SR Tuning Discs, Psychoacoustic Bias and Listening Fatigue

@wesheadley I can’t agree with your point. I belong to a large audiophile “club” including folks with vastly different preferences, tastes, expectations and biases. So, I’ve seen hugely different responses to new audio experiences, particularly in the tweaks and cables domains. In my experience auditioning tweaks and cables over the years, I have found the negative bias of those who believe only in measurement as a valid indicator of performance is far more intractable than the expectation bias the owner of a tweak or cable might have. Indeed, I rarely have encountered strong positive expectations where tweaks and cables are concerned. Most of my fellow listeners take a try it and see attitude. After all, if the experiment fails, the item can be returned. But, there is always someone in the group who strongly, and I mean strongly, denies the possibility that tweaks or cables make a difference, even when most in the room hear one.

The argument for positive expectation bias, that people hear what they want hear, is nonsensical to me. I don’t remember ever witnessing somebody insisting a new tweak in their system improves system performance when no one else hears it. After all, who can be fooled by expectation bias over the long haul, when their system continues to suffer from sonic imperfections the tweak they purchased was designed to correct. To my mind, the psychoacoustic argument hasn’t even face validity, let alone empirical reliability.
 

Of course, this is not to say that all tweaks work in all systems, or even that any given tweak works in any system at all. I’m only saying that outright dismissal of the possibility of an audible effect is far more immovable than the expectation that a tweak will, rather than might, work in a given system and room.

@wesheadley You seem to be conflating three distinct points. First, unconventional tweaks or other system components not grounded in scientific theory or results are likely bogus. I disagree on two counts. First, the world is a mysterious place and science understands very little of it. Second, much scientific theory is stimulated by anomalous empirical discoveries, and we may soon find scientific studies exploring and confirming some of the observations we make as devotees of our hobby.

Your second point is that my experiences with group listening sessions is contaminated by group bias or group think. I can’t deny that completely. Peer pressure is real and it is potent! What’s worse is it becomes more important as the conversation progresses. Inevitably, opinions tend to blend. But, we are not a mob; we are a group of informed and interested individuals with our own expectations and opinions. There always is a variety of observations and conclusions. The group bias is not nearly as powerful as you envision.

Your third point, that the costs of some improvements in product categories are overpriced by the companies that offer them in the market, is noncontroversial to me; though, i’m sympathetic and somewhat receptive to the argument that those costs often go into research and development that benefits the entire audiophile community in the long run. I’m making no accusations here, but I feel compelled to add that I don’t see the value in denigrating someone who chooses to spend their money for marginal improvements in their sound. I feel such criticism is both crass and disrespectful.

@wesheadley As I said in my previous post, I was making no accusations against you. The subject of our discussion is one that tends to generate dismissive and mocking comments, which I find unpleasant and inappropriate. I feared you might misunderstand my general comment about those posts as a personal one. It was not directed at anything you said. Please accept my apology for the confusion.

@tlcocks I certainly was not referring to your review in my comment.  I found your comments open-minded and helpful. I appreciate you sharing your experience. The comments that put me off are those that treat other peoples’ curiosities, experiments and interests as ridiculous. 

@wesheadley You described my evaluation procedure to the T! Cheers.