Expectation Bias

[kumakuma]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

So, what's 'magic' like, with no nasty "expectation bias" getting between you and the sound - this, just posted, which also uses that terrible word, "magic", pretty well nails it, ,

 

 

 

How do you know that the "magic" results that this person are real and not caused (at least partially) by expectation bias? 

[John Dyson]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, layers of boxes which add distortion - the goal is to minimise that distortion. And, a change to one component can be transformative, if, by so doing a bottleneck in the chain is removed - a single stone in a very long hose can severely restrict the flow of water; locate and remove that stone, and the liquid now gushes through ...

Adding distortion can be a tradeoff.   For example, if you start with vinyl with 'ticks and pops', you can add a box that basically hides those defects.   Adding that box creates 'distortion' against the signal, but improves the perceived quality.   This would be the same as a DolbyA/DBX/TelcomC4 NR system.   Adding 'boxes' doesn't always degrade quality.   Eventually, the result of the decoder project will technically 'add distortion', but actually remove distortion that has already been added -- even more than what was added by the processing used on almost every consumer recording.   "pure" recordings are available, but few and far between.

 

So, 'adding boxes that create distortion' don't always decrease quality, even though the signal is  technically  'distorted' in some sense.

 

 

 

 

[kumakuma]

34 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Adding distortion can be a tradeoff.   For example, if you start with vinyl with 'ticks and pops', you can add a box that basically hides those defects.   Adding that box creates 'distortion' against the signal, but improves the perceived quality.   This would be the same as a DolbyA/DBX/TelcomC4 NR system.   Adding 'boxes' doesn't always degrade quality.   Eventually, the result of the decoder project will technically 'add distortion', but actually remove distortion that has already been added -- even more than what was added by the processing used on almost every consumer recording.   "pure" recordings are available, but few and far between.

 

So, 'adding boxes that create distortion' don't always decrease quality, even though the signal is  technically  'distorted' in some sense.

 

 

 

 

 

I think dithering would be another example of adding something to a signal to improve perceived quality. 

[fas42]

7 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

How do you know that the "magic" results that this person are real and not caused (at least partially) by expectation bias? 

 

What I find remarkable is how "magical" this expectation bias is - it solves everything! It always gets the results one wants, whether to prove that someone else was fooled by this powerful force to believe in something "that wasn't there", or to ensure that one has the 'just right' reaction to something new that one personally is exposed to. I'm a bit of a sad soul in this regard - I have constantly been unimpressed, or irritated by rigs that are quite magnificent in their appearance, etc ... it appears that the universe was unfair to me, and didn't deal out the correct amount of this magic juice in my system ... bummer, eh?

 

If someone visits a famous tourist spot, and reports that a) it indeed was spectacular, was worthy of the fuss made of it; or b) that it was a disaster, because it had so many other tourists crawling all over it, like flies - how many times does someone say, "You're a victim of expectation bias!"

[kumakuma]

33 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

What I find remarkable is how "magical" this expectation bias is - it solves everything! It always gets the results one wants, whether to prove that someone else was fooled by this powerful force to believe in something "that wasn't there", or to ensure that one has the 'just right' reaction to something new that one personally is exposed to. I'm a bit of a sad soul in this regard - I have constantly been unimpressed, or irritated by rigs that are quite magnificent in their appearance, etc ... it appears that the universe was unfair to me, and didn't deal out the correct amount of this magic juice in my system ... bummer, eh?

 

If someone visits a famous tourist spot, and reports that a) it indeed was spectacular, was worthy of the fuss made of it; or b) that it was a disaster, because it had so many other tourists crawling all over it, like flies - how many times does someone say, "You're a victim of expectation bias!"

 

No one is saying this.

 

Biases work both ways.

 

For example, your bias and preconceptions about "blingy" audio equipment undoubtedly causes you to perceive their sound quality in a certain way... regardless of whether you believe it or not.

