[bigshot]

I want a DAP called a Victrola. Heck, name them after antique cars like Dusenberg or maybe obsolete brand names like Fridgidaire or Red Ball Jets.

Even if Sean Olive said that, unless he came up with proof, no-one will listen to him. Well, audiophiles will, but everyone else will scoff and move on.

Yup. I don't care who says it. Albert Einstein can say the moon is made of green cheese and I'll question it. Proof requires proof. Level matched, direct A/B switched, blind testing with independent oversight or it doesn't count.

Dude I am not a joe with random crap that talks without certainty. If say there is a difference well there is one. Sorry for you but I do hear it and trust me I aint the only one! U may keep believing in your theories but I prefer trust my own ears and they are 100% sharp precise I can spot differences and nuances quiet easily.

Well, the one thing that has been proven is that Dunning & Krueger were right!

 

[dazzerfong]

Making posts in a Sound Science forum that lack and contradict pretty much any knowledge of science is NOT a bright move. You'll come across EXACTLY the same as an ignorant Flat Eather posting in a science forum and surely you don't want to be viewed as an ignorant fool, do you? Presuming you don't, the solution would be to gain some knowledge (of the actual facts/science). A good place to start would be this short video, which will demonstrate to you that you're hearing is not "100% sharp and precise", that in fact it's quite easily fooled by biases.

G

Dunno if you know this, but a lot of audiophiles swear that video doesn't do anything for them (as in, they only hear one sound no matter what). Believe it or not, there's a possible reason for it:there's severely increased chance of the McGurk effect failing if they have a number of disorders (not a joke, it's actually interesting how it is).

 

[iridium7777]

it's been a few weeks since i had a chance to browse the forum, thanks to vitalik for some entertainment here.

 

[gregorio]

[1] Dunno if you know this, but a lot of audiophiles swear that video doesn't do anything for them (as in, they only hear one sound no matter what).
[2] Believe it or not, there's a possible reason for it:there's severely increased chance of the McGurk effect failing if they have a number of disorders (not a joke, it's actually interesting how it is).

1. Yes, I am aware that some audiophiles swear that video doesn't work on them and in some cases they may even be telling the truth! There are various different versions of the McGurk Effect (that use different phonemes), some work on more people than others but none of them work on everyone. Logically, it shouldn't matter to an individual audiophile that the Effect doesn't work on them personally, just that it does work on many/most people and therefore demonstrates that humans can be susceptible to biases that changes what we think we're hearing, even to the point of hearing a significant difference where there is none at all.

It is theoretically possible that there maybe a tiny number of people who really can trust their hearing, who are not susceptible to aural illusions/biases, although I've never heard that such a person has ever actually existed. Even if they do exist, they cannot be an audiophile because the context of audiophilia is listening to commercial recordings of music, both of which require aural illusions/biases that change what we think we're hearing. For example, if you were not susceptible to the stereo illusion, all you would hear is two somewhat different simultaneous (hard left and hard right) signals, there could be no sound-stage or head-stage. So, it is a logically impossible contradiction for an audiophile to both claim that they are not susceptible to aural illusion and claim to hear sound-stage. Likewise, music only exists (as an entity separate from other sound/semi-random noise) because of a number of expectation biases. So again, it is logically impossible for an audiophile to both claim they are not susceptible to aural biases and claim to listen to music.

The apparent difficulty with both the above paragraphs is that they rely on simple logic, which seems NOT to be the strong point of many audiophiles!!

2. In addition to certain medical conditions that increase the chance of the McGurk Effect not working, there are other factors, such as language and culture. If I remember correctly, the effect is less likely to work on Japanese people for example (though still works on most), thought to be due to the Japanese cultural trend of often not looking at the face of those speaking to them and therefore less reliance on facial/labial visual cues when hearing (creating the perception of) speech.

G

 

[bigshot]

It is theoretically possible that there maybe a tiny number of people who really can trust their hearing, who are not susceptible to aural illusions/biases, although I've never heard that such a person has ever actually existed.

I would suspect that the more a listener knew about how to negate his biases, the less confident he would be about being able to do it. It's a lot easier to just apply controls to the test and be sure.

 

[gregorio]

I would suspect that the more a listener knew about how to negate his biases, the less confident he would be about being able to do it. It's a lot easier to just apply controls to the test and be sure.

That depends, there are numerous different biases at play when listening to music recordings, some of them cannot be negated and even if they could, we wouldn't want them to be. For example, we cannot negate the biases that enable us to differentiate music from noise and we wouldn't want to. Similarly, we wouldn't want to negate the biases/quirks of perception that allow us to perceive the illusion of stereo. Therefore, by far the best way to "be sure" is objective measurements, controlled listening tests such as ABX/DBTs are a rather poor second choice but a poor choice that is still far better than any other alternative IF the measurements indicate the presence of some audio property/difference that maybe audible.

