Rick and Krissy are coming in less than two weeks. For two whole years I have been bragging about having the best system in the universe. Well the known universe anyway. So their expectation bias is set sky high. Also the last year or so has established me as the foremost authority on high end audio, this side of Michael Fremer anyway, if not quite the known universe. So the placebo effect is maximized as well. This is therefore a done deal. I mean, if expectation bias and placebo effect have anything to do with anything.
So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?
My hypothesis is that for ~%97 of us, the more a headphone costs the more we will enjoy the headphone.
My secondary hypothesis is that the more I told consumers a headset cost, the more they would enjoy the phones. i.e. a $30 headphone < $300 headphone < $3,000 headphones <<< $30,000 headphones.
I’m willing to bet that if I put the kph 30i drivers in the focal utopia’s chassis and told participants in this fake study that the phones cost $4k.... Everyone except for the 3%ers would never guess something was up. The remaining 97% would have no clue and report that it was the best set they ever heard.
Then if I gave them the kph30i and explained it was $30. 97% of people would crap on them after hearing the same driver in a different chassis.
My ultimate hypothesis is that build quality and price are the two most important factors in determining if people will enjoy a set of headphones. This how I rationalize the HD8XX getting crap on when only 3 people have heard it and publicly provided their opinion lol. "It’s a cheaper 800s, of course it’s going to sound worse!"