[MarkusBarkus]

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

"magic"

...even Microsoft sez: Most tasks can be accomplished with the help of a wizard. 😉 

[kumakuma]

7 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

...even Microsoft sez: Most tasks can be accomplished with the help of a wizard. 😉 

 

Unfortunately our local "wizard of oz" has about as much substance as this one:

 

 

[fas42]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Adding distortion can be a tradeoff.   For example, if you start with vinyl with 'ticks and pops', you can add a box that basically hides those defects.   Adding that box creates 'distortion' against the signal, but improves the perceived quality.   This would be the same as a DolbyA/DBX/TelcomC4 NR system.   Adding 'boxes' doesn't always degrade quality.   Eventually, the result of the decoder project will technically 'add distortion', but actually remove distortion that has already been added -- even more than what was added by the processing used on almost every consumer recording.   "pure" recordings are available, but few and far between.

 

So, 'adding boxes that create distortion' don't always decrease quality, even though the signal is  technically  'distorted' in some sense.

 

 

 

 

 

If one operates in the digital realm solely, then competent design of whatever is being done should only have benefits, with minimal negatives. Subjectively, there should be good gains - something like cleaning up technically very poor copies of the earliest recordings probably can be done better and better over time, as AI and other techniques get into the act. So, yes, adding boxes isn't always an issue - the main trick is that when you get to the analogue area that this is done with the absolute minimum of fuss and complexity; historically, this is not how it's been handled!

[fas42]

42 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

No one is saying this.

 

Biases work both ways.

 

For example, your bias and preconceptions about "blingy" audio equipment undoubtedly causes you to perceive their sound quality in a certain way... regardless of whether you believe it or not.

 

The absolute best, and most expensive, gear can get it very right - it was precisely such a combo that enticed me back into the audio game two decades ago; because it demonstrated that progress had been made. But just because they exist doesn't mean that it flows on to all setups of nominally similar worth - the awfulness of a high end rig making a mess of some recording is made that much worse, because you know how much money has been used to end up with such a bad outcome.

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

What I find remarkable is how "magical" this expectation bias is - it solves everything! It always gets the results one wants, whether to prove that someone else was fooled by this powerful force to believe in something "that wasn't there", or to ensure that one has the 'just right' reaction to something new that one personally is exposed to. I'm a bit of a sad soul in this regard - I have constantly been unimpressed, or irritated by rigs that are quite magnificent in their appearance, etc ... it appears that the universe was unfair to me, and didn't deal out the correct amount of this magic juice in my system ... bummer, eh?

 

If someone visits a famous tourist spot, and reports that a) it indeed was spectacular, was worthy of the fuss made of it; or b) that it was a disaster, because it had so many other tourists crawling all over it, like flies - how many times does someone say, "You're a victim of expectation bias!"

 

There's nothing magical about expectation bias -- it is a known and confirmed scientific fact. And you don't get the result you want, you're just reading too much into the name -- you frequently get the results that simply don't represent reality. The problem is, you don't know when those times are, so your magic is likely all in your head. 

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The absolute best, and most expensive, gear can get it very right - it was precisely such a combo that enticed me back into the audio game two decades ago; because it demonstrated that progress had been made. But just because they exist doesn't mean that it flows on to all setups of nominally similar worth - the awfulness of a high end rig making a mess of some recording is made that much worse, because you know how much money has been used to end up with such a bad outcome.

 

Yes, and the owner's perception of such equipment is going to be colored by the fact that they spent this money.

 

In fact, you've said on numerous occasions how surprised you are that such individuals can't hear flaws in their equipment that are obvious to you.

 

Clear proof in the existence of expectation bias!

[fas42]

49 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Unfortunately our local "wizard of oz" has about as much substance as this one:

 

 

 

Yesterday, I put on this CD,

 

 

A collection of probably the most iconic tracks of that era that you could imagine - all the usual suspects. And it was like having the world's best ever juke box in the room; Bev was struggling to get anything done, because she was just boppin' to the music. And this is the point - the sheer joy and energy of that music was fully in place, "as clear as a bell".

 

It's not "wizardry" that conjures that up - merely, "getting it right". And if a system doesn't do that, then the illusion just collapses, as it did for the poor ol' wiz in the movie, .

