[bigshot]

If any CD player at any price point sounds different than any other CD player through standard RCA line out, it is probably poorly designed or defective. A $120 Sony blu-ray player sounds the same with the added advantage of being able to resolve multichannel from SACD, DVD and blu-ray disks.

 

[Lenni]

^^ I choose a CD player as an example, it can be anything, anything at all.
 
if I'm not mistaken, according to his ideas as long the item looks good, is expensive and has a brand name, my brain is going to like no matter what. right?

 

[bigshot]

I don't know about your brain, but all CD players that are working to redbook spec should sound identical to your ears. The best reason to pick one CD player over another is because of ergonomics... like a simple, well organized remote, or buttons on the face that are clear even in dim light.

 

[proton007]

  I don't know about your brain, but all CD players that are working to redbook spec should sound identical to your ears. The best reason to pick one CD player over another is because of ergonomics... like a simple, well organized remote, or buttons on the face that are clear even in dim light.

 
I haven't seen a CD player for a few years now...Optical drive, yes, but no CD player.

 

[bigshot]

same same

 

[jcx]

I’m afraid you’re gonna have to find some other ideas to base your argument on, as these of bias ones are getting kinda tiring.

this opinion is tired - the human condition is what it is - and brains massaging sensory inputs below conscious awareness is a fundamental reestablished every time it has been seriously investigated - get used to it
 
blinding protocols, level matching are the well established minimums for subjective audible comparisons with any hope of validity for others

 

[higbvuyb]

The bit about phase was just a throwaway remark. It probably isn't audible but the 4kHz suckout that you cut out definitely is (is there a practical joke in this somewhere?

)

I'm not even being serious. Don't take it so hard 

 

   
Are we talking specifically about multi-driver IEMs here? The crossover in the 3/4.Ai seems to be an engineering fail (wrong polarity or corner frequencies off by several hundred Hz?).
 
You indeed gonna have a hard time correcting that with an EQ.. but then you're not going to turn earbuds into <insert nice headphone here> either.

I imagine that most aren't as terrible as the 4.Ai/SM64.

 

[xnor]

   
I don’t think this idea you have about bias being the main cause for what audio component someone might choose, it’s a sound one.

Maybe it doesn't play the main role, but if we look at Olive's sighted listening test experiment:

Even "trained audio professionals'" (Harman employees') ratings were influenced by brand biases and by size, price, materials.

In the blind test they rated the speakers differently, truly by sound. So differently in fact, that the order of them changed.
The small, cheap, plastic speaker S was less preferred in the sighted listening test, but beat the large, expensive ($3.6k) speaker in the blind test.
 
Bias is real. It is not negligible. It is proven to influence ratings considerably.
 
 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s at some point bought something that they liked the look of it, paid good money for it, really really want to like it, but it just didn’t work as expected, and ultimately got rid of it.

And that is perfectly fine and also largely depends on where your priorities are. It may be something as trivial as the feel of the buttons of the component, the looks in your home next to other components, or maybe you just expected (bias) it to sound different .. more like described in the reviews you read etc.
Maybe after some days of comparing with another component at your home you start hearing sound quality problems, which you didn't even notice after the purchase (again bias). Obviously, if sound quality is your priority you're most probably not gonna keep it if it has audible flaws.
 
But back to bias. Nobody's immune, not me, not you. I've bought crap and some of it is still lying around somewhere.
 
 

Biases exist, yes. If I’m auditioning two CD players - one is a beautiful built/designed with a price tag of $5k, and the other is a regular $500 one, I’m expecting the former to perform better - that’s obvious - but whether I’m actually going to like it, is a different matter that's based on its performance, and its performance alone.

You cannot say that without even eliminating biases. It's not a matter of conscious decision making ("this has a higher price tag so should sound better, but I'm gonna ignore that information"), but subconscious influences on your decision making and what you perceive!
 
 

I’m afraid you’re gonna have to find some other ideas to base your argument on, as these of bias ones are getting kinda tiring.

I know that reading "bias" every couple of sentences may be tiresome, but that doesn't make it wrong.

 

[xnor]

 
I imagine that most aren't as terrible as the 4.Ai/SM64.

 
That fortunately seems to be the case, but in multi-driver IEMs crossovers will still delay different parts of the signal differently. Whether that causes audible problems and to what degree are separate questions, but yeah those are not even close to min. phase systems and therefore a min. phase EQ will not be able to correct the phase response.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Hi xnor, you got pm

 

[Kaffeemann]

 
 
if I'm not mistaken, according to his ideas as long the item looks good, is expensive and has a brand name, my brain is going to like no matter what. right?

 
Let's assume you have two devices. They sound identical because they share the same components.
 
Device A has a beautiful housing, fells very solid and has a high price tag. Device looks ugly, fells cheap and has a low price tag.
 
Which one would listeners prefer, if they had no idea that the devices actually sound identical? 
That's easy, most would prefer device A. 
Why? Because they get primed by the high price tag, good looks and solid feel of device A. A process called associative activation starts:
 

 [...] ideas that have been evoked trigger many other ideas, in a spreading cascade of activity in your brain. [...]
 An idea that has been activated does not merely evoke one other idea. It activates many ideas, which in turn activate others. 

 
So basically you get hyped by the good looks and high price  

 
But what happens if the listeners were told that the devices sound identical? 
 
Many would still insist that device A sounds better?
How can that be? Because priming and all kinds of cognitive biases happen unconsciously. They happen much faster than our conscious thought and can hardly be controlled.
 

Furthermore, only a few of the activated ideas will register in consciousness; most of the work of associative thinking is silent, hidden from our conscious selves. The notion that we have limited access to the workings of our minds is difficult to accept because, naturally, it is alien to our experience, but it is true: you know far less about yourself than you feel you do.

 
All quotes from: Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow, Part I, Chapter 4