Expectation Bias

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Wonder if there are such things, as ... crap listeners ...

 

I wouldn't say that! They just don't have as powerful an imagination as you, Frank. That's why they have such a hard time imagining that a crap recording sounds wonderful.  In politically correct terms,  these people are imagination-challenged.

[fas42]

Ah, an admission that he has heard  'crap' recordings. And what would one of those have been, pray tell ... ?

[kumakuma]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Right, so all those audiophile labels churning out "premium!!" masterings, those recording studios very specially set up to create "proper!!" captures of some piece, those people making some good coin by acquiring, and selling THE version which is "the best!", can all shut up shop, and go home ... because they are quite unnecessary?

 

Your logic engine is misfiring today.

 

Does the existence of luxury car companies mean that all drivers believe that most cars are just OK, or mediocre and that only a special few are really worthy of being driven?

[fas42]

16 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Your logic engine is misfiring today.

 

Does the existence of luxury car companies mean that all drivers believe that most cars are just OK, or mediocre and that only a special few are really worthy of being driven?

 

Note, "just OK" means that their standard is of an OK level - as most things in life are, including cars . It doesn't mean, they barely reached the status of being OK, and are on the edge of being poor.

 

Luxury car companies tend to produce items which are very clearly superior, in various ways, to the normal fare ... that is, you don't have to be an "autophile", to appreciate their virtues ... .

[Confused]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, sorting that most likely will help - and I am serious.

 

Try thinking about this ... the aim is to get from a start to a finish line, in a car, in a certain time frame: one method is to get an ordinary vehicle, and do absolutely nothing to it but drop an enormous engine in it, with turbochargers, etc, galore; just make the engine bigger, until eventually it gets the job done. Then, another method is to to refine the whole vehicle, without changing the engine; keep working on those areas which prevent the car from being able to accelerate fast enough - in the end, that car also gets a tick. David uses more of the former method; I use mostly the second approach ...

As the forum's resident car modder I like a car analogy. In this case I think a better analogy would be to consider the wiring and interconnects in a hifi system to be equivalent to the wiring and interconnects in a car. So if you want to make your car go faster or run smoother or whatever, you might try rerouting and supporting the wiring harness, the HT leads and so on. You could try soldering some of the connectors, you could try replacing the wiring with something thicker gauge, better insulated or whatever.

 

This could actually yield some improvements. Indeed, if there was something wrong with the original wiring, you could reduce misfires and end up with a smoother drive or something. If the original wiring system was in generally good shape though, any improvements are likely to be marginal, you are not going to reduce the 0 to 60 time by 20% by using better wires and interconnects. You might achieve this by installing a more powerful engine, or ECU mods that increase turbo boost pressure, different wastegate and similar.

 

So in this analogy, sorting out the wires might make a small difference, but more significant improvements are likely to be found elsewhere.

[Confused]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Right, so all those audiophile labels churning out "premium!!" masterings, those recording studios very specially set up to create "proper!!" captures of some piece, those people making some good coin by acquiring, and selling THE version which is "the best!", can all shut up shop, and go home ... because they are quite unnecessary?

I don’t listen to such recordings. Well, actually I have one that I bought out of curiosity and listened to once.

 

Do I win a prize?

[Confused]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

All of the members who are negative to what I'm saying have expressed the attitudes in the first set of points at some stage - a classic is GIGO; whenever a recording doesn't sound good, then that's the first 'line of defence', ...

Have you not said yourself that the Led Zep remasters sound poor, as do overly compressed recordings?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

Have you not said yourself that the Led Zep remasters sound poor, as do overly compressed recordings?

 

If the Led Zep remasters were the only version, that they were the outcome from the original recording sessions and mastering, then they would be fine. Because that's all you would have to go on. But that's not how it worked out - one has a more shaded, higher intensity, more of everything edition to compare with - so, the pale, washed out edition loses .

 

Overly compressed recordings are an interesting case ... they are the hardest to get under control; my setup 2 rounds ago struggled with these, because the inherent weaknesses of that combo tended to make them sound LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME - wearing, not endearing over longer stretches; only in peak tune would some of that type really work. The current actives are of higher raw quality, and now provide albums in that category a significantly better outing - a relatively easy fix for the worst offenders would be to apply a simple decompression processing, to create a 'remaster' - works well enough, IME.

[Confused]

I've just noticed that this thread is in the Objective-fi sub-forum.

 

Does anyone have any objective data re expectation bias?

 

I think I may have got close to being objective with my earlier post describing how blind testing can be used to attempt to "calibrate" one's personal level of expectation bias.

 

Anything else?

[pkane2001]

8 minutes ago, Confused said:

I've just noticed that this thread is in the Objective-fi sub-forum.

 

Does anyone have any objective data re expectation bias?

 

I think I may have got close to being objective with my earlier post describing how blind testing can be used to attempt to "calibrate" one's personal level of expectation bias.