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

What I find remarkable is how "magical" this expectation bias is - it solves everything! It always gets the results one wants, whether to prove that someone else was fooled by this powerful force to believe in something "that wasn't there", or to ensure that one has the 'just right' reaction to something new that one personally is exposed to. I'm a bit of a sad soul in this regard - I have constantly been unimpressed, or irritated by rigs that are quite magnificent in their appearance, etc ... it appears that the universe was unfair to me, and didn't deal out the correct amount of this magic juice in my system ... bummer, eh?

 

If someone visits a famous tourist spot, and reports that a) it indeed was spectacular, was worthy of the fuss made of it; or b) that it was a disaster, because it had so many other tourists crawling all over it, like flies - how many times does someone say, "You're a victim of expectation bias!"

I agree with you about expectation bias causing troubles for comparisons and/or might support sales of $500 gold plated cables.   In the case of $10k amplifiers or similar, reminds me of 'Emperors New Clothes'.

 

On the other hand, sometimes there *IS* magic, but very seldom...

 

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

There's nothing magical about expectation bias -- it is a known and confirmed scientific fact. And you don't get the result you want, you're just reading too much into the name -- you frequently get the results that simply don't represent reality. The problem is, you don't know when those times are, so your magic is likely all in your head. 

 

"You don't know when those times are" implies that your senses are quite incapable of judging things, are completely untrustworthy. Yet we manage to keep ourselves alive for many decades, doing intrinsically dangerous things like driving vehicles; and much, much worse, in that if our senses fail us then we are in deep, deep poo. Why should audio be a strange exception, where the ear/brain is probably getting it wrong?

 

19 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Yes, and the owner's perception of such equipment is going to be colored by the fact that they spent this money.

 

In fact, you've said on numerous occasions how surprised you are that such individuals can't hear flaws in their equipment that are obvious to you.

 

Clear proof in the existence of expectation bias!

 

Yes, expectation bias certainly exists - and will be "propped up" by the desire to feel OK about having spent a lot of money getting to where they are. But this won't be sustained in most situations - the audiophile's disease strikes, "upgraditis" ... "Surely the next change will make it all fall into place!!"

[John Dyson]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yesterday, I put on this CD,

 

 

A collection of probably the most iconic tracks of that era that you could imagine - all the usual suspects. And it was like having the world's best ever juke box in the room; Bev was struggling to get anything done, because she was just boppin' to the music. And this is the point - the sheer joy and energy of that music was fully in place, "as clear as a bell".

 

It's not "wizardry" that conjures that up - merely, "getting it right". And if a system doesn't do that, then the illusion just collapses, as it did for the poor ol' wiz in the movie, .

I have some of those 'various artists' CDs, or even stuff like the 48 ONJ singles, and one good thing about some of the earlier versions -- little time or effort is spent in 'remastering'.

 

[John Dyson]

54 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

If one operates in the digital realm solely, then competent design of whatever is being done should only have benefits, with minimal negatives. Subjectively, there should be good gains - something like cleaning up technically very poor copies of the earliest recordings probably can be done better and better over time, as AI and other techniques get into the act. So, yes, adding boxes isn't always an issue - the main trick is that when you get to the analogue area that this is done with the absolute minimum of fuss and complexity; historically, this is not how it's been handled!

 

 

In the old days, analog design was definitely kept as simple as possible, in theory no simpler than possible.  (In consumer products in the 50s,60s,70s, the manufacturers seemed to be expert in making the products simpler than possible...  Of course, the resulting quality was poorer than should be.)

 

The analog world WAS very different than today. 

 

Nowadays, processing can almost be magic, with the cost of a virtual 'digital' opamp and a few components being effectively zero, able to use 1000's of the virtual circuits, still with a cost of zero.  

AI/NN stuff might be able to 'figure out' the correct algorithms, but a target or goal is needed.   In audio, finding the 'goal' can be non-trivial.

 

You know the anecdote about the room full of monkeys not creating Shakespeare?   Imagine the computers nowadays creating millions of monkeys, with a goal, they just might be able to 'create Shakespeare' in the future.   Did you hear about the back-to-back chat programs creating their own language?