G

 

[Redcarmoose]

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/124

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Understanding perception, or at least finding out about our ideas of perception is fascinating. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud both kind-of share the right and left pillars of modern day psychology knowledge and respect. And while there is no complete confidence in any one theory of the practice, Freud is considered the grandfather. Actually Jung started under the mentoring of Freud but started to diverge with his own understanding of how the subconscious is populated. Freud has the idea it’s all leaned from human experience while Jung believes it’s an inherent information database from DNA passed from ancestry.

Jung also believes we only truly accept 1/2 of our perception mentality, with the other half suggested from the subconscious mind. Thus illusions are the result of our perception being tricked, maybe from within.

The future fossils podcast is extremely non-scientific but entertaining none the less. The speaker, a member of Head-Fi, has nice recollections of Milton Erickson, and as entertaining as it is, it shows how even within the Scientific Community we will have new ideas from folks not necessarily in the mainstream. If our subconscious is in 50% control of our real-time visual and auditory perception......it does explain how chrome headphone amplifier front panels could be interpreted as sounding brighter than the norm.

 

[dazzerfong]

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/124

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Understanding perception, or at least finding out about our ideas of perception is fascinating. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud both kind-of share the right and left pillars of modern day psychology knowledge and respect. And while there is no complete confidence in any one theory of the practice, Freud is considered the grandfather. Actually Jung started under the mentoring of Freud but started to diverge with his own understanding of how the subconscious is populated. Freud has the idea it’s all leaned from human experience while Jung believes it’s an inherent information database from DNA passed from ancestry.

Jung also believes we only truly accept 1/2 of our perception mentality, with the other half suggested from the subconscious mind. Thus illusions are the result of our perception being tricked, maybe from within.

The future fossils podcast is extremely non-scientific but entertaining none the less. The speaker, a member of Head-Fi, has nice recollections of Milton Erickson, and as entertaining as it is, it shows how even within the Scientific Community we will have new ideas from folks not necessarily in the mainstream. If our subconscious is in 50% control of our real-time visual and auditory perception......it does explain how chrome headphone amplifier front panels could be interpreted as sounding brighter than the norm.

Problem is, if you're actually into psychology, you'll know that Freud and Jung are mostly outdated now.

You see, modern psychologists did not hold them as gods - they tested his theories and found that most were wrong.

Ironic really, considering what's happening here.

 

[castleofargh]

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/124

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Understanding perception, or at least finding out about our ideas of perception is fascinating. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud both kind-of share the right and left pillars of modern day psychology knowledge and respect. And while there is no complete confidence in any one theory of the practice, Freud is considered the grandfather. Actually Jung started under the mentoring of Freud but started to diverge with his own understanding of how the subconscious is populated. Freud has the idea it’s all leaned from human experience while Jung believes it’s an inherent information database from DNA passed from ancestry.

Jung also believes we only truly accept 1/2 of our perception mentality, with the other half suggested from the subconscious mind. Thus illusions are the result of our perception being tricked, maybe from within.

The future fossils podcast is extremely non-scientific but entertaining none the less. The speaker, a member of Head-Fi, has nice recollections of Milton Erickson, and as entertaining as it is, it shows how even within the Scientific Community we will have new ideas from folks not necessarily in the mainstream. If our subconscious is in 50% control of our real-time visual and auditory perception......it does explain how chrome headphone amplifier front panels could be interpreted as sounding brighter than the norm.

Those guys are fine when discussing the history of psychology, but many of their ideas did not age well when confronted to modern findings and the much better tools we now have to study the brain.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Those guys are fine when discussing the history of psychology, but many of their ideas did not age well when confronted to modern findings and the much better tools we now have to study the brain.

Are you adding to our knowledge or critical of it? If your actually adding to the thread in a positive way, share your information with us so we can learn. Otherwise it’s simply a continuation of SS and it’s complete and utter staunchness.

 

[castleofargh]

Spoiler: off topic

Are you adding to our knowledge or critical of it? If your actually adding to the thread in a positive way, share your information with us so we can learn. Otherwise it’s simply a continuation of SS and it’s complete and utter staunchness.

As I don't plan to write 3 books, perhaps I can return a question to you and ask what those people are even doing in this thread?
If I had to bring up names that fit Sound Science and the thread like a glove, it would be Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman who brought us the fun of cognitive bias(before that, biases didn't exist and every subjective impression was objectively accurate) But even that is almost half a century old

 

[dazzerfong]

Are you adding to our knowledge or critical of it? If your actually adding to the thread in a positive way, share your information with us so we can learn. Otherwise it’s simply a continuation of SS and it’s complete and utter staunchness.

Here's what Karl Popper had to say:

I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact–that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed–which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

The funny thing is, no matter which you swing, you're bound to hit something. In other words, what you think is a strength is in fact a weakness since you can't show something failing. So, you got something from him called the Essential Conclusion:

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory–if we look for confirmations.

2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory–an event which would have refuted the theory.

3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.

4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.

5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of ‘corroborating evidence’.)

7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers–for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a ‘conventionalist twist’ or a ‘conventionalist stratagem’.)

