Expectation Bias

[fas42]

23 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

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.

 

 

100% accurate replay of a recording which is intended to have certain characteristics will mean that you hear those characteristics. That's why, Jimi Hendrix's guitar will sound, highly distorted - I'm not aiming to 'fix', the sound of his Marshall amp, okay?

 

The way to debug excessively compressed tracks, deliberately done, is to use software which reverses that processing - it's another part of the method, you see ... .

 

30 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Now Frank will attack because that is the next step.

 

If you want to know why the world has a mess in Ukraine right now, this is as good an example as any - why aim for better understanding, when it's more 'fun' to revert to primitive behaviour ...

[Racerxnet]

58 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

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.

 

 

The only difference between them and you are the dollars rolling into the bank. The confirmation bias between the bogus manufacturer and you are the same. Get people to believe you made a improvement without verification. Carry on. 

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

The only difference between them and you are the dollars rolling into the bank. The confirmation bias between the bogus manufacturer and you are the same. Get people to believe you made a improvement without verification. Carry on. 

 

But the companies selling $100,000 plus speakers are definitely not bogus; zero confirmation bias involved - correct?

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

100% accurate replay of a recording which is intended to have certain characteristics will mean that you hear those characteristics. That's why, Jimi Hendrix's guitar will sound, highly distorted - I'm not aiming to 'fix', the sound of his Marshall amp, okay?

 

 

100% accurate replay of a recording is a given. 

 

However, not all recordings are accurate representations of the underlying music event.

 

The idea that you can "tweak" the playback device to fix these flawed recordings is absolute poppycock!

[musicjunkie917]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The way to debug excessively compressed tracks, deliberately done, is to use software which reverses that processing - it's another part of the method, you see ... .

The idea that you can reverse the process implies the compression process is lossless. But, it is not….so you can’t! You can try, but you end up with something unreal.  

[botrytis]

I will say it one more time, please stop Frank.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

However, not all recordings are accurate representations of the underlying music event.

 

The idea that you can "tweak" the playback device to fix these flawed recordings is absolute poppycock!

 

What is, accuracy? I go into a concert hall, and listen in twenty very different locations, to a performance. And make a recording, at each position of what I'm hearing. All are representations of the underlying musical event, which to my ear, sound very "musical". The latter is what's important to me - and I'm, content ... the underlying musical event has come through, loud and clear .

 

What I'm tweaking out are the audible deficiencies of the playback chain ... not the recording! The latter lives or dies by what was captured, and all the following handling, prior to reaching me. And IME that's enough - for any 'sensible' recording, the event comes through, every time.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, musicjunkie917 said:

The idea that you can reverse the process implies the compression process is lossless. But, it is not….so you can’t! You can try, but you end up with something unreal.  

 

No reversal is going to be 100% perfect. And you are only aiming to undo the very last of any squashing, of the fully mixed track. Yes, I've tried some of the software out there that claims to help, but I've always found their effort to be pretty feeble. So, I've done it my way a number of times, and have been pleased with the result;  no "unrealness", and far superior to the original. The magic here, , is working out the right settings; slightly wrong, and it doesn't sound right - a little bit of iteration gets you close enough.

[Racerxnet]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

I will say it one more time, please stop Frank.

Frank knows the cause is lost, its something for him to do. He keeps babbling and the troll gets fed. 

[botrytis]

I thought I could appeal to him.

[kumakuma]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

What I'm tweaking out are the audible deficiencies of the playback chain ... not the recording! The latter lives or dies by what was captured, and all the following handling, prior to reaching me. And IME that's enough - for any 'sensible' recording, the event comes through, every time.

 

Fortunately, the vast majority of recording in my collection are of the "sensible" variety and there are no audible deficiencies in my playback chain. 

[AudioDoctor]

This is why I have Frank blocked...

 

This has got to be right up there with some of the most ridiculous things he has ever said. Maybe the patient died because the Dr did not solder the EKG machine right to the powerline and didn't see the tell tale clues of an impending heart attack hidden within the data due to the noise that wasn't filtered out because he refused to look at the system as a whole...

[musicjunkie917]

25 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

This is why I have Frank blocked...

Great idea!  Done!

[Confused]

22 hours 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'.

Yes, I read the article you posted a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of some of my past experiences with blind testing, subtle differences that seemed clear in sighted listening mysteriously vanished when tried blind.

 

I have found that using blind testing to provide clarity to myself as to what I can discern to be incredibly useful self knowledge. What I can indeed discern, what I cannot, where I might be fooled, and so on.

