darrenyeats;693915 Wrote: > I think the tone of some of these posts is harsh on Paul. It seems to me > some frustration about other members or posts is being transferred to > Paul. paul.raulerson;693884 Wrote: > I wasn't ready to dismiss it as swamp gas, because there is a > possibility that something is going on I don't understand. THe problem with this approach is that there is always such a possibility, so we wouldn't ever be able to dismiss anything. We have to use a scientific approach to filter out the likely from the probable from the vanishingly unlikely. Otherwise we'd waste our lives chasing rainbows.
I think that it is this kind of refusal to apply quality control to hypotheses which frustrates some members, especially in the field of audio reproduction, where it obvious that there are many, many, fools and charlatans operating. darrenyeats;693915 Wrote: > > The issue here is not whether differences were heard. Rather we should > accept they were heard and set about discovering why. We know > expectation bias is one possibility and we know differences in the > files is not a possibility. However, there may be other possibilities > in terms of the listening test. > Yes - placebos actually work. The oft-quoted example from medicine is that recipients of a sugar pill sometimes get better. The belief that they are being treated (and the attention of the doctor) is enough to instigate recovery. The audio version of this could be a bog-standard cable, dressed up to look expensive and supplied with premium packaging, some blurb about what makes it superior and instructions on proper use (directionality and the like). The whole ritual involved in selecting, buying and fitting such a cable may well lead to a "real" perception of improved sound. The problem is that the final step in the audio chain is within the human mind. Such a cable is still a fraud, because the engineering claims made are lies, even if the end result is a perception of improved sound in the mind of the user. The placebo effect is very powerful - even more at odds with common sense is that it can work even if the subject knows, at least on an intellectual level, that they are getting nothing more than a placebo. The human mind is extremely gullible. There are good explanations of why this is the case in the field of evolutionary psychology. The whole point of the scientific method is to recognise and mitigate these effects. In the field of audio, it means we need to be very careful (and very sceptical) indeed. -- darrell ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrell's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13460 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=93549 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
