P Floding;151475 Wrote: > I believe Jenks is describing actual sound differences, but I'm not sure > they have much to do with "burn in". I think most audiophiles are able > to disregard a certain amount of bias due to mood etc.
Suppose we put a bunch of audiophiles in a room and played two systems for them after explaining that one was much better than the other - because it had fancy cables, power conditioners, a nice amp, or whatever. We might make the systems look different externally, but secretly the two would be absolutely identical. To properly control this we would do the experiment with several different groups while randomizing across all variables (for example switch which system we explained was superior). We might also try the same experiment but with no initial claim about which was better. Afterwards, we ask the listeners which they preferred, and to explain why. What do you think would happen? Not only would almost everyone claim to hear a difference, they would come up with elaborate descriptions of precisely how it was better - clarity, PRaT, detail, bass extension, etc. If you don't believe me, believe the scientific literature or all of the many, many examples of this in the audiophile world (on this forum and other websites for example). Versions of this experiment have been done, many times, and the results are always the same. The point? In this case it would be absolutely clear that the percieved differences were in the mind of the listener and not in any intrinsic characteristic of the sound. Given that people hear differences anyway, this demonstrates that we simply can't trust our perceptions of these things, period. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29025 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