[pkane2001]

5 minutes ago, Confused said:

Yes, I read the article you posted a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of some of my past experiences with blind testing, subtle differences that seemed clear in sighted listening mysteriously vanished when tried blind.

 

I have found that using blind testing to provide clarity to myself as to what I can discern to be incredibly useful self knowledge. What I can indeed discern, what I cannot, where I might be fooled, and so on.

 

I think that's the real value of blind testing. It is to reveal what you can really hear, rather than what you think you hear. It's just too easy to hear huge differences, many veils lifted, improved microdynamics, wider soundstage, better instrument separation, more air, more slam, etc., etc., etc., if you think that something has changed. Even if nothing was changed in reality.

[botrytis]

6 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I think that's the real value of blind testing. It is to reveal what you can really hear, rather than what you think you hear. It's just too easy to hear huge differences, many veils lifted, improved microdynamics, wider soundstage, better instrument separation, more air, more slam, etc., etc., etc., if you think that something has changed. Even if nothing was changed in reality.

 

This is a contradiction. One either hears it with DBT or it doesn't exist - there is no middle ground. That is the point.

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, botrytis said:

This is a contradiction. One either hears it with DBT or it doesn't exist - there is no middle ground. That is the point.

 

Reality is overrated, as demonstrated by the first few Matrix movies :) Red pill vs blue pill. We all know which one Frank picked. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

15 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

This is a contradiction. One either hears it with DBT or it doesn't exist - there is no middle ground. That is the point.

I disagree. 
 

If one doesn’t expect to hear a difference, one won’t hear a difference. Expectations.  

[botrytis]

14 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Reality is overrated, as demonstrated by the first few Matrix movies :) Red pill vs blue pill. We all know which one Frank picked. 

 

We have to live in reality, or we can join Frank.

 

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I disagree. 
 

If one doesn’t expect to hear a difference, one won’t hear a difference. Expectations.  

 

The point is with a DBT, is you don't know what you are listening to. If you don't know, then HOW can you have expectations?

 

That IS the point.

[bodiebill]

15 minutes ago, botrytis said:

The point is with a DBT, is you don't know what you are listening to. If you don't know, then HOW can you have expectations?

 

That IS the point.

 

Chris is talking about DBT as it is commonly performed, such as "we will compare cables A and B, and before we do that you put on a blindfold". So at least the context is known. If the person does not expect A and B to sound different, this may influence what he hears.

 

Your DBT is more radical. One enters the room blindfolded and does not know what gear is listened to at all -- which is less common I guess.

 

So you are both right in a sense.

[botrytis]

35 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

Chris is talking about DBT as it is commonly performed, such as "we will compare cables A and B, and before we do that you put on a blindfold". So at least the context is known. If the person does not expect A and B to sound different, this may influence what he hears.

 

Your DBT is more radical. One enters the room blindfolded and does not know what gear is listened to at all -- which is less common I guess.

 

So you are both right in a sense.

 

That is not a DBT. With DBT no one knows what is being tested, except for people not connected with the actual patients as no one wants to give away things by body language. That is why it is used in testing pharmaceuticals, etc.

 

It is not more radical; it is standard protocol. That is the problem with your SBT - which is what the test you actually mention is.

[pkane2001]

53 minutes ago, botrytis said:

We have to live in reality, or we can join Frank.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

That is not a DBT. With DBT no one knows what is being tested, except for people not connected with the actual patients as no one wants to give away things by body language. That is why it is used in testing pharmaceuticals, etc.

 

It is not more radical; it is standard protocol. That is the problem with your SBT - which is what the test you actually mention is.

If this is the DBT you want to talk about, then we need to understand that it has nothing to do with anything ever conducted in audio. You guys talk about DBT as if it's the gold standard in audio and as if it's been used and works great. NOBODY does this in audio. NOBODY does this outside of a scientific study.

 

You guys are using a scientific straw man. 

[pkane2001]

24 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

OMG! @botrytis, how can you disagree with the Matrix??? What's the world coming to...  😎

[pkane2001]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If this is the DBT you want to talk about, then we need to understand that it has nothing to do with anything ever conducted in audio. You guys talk about DBT as if it's the gold standard in audio and as if it's been used and works great. NOBODY does this in audio. NOBODY does this outside of a scientific study.

 

You guys are using a scientific straw man. 

 

NOBODY? Talk about a strawman argument... Of course, nobody who isn't interested in learning the truth does DBTs. That's a given.