If amplifiers/DAC/CDPs all sound the same assuming certain conditions are met, why is it that those who claim audible differences exist often hear the same things, with the same equipment? Even in the same listening test. Or abroad. What part of the perceptual codec can account for that behaviour?
Just wanted to get some insight as to what might cause this to occur.
why is it that those who claim audible differences exist often hear the same things, with the same equipment?
What do you mean by that? Do you have examples?
If you mean the broad, vague stuff like a 'wider soundstage' or a 'clearer sound', those who claim these things usually hear the same things even with different equipment. Every celebrated tweak somehow seems to add depth to the soundstage or more clarity. I really wonder how deep the soundstage of some tweak-heavy setups has become.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)
What do you mean by that? Do you have examples?
What I mean is that, for example, certain amplifiers may be assumed to have a bright sound which is shared by other people, even in the same evaluation. The anecdotal reports are shared by people, but
the same things are often shared. I've seen these things all the time on internet forums, don't ask me to cite a specific example, but if you have been browsing and reading enough of these audiophile discussions you'll find them.
What part of the perceptual codec could account for that? That is what I'm asking. Is it just suggestibility? I would like to understand this in more depth.
What I mean is that, for example, certain amplifiers may be assumed to have a bright sound which is shared by other people, even in the same evaluation.
And are they totally independent evaluations, or is there a chance the evaluations are affecting each other?
There can, of course, be actual audible differences between certain amplifiers that on purpose go for, for example, a "bright" sound by slightly emphasizing high frequencies and possibly allowing slightly more harmonic distortion as well. That would of course have nothing to do with a perceptual codec.
Is it just suggestibility? I would like to understand this in more depth.
IMO the first step should be to experience the phenomenon personally in a blind listening test. If you really identify the phenomenon, only then should the analytic/investigatory phase occur.
And are they totally independent evaluations, or is there a chance the evaluations are affecting each other?
Sure, I suppose that is a possibility especially when we are talking about amplifiers with a high source impedance. But if we are talking about solid state, let's say, Yamaha receivers - people commonly assert that they sound bright. Yet there is no evidence to support that claim. Frequency response is ruler flat.
Denon and Onkyo are much the same, just flat. Yet people often describe them in different ways, again, conclusions reached are often similar if you peruse the forums of several audio sites. In those cases, where scientific analysis does
not conform with the anecdotal reports, how would several people manage to agree or come to the same conclusions concerning that receiver? Is it merely coincidence? Hence my question. Let's rule out high output impedance as a design flaw or whatever.
I'm trying to better understand why people believe what they do, under these circumstances. What types of bias were involved to steer people into believing this? In a listening test with 5 guys, the majority agree on sound quality differences which are not supported by the science, I assume it's 99.99% due to perceptual codec malfunctions, or something. Either way, there must be a logical explanation for this.
If you are serious in your question the first step would be to remove any possibility of unconscious expectation bias on your part and collect a random selection of the available data from said forums and clearly determine if people independently came to similar conclusions regarding sound or if either they did not come independently OR if your impression of the data does not match reality.
I'm trying to better understand why people believe what they do, under these circumstances. I assume there is a logical explanation for this.
Oh, yes: they've got a severe case of... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes)
If you are serious in your question the first step would be to remove any possibility of unconscious expectation bias on your part and collect a random selection of the available data from said forums and clearly determine if people independently came to similar conclusions regarding sound or if either they did not come independently OR if your impression of the data does not match reality.
I never thought of unconscious bias. Excellent point! And how do those subconscious and unconscious levels of bias manifest in how we perceive sound?
The anecdotal reports are shared by people, but the same things are often shared. I've seen these things all the time on internet forums, don't ask me to cite a specific example, but if you have been browsing and reading enough of these audiophile discussions you'll find them.
That sounds like you have observed the «me too!»-herd?