 

Crazy stuff is on its way to us!!!   Hope our mad creates allow us to live 🤔

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pkane2001]

41 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

"You don't know when those times are" implies that your senses are quite incapable of judging things, are completely untrustworthy. Yet we manage to keep ourselves alive for many decades, doing intrinsically dangerous things like driving vehicles; and much, much worse, in that if our senses fail us then we are in deep, deep poo. Why should audio be a strange exception, where the ear/brain is probably getting it wrong?

 

Are you really surprised? Human senses are fallible and inconsistent, especially because they are attached to a brain that frequently fills in the details that are not really there by interpolation and extrapolation. 

 

[fas42]

16 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Are you really surprised? Human senses are fallible and inconsistent, especially because they are attached to a brain that frequently fills in the details that are not really there by interpolation and extrapolation. 

 

 

Yes, "frequently filling in the details that are not really there by interpolation and extrapolation" is exactly what we want to exploit - the field of Auditory Scene Analysis is exploring this vigorously; how one can create an illusion by feeding hints to the brain - leaving the mind to do the rest. But, and it's a very big but, the hints have to have, adequate integrity. If not, then it's just noise - and no illusion forms.

 

Which is why it's essential to scrupulously reveal everything on a "bad recording" - if enough is in place, then the mind "allows itself" to be fooled - this is one of the markers of fully convincing SQ; that the brain refuses to give up the illusion that "something real is happening", no matter how much you try and show it that it's wrong. It was the most amazing thing about what happened to me 35 years ago - for comparison, my current setup is teasingly close to this at its best, but still reveals itself if I put my ear close enough to a driver.

[pkane2001]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, "frequently filling in the details that are not really there by interpolation and extrapolation" is exactly what we want to exploit - the field of Auditory Scene Analysis is exploring this vigorously; how one can create an illusion by feeding hints to the brain - leaving the mind to do the rest. But, and it's a very big but, the hints have to have, adequate integrity. If not, then it's just noise - and no illusion forms.

 

Which is why it's essential to scrupulously reveal everything on a "bad recording" - if enough is in place, then the mind "allows itself" to be fooled - this is one of the markers of fully convincing SQ; that the brain refuses to give up the illusion that "something real is happening", no matter how much you try and show it that it's wrong. It was the most amazing thing about what happened to me 35 years ago - for comparison, my current setup is teasingly close to this at its best, but still reveals itself if I put my ear close enough to a driver.

So you want to fool people into thinking they hear something that doesn’t really exist? Personally, I’d much rather use  something that makes a real difference, rather than imagined. If only because everyone is different and has different imagination and a different brain. No magic and no fooling. That’s what scientific method provides.

[botrytis]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, "frequently filling in the details that are not really there by interpolation and extrapolation" is exactly what we want to exploit - the field of Auditory Scene Analysis is exploring this vigorously; how one can create an illusion by feeding hints to the brain - leaving the mind to do the rest. But, and it's a very big but, the hints have to have, adequate integrity. If not, then it's just noise - and no illusion forms.

 

Which is why it's essential to scrupulously reveal everything on a "bad recording" - if enough is in place, then the mind "allows itself" to be fooled - this is one of the markers of fully convincing SQ; that the brain refuses to give up the illusion that "something real is happening", no matter how much you try and show it that it's wrong. It was the most amazing thing about what happened to me 35 years ago - for comparison, my current setup is teasingly close to this at its best, but still reveals itself if I put my ear close enough to a driver.

 

Frank, Frank, Frank, so you want people to buy into the expectation bias as REAL sounds? WOW! I guess you like auditory hallucinations too which are the most common form of hallucinations.

 

If it is not there, and not produced and your brain fills in the details, how is that accurate? To mean that is the antithesis of accuracy.

 

Accuracy = What files says = exactly what you hear, no more.

[fas42]

8 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

So you want to fool people into thinking they hear something that doesn’t really exist? Personally, I’d much rather use  something that makes a real difference, rather than imagined. If only because everyone is different and has different imagination and a different brain. No magic and no fooling. That’s what scientific method provides.

