ncarver;574373 Wrote: > I didn't mean to take it to that extreme, just that there are fields > like psychology where most knowledge has resulted solely from human > observation until fairly recently. I guess some of the people on here > would say that because human observation was involved there was simply > no point in pursuing these fields at all or that we should not believe > a single accepted idea from those fields now. :) > > Anyway, this could go on and on, but just let me finish this by > describing the results of my latest subjective listening tests. I > recently got a Touch and then bought a new DAC, and I did this to a > large extent to be able to play 96/24 material. So now I have been > conducting listening tests with 96/24 and 44/16 versions of some > tracks. So let's go over my supposed biases: (1) bought Touch and DAC > specifically to be able to play hi-res material; (2) hi-res material is > much "better" than CD quality with larger word size and sampling rate; > (3) hi-res material is more expensive; (4) I want my system to be able > to resolve the differences that must exist; (5) I want my ears to be > able to hear these differences. Geez! That is quite a list of reasons > for me to be biased to hear differences. Looks like pretty much a slam > dunk if you are to believe people like Dan, with his loony audiophile > straw man. And yet...I do not reliably hear a difference in sound > quality that I can ascribe to the hi-res tracks. Wait, what??? How on > earth could I have reached that conclusion with so very many factors > biasing me to conclude the opposite???? How indeed!
I think your observations are perfectly valid (how could I think otherwise!) and simply reflect the possibility that expectation bias is not necessarily the dominant factor at any moment in time for any one person. As humans aren't rational machines, we are likely to reach different conclusions at different times depending on a multitude of phsyiological and psychological variables - the latter of which seem to defy analysis but might be summarised loosely as "mood"... Between the black and the white exists the land of grey and pink. -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... Touch(wired/XP) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Pekin Tuner, Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker & Chord Interconnect cables Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio, Harmony One remote for everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=81616 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