But certainly, there are cases where they are well-justified. Possibly:
- LP playback specifics like the RIAA EQ. Some are fit to curve, some to an idea of what was actually put into the groove («do as they do, not as they say»). And maybe, though somewhat scarce in actual playback: de-emphasis filters
- Impedance matching for headphone outlets which are merely a serial resistor
- Amp on the edge of being able to drive speaker
- Volume/voltage differences ... one of my amps back in the days (Rotel RA-1412, anyone?) had so much background hiss it was an issue on sensitive speakers.
And how do those subconscious and unconscious levels of bias manifest in how we perceive sound?
Expectation bias. Confirming what one thinks is likely.
If amplifiers/DAC/CDPs all sound the same assuming certain conditions are met, why is it that those who claim audible differences exist often hear the same things, with the same equipment?
The "same things" are often broad generalities.
Believe it or not, people can influence other people, even by means of saying things. ;-)
To put it in simple terms, the companies probably promote their products with certain terms (clarity, presence, precision, etc.) and certain reviews in the audiophile press get read by most of the audiophile community, making certain ideas common. People may test products with their friends, and hear each other's reports too. Primed with certain expectations, they will focus on those aspects and hear them. If something supposedly bright sounds a little muddy, they'll maybe shift their position and with the effects of comb-filtering and similar room effects, the sound reaching their ears may indeed change physically. They then confirm their expectation and are pleased that they are discerning enough to hear what the golden-eared reviewer could hear.
So it's a collection of ideas like psychological framing, expectation bias, confirmation bias & social proof. With all these added together in one test and with our sonic memory being so indistinct, it's a powerful psychological effect that is usually larger than any audible difference. But it's also non-random and the social proof aspect is especially likely to make us expect to hear what others have heard. We're all susceptible, even if we're aware of the effects.
Oenophiles can be sold snake oil in the same way, as I was shocked to find in a company from whom I purchased some wine-glass racks, and offered for nearly £2000 a glass crystal stick you insert into your wine, complete with instructions for how to test it that would happily invoke all the biases necessary to believe it was responsible for giving the wine body and depth and finish, and developing it's maximum flavour potential. I seem to recall some pseudoscientific 'explanation' of the esoteric principles by which it claimed to work.
Certain tricks can be played by sneaky experimenters (e.g. put a device with a 'mellow' reputation inside the shell of a device with a 'bright' reputation and vice-versa (or the same device in both) and some of these biases can be isolated). Careful ABX-minded people randomise it all away to isolate the effect of the device over a number of tests.
(On the wine front, a number of experts began talking of tannins and red-wine words to describe white wine with red food colouring added in a test published a couple of years ago, while they used white wine descriptions for the uncoloured equivalent. I think they were kept anonymous as it was the psychology research that was most important.)
With loudspeakers differences might be true and significant, of course, though room effects make a big difference and can cause tonal differences as your ears move around the space (comb filtering etc) making it hard to be consistent.
There are also some audiophile tube amps that deliberately colour the sound and are non transparent. There are also some very well designed transparent and linear tube amps, though it's unlikely they are any better than far cheaper solid state amps (and their linearity is probably measured on solid-state test and measurement equipment without a thought).
If amplifiers/DAC/CDPs all sound the same assuming certain conditions are met, why is it that those who claim audible differences exist often hear the same things, with the same equipment? Even in the same listening test. Or abroad. What part of the perceptual codec can account for that behaviour?
All these perceptions disappear the moment you make it so that they don't know which bit of equipment they are listening to.
If you see that amplifier X is providing the power, and if you already believe that amplifier X has such and such a sound, then such and such a sound is what you virtually certainly will "hear". We are all human and subject to our beliefs effecting what we believe we are seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling or touching.
Dynamic, thank you very much for your detailed reply. What you say makes a lot of sense, especially the social aspects of bias. Can you explain what the McGurk effect is? Does it not have something to do with sight affecting sound? Thanks again for the time and effort!
