Hi, I really enjoy reading the comments in this thread, but as noob here I felt intimidated to answer. I was thinking of this story about wine, when suddenly people started posting about wine and Riedel glasses, so I felt empowered :)
While reading this thread, something seemed off in my system, as I've been playing around, experimenting, as a noob audiophile would do. Then I checked my interconnects, Van Den Hul 102something, and they were plugged in the other way around. There's a sticker where the earth is, that should go to the source, yes, a grounded reason :)
Felt better after reversing.
My good friend and I had a favorite wine bar downtown Budapest, and we went there quite often, tasted almost everything on the menu bar the most expensive ones. They served by the glass, exclusively in matched Riedel glasses. One day I got a French wine, way above our usual budget, we drank it at home (from my friend's Riedel glasses) then went down to our favorite bar and ordered our favorite wine. It tasted way worse than we remembered. The first time I tasted wine I wanted to spit it out it tasted so bad. It's an acquired taste that gets more refined the more you taste. Unfortunately, once you taste good wine it's difficult to drink lesser ones, though possible, they don't give you the same satisfaction. I think something similar is happening when listening to music. As I kept replacing components, putting on acoustic panels, I kept hearing more and more details, but also more and more flaws. I believe the more accustomed you get to a certain level the more you realize what's wrong or what's missing, with other words, the more transparent the system and the more used your brain is to a certain quality, detail level, the easier is to spot problems. When I first installed my 4k total worth of gear I was amazed at how splendid the sound was. After a few weeks, it started to sound wrong. I started to notice the room reacting, the standing waves, the whole cacophony. One by one I replaced everything with stuff costing 5x or 10x, and I noticed the difference. I even went back to changing components to make sure I wasn't a total tool.
When we go to sleep our ears and still hear the noises around us but our brain has a clever filter/firewall that enables us to sleep. It blocks the familiar noises so we can relax. However, if there's a siren blowing we will wake up, as we know that's the sign of danger. Sirens have been around for a few hundred years or less. Evolution taught our brain what's relevant and what not. We moved to a new apartment, near train tracks, first few days/weeks were a bit unusual but we got used to it, now we can sleep through the night, though the trains are still going on time.
I can easily imagine that originally our ears (and maybe bodies) are capable of picking up a much wider frequency spectrum than the current science considers de facto, but due to our planet getting noisier our brains just filter things out in the conscious domain (as proven by scientists). It could be that our brains go into a different state (alpha or theta) while listening to music, it widens the acceptance of frequencies which enables our brain to sense or perceive something different. And that could be the point where traditional science fails to answer, especially if it starts with the well-known and accepted theorem that humans' audible spectrum is 20hz to 20khz.
In my opinion, doing double or triple-blind tests with something that's an acquired taste won't provide scientifically sound results. I think if we really wanted to have a successful test we would need a huge group of people participating in a 3-month boot camp, listening to the same systems and songs until they start harboring suicidal thoughts, and maybe after that it could prove something, though probably just barely and it would raise more questions than it answers.
Going deeper in psychology, who we are is based on our DNA, our experiences in life starting from being in the womb, growing up, becoming aware, spending time learning things that interest us, and deciding we don't want to change anymore, what we know is a fact and we're fine with that. Or maybe we do and then we question everything, starting from the very first experiences to the directions of cables.
While reading this thread, something seemed off in my system, as I've been playing around, experimenting, as a noob audiophile would do. Then I checked my interconnects, Van Den Hul 102something, and they were plugged in the other way around. There's a sticker where the earth is, that should go to the source, yes, a grounded reason :)
Felt better after reversing.
My good friend and I had a favorite wine bar downtown Budapest, and we went there quite often, tasted almost everything on the menu bar the most expensive ones. They served by the glass, exclusively in matched Riedel glasses. One day I got a French wine, way above our usual budget, we drank it at home (from my friend's Riedel glasses) then went down to our favorite bar and ordered our favorite wine. It tasted way worse than we remembered. The first time I tasted wine I wanted to spit it out it tasted so bad. It's an acquired taste that gets more refined the more you taste. Unfortunately, once you taste good wine it's difficult to drink lesser ones, though possible, they don't give you the same satisfaction. I think something similar is happening when listening to music. As I kept replacing components, putting on acoustic panels, I kept hearing more and more details, but also more and more flaws. I believe the more accustomed you get to a certain level the more you realize what's wrong or what's missing, with other words, the more transparent the system and the more used your brain is to a certain quality, detail level, the easier is to spot problems. When I first installed my 4k total worth of gear I was amazed at how splendid the sound was. After a few weeks, it started to sound wrong. I started to notice the room reacting, the standing waves, the whole cacophony. One by one I replaced everything with stuff costing 5x or 10x, and I noticed the difference. I even went back to changing components to make sure I wasn't a total tool.
When we go to sleep our ears and still hear the noises around us but our brain has a clever filter/firewall that enables us to sleep. It blocks the familiar noises so we can relax. However, if there's a siren blowing we will wake up, as we know that's the sign of danger. Sirens have been around for a few hundred years or less. Evolution taught our brain what's relevant and what not. We moved to a new apartment, near train tracks, first few days/weeks were a bit unusual but we got used to it, now we can sleep through the night, though the trains are still going on time.
I can easily imagine that originally our ears (and maybe bodies) are capable of picking up a much wider frequency spectrum than the current science considers de facto, but due to our planet getting noisier our brains just filter things out in the conscious domain (as proven by scientists). It could be that our brains go into a different state (alpha or theta) while listening to music, it widens the acceptance of frequencies which enables our brain to sense or perceive something different. And that could be the point where traditional science fails to answer, especially if it starts with the well-known and accepted theorem that humans' audible spectrum is 20hz to 20khz.
In my opinion, doing double or triple-blind tests with something that's an acquired taste won't provide scientifically sound results. I think if we really wanted to have a successful test we would need a huge group of people participating in a 3-month boot camp, listening to the same systems and songs until they start harboring suicidal thoughts, and maybe after that it could prove something, though probably just barely and it would raise more questions than it answers.
Going deeper in psychology, who we are is based on our DNA, our experiences in life starting from being in the womb, growing up, becoming aware, spending time learning things that interest us, and deciding we don't want to change anymore, what we know is a fact and we're fine with that. Or maybe we do and then we question everything, starting from the very first experiences to the directions of cables.