LazyListener
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2015
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if you're looking at a general subjective preference, then obviously DBT is not much better than a hammer. the tool is made to serve a specific purpose of removing biases(the hammer too sometimes^_^). if you care about the biases, then don't use DBT. but also don't claim to know how the headphone sounds. because in a sighted test, you only tried to check how it makes you feel instead of trying to check how it sounds.
about patterns, our brain is a magnificent parrot, but still a parrot. we see a tree like shape many times, and we learn the name. now when we see a tree the brain repeats the memory of trees and finds that it looks similar enough. of course it's never similar even if it's the same tree, but we're good at approximating stuff and finding patterns in everything(so good we see patterns where there aren't any). the McGurk effect is just one obvious demonstration of how our brain will assume stuff based on everything it already knows. the red cable has more bass, the silver cable has bigger soundstage, the planar drivers are neutral, that song was playing the first time I had sex and I can't dissociate the 2....
if you ever care about how something sounds like, trying to remove all information that isn't sound becomes the only answer. it might not be your question, but if it is, then proper listening test is a necessity.
if you only care about how you feel in general, then obviously blind tests are a waste of time. just remember to make it clear that your feedbacks are talking about you using a device, and not about the actual sound of the device.
I'd say that even with DBT, you can't claim how the headphone sounds in any kind of absolute sense, because you've only eliminated a few potential biases. Some biases remain that may have an impact on one's perception of sound.
Okay. "The red cable has more bass." "The silver cable has bigger soundstage." Where are these presumptions coming from? With McGurk effect demo, it's coming from many years of preconditioning to specific lip/mouth movements to associated vocal sounds, and that demo shows it's pretty much universal across multiple languages. That makes perfect logical sense. So please give me some similar, specific examples of the headphone or hi-fi industry universally preconditioning us with specific visual to auditory associations. I'm personally not aware of any, so please share if you know of any.
"If you ever care about how something sounds like, trying to remove all information that isn't sound becomes the only answer." Agree in theory. The key word there is "trying." Implies that you know it's not possible when humans are doing the listening. Even DB testing doesn't come close to achieving this. And since we agree the brain can fool you, you'd have to eliminate the human aspect of listening, in order to even have a chance at arriving at some truly objective conclusion. Since the whole idea of listening inherently involves humans and all their wonderful and not so wonderful biases, preconceptions, misconceptions, and what have you, then it's quite apparent that DB testing has limited value and doesn't even come close to achieving your stated objective.
Ultimately, this hobby, for most, is about how we feel when we listen to the gear, is it not? It's not about the gear itself achieving some "ideal" target response curve, or reducing THD even further below what's already humanely inaudible. I believe that I'm correct when I say that even good audio engineers fine tune and test their equipment by ear in addition to any instrumented measurements. After all, that's how the product is ultimately used, no? Listeners don't buy a headphone and judge their happiness with it by sticking it on a dummy head and testing the frequency response. If the looks, build quality, materials, comfort, brand, price of a headphone ultimately contributes to my enjoyment of it and level of happiness with it, then these are not things I want to be ignorant of.