In a listening test with 5 guys, the majority agree on sound quality differences which are not supported by the science, I assume it's 99.99% due to perceptual codec malfunctions, or something.
Is there some meaning of perceptual codec that I'm unaware of? The only definition I can think of is a thing like MP3 or any other format based on a model of human audio perception that has an encoder compress and a decoder decompress audio on playback to save space. But you're not talking about lossy compression, it seems you're talking about the ears and minds of people who are hearing sound, in which case I don't see how such a term can possibly apply.
Perhaps I used the word incorrectly. My apologies.
Again, and in case the implication of the link I posted before wasn’t clear: If people tend to (think they) hear certain phenomena that recur time and time again in separate reports from subjective testing, this is almost certainly due to expectation bias based upon prior suggestions (perhaps from equally invalid tests), i.e. the transmission of memes. Subjective comparison is invalid overall, so ascribing other possible causes to trends in perception would be just as unverifiable as the tests and, really, a waste of the time needed to do the necessary supposition about the reasons.
Can you explain what the McGurk effect is? Does it not have something to do with sight affecting sound?
Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPtc8BVdJk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPtc8BVdJk) and a couple of more videos.
Watched the video. That was .... WEIRD. But how does the McGurk effect influence things in a sighted evaluation? So you basically hear with your eyes? Or something...?
When what you hear conflicts with what you see (or are used to seeing) then what you see takes precedence and your perception of what you hear is altered. You can literally "hear" something different as a direct result of what it is that you expect to hear (or not to hear).
But how does the McGurk effect influence things in a sighted evaluation?
You hear with your brain, just like you see with your brain. It attempts to correct misinformation by filling in from instinct or learning what it does already «know». If you see a perspective drawing, or a photo, your brain fills in the missing details.
Optical illusions are well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion) . Auditory illusions are also well known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_illusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_illusion) . Of course there are those who insist their golden ears can never be fooled. By all means, there could very well be someone around who is lacking this useful brain functionality, but just because someone boasts of it that doesn't mean they are necessarily right.
You hear with your brain, just like you see with your brain. It attempts to correct misinformation […]
It attempts to correct
missing information. Misinformation, on the other hand, will arise if the subject puts too much faith in their brain’s less than perfect attempts at reconstructing absent portions of phenomena and feels that others need to know about it.
Warning: this posting contains anecdotical evidence from a single data point collected by a non-neutral observer.
this useful brain functionality
Is there anyone herein who regularly attend live rock shows, and who will be surprised to read the following?
[blockquote]- It sounds so much more real when you see someone playing. More live than on screen than without. Close my eyes and listen, yes, maybe even for minutes, but visuals matter also for what I think I hear.
- Look like you are flogging a chord real hard? Sound like you are, even with an effect box compressing the dynamic flat. Does this look like betcha-can't-play-this? Sounds like it is difficult too, of course within reason. And some guitar players impress me the other way: you hardly see their hand twitching the fingerboard even close up, and wow-how-is-the-genius-doing-that ... sounds near-flawless at worst.
- The musician's apparent emotional state enhances (or destroys) the sense of what the music sounds like. Arrogant? Miserable? Torn? Psycho? Horny? It isn't only what you hear. Singing them blues with a big grin on your face – even when the sound doesn't allow me to actually hear how the lips articulate – that just ... sounds ... wrong.
- Even with volume adjusted by earplugs, volume to the body does matter.
- Lights? Matters. Warm lights. Cold lights. Not to mention a strobe shock.
- There is a sound quality range where I «know» that I am repairing details. Where it is not so bad as «dammit, I have to focus to hear a bloody thing», but where it is borderline between concious and not. Around that level, it is actually somewhat ... tiresome. I can tell after half an hour or so.[/blockquote]
And (... close my eyes, look deep in my soul), I am paying money for this colour of the pill. I could have a not-too-bad hifi every year instead ...