 

If you do any research on how the body/brain works, you discover that the real world is a fraud, too . What the senses convey to our thinking part is a terrible facsimile of "what is real"; if there was no interpretation and "filling in the gaps" then you would be incredibly handicapped in everything you did; the amount of "in the moment" data is so poor you would struggle to remain alive. A pretty decent example is driving a car; you barely pay attention to the road, yet you can navigate quite safely down it - only the tiniest glimmer of information is required from time to time - because your mind is keeping a superb "virtual concept" of what's around you in focus, and relying on that.

 

Good sound reproduction exploits the same principle - enough information is in place, which is completely self consistent; you experience the music event as if it were real, because the data coming in is comparable to what the mind is used to handling, in the "real world". It's the self consistency that's critical; if it's not good enough, then it's obvious you're listening to a 'fake'.

 

7 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

Frank, Frank, Frank, so you want people to buy into the expectation bias as REAL sounds? WOW! I guess you like auditory hallucinations too which are the most common form of hallucinations.

 

You're confusing two concepts here ... the first is wanting that impressive looking rig in front to bowl you over with how fabulous it sounds; the second is having a setup which has nothing special about its looks project an auditory illusion which can't be broken - a very simple test of the latter would be to drop a visual barrier in front of the speakers, and have someone come into the room who doesn't know the layout - and offer them a million dollars if they can pinpoint where the drivers are. If they don't collect, then at least they get to enjoy top notch SQ, .

 

7 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

If it is not there, and not produced and your brain fills in the details, how is that accurate? To mean that is the antithesis of accuracy.

 

Accuracy = What files says = exactly what you hear, no more.

 

What is accuracy? Let's get the Mona Lisa painting, put it under very powerful spotlights, examine it extremely closely, side on, so that the tiniest bit of dust and and grime and lifted paint is now obvious, every 'mistake' is crystal clear - we now know so much more about the painting ... are you better off, with this "superior accuracy"?

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

If you do any research on how the body/brain works, you discover that the real world is a fraud, too . What the senses convey to our thinking part is a terrible facsimile of "what is real"; if there was no interpretation and "filling in the gaps" then you would be incredibly handicapped in everything you did; the amount of "in the moment" data is so poor you would struggle to remain alive. A pretty decent example is driving a car; you barely pay attention to the road, yet you can navigate quite safely down it - only the tiniest glimmer of information is required from time to time - because your mind is keeping a superb "virtual concept" of what's around you in focus, and relying on that.

 

All true, Frank, and this is exactly why relying on the brain to tell you anything about the audio system performance is taking chances of being fed a fake without even realizing it. Instead, we have access to much more dependable, repeatable, precise and sensitive measurement devices that don't generalize, don't interpolate or fill in the gaps. They just measure. 

 

[fas42]

10 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

All true, Frank, and this is exactly why relying on the brain to tell you anything about the audio system performance is taking chances of being fed a fake without even realizing it. Instead, we have access to much more dependable, repeatable, precise and sensitive measurement devices that don't generalize, don't interpolate or fill in the gaps. They just measure. 

 

 

Wha?? I just said above that the brain is very good at picking 'fakes' - which is why when you stand right in front of a normal hifi going at a fair clip, you just laugh if someone asks if you're fooled - of course you're not! What matters is whether an illusion is manifested; anything else is just admiring the paint job on a bomb of car, the sort of thing teenagers do, .

 

The trouble with the concept of these great measuring devices, is that they are hopeless at separating out, and registering those qualities that the human hearing system is so sensitive to, that allow it to be able to tell its owner whether music coming from behind a curtain is the "real thing". Until measuring evolves to the standard that is necessary for these factors to be given numbers to, fairly easily, then no progress is going to be made in better understanding ...

[botrytis]

Frank, this will fix all your supposed tweaks.

 

https://tigerfox360.com/

[kumakuma]

48 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The trouble with the concept of these great measuring devices, is that they are hopeless at separating out, and registering those qualities that the human hearing system is so sensitive to, that allow it to be able to tell its owner whether music coming from behind a curtain is the "real thing".

 

What are those qualities?