jkeny wrote: > That's the point - most people look at reviews (both users & mag > reviews) & decide on what is worth their time auditioning for > themselves. They make up their own minds of the audibility of the device > in their system under a stress free listening environment - they prove > it to themselves which is all that matters to them. The offer of free > home trials & money back returns & low prices greatly facilitates this > for most sensible people.
Ah, we have now reached the real focal point. How well does cosy testing in our own homes work? Is there possibly an alternative? Most people want the most bang for the bucks. The very wealthy may not care about the bucks, but everybody cares about getting the most bang. So how do we decide what best enhances the sound quality or other part of the listening experience? How do we decide what to spend our money on and what gives the biggest effect at this point? How do we go from wanting to getting? There are many possible pitfalls of psychological nature in play in testing. These are well established in the scientific community. One of them is that we hear with both our ears and our brain. And we can't turn off either one, both are always on. When the brain is highly involved, anything might happen. For instance, that makes us susceptiple to hearing what we want to hear. I can't list all the problems, but here is a great video that exemplifies some of them, Ethan Winer's Audio Myths Workshop (oldie but goldie). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ This is a very informative video with actual scientists and it's also humorous. I recommend checking out at least the first ten minutes, Poppy Crum is hilarious (05:15-09:30). But the rest of the hour is also great. After seeing that video and contemplating a bit, one may not see sighted testing as the best tool available to humans. Reviewers are also humans, so they suffer from the same problems as the rest of us, which makes also reviews a blunt instrument. A safer way of acquiring good information would be to look for published measurements and formal tests, something substancial, anything that contains hard facts. Then we have at least a little part of an objective truth. That gives us a much better basis for our decisions. After all, our goal is to get the most bang, and our best bet is to find already known hard facts. Without something stable to lean on, we might stumble. Best Regards, Gandhi not often enough well recorded and mastered cds *|* dbpoweramp with accuraterip *|* flac *|* fanless asrock z77e-itx intel i5-3570t *|* ubuntu 12.04.1 lts 32-bit *|* lms 7.8.0 *|* brutefirdrc 3.0 (rewv5) *|* transporter (balanced out) *|* thule ia252b *|* audio physic scorpio *|* no fancy cables. *+* also some booms. *+* harmony 525s for them all, including waking the server from s3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gandhi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=58909 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=103842 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
