mlsstl wrote: > Classic subjective response featuring the selective use of psychological > issues in audio testing. > > Our poor, frightened test subjects are cowed into helpless uselessness > when they find themselves in a situation where their "100 times better, > even my wife could hear it" declarations are subject to a situation they > cannot manipulate. Thereby the results of these tests can be blithely > dismissed as irrelevant. > > Meanwhile, the myriad and well established psychological influences > present in sighted conditions are deemed inconsequential when their > favorite audiophile item "demolishes" the competition. They are > completely confident they have "proved" their case.
You're right, and I agree that we're talking double standards here. But hey, that's human nature. Authorities are authorities precisely thanks to the inviolable fact that they are not to be doubted, not under any circumstances (sort of like the Inspector Cluseau and Kato deal as seen in the Pink Panther movies). If something is a free game when it comes to doubting and questioning it, well then that thing is certainly not authoritative. So yes, we're stuck in a self fulfilling prophecy loop. mlsstl wrote: > But attempting to universalize their personal psychological experience > is precisely what a lot of subjective types spend their time doing. I've > seen plenty of examples where there is a tremendous amount of > subconscious peer pressure applied in sighted audiophile listening > sessions, even discarding sales situations. Oh yeah, we've all been there. A bunch of friends gather to listen to someone's latest purchase, and of course everyone will be oohing and aahing in awe. Classic emperor's new clothes syndrome. mlsstl wrote: > I gladly admit I'm the biggest single variable in my system. My mood, > whether I'm tired or alert and endless other factors affect what I > perceive. However, I don't go looking for dirty power or an inferior > cable on which to blame things. If Peter Belt is simply restating that > our mood affects perception, he does a pretty dang poor job of > explaining himself, what with frozen photos and magic foils. Perhaps he > is stuck with some warped emotional baggage that causes photos in the > freezer to improve his auditory perception, but it is the height of > arrogance to even hint, as he does, that there is some universal > applicability of this for the rest of us. > > We're circling back to the rather consistent issue that subjectivists > aren't happy for their experiences to simply be their own. What we need to recognize here is that every individual had gradually, imperceptibly and therefore subconsciously constructed his/her own private mythology. This mythology then governs how we deal with the subjective/objective contact points. No two individuals share identical mythologies. But nevertheless, we all like to attempt to share them. Like I said, sharing is the spice of life, it's what makes life bearable and worth living. Peter Belt had built his personal mythology triggered by the oddball event when one sunny day he noticed how the sound in his listening room had drastically worsened after he had cleaned one piece of furniture with some chemical solution. After he took that piece of furniture out of the room, the sound got restored to its previous clarity. Returning the piece of furniture back into the room degraded the sound again. And so on, he claims that he was able to repeat the experiment with predictable consequences. He then created this myth that presence of certain substances/objects provoke anxiety, nervousness, restlessness, uneasiness, even mild panic in the subjects, which then affects how they perceive reality. The above is a myth, cannot be proven scientifically, and that's fine by me. What raises my eyebrows is that Peter Belt then decided that this myth is universal and that it could be pushed on other unsuspecting individuals. Cut the long story short, he turned that myth into a business model. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=94418 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
