@devinplombier
Yep, I get it. My streamer journey started with my first post-retirement project, which is when I built a raspberry pi. My “bias” was that I was gonna hear a huge difference between it and my better streamers - everyone (almost) on Audiogon told me I would. But I didn’t. I was shocked at that outcome, so I assumed it must be my ears or my system, right? The truth was way more complicated. I have heard differences between streamers on certain systems, and the quality of my hearing has been pretty frequently complimented by industry professionals. So wtf?
There’s not one simple explanation, but it’s stitched together among several of my wordy (sorry everyone) posts on this thread. Most importantly, if you fail to ground your listening experience in some minimal amount of technical understanding of what the moving parts are, then you are highly likely to misdiagnose the cause of what you hear. This is a “first principle”. So we have to understand the technology in order to accurately assess which part of the chain might account for any difference we might hear. How can we trust someone’s diagnosis when they misunderstand which component does what? By way of example, you do not want me assessing that sound coming from your Porsche’s engine. Trust me!
Additionally, aural memory really sucks. So you have to do some form of an A/B comparison. (I’m not saying double blinds are necessary, btw.). And good A/B comparisons involve hard work. I for one hate doing them, because for me it squeezes all the joy out of the hobby. So I only do them for very specific objectives (e.g., comparing DACs, testing streamers, final choices on speakers, etc.). But if someone makes assertions about differences in sound without a pretty serious attempt at a relatively rigorous A/B approach, their views are immediately severely discounted by me.
In one of my earlier posts here, I gave a list of examples of threads where people were initially sure that their new streamer had made a huge difference, but when the actual specifics were unpacked the truth was obviously very different from what they claimed. That’s about 6 examples in a total of about 10ish threads on the topic I’ve bothered to involve myself in. And on most of the others, the OP was so dedicated to his “truth” that I just didn’t want to be attacked by the streamer jackals for questioning the dude’s experience. Not worth it.
In my pre-retirement career, I was very successful precisely because I brought a very high level of analytical objectivity to sometimes deeply divisive topics. My mantra was always “do the work”, and it still is. I don’t take shortcuts, and I try very hard not embed hidden assumptions in my views. And that’s the approach I’ve taken as it relates to the topic of streamers.
Long answer (again), to a simple question. Sorry.