People tend to form groups around people who tend to hear, for whatever reasons (largely psychological), similar things to them. There's also a great deal of subtle (subconscious?) cues being shared in a lot of these totally-surprise-omg 'identical' evaluation swaps.
I never thought of unconscious bias. Excellent point! And how do those subconscious and unconscious levels of bias manifest in how we perceive sound?
A: soap. Not Soup.
B: I was talking about unconscious bias
in you.
The problem I see in this thread right off the bat is your broad general claims as to audiophiles speaking in unison as to how a <HARDWARE_UNIT> sounds. There are two likely causes for this:
1 - The audiophile community (like any subject of marketing) has been primed with marketing terms. This creates expectation bias in them.
2 - When asked about your original claim "do you have examples" you replied "What I mean is that, for example, certain amplifiers may be assumed to have a bright sound which is shared by other people, even in the same evaluation. The anecdotal reports are shared by people,
but the same things are often shared. I've seen these things all the time on internet forums, don't ask me to cite a specific example, but if you have been browsing and reading enough of these audiophile discussions you'll find them."
IOW you don't have concrete objective examples. You have a
subjective impression of the sorts of things audiophiles say. We all have those, we all have read such threads. But those very subjective impressions are very susceptible to expectation bias. It would be quite normal for you to read a subjective review of <HARDWARE_UNIT> in which the word "airy" was used. You then over the course of a few weeks read other reviews, none of which use the word "airy". These reviews don't get remembered well, but the next review you read which does use the word "airy" gets associated with the first in your memory and actually sticks.
This is a cognitive bias in your
impression of how correlated the reviews are with one another. It is quite possible (if not plausible) that the words used in subjective reviews of <HARDWARE_UNIT> are actually found to cover the full gamut of gobbledygook if objectively indexed, but that certain words stick in your head better so reviews using said words make a deeper impression in your memory causing an undue (and incorrect) conclusion that
most reviews use said words.
IOW you don't have concrete objective examples. You have a subjective impression of the sorts of things audiophiles say. We all have those, we all have read such threads. But those very subjective impressions are very susceptible to expectation bias.
Yes, it is a subjective observation. I know people personally who believed they heard similar things in a casual sighted test and I've read plenty of accounts of people thinking they heard the same or similar things. Do you really want me to scour the internet finding these reports?
You seem a little confrontational for some reason. I don't think I've given you reason to be. Sorry for misspelling your alias, that I do apologise. Won't happen again.
We all have those, we all have read such threads.
Do you really want me to scour the internet finding these reports?
Let me take a guess: “no”? ;-)
Yes, it is a subjective observation. I know people personally who believed they heard similar things in a casual sighted test and I've read plenty of accounts of people thinking they heard the same or similar things. Do you really want me to scour the internet finding these reports?
You seem a little confrontational for some reason. I don't think I've given you reason to be. Sorry for misspelling your alias, that I do apologise. Won't happen again.
Not confrontational, just pointing out the apparent willingness to believe that audiophile subjective impressions of hardware were
more suspect than your subjective impressions of their opinions, and the apparent misunderstanding of my original post about biases.
For I do believe it would be an interesting topic to explore ("Why do autiophiles use similar words to describe hardware which tests flat if there is no measurable difference?") if there was any actual evidence that they independently do. I don't believe there is - and "I've read plenty of accounts" doesn't rise to the bar.
It's easy to see how people sharing the same room, in particular if they share the same opinions, would eventually converge to the same impression. It's just a matter of conversation and social influences that'd make you agree with them, even if doubtfully. You know, that "well he's probably right. If I think about it, yeah, I think it's like that" effect. There's probably a technical term for that.
