AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - A model of the brain, & quick-switch

wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 5 Sep 2005 21:08:10 GMT, wrote:

Or possibly they do hear the differences, but simply don't trust their
own experience. "Science" as practiced by psycho-acousticians has
replaced trusting one's own perception.

Aaah, but that's the difference - we *do* trust our experience. It
seems to be the 'subjectivists' who have to *know* what's connected
before they can express their admiration of the musicality........

Your statement about subjectivists does not represent my position at
all.

I feel no need whatsoever to know what's connected. I would be
perfectly happy to audition black boxes. I would be perfectly happy to
live with box A for a week, and then at some point in time unknown to
me, have box A switched with box B which is identical in appearance. I
would not know the identity of either box nor the time of the switch.
At the end of 1-2 weeks of auditioning each one, with switch time not
known, I would use my experiences to decide which one to buy.

What I think is useless to me, is rapidly switching between sources, or
being asked to identify the source in a context where my "mental
procedure" for doing so must be followed like a recipe.

There is no 'requirement' that listening interval be short. It is
*recommended* because the extant psychoacoustic data indicate
that short-interval listening is *better* for discerning difference,
due to the limitations of audio memory.

Here's a thing: suppose you participated in the comaprison you described,
where A and B are switched. There are two possibilities: A and
B sound different, or they don't. And they can 'sound' different for
two reasons: because they really do sound different, or due to
psychological bias effects -- the humans tendancy to 'hear' difference
when presented with two things they *think* are different EVEN IF
THE THINGS ARE IN FACT THE SAME.

In your comparison above. suppose when A and B were 'switched',
what in fact was done, was that A was replaced with A again.
There is a high likelihood that you would perceive the two
presentations as sounding 'different'. You might confidently
decide that you preferred 'B' to 'A' at the end of
your 4-week trial. When, in fact, there had been NO DIFFERENCE.

What would you conclude if that happened?

I would conclude what I already know: that under some conditions people
can perceive a difference when there is, to the best of our knowledge,
no difference (although it is important to note that we cannot
establish with certainty there was no difference).

What I DON'T do is conclude that all feelings about audio components
are untrustworthy.

And how do you know which are trustworthy and which are not?

I'm willing to look at at *how* these feelings arise
and under what conditions. I'm willing to accept that subtle subjective
phenomena get interfered with when one tries to look directly at
them--unlike the objectivist, who is unwilling to consider, or actually
afraid, of this possibility: since it makes the world less easy to
understand.

LOL! We understand this little aspect of the world pretty well. You're
the one who thinks there's some big mystery here. We're also the ones
who are willing to be proven wrong. You're the one who admits he can't
prove ANYTHING.

bob