mlsstl wrote: > Your post is a good example of conflating two separate issues. > > 1. No one ever needs to justify their personal preference when choosing > a stereo component for their own use (or for that matter, declaring they > like one vegetable more than another). Even if they sound the same under > blind conditions, it really doesn't matter if my subconscious adds an > inexplicable advantage to one component over another because of size, > shape, color, what my mother told me when I was 5 years old, or > whatever. All of those things add to my personal experience. > > The problem is that my subjective preferences aren't transferable to > others. > > 2. However, if one is doing research in the area of human hearing and > perception or have a particular need to isolate sonic differences from > the subjective background chatter in the mind, then blind testing > becomes critical. Not many people really need to do that in the process > of buying something for themselves. > > My wish, which I know if unlikely to see realization, is for the level > of hyperbole to drop a few degrees and people admit that their > subjective preference doesn't always have a "scientific" explanation.
Very well stated, especially the first part. Now going back to my original post to start this thread I was not talking about someone buying something for there use, rather I was talking about a group of people who are using their individual subjective preferences to make quasi-scientific statements that fly in the face of well established science. Such as their comments about high priced USB cables "sounding" better than less expensive USB cables or asynchronous USB "sounding" better than S/PDIF. What I'm trying to say is that if a forum wants to tell us how much better they think one USB cable when compared to another USB cable, fine, it's their time and money and they can believe what they want to believe. It's quite another thing when self appointed experts, such as Mr. Harley, use their magazine to portray what are basically subjective preferences as objective truths. Hence my instance that they are, at best, clowns and, at worse, shills for their advertisers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97489 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