Also, and this is relevant for people abroad sharing the same opinions too, if there is an original claim for a certain characteristical change, people are going to want to look for that. So they fall prey to the same expectation bias as everyone else who's trying that out. Considering how extremely well connected the international audio enthusiast (
well except those who don't have internet I guess, but they're probably not relevant for our purposes as they generally don't partake in tests organised over the internet) community is, it's not hard to see how they would all influence each other.
why is it that those who claim audible differences exist often hear the same things, with the same equipment?
What do you mean by that? Do you have examples?
If you mean the broad, vague stuff like a 'wider soundstage' or a 'clearer sound', those who claim these things usually hear the same things even with different equipment. Every celebrated tweak somehow seems to add depth to the soundstage or more clarity. I really wonder how deep the soundstage of some tweak-heavy setups has become.
Astronomers know the answer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Marineris)
Let's make this about a very specific example.
I have seen many anecdotal reports about gold RCA's being "warmer" sounding than silver RCA's, which are generally characterized as "bright" or "lean" sounding.
I have never seen an anecdotal report about silver being warm or gold being bright.
Can this be explained solely by social means? or, Should any significance be given to these anecdotal characterizations?
Not stating conclusively either way, but I can perfectly believe that would be due solely to the widely held synaethesia about orange-esque colours being warm and blue or grey colours being cold, which itself is presumably based upon the similarity of the former to fire or something.
Not stating conclusively either way, but I can perfectly believe that would be due solely to the widely held synaethesia about orange-esque colours being warm and blue or grey colours being cold, which itself is presumably based upon the similarity of the former to fire or something.
That is a very interesting possibility. Thank you!
It’s plausible, at least. Where there is no scientific reason for a difference, people can still perceive one for whatever reason. Even the slightest association with some other phenomenon, however unconscious it might be, can alter someone’s perceptions if their test is sighted. And when you have people selling effectively identical products at grossly inflated prices, there’s a lot of psychological pressure to justify the latter. An irrelevant association with some other sense is a good way to bolster this, and I would bet that it’s been exploited many times.
Of course, we’re overlooking the much simpler possibility that people just think of the reputation of gold as an element and spuriously extrapolate that to an idea that it’s better in all respects, even in cases where there’s no physicochemical reason whatsoever.
I had never heard about such an RCA difference before, but now I have, and now the idea is planted in my head as well.
I had never heard about such an RCA difference before, but now I have, and now the idea is planted in my head as well.
Well, I have seen a difference in RCA connectors, but it was due to centerclipping in a corroded (not very much, and fixed by reseating) connector that wasn't plated.
a corroded (not very much, and fixed by reseating) connector that wasn't plated.
It is actually not uncommon to think that gold is a better conductor. (Which is right as long as compared to rust.)
a corroded (not very much, and fixed by reseating) connector that wasn't plated.
It is actually not uncommon to think that gold is a better conductor. (Which is right as long as compared to rust.)
Gold Plating serves only to prevent as much corrosion. It is not a better conductor.
Tin on gold is bad, actually, in the long term.
Where there is no scientific reason for a difference, people can still perceive one for whatever reason.
I remember a few interesting (old) studies about the influence of our brain on what we hear, as reported in Blauert's book Spatial Hearing. JJ/Woodinville, can you comment on the amount of brain correction that can be expected in cases like this (is it limited to lateralization)? Is this similar to getting used to e.g. the sound of a new control room?
If the sensitivity of one ear is artificially increased, as may be accomplished by corrective surgery (Betzold 1890, Röser 1965), or by partly plugging the opposite ear (Bauer et al. 1966), subjects first report a systematic shift of all auditory events toward the more sensitive ear. After a period of hours, days. or even weeks this shift can recede, and the subjects react once more in a way normal for persons with symmetrical hearing. Clearly a relearning process is at work, since the time of adjustment can be shortened by appropriate training (Bauer et al. 1966).
It is clear from the descriptions of these phenomena that lateralization in connection with interaural sound pressure differences is a time-variant process. Short-term variations can occur in connection with adaptation and fatigue, and long-term variations occur in connection with learning processes.
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