonable listening area", "enough information", "sufficient integrity"  Also vague is the ear/brain being "drawn into" the recording.

 

The only person for whom your post can possibly have any specific meaning is you, because it utterly fails to communicate anything of value that can be used by anyone else.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Allan F said:

 

Your description of "the trail" is so full of vague subjective qualifiers that it's impossible to derive any meaningful standard from it. Examples: "sufficiently accurate", "acceptable reproduction", "reasonable listening area", "enough information", "sufficient integrity"  Equally vague is the ear/brain being "drawn into" the recording. The only person for whom your post can possibly have any specific meaning is you, because it utterly fails to communicate anything of value to anyone else.

 

Well, I guess anyone who requires strict metrics in their life would have difficulty - as in, "I require a girl I meet to have an Attractiveness Quotient of least 93.5 before I make an effort" - some people can struggle on in life, without such precision ...

[Allan F]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

"Well, I guess anyone who requires strict metrics in their life would have difficulty..."

 

Strict metrics!?!?  You don't provide any metrics. And your example makes absolutely no sense whatsoever as an analogy in the context of this discussion. Over and out.

[Allan F]

-duplicate post-

 

[fas42]

20 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Strict metrics!?!?  You don't provide any metrics. And your example makes absolutely no sense whatsoever as an analogy in the context of this discussion. Over and out.

 

People want things like, what are the measurable levels of THD+N that are necessary? Well, currently it doesn't work that way; people haven't evolved the right measuring tools, to give meaningful numbers. So, in the interim, you use recordings which audibly demonstrate flaws in the playback - things like, yes, original mastering of Led Zep I  !! And do simple experiments which allow one to pinpoint where an inadequate link may lie. And do what is necessary to resolve that. And continue, until enough audible defects are eliminated - you know when you're there, because the SQ becomes, 'natural'.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

People want things like, what are the measurable levels of THD+N that are necessary? Well, currently it doesn't work that way; people haven't evolved the right measuring tools, to give meaningful numbers. So, in the interim, you use recordings which audibly demonstrate flaws in the playback - things like, yes, original mastering of Led Zep I  !! And do simple experiments which allow one to pinpoint where an inadequate link may lie. And do what is necessary to resolve that. And continue, until enough audible defects are eliminated - you know when you're there, because the SQ becomes, 'natural'.

 

Seems to me you've perfectly demonstrated the force of Expectation Bias in this thread, Frank. Everything you do is obviously influenced by your experience  that one time, 35 years ago. Time to move on and try something different, something that actually accomplishes what you imagine it might. Imagination is a powerful drug, but it's not reality.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Seems to me you've perfectly demonstrated the force of Expectation Bias in this thread, Frank. Everything you do is obviously influenced by your experience  that one time, 35 years ago. Time to move on and try something different, something that actually accomplishes what you imagine it might. Imagination is a powerful drug, but it's not reality.

 

That's true ... everything I do is influenced by my experience, 35 years ago - of course, we won't mention that I could repeat it, over and over again, with the certainty of the sun rising in the morning, ad nauseum, . The unfortunate side effect is that I couldn't take conventional audio reproduction of the time seriously; but I also couldn't work out a long term solution, for that system - bugger !!

 

The reality that matters is whether one can enjoy reproduction of all the recordings one comes across, at any sane sound level. If one can't, then imagination is a very feeble helper, IME. Of course, in your head, I'm imagining that quality of the Toslink connection in what I have at the moment is getting in the way of optimised SQ - perhaps you could donate a tiny fraction of that powerful drug of imagination you apparently have on tap, to overcome my rather lack lustre variety; which is not doing a good enough job? Will be faster than actually sorting out the issue - the latter being a waste of time when all conquering Expectation Bias can be called on, to cure all ills, hmmm ... .

[Confused]

Just as a casual observation. Although this is an expectation bias thread, there is also a LOT of confirmation bias exhibited in many posts over the last couple of days.

 

it’s quite good fun trying to spot the subject posts.

 

Anther fun game is to try to spot the on topic posts, although this one is a little trickier.

[pkane2001]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

That's true ... everything I do is influenced by my experience, 35 years ago - of course, we won't mention that I could repeat it, over and over again, with the certainty of the sun rising in the morning, ad nauseum, .

 

Yes, you repeat the claims about it, ad nauseum, over and over again. That's absolutely true ;) 

 

 

[botrytis]

No one has a perfect memory from 35 yrs ago, unless it is a shock, like an accident, death in the family, etc. Your mind molds your memories to your expectation also.

[Confused]

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

David Karmeli is one of the few chaps who understands what the journey is intending to reach - this thread is a good introduction into his world, https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/david-karmelis-natural-sound-in-utah.32411/.

 

If I had had plenty of money to play with this sort of stuff earlier, it's highly likely I would have ended in a very similar place to where he is ...

I am not sure he is following your methodology though .....

 

[botrytis]

Quck Frank, go and fix all his cables.

[Confused]

3 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Quick Frank, go and fix all his cables.

 They'll only move by themselves after he's gone ....

[kumakuma]

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The trail that most audiophiles follow:

• Most recordings are just OK, or mediocre. Only a special few are really worthy of being played on the best systems
• The best systems just keep getting better and better, the more money is poured in
• Only extreme levels of fiddling with the room can extract the best from a system or recordings, because playback of recordings is such a flawed, fragile mechanism

 

The trail I follow:

• All recordings are treasures, of creations by musicians. The aim is to extract the best out of each one, by doing the least damage in the replay
• A system merely has to be sufficiently accurate, to extract an acceptable reproduction. More money may or may not help; and flaws in the links of the playback chain normally do enough damage to undermine the ability of the setup to give a reasonable account of what's on the recording
• Any reasonable listening area is fine. A well sorted chain extracts enough information, of sufficient integrity, for the ear/brain to be drawn into the world of the recording. Unfortunately, the history of the audio game has made this much harder than it needs to be, because not enough research has been done to understand things better

 

Now, I wonder which trail would look more "ridiculous!" to someone who has no interest in audio ...

 

 

 

In my experience, very few audiophiles hold either of the extreme positions that you have outlined above.