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*.

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

I haven't decided a priori. I've taken this theory, that what I hear is
influenced by non-sonic factors and put it against the evidence. I
track my expectations and, later, my experiences of the sound. They
usually don't match.

But let's take me as an example. Lets say I've had N listening sessions
in my life. Let's say that I had taken notes on all my reactions, so
call the set of my reactions R (which contain R_i for i = N). Let's
also say we could somehow quantify and qualify the context of each
listening session-- that is, we could somehow write down all the
non-audible factors that influenced me, such as my expectations, the
appearance of the equipment, my knowledge of its design, what my
friends had said to me on the way over, etc. Let's call the set of
contexts C (which contains C_i for i = N).

Now let us suppose ALL of the equipment in my N listening sessions was
identical in sound, according to psycho-acoustics.

So where do all my reactions R come from? Are they in any way
correlated to C?

There are some experiments that can correlate some things. For example,
we know that if you let someone listen briefly, then throw a fake
switch and tell them how much better it will sound, and let them listen
again, very likely they will report it sounds better. So that part of
the context C-- the "fake switch"/short session context-- can be
correlated with R.

However, there's a heck of a lot in R that you haven't said anything
about, since most of my experience is not the "fake switch" nor short
session kind. It would seem to me that you should either make a stab at
explaining it quantitatively, or admit that R is random and
meaningless.

The problem with deciding that R is random and meaningless, is that
you've removed all responsibility for explaining anything in R. Then
there's no way of checking your psycho-acoustic theories again real
listening experiences.

Mike