 

Anything else?

 

 

[botrytis]

I posted an article form the late 70's - do all amps sound the same. Basically, DBT testing then showed people couldn't tell which amp was playing. It was a crap shoot if they could tell the difference.

 

This is what Frank is afraid of. That all his 'tweaks' will end up a big 'nothing burger'.

[Racerxnet]

15 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I posted an article form the late 70's - do all amps sound the same. Basically, DBT testing then showed people couldn't tell which amp was playing. It was a crap shoot if they could tell the difference.

 

This is what Frank is afraid of. That all his 'tweaks' will end up a big 'nothing burger'.

Or a shite sandwich.

[botrytis]

20 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Or a shite sandwich.

 

NAH - I think Frank has more taste than that. Although, being Australian, I wonder if he likes 'Vegemite sandwiches' and the fact it was an American company that invented it.

[kumakuma]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

Luxury car companies tend to produce items which are very clearly superior, in various ways, to the normal fare ... that is, you don't have to be an "autophile", to appreciate their virtues ... .

 

As is the case with many companies reissuing music in new remasterings.

 

For example, the SACD jazz remasters from Analogue Productions are almost all clearly better than any other available version of the same albums.

 

I could give other examples but I suspect that it would fall on deaf ears... 👺

 

[kumakuma]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Overly compressed recordings are an interesting case ... they are the hardest to get under control; my setup 2 rounds ago struggled with these, because the inherent weaknesses of that combo tended to make them sound LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME - wearing, not endearing over longer stretches; only in peak tune would some of that type really work. The current actives are of higher raw quality, and now provide albums in that category a significantly better outing - a relatively easy fix for the worst offenders would be to apply a simple decompression processing, to create a 'remaster' - works well enough, IME.

 

This is clear evidence that your methods can't fix flawed recording but confirmation bias is preventing you from seeing what's obvious to the rest of us.

 

The lead paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on the subject couldn't be more fitting.

 

Quote

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.

 

[botrytis]

As I said, Frank, you are not going to change anyone's mind. Why not just stop?

[musicjunkie917]

7 hours ago, Confused said:

You could try soldering some of the connectors…

No self respecting wiring guy would ever use solder on an automotive wiring harness. Properly crimped connections are superior!

[Confused]

7 minutes ago, musicjunkie917 said:

No self respecting wiring guy would ever use solder on an automotive wiring harness. Properly crimped connections are superior!

From what I have seen of the wiring on my latest car, it would take while also.

[Racerxnet]

Anyone ever see a wiring harness assembled in the automotive industry? Nothing is soldered, and yet the connections perform very well over the long haul. If engineered correctly, soldering will not provide any benefit. The new CX50 and Cross AWD vehicles at the plant are plug and play with crimped connectors. 

[Racerxnet]

Confirmation bias says solder them. 

[Confused]

 

This looks similar to wiring behind the hifi on the previous page.

 

Would be a challenge to install back in the car complete with cable lifters 

[fas42]

6 hours ago, botrytis said:

As I said, Frank, you are not going to change anyone's mind. Why not just stop?

 

And the snake oil companies will send you a prayer of gratitude, for confirming that their market will happily sustain itself, indefinitely - why get meaningful answers, when you can just fork out money, for a little bit of expectation bias food .

 

One can either get realistic SQ from recordings, or one can't. I've pointed to various people who aim for this, or have achieved it, using their own methods; therefore, these people are deluded, just like me , or are getting a real buzz from superior sound reproduction. If people need to feel that others can't get better results than they personally do, so be it - however, a reasonably intelligent individual would be curious about whether they could advance their understanding, and improve the standard they are getting. Which is exactly what the friend up the road did.

 

 

[fas42]

7 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

This is clear evidence that your methods can't fix flawed recording but confirmation bias is preventing you from seeing what's obvious to the rest of us.

 

The lead paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on the subject couldn't be more fitting.

 

 

 

A doctor couldn't a save a patient from dying. This is clear evidence that the world of medicine can't help ill people, but ...

 

I'm certainly seeing a lot of confirmation bias amongst audio people on forums - that is,

 

Quote

People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs

 

The deeply entrenched belief, of course, is that the way they do hifi now, is "as good as it gets" - no other way is possible, over their dead bodies!

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

A doctor couldn't a save a patient from dying. This is clear evidence that the world of medicine can't help ill people, but ...

 

 

That's a single data point.

 

Quite different from your inability to "debug" certain types of flawed recordings despite your claims that your methods are a universal panacea.

 

 

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I'm certainly seeing a lot of confirmation bias amongst audio people on forums - that is,

 

The deeply entrenched belief, of course, is that the way they do hifi now, is "as good as it gets" - no other way is possible, over their dead bodies!

 

Yeah, so what?

 

[botrytis]

Now Frank will attack because that is the next step.