Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
Product comparisons are not scientific experiments.

Contrary to your impression, no one here has ever claimed otherwise.

It is pointless to
try to insist that they are. When someone is listening to different
products in the shop or in his home, it is perverse to insist that a
full scientific protocol be carried our.

Again contrary to your impression, no one has ever made such a demand.

If the prospective purchaser
hears a difference and wishes to buy the product based on that
difference, no-one else has any business getting involved or making
criticisms.

Agreed. You might be interested to know that, here on RAHE, if you
start a thread that says, "I listened to X and Y, and Y sounded better
to me in these ways," no one would challenge you, because we wouldn't
be allowed to. That's one of the nice things about a moderated
newsgroup--we can make a space for people who just want to talk about
how things sound to them.

Unfortunately, all too often (and very specifically in your case), that
isn't all they/you want to say. They/you often add technical statements
about WHY (as opposed to HOW) the two differ, and those statements open
the thread to rebuttals by people who disgree with your technical
assessments and claims.

For example, while you've been insisting for weeks that you're only
describing a purchasing decision, you can't seem to help adding a
statement like:

The simplest explanation for such an occurance is that the products
themselves are responsible for these phenomena.

(Post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...a7d9bd4?hl=en&)

When you make statements like that, you can expect to get called on it
here.

bob

Hello,

The full oontext of Uranium Committee's post was

"I claim that I heard a consistent difference between products or a
consistent lack of difference between products.

The simplest explanation for such an occurance is that the products
themselves are responsible for these phenomena."

I agree with his statement.

The reality of sonic differences is a consistent, coherent reality that
stands up to investigation at the subjective level. The simplest
explanation for this is that products have sonic differences.

It depends entirely upon other circumstances. What were the products?
What were the listening conditions? And does the 'reality' stand up
to investigation at the *objective* level?



Otherwise
you have to explain it as random neuronal firings--which isn't really
an explanation, since it can explain, or rather explain away, anything
you like.

You're ignoring, of course, the distinct possibility of self-reinforcing
perception. And the fact that various forms of perceptual bias are
a *given*.

'Bias' isn't creative, and it requires a detailed explanation, to
account for peculiarly consistent results. In other words, you have to
give an account that explains how 'bias' can produce consistent
effects, when it appears at first blush to be incapable of such. After
all, if our brains are so easily fooled by 'bias' that they can produce
these interesting effects, what is to constrain them from time to time?
What makes them produce the SAME sound on an amplifier last heard heard
MONTHS ago? EVERY time that I listened to a given amp (several trials,
months apart) it sounded the same, and different from my then-current
amp. I also had a friend come over and listen with me. The expression
on his face told me that I was not imagining things, when I hooked up
the Sony TA-N88B, which, by the way, is a very ordinary-looking amp.

What made you decide , a priori that these are *less* likely than real
difference?


--

-S