With these points, Freud et al. is mostly refuted because they setup circumstances where, by default, you cannot refute it. Most commonly, you cannot prove a negative.

So, let's walk it through:

1. Proven so easily in the first few posts, but means nothing by itself.
2. Bias is obvious, but again, means nothing by itself.
3. Now we're getting somewhere! Buuut, since we can't explain it, well...........
4. Here's where it gets interesting, and why the mind needs to be taken out and the facts laid bare.
5. Here's where things get toast - you guys aren't even trying to refute it.
6. Did you even try to attempt to refute it? Two parts dedicated to refuting evidence!
7. And this is where the subjectivists vs objectivists kick in...........

Of course, all this can be solved by applying the scientific method such as DBT et al., but since you folks refuse to do it, without testing, well..........

 

[Redcarmoose]

Spoiler: off topic

As I don't plan to write 3 books, perhaps I can return a question to you and ask what those people are even doing in this thread?
If I had to bring up names that fit Sound Science and the thread like a glove, it would be Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman who brought us the fun of cognitive bias(before that, biases didn't exist and every subjective impression was objectively accurate) But even that is almost half a century old

Here's what Karl Popper had to say:

I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact–that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed–which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

The funny thing is, no matter which you swing, you're bound to hit something. In other words, what you think is a strength is in fact a weakness since you can't show something failing. So, you got something from him called the Essential Conclusion:

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory–if we look for confirmations.

2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory–an event which would have refuted the theory.

3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.

4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.

5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of ‘corroborating evidence’.)

7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers–for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a ‘conventionalist twist’ or a ‘conventionalist stratagem’.)

With these points, Freud et al. is mostly refuted because they setup circumstances where, by default, you cannot refute it. Most commonly, you cannot prove a negative.

So, let's walk it through:

1. Proven so easily in the first few posts, but means nothing by itself.
2. Bias is obvious, but again, means nothing by itself.
3. Now we're getting somewhere! Buuut, since we can't explain it, well...........
4. Here's where it gets interesting, and why the mind needs to be taken out and the facts laid bare.
5. Here's where things get toast - you guys aren't even trying to refute it.
6. Did you even try to attempt to refute it? Two parts dedicated to refuting evidence!
7. And this is where the subjectivists vs objectivists kick in...........

Of course, all this can be solved by applying the scientific method such as DBT et al., but since you folks refuse to do it, without testing, well..........

The one extreme is the believer of personal perception without question; I hear it therefore it’s true. The other swing determines all perception somewhat false or questionable. We may never have ever gain the answer to our quest to understand the placebo and the expectation bias?

And we are not even an inch closer to any answer to questions asked 10 years ago. Yet if anything at least we have shown hearing perception is questionable as to true quality. If it’s the root of an industry based on true false marketing, or some group delusions (unproven).......that are actually responsible for sound quality? These ideas and questions may never ever be fully addressed. Though out of extreme laziness I shall take the stance that the true answer is in the middle somewhere.

But we will try just as there IS progress. They invented eyeglasses and the illusion of non-sight was cured. Science has made a cure for disease, replaced hearts (literally).....and put men on the moon. Though even with all this progress, our own human mind ends up more complicated than it seems.

In the end of course it’s not live music playing but some style of imitation of life. Some strange projection of theory and ideas both on the recording side, the playback side and the listeners side. And there has been amazing tests. Like the guy who purchased a brand new headphone to have it sound like exactly like the coveted 300 hour burned in headphone he was so proud of. So at times the veil of perception is shown to be false, of course we knew that.

The tangent of this question could actually go in religious directions......or to psychology studies. It could be answered personally with a blind test, or still disputed ad infinitum.

If someone buys a Walkman and believes a portion of the group thought; they burn-in and feel rewarded by due diligence. If they don’t believe, they don’t. Interestingly very few argue about the fact of brain burn-in. The aspect of traveling down a road the first time seems very long. Yet a second drive down the same road seems shorter. The mileages are the same for both trips yet our perception is different.

And while science as a whole builds on past theory of what has been established as truths, new ideas will continue to address questionable holes in the matrix. On this exact page we have a hypnotist who firmly questions the very truth in hypnosis. We have the group who sincerely does not believe anyone has sound quality memory, and a gentleman who absolutely does not question his auditory reality.

 

[old tech]

I did a few units in psychology at uni back in the 1980s. Even then, the big historical names like Freud, Jung etc were treated with respect but no longer taken seriously with regard to their theories. In fact, psychology over the past 50 years has become much more empirical and science based. It was the shift to empirical and evidence based analysis, the scientific method (DBT etc) that resulted in the movement away from those earlier theories. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (currently DSM 5) was totally revamped nearly 40 years ago (for DSM 3) to remove vague references to psychoanalysis and other Freudian (among others) concepts which lacked supporting evidence or have been disproven. Psychology is still one of the weaker social sciences but it has gained far more credibility when it moved away from the earlier theories and on to the scientific method.

 

[bigshot]

There are a lot of headshrinkers in this thread!