So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?

My favorite is to mix real pain killers with alcohol. Get drunk enough and your expectation bias goes sky high! The trick is to get the Amazon drone to deliver while you still have a full placebo effect buzz on. Eventually of course you will barf up a steaming pile of buyer's remorse. No problem! Keep drinking! When you go from blind drunk to double-blind drunk then order a DSP and with a push of a button calculate your BAC and be glad you did this all from home.   

Pop quiz: how may audiophile cliches can you find there?

9

Funny millercarbon .

I've been enjoying the hell out of my $1,600 HiFiman Arya headphones. Out of curiosity, I purchased the $3,000 Focal Stellia with a return policy.
I went back and forth for one month with these headphones. Honestly, I had to coach myself to not fall head over heels for the Stellia because of their build quality and aesthetic and reputation. To me, they are gorgeous. Aesthetically they are way more beautiful than my bland and boring Arya. The build quality also easily beats out the Arya. So going into this shootout, I had a subconscious bias towards preferring the Stellia. I WANTED them to win. I wanted something just to look at while I wasn't listening to music just so I can gush over this gorgeous headphone.

However, at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. I much preferred the Aryas sonics to the Stellia. I also much preferred the comfort of the Arya.

I returned the Stellia. Not because of the price. Price was irrelevant to me. I wanted something that sounded good and I enjoyed wearing.

“So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?“


A lot. It’s a real thing.

This issue is all about insecurity and lack of self confidence.If you go the right direction, it will go away. But it needs work, and trust in yourself.
I noticed that many audiophiles who are in the middle / early stages of their audio road try to use cost as a pointer to quality. When you are trying to figure out what you hear, and what makes a "better" sounding gear better... at this stage people have no CONFIDENCE in them yet, because they do not have enough experience to gauge the sound. All you can tell at this point is whether you like something or not. Maybe not even that!
And, frankly, most stereo has so may flaws, that we cannot call an upgrade as having better sound, because there are more weaknesses surfacing as well.

When you develop skills, you are comfortable navigating the waters of audio, it's when the habit to check for prices goes away. People don't realize that refined gear is just half of the story.
It's you who has to step up, develop hearing, and SELF CONFIDENCE.
Measuring equipment excel at analyzing SIMPLE signals (sine or square waves), and they absolutely FAIL to analyze complex signals (music). Brain works the other way around - we are generally clueless listening to pure sine waves (which never occur in nature), yet we can tell tiny variances in a complex music. Dedicate yourself to improve and develop. Trust in Yourself.Without that, audio is just a waste of